Transcript HIST2125 Hitler’s Germany

HIST2125
Hitler’s Germany
Lecture 2:
Early years of Adolf Hitler, 18891923
20 September 2012
Adolf Hitler: Youth
• * 20 April 1889, Braunau am Inn (Austria)
• 1892 in Passau (Bavaria, Germany)
• 1895 in Linz (Lower Austria)
• 1903 in Vienna
►Hamann, Brigitte, Hitler’s Vienna (1999)
= His Anti-Semitism probably acquired in Vienna, hotbed of
religious prejudice and racism
Hitler: Soldier
• 1913 in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
• 1914 War volunteer in World War I with Bavarian
Reserve Infantry Regiment 16
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1914 Iron Cross Second Class
1916 Wounded in Battle of the Somme
1918 Temporarily blinded by mustard gas
1918 Iron Cross First Class
= Embittered over collapse of war effort
Hitler: Young Politician
• 1919 Appointed intelligence agent of Reichswehr
reconnaissance commando to infiltrate DAP
(Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = German Workers’ Party)
• 1919 Attracted by DAP in Munich: Member No. 55
(12 Sep), not member no. 7
= Mentored & introduced by co-founder Dietrich
Eckart to Munich society
Anti-Republicans on the Right
• German National People’s Party (DNVP)
• Early German People’s Party (DVP)
• Propagated stab-in-the-back legend
• Saw war defeat as Jewish/Leftist/Bolshevist
conspiracy
• Wanted back monarchy
• Demanded strictly revisionist foreign policy
• Opposed to fulfilment of Versailles Treaty
Adolf Hitler: Party politician
• 1920/21 DAP renamed in NSDAP
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
= National Socialist German Workers’ Party:
Swastika (Hakenkreuz) as party emblem
+ Völkischer Beobachter (Racial Observer) as party organ
• 24.2.1920: Twenty-Five Point Program:
A combination of nationalist, socialist, anti-capitalist, antiSemitic ideas
• 29.7.1921: First chairman of NSDAP →
Wide powers → Important group of supporters: Rosenberg, Hess,
Göring, Amann
Hitler Putsch
or: Beer-Hall Putsch, 8 Nov 1923
= Unsuccessful attempt of Hitler & Ludendorff to seize
power for NS party
• Bavaria as operating ground for extreme Rightists
• Beerhall in Munich surrounded by Storm Troopers (SA) led
by Roehm
• Hitler proclaimed new government + called for ‘March to
Berlin’ from Munich
→ Hitler arrested + putsch crushed by police
Results of Hitler Putsch
= Amazing achievement of political nobody Hitler
= Hitler’s lesson learnt: No direct action but winning
masses by legal means (e.g. elections)
• Ludendorff acquitted altogether
• Hitler sentenced to 5 yrs imprisonment at Landsberg
but released after 8 months only
• Hitler with sufficient time for writing 1st part of book
Mein Kampf (My Struggle)