The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) had only a handful of supporters at the end of the First World War. And then in a few years it became the largest party in the country, introduced a party dictatorship, led Germany into a war against the whole world in which over sixty million people died. Initially the victorious NSDAP left behind a devastated, defeated and occupied country.
It all started when Anton Drexler (1884–1942), a locksmith employed by the German state railway, together with a slightly more educated and literate sports journalist Karl Harer (1890–1926) founded the German Workers' Party (DAP) on January 5, 1919. Elections were coming up for the constitutional assembly of the republic created after the fall of the German empire defeated in the First World War, and Drexler was not satisfied with the announced policies of the major labor parties, the Social Democratic and Communist parties.
Intelligence officer Karl Mayr (1883–1945) then sent Corporal Adolf Hitler as his agent to investigate what was going on and to join the DAP if necessary. Mayr's unit was called the Propaganda Organization, it mainly worked against "Bolshevization" after the failed attempt to establish a Soviet Republic in Bavaria (Council Republic). Probably the British secret service was behind it. If so, it would not be the first or last time that the British or American services funded something that would soon turn against them.
Adolf Hitler joined the DAP and received membership card number 7. Already on February 24, against Drexler's wishes, he scheduled a mass meeting with the slogan "What should we do" in the famous Munich beer hall "Hofbrojuhaus". Hitler read his 25-point program and announced the party's name change to the National Socialist German Workers' Party - NSDAP. In order not to find out that there were very few members in the beginning, new membership cards began to be issued from the number of 500. Hitler issued himself membership card number 555.
Among the 25 points of the party program of the NSDAP, two were the most important: the idea of absolute unification of politics and society, for which the term was used phasing (taken from the electrical industry where it marks the start of electric current in one specific direction by pressing one button) and the "leader principle" (Leader principle) - the unquestioning obedience of the people to the competent leader, who in turn reports to his leader and so on up to the supreme leader, leader, Führer Adolf Hitler. Thus, the authority of every manager, leader was directed downwards and responsibility upwards.
In the elections for the constitutional assembly of Germany after the First World War, the old, established Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) received 37,9 percent of the vote, the new Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USDP), founded due to dissatisfaction with the too mild performances of the old SPD leadership, 7,6 percent , the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) got 18,6 percent of the vote, and the Catholic Center party got 19,7 percent. The Communist Party of Germany boycotted the elections because its leaders Rosa Luxemburg (15–1871) and Karl Liebknecht (1919–1871) were assassinated on January 1919 of that year. The Constituent Assembly in Berlin could not function safely, so it was held in Weimar from February 6 to May 21, 1920, and because of this the state that emerged from its decisions is commonly called the Weimar Republic.
At that time, the NSDAP was a political fringe sect that nobody paid attention to.
HITLER'S ATTEMPTED COUP
Although his target group was the increasingly disaffected workers, and thus the term "socialist" and "worker" dominated the NSDAP name, Adolf Hitler had already realized that he could not achieve political success surrounded by honest, uneducated workers. He started working on getting celebrities. Among the first, he succeeded in getting a military pilot with the highest decorations from the First World War, Hermann Göring (1893–1946), a member of his party. He entrusted him with the establishment of the party's paramilitary units, a group of thugs with military discipline. A little later, he was approached by the writer and doctor of literature Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945), who started a propaganda machine to address the wider layers of society and proved to be an excellent organizer. A new important member was the gifted architect Albert Speer (1905–1981). Lieutenant Rudolf Hess (1894–1987), who was born in Egypt to a wealthy German family, joined the NSDAP in 1920, was Hitler's personal secretary, and later a minister without portfolio. He was given the official title of "Deputy Führer".
Hitler was impatient, the development of the party seemed too slow to him. He needed something that would resonate loudly. He already had a considerable number of supporters in Bavaria. There was great dissatisfaction due to rising inflation. In agreement with General Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937), who was the rear commander during the First World War, he decided to overthrow the government in Berlin. The NSDAP was already banned in some German states, and was threatened with a nationwide ban. On the evening of November 1923, XNUMX, Hitler and his supporters burst into a gathering of the Bavarian political elite in the Munich beer hall "Burgerbraukeler", climbed onto a chair, shot a revolver into the ceiling, announced the dissolution of the legitimate Bavarian government and called for a "march on Berlin" (he imitated the successful Mussolini's March on Rome). The next morning, he set off with his supporters towards the city center, managed to disarm a squad of about thirty policemen, but encountered resistance from the army, which opened fire with one cannon and machine guns. Fourteen demonstrators were killed, the rest partly fled, partly were arrested, among them Hitler and Ludendorff. Göring managed to escape to Austria.
Hitler and Ludendorff were accused of high treason. Hitler was sentenced to five years of light imprisonment with the possibility of an early pardon, Ludendorff was pardoned "due to previous great services to the fatherland". In prison, Hitler wrote his program book, actually an elaboration of his earlier 25-point Nazi Party Program entitled My struggle (Mein Kampf). Now all of Germany knew about the NSDAP and its leader Adolf Hitler.
A STEP TOWARD POWER
Having served part of his prison sentence, Hitler was released in December 1924. In February 1925, he re-founded the NSDAP, but this time with the emphasized principle that at the head of the party is the leader, i.e. himself. Until the 1925s, it was only one of several anti-Semitic parties, its popularity grew primarily among farmers, more in smaller towns than in large cities. From 1930 to 27.000, the number of members grew from 130.000 to 1928, but in the 2,6 elections, the party received only XNUMX percent of the vote.
That changed sensationally over the course of two years, thanks primarily to the global economic crisis, which hit the Germans hard. The number of unemployed grew like never before, production was cut in half. The Social Democratic and Communist parties mainly engaged in mutual attacks. They short-sightedly overlooked that the unemployed would no longer vote for them, they did not realize the danger that threatened them from Hitler. After the President of the Republic Paul von Hindenburg (1874–1934) dissolved the parliament and called a special election for September 14, 1930, the NSDAP received 18,3 percent of the vote. In addition, it joined coalition governments in two German provinces, Thuringia and Braunschweig. This solved one of Adolf Hitler's unpleasant problems: in 1925, he requested and received a release from Austrian citizenship, becoming a stateless citizen, meaning that he personally could not be elected for anything in Germany. In Braunschweig, on February 26, 1932, he took the oath to the provincial and German constitutions, was appointed a government adviser, and received German citizenship.
In Germany, many small parties fought for supremacy, and the disciplined NSDAP gained supporters in practically all social strata. At the head of the coalition governments of the Weimar Republic, Heinrich Breining (1895–1970) took turns as a conservative Catholic, General Kurt von Schleicher (1892–1934), who proposed to President Hindenburg some kind of military coup, and since it was not accepted, he resigned . The national conservative Franz von Papen (1879–1969) from June to December 1932 was already the president of the minority government. At the beginning of 1933, he secretly met with Hitler, so he proposed to President Hindenburg a new government led by the NSDAP. Hindenburg initially did not even want to hear about such a solution, he contemptuously spoke of Hitler as a "Czech corporal". Papen convinced him that he would "frame" Hitler with conservative ministers, in two months "we will squeeze Hitler into a corner so that he will just squeak!". The old, already somewhat senile Hindenburg finally relented and on January 30, 1933, appointed a coalition government with Hitler as president and Papen as vice president.
FIRER
Already on August 30, 1932, Hermann Goering became the president of the German parliament, the Reichstag, because the NSDAP became the strongest among ten parties. He had the pleasure of introducing his party leader Adolf Hitler to the position of chancellor - prime minister - of Germany five months later.
The attitude of the German big capitalists towards the NSDAP changed in the meantime. Until the party came to power, they nervously asked what the "socialist" and "worker" in its name meant. They received a satisfactory explanation that no one would lead the fight against the "specter of communism" better than her. The fight against competing Jewish capital did not bother powerful people like Krupp (Krupp, a dynasty of industrialists that has controlled the steel industry since the beginning of the 19th century, during the First World War weapons, which were prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, under Hitler again above all weapons), Thyssen (Thyssen, also an old industrial family that primarily mastered the production of coal, machines and weapons), Siemens (Carl Friedrich von Siemens from 1919, head of the company Siemens & Halske, the largest electrical company in the world) and others.
There are many theories as to why anti-Semitism became one of the main guiding ideas of the NSDAP, to the extent that during the Second World War, the extermination of the Jews became almost a primary goal. I think that Hitler's personal anti-Semitic feelings were not decisive. Among the German masses there was strong opposition to capitalism and its representatives, which benefited the communists and social democrats. It was necessary to divert the hatred from Krupp, Thyssen, Siemens and their ilk to someone else, let's say to the Jews. That was not difficult. The average German borrowed at high interest rates in small Jewish banks, spent his hard-earned money in Jewish department stores and shops, did not think about wholesale steel production, coal mine owners, electric motor manufacturers. Instead of the term "capitalism", Hitler's propaganda introduced "Jewish plutocracy" (the rule of money) as the enemy of the people, as the culprit for all personal evils that affect the individual.
In 1933, in addition to the majority NSDAP, there were a number of other parties in the German parliament. New parliamentary elections were scheduled for March 5 of that year, however, during the night of February 27-28, the Reichstag building burned down. The communists were accused of having done it, and it was only later proven that the arsonists were the Nazis themselves so that they could declare a state of emergency. In the elections, they still fell short of the desired absolute majority, they received 43,9 percent of the vote, the Social Democrats 18,3 percent, the Communists 12,3 percent, the rest went to six smaller parties. Communists blamed for the fire were stripped of their mandates based on the new Law for the Protection of the People and the State. Only the Social Democrats voted against. Hitler had an absolute majority. Now, only the senile president of the Republic, Hindenburg, formally stood against the rule of the NSDAP. He died in August 1934. Parliament voted for the unity of the functions of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.
After a quarter of a century of struggle, Adolf Hitler became the ruler of Germany. He demanded to be addressed as a leader - he was Leader. Catholic by birth, atheist by conviction, he said that providence decided so.
UNDER THE AWESOME OF THE PARTY: German games
THE PARTHIAN AND ARIAN STATE
After the Weimar Republic, Germany was transformed into a party state. The NSDAP was the source of power, it set up the government, the command of the army, practically regulated all aspects of life. Therefore, under his leadership, he also founded special organizations for boys (Hitler Youth), party organizations for girls, women, teachers, docents, had corps of car drivers, riders and aviators, farmers, lawyers and all other groups. The paramilitary formations SA and SS were also part of that party structure (see box). Instead of a trade union, the German Labor Front was founded, in which both employers and workers were members.
The development of membership shows the growth of the NSDAP: at the end of 1919, the party had 64 members, at the end of 1923, 55.787, at the end of 1933 - when it was already in power - about 3.900.000. This development is logical because no office or better job could be obtained without party membership. The law of September 22, 1933 established the Imperial Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer), which consisted of seven chambers for the written word, music, fine arts, theater, film, press and radio. The condition for membership was proof of belonging to the Aryan race. Thus, Jews were primarily excluded from business and artistic life. No one could publicly engage in one of those activities unless he was a member of the appropriate chamber, and that meant strict party control.
Hitler hinted at all this with his 25-point party program and elaborated it in a book My struggle. If anyone thought that it was just a collection of phrases, that the NSDAP would behave differently when it came to power, they realized too late that they were wrong. It was the realization of the principle phasing.
BUILDING MANAGERS
The law stipulates that "block managers" take care of residential buildings (Block letter), the manager was popularly called "blokwart". The blocks were responsible for 40 to 60 households, that is, for one large or several smaller buildings, in the countryside for one larger or several smaller properties. They were supposed to take care of everything: the cleanliness and lighting of the staircases and common rooms or the installation of national and party flags. During the war, the importance of these people increased, because they distributed tickets for groceries, took care of the blackout, the departure of tenants to shelters, setting up fire alarms, etc. Blokwart could have been a man who proved that he was a pure Aryan, and if there were "non-Aryans" (Jews or Gypsies) in the two generations before him, he was out of the question. He swore an oath to Adolf Hitler. He was considered the lowest rank in the party hierarchy. He was instructed to "take care of everything and find out everything".
STRENGTH THROUGH JOY
In the NSDAP-ruled country, in principle, everyone had the right to two to three weeks of annual leave, and they worked six days a week. However, for the party, it was unthinkable for citizens to rest, have fun and have a good time without being controlled. That is why the organization Strength through Joy was founded in November 1933 (Kraft through Joy). She organized visits to theaters, concerts, dances, courses in gymnastics, swimming, sewing, excursions, trips. It was said that all this was a gift from the state and the party to the people, but actually the goal was to have as little free time as possible without control.
STRENGTH THROUGH JOY: The Nazi organization of leisure
Immediately after coming to power, it was ordered to construct a small, cheap "people's" radio (People's Receiver). It was said to be a gift to the Germans because it was cheap and the subscription low. They caught only medium and long waves. The idea was that foreign broadcasts could not be listened to.
After coming to power, Hitler ordered to make a cheap car for the people as soon as possible. The task was accepted by the famous engineer Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951).
and already in 1935 gave Hitler a sample of a small car that they christened as the "people's car" (Volkswagen), and the people called him "beetle" (Käfer) because of his appearance. Even today, we see various types of beetles on the streets or admire modern Porsche models. Who would have remembered the close relationship between Ferdinand Porsche and Adolf Hitler?
QUESTIONABLE LUSTRATION
The organizational structure of the NSDAP, the control of every segment of life carried out during peacetime, the principle of absolute obedience to the leader, helped Germany survive its wars of conquest, and then one defeat after another, much longer than expected. Even before the war, the party advocated "not maintaining worthless life", which meant the killing of moronic children in state hospitals, regardless of race and origin. It was a good introduction to the mass murders in the concentration camps, to the gas chambers. The organizer was the NSDAP, the SS was the organizational part of that party, and the blocquarts reported hidden Jews and anyone who spoke against the regime.
After the defeat of Hitler's Germany, a Control Council was established with headquarters in Berlin, which included representatives of the victorious powers of the USA, USSR, Great Britain and France. That council made laws for occupied Germany. Law No. 2 ordered the liquidation of the NSDAP and all its structures and sub-organizations, as well as the confiscation of its assets. Due to the beginning of the Cold War in March 1948, the Soviet representative left that council, and after that it was abolished by the Western powers as unnecessary. Two German states were created, the western FRG and the eastern GDR with their own legislation.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal declared the SS a criminal organization, but not the NSDAP. Admittedly, the Control Council passed decrees on "denazification" - today we would say "lustration". Members of institutions from the time of NSDAP rule should have been checked in more detail. Theoretically, they were not allowed to serve in the newly created democratic institutions. It would take a long time to describe how it was possible to avoid being declared a supporter of National Socialism. Several well-known Nazis even slipped into the direct service of the first democratic prime minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, into the courts and prosecutor's offices.
In the eastern part of Germany, which was initially called the "Soviet occupation zone", and later the German Democratic Republic, denazification was carried out much more rigorously, many were put into concentration camps just because of membership in the Hitler Youth. It is especially problematic that the Soviet military authorities also used Nazi concentration camps, for example Buchenwald, for this purpose. This is still a problem for the Buchenwald Memorial Center today, because that period must be strictly separated from the Hitler camp, and there are admirers of the "martyrs" who were in the Soviet camps and want to pay tribute to them on the spot.
From the point of view of history, the existence of the NSDAP political party was short-lived. The party lasted 26 years and was in power for 12 years. According to the evil it has caused both to its own people and almost to the whole world, it is certainly a unique phenomenon until now. It is to be hoped that no one will imitate her anywhere.
In order to protect his own and attack other people's party gatherings, Hitler entrusted one of his first collaborators, professional officer Ernst Rehm, with organizing a paramilitary group in January 1920. At first it changed several names, to finally be called the "assault department" - Sturmabteilung - better known by the abbreviation of its name SA. It was a squad of thugs to protect NSDAP gatherings and disrupt other parties, as well as fighting other groups on the street, primarily communists.
The career and death of Horst Wessel (1907–1930) are interesting. Wessel was a prominent leader of the SA unit in Berlin, he was killed in a fight with a group of members of the (communist) Front of the Red Alliance of Fighters. NSDAP propaganda styled his death as a martyr's death, and a song was composed in his honor, A song by Horst Vesl (Horst Wessel Lied), became the Nazi anthem that was always played after the German national anthem.
Since that organization expanded too much, took on too many tasks, on April 4, 1925, Hitler founded a new "protection unit" as his personal guard - Schutzstaffel - better known by the abbreviation SS.
Initially, the SS units were part of the SA and subordinated to its commander Rem, but in 1934 the SS disarmed the SA, executed Rem himself and a number of high-ranking officials, and became independent. The SA still existed, but in a subordinate position.
Over time, the SS branched out into several groups. Formations of skulls were established to manage the concentration camps (Totenkopfverbände). Those units wore uniforms of the same color as the regular army, but with skulls on the collars. During the conquest of Poland, they were brought in to carry out violence that the regular army was spared.
In addition to them, there was the General SS (Allgemeine SS). Its members were not barracked, they were called when the need arose, they wore black uniforms, and that is why they were popularly called "black SS".
At the beginning of the war in Poland, there was a need to use military organized units instead of Skull Formations, and the Armed SS was founded (Waffen SS). Its members wore uniforms like the army, but with skulls on the collar and with different rank titles. Tactically, they were subordinate to the military command, but they were better supplied, privileged in every way. By the end of the war, 38 SS divisions had been established, with 594.443 members at the end of the war.
While only German citizens served in the regular army, members of other nations were also willingly accepted into the SS units, so special divisions were created for them. For us, the "Prince Eugen" Division, in which there were primarily Swabians from Banat, and the "Skanderbeg" Division, in which Albanians served, are interesting. Those two divisions were used on the territory of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, they committed many war crimes. Less known is the "Kama" Division founded in Croatia, in Eastern Slavonia, mainly with the local Swabians and Bosniaks, because it was transferred to Hungary, included in the "Horst Wesel" Division and fought on the Eastern Front.
For the Imperial SS leader (Reichsführer SS) Hitler personally appointed Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945). For the sake of general control, he founded the Main Office for Reich Security, which consisted of six sections, and under it was the regular police. The Gestapo was the fourth section with the name "fight against the enemy". More important was the Security Service (security - SD), SS internal police, simultaneously an intelligence and counterintelligence service. Report IV-B-4 headed by Adolf Eichmann was also in charge of the "final solution of the Jewish question", in other words the Holocaust.
Towards the end of the war, starting in 1944, the SS armed units were treated as a branch of the army, so that recruited young men were assigned to those divisions without question.
After the capitulation of Germany in 1945, Himmler committed suicide. The Nuremberg court declared the SS a "criminal organization". Many SS men managed to escape to Latin America through the so-called "rat channels", among them Eichmann, who was kidnapped by the Israeli secret service to be sentenced to death by hanging in Jerusalem.
EXPOSE AND BURN: Joseph Goebbels
The German word "entartet" began to be used in medicine at the end of the 19th century as a synonym for "degenerate". The National Socialist worldview called modern art "reborn" using the same word - degenerate art. Everything that differed from "German art" was considered "reborn" in fine art, music and literature, above all naturalism, expressionism, Dadaism, Fauvism, surrealism and all possible experiments, also everything that was in any way connected with artists of Jewish origin..
Hitler (1989–1945) is already in his program book My struggle wrote in 1924 that the task of the National Socialist movement was to "in view of the morbid growth of insane and backward artists prevent the people from falling under the influence of spiritual madness."
Hitler wanted to become a painter in his youth. The Academy of Arts refused to admit him twice, judging him to be untalented. All the same, he presented himself as an "academic painter" or as a "writer". He imagined that he understood art.
"German art" was supposed to show the strength and beauty of the Germans and the German landscape. It is primarily realistic, but it should also show a certain strength and theatricality as dramatically as possible. It is difficult to distinguish it from what was proclaimed as "socialist realism" in the USSR.
After National Socialism came to power in 1933, the destruction of "reborn art" and the persecution of artists who practiced it began. Already on May 10 of that year, in the center of Berlin and twenty-one university towns, as a sign of the "fight against the non-German spirit", the public burning of Jewish, Marxist, pacifist, naturalistic, decadent and other oppositional books was organized. About 25.000 books were burned, and about 70.000 spectators attended the spectacle. Since it was raining in some places that day in eight other cities, book bonfires were lit in May, in Vienna after the "annexation" of Austria to the German Reich.
Since 1936, works of "regenerate art" have been removed from all museums and galleries." In order to show what is meant by this, in 1937 a large exhibition of "reborn art" was organized in Munich. Close to 20.000 works by 140 artists were first hidden in depots, and in March 1939, close to 1000 canvases and 3825 prints were publicly burned. Many works were burned by the fire department in March 1939, so Propaganda Minister Goebbels submitted a report to Hitler that most of the original works had been destroyed or sold.
In music, the performance of "non-German" and Jewish works and performances by Jewish musicians, operas and operettas in which Jews would be librettists were also prohibited. The exception was Franz Lehar's operettas, which Hitler loved, so they were still performed, even though the texts were written by as many as nine Jews, and Lehar's wife, Sophie, née Paschkis, was Jewish. The names of librettists were not allowed to appear on programs and posters. Lehar's wife was personally declared an "honorary Aryan" by Hitler.
If we look today at the long list of writers, painters, sculptors and composers who were banned during Hitler's reign, it is undoubtedly the list of the most important artists of Germany during the first half of the 20th century.
