Early History of Germany
Ancient tribes from northern Europe migrated to what is now Germany about 1000
B.C. From that time on its history eventually included numerous kingdoms,
dynasties, and wars of conquest.
The first "Reich" is usually known as the Holy Roman Empire which began in 962
A.D. under Otto I.
Long-lasting serfdom and religious wars following the Reformation also play a
frequent role in German history, and rival leaders often caused changes in
control of lands and individual German states, which at one time numbered over
300. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 finally reduced this number to 39.
In 1862, Otto von Bismarck became prime minister of Prussia, located in the
north, and led this state to great political and military power. He was finally
successful in uniting the northern (predominantly Protestant) and southern (predominantly
Catholic) German states into an empire (Second Reich) under Prussian leadership.
Wilhelm I was crowned the first Kaiser (emperor) and he in turn appointed
Bismarck as the first Chancellor to head the government. By the late 1800's
Germany had become a great industrial nation.
World War I
By the early 20th century Europe had divided itself into two armed camps, the
Triple alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Britain,
France, and Russia). In 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was
assassinated and Europe was plunged into World War I, with the two opposing
sides known as the Central Powers and the Allies. Finally, after U.S. entry into
the war, Germany, in defeat, signed an armistice on November 11, 1918.
Germany After World War I
World War I left a defeated, impoverished, and embittered Germany. The Treaty of
Versailles was filled with the spirit of revenge; a "war-guilt clause" placed
responsibility for the war on Germany. Victorious allies demanded payment of
thirty-three billion dollars (reparations), prohibited Germany from rebuilding
armaments and redistributed her colonies. Germany could ill afford such payments;
inflation and unemployment crippled her economy and spirit. The Kaiser gone, the
Germans tried a democratic government. The aging hero, General Paul van
Hindenburg became President of the Weimar Republic. The fledgling democracy
faced the monumental task of reconstruction while handicapped by the pressure of
politically diverse factions. The German nation was one of the youngest in
Europe, having been led to unity in 1871 by Otto von Bismarck. Now Germany
needed a way to restore her self respect and self-sufficiency.
Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power
Hitler was born in 1889 in Austria of peasant parents. He was unsuccessful in
school, and was later rejected by an art academy. He became a corporal in the
German Army.
Hitler built a strong political base from small beginnings. In 1920, he attended
meetings and soon became the leader of the NSDAP (National Socialist German
Workers Party, known as NAZIS). It began with seven members. With shrewd
propaganda and Hitler's tremendous skill at public speaking, the Nazis steadily
won seats in the Reichstag (legislature). In 1923, they failed in a military
coup d'etat; Hitler spent the next few months in jail finishing Mein Kampf (My
Struggle). Hitler promised to bring Germany back to her feet, offering jobs,
military success and international respect. Nazis received financial support
from many major industrialists who feared communism. They felt that Hitler would
stop the growth of cornmunism in Germany and yet still remain in control of his
creditors. Hitler also built a private army, the stormtroopers (S.A.), whose
violent tactics were effective in securing votes. By 1933, Nazis held enough
seats in the Reichstag (German elected parliament) by popular, legal elections
to force Hindenburg to appoint Hitler second-in-command.
Hitler's policies had two basic premises. A master of manipulating emotions,
Hitler told the Germans that they did not really lose World War I--they were
sabotaged at home by Jews. Thus Hitler's personal hatred provided a scapegoat
for a nation. Perhaps by venting their frustrations and shame on a minority
group, Germans could get on with rebuilding themselves. Secondly, Hitler
preached of an Aryan Super-race. He told the Germans that their pure white, blue-eyed,
blonde people were destined to be the masters of the world. All other peoples
were considered inferior. Relationships with non-Aryans would taint the blood
and weaken this race. Jews (and Blacks!) and other groups, particularly southern
and eastern Europeans were considered sub-human.
The Germans legally gave Hitler more and more power, finally making him an
absolute dictator. The Nazi Fuhrer became Reich Chancellor in January, 1933.
After Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler declared himself both President and
Chancellor. There was a clause in the Weimar constitution that allowed the
Chancellor to take dictatorial power temporarialy in case of emergency. Hitler
found that emergency when the Reichstag building burned. It is strongly
suspected that the stormtroopers set the fire to provide Hitler with and excuse
to impose martial law. In any case, Hitler demanded and was voted dictatorial
powers. In essence, he used this control to strip the Reichstag of independent
power, to rebuild the armed forces in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, and to
unite Germans under the Swastika. The economy was rebuilt. The Germans were
disciplined and fed. Opponents were effectively silenced or swayed by the
stormtroopers and massive propaganda campaigns. Germany had become once more a
powerful, militaristic force in Europe. By 1939, Hitler was the idol and
absolute master of Germany.
Roots of Antisemitism in Europe
Hitler's hatred of Jews was not anew concept in European culture. For centuries,
Crusades, Inquisitions and common law had made Jews, gypsies and other
minorities social outcasts. These second class subjects were allowed to
participate in very few social roles. Unable to own land or enter most
professions, Jews often became bankers and tax collectors--an "unChristian"
function, and it was easy for the debtors to hate the person who filled it. Some
nations did not consider killing a Jew a punishable crime; the myth of Christ-killer
provided an excuse. Jews were expelled from England in 1290, from France in
1306, from Spain in 1492. Persecution and scapegoating were common experiences
in the Jewish culture long before Hitler and his officers made them official po
1 i cy .
"The Final Solution"
The Holocaust, or as Hitler called it, the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish
Problem," was an organized, massive attempt to completely annihilate all Jewish
people. Once the machinery of extermination was set up, it caught as many non-Jews
in its web.
The Final Solution occurred in two basic steps. From 1933 to 1939, legislation
and propaganda increasingly limited the basic civil rights of Jews. (See
Nuremberg Laws) Basic social activities, jobs and schooling were denied. Jews
were forced to place identifying yellow stars on their clothes and doorways.
Jewish religious practices were outlawed. Names were changed and passports
marked. Segregation, removal from positions as heads of businesses and
destruction of Jewish homes and businesses, beatings, imprisonment and
concentration camps became the officially imposed order. Hitler decreed that
anyone who had one Jewish grandparent could be considered a Jew--regardless of
that person's own religious practices. Anyone attempting to protect or deal with
Jews was subjected to harassment. So from Hitler's ascension to power up to
1939, the Final Solution attacked a way of life and began a systematic plan of
degradation and torture.
However, during World War II the right to life itself came to be denied. A
system of deportation to numerous (concentration) labor and extermination camps
involved great engineering skills and resources. As Hitler's armies conquered
Europe, they put resistors and Jews to work in munitions factories and sent them
to die in gas chambers. Hundreds dug their own mass graves and were then lined
up to be shot. The personal accounts of survivors and of Nazi officers
themselves reveal unspeakable horrors. Wartime creates atrocities on both sides;
a true sense of the dehumanization of the Final Solution can only be gained by
reading and listening empathetically to eye-witnesses and historical accounts.
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau were huse camps designed solely to house
starving prisoners and to kill and cremate those too weak to work. Approximately
six million Jews, or 67% of the European Jewish population, died this way.
Another six million non-Jews suffered the same fate. While fighting World War II
and up to the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945, the concentration camps
attempted to completely erase a people seen as undesirable to the Aryan State.
They very nearly succeeded.
Afterward: The Nuernberg Trials
As the allies marched through German territory in 1944 and 1945, they opened the
concentration camps. They found letters, diaries and documents concerned with
the plans and practices of the Final Solution. The Nazis had kept careful
records of their victims. The allies felt a need to make the extent of the Nazis'
persecutions known to a stunned world. They wanted to prevent the recurrence of
another Holocaust by bringing those responsible to justice. For the first time,
leaders of a government were brought to an international court of law as symbols
of aggressive militarism, of racial terrorism and of misused power.
In August of 1945, representatives of France, Britain, the USSR and the USA
agreed to an international military tribunal to be held in Nuremberg, Germany,
the site of Nazi mass rallies. Twenty-two (one in absentia) (See list) high
ranking Nazi officers were charged with four crimes, newly defined: a)
Conspiracy, b) Crimes against Peace, c) War Crimes, d) Crimes against Humanity.
Hitler had committed suicide in April, 1945. Among those left to be tried were
his close aides Hermann Goering, Rudolph Hess, Julius Streicher, alfred Jodl,
Albert Speer. A common plea of the defense was that there were soldiers
following orders without choice. Thus a major question raised by the Trials is
the extent of personal moral responsibility in wartimes. In the face of
overwhelming evidence, the Nazis, once viewed as the enemy, now came to be seen
as barbarous throwbacks from human civilization. Nineteen defendants were
convicted; twelve were sentenced to death; seven were sentenced to imprisonment;
three were acquitted. After six years of war, the western world turned to a
courtroom to face and condemn the systematic persecution of human being.
The Nuremberg Trials can be viewed as a landmark precedent in the struggle for
"human rights;" winning nations claimed the jurisdiction to dictate how the
losing nation should have treated its own subjects. The world-wide press
coverage that the Trials received served as a condemning indictment of
totalitarianism. There were (and still are) those who believed in the Nazi
cause; to them the Trials established the martyrdom of great leaders by an
illegitimate, vengeful victor. Students should draw their own conclusions as to
the meaning of the Trials.
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