• Germany fought the First World War (1914–1918) along with the Austrian empire and against the Allies (England, France and Russia).
  • Germany initially made gains by occupying France and Belgium. However, the Allies won defeating Germany and the Central Powers in 1918.
  • Allies: The Allied Powers were initially led by the UK and France. In 1941  they were jointed by the USSR and USA. They fought against the Axis Powers , Namely Germany , Italy and Japan.
  • Under the shadow of the Second World War, Germany had waged a genocidal war. ( 6 millions Jews, 200000 Gypsices and 1 million Polish civilians and 70000  Germans were killed )
  • Genocidal - Mass murder of selected groups of innocent people.
  • The birth of Weimar Republic refers to the establishment of the democratic government in Germany after the end of the First World War. It took place in 1918 and lasted until 1933 when the Nazi party came into power. Background: Germany had been ruled by the monarchy for centuries until the end of WWI.
  • The effects of the war:
    •  Devastating ( भयानक ) impact on the entire continent both psychologically and financially.
    • Europe turned into one of debtors (यूरोप कर्जदारों में से एक बन गया).
    • The infant Weimar Republic was being made to pay for the sins of the old empire.)नवजात वाइमर गणराज्य को पुराने साम्राज्य के पापों की कीमत चुकानी पड़ रही थी)
    • The republic carried the burden of war guilt and national humiliation and was financially crippled by being forced to pay compensation. Those who supported the Weimar Republic, mainly Socialists, Catholics, and Democrats, became easy targets of attack in the conservative nationalist circles. (गणतंत्र ने युद्ध अपराधबोध और राष्ट्रीय अपमान का बोझ उठाया और मुआवजा देने के लिए मजबूर होने के कारण आर्थिक रूप से अपंग हो गया। वेइमर गणराज्य का समर्थन करने वाले, मुख्य रूप से समाजवादी, कैथोलिक और डेमोक्रेट, रूढ़िवादी राष्ट्रवादी हलकों में हमले का आसान निशाना बन गए।)
    • They were mockingly called the "November criminals". The First World War left a deep imprint on European society and polity. Politicians and publicists laid great stress on the need for men to be aggressive, strong, and masculine.
  • Political Radicalism and Economic Crisis – The birth of the Weimer Republic coincided with the uprising of the Spartacist League on the pattern of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The Spartacists founded the Communist Party of Germany. Political radicalization was heightened by the economic crisis of 1923.राजनीतिक कट्टरवाद और आर्थिक संकट - वेइमर गणराज्य का जन्म रूस में बोल्शेविक क्रांति की तर्ज पर स्पार्टासिस्ट लीग के विद्रोह के साथ हुआ। स्पार्टासिस्टों ने जर्मनी की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी की स्थापना की। 1923 के आर्थिक संकट से राजनीतिक कट्टरपंथ बढ़ गया था।
  • What Was The Effect of First World War On Germany: The Years of Depression
    • The years between 1924 and 1928 saw some stability. Yet this was built on sand. German investments and industrial recovery were totally dependent on short-term loans, largely from the USA.
    • This support was withdrawn when the Wall Street Exchange crashed in 1929. Fearing a fall in prices, people made frantic efforts to sell their shares.
    • This was the start of the Great Economic Depression. The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crisis. By 1932, industrial production was reduced to 40 percent of the 1929 level. Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages.
    • The number of unemployed touched an unprecedented 6 million. As jobs disappeared, the youth took to criminal activities and total despair became commonplace. The economic crisis created deep anxieties and fears in people.
    • Only organized workers could manage to keep their heads above water, but unemployment weakened their bargaining power. Big business was in crisis. The large mass of peasantry was affected by a sharp fall in agricultural prices and women, unable to fill their children�s stomachs, were filled with a sense of deep despair. Politically too the Weimar Republic was fragile.
    • The Weimar constitution had some inherent defects, which made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship. One was proportional representation. This made achieving a majority by any one party a near-impossible task, leading to a rule by coalitions. Another defect was Article 48, which gave the President the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights, and rule by decree.
    • Within its short life, the Weimar Republic saw twenty different cabinets lasting on an average of 239 days, and liberal use of Article 48. Yet the crisis could not be managed. People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions.
  • The Weimer Republic had some inherent defects :1. Proportional Representation2. Article 48 — which gave the President the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree.
  • HITLER’S RISE TO POWERHitler was born in Austria in 1889. He earned many medals for bravery in the First World War. The German defeat horrified him. The Treaty of Versailles made him furious. He joined the German Workers Party and renamed it National Socialist German Workers’ Party. This later came to be known as the Nazi Party.Nazism became a mass movement only during the Great Depression. The Nazi propaganda stirred hopes of a better future. Hitler was a powerful and effective speaker. He promised the people a strong nation where all would get employment.His politics included the significant rituals and spectacle in mass mobilization. Nazi propaganda skillfully projected Hitler as a messiah, a saviour.
  • Hitler pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan : One people, One empire, One leader. Hitler ignored the Schacht’s advice of not to invest hugely in rearmament. He then took Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Hitler had the unspoken support of England.Hitler did not stop here. He chose war as a way out of the Economic Crisis.Resources were to be accumulated through expansion of territory. In September 1940 Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and England. USA resisted involvement in the war. But when Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombarded Pearl Harbour, the USA entered the war. The war ended in 1945 with Hitler’s defeat and the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
  • THE NAZI WORLD VIEWAccording to Nazi ideology there was no equality between people, but only racial hierarchy. The Nazis quickly began to implement their dream of creating an exclusive racial community of pure Germans by physically eliminating all those who were considered undesirable. They wanted a society of pure and healthy Nordic Aryans. Jews, Gypsies, blacks, Russian, Poles, even certain Germans and abnormal were considered undesirable.

    The other aspect of Hitler’s ideology related to the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum, or living space.

    Jews were the worst sufferers in Nazi Germany. Hitler believed in pseudo scientific theories of race which said that conversion was no solution to the Jewish problem. It had to be solved through their total elimination.

    From 1933–1938 — the Nazis terrorized, pauperised and segregated the Jews, compelling them to leave the country.

    The next phase, 1939–1945, aimed at concentrating them in certain areas and then killing the min gas chambers in Poland.

    The Racial Utopia

    Genocide and war became two sides of the same coin. Occupied Poland was divided. Poles were forced to leave their homes and properties behind to be occupied by ethnic Germans brought in from occupied Europe.

    YOUTH IN NAZI GERMANY

    Hitler felt that a strong Nazi society could be established by teaching Nazi ideology to children.All schools were given German teachers. Children were divided into two groups — desirable and undesirable. Textbooks were rewritten, functions of sports in schools was to nurture the spirit of violence and aggression. Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk. At 14, all boys joined ‘Hitler Youth’, they joined the Labour Service at 18.

    The Nazi Cult of Motherhood — Women were told to be good mothers and rear pure blooded Aryan children. They were encouraged to produce many children. They had to be the bearers of the Aryan culture and race.

  • नाज़ी विचारधारा के अनुसार लोगों के बीच कोई समानता नहीं थी, बल्कि केवल नस्लीय पदानुक्रम था। नाज़ियों ने उन सभी लोगों को शारीरिक रूप से समाप्त करके जिन्हें अवांछनीय माना जाता था, शुद्ध जर्मनों का एक विशिष्ट नस्लीय समुदाय बनाने के अपने सपने को तुरंत लागू करना शुरू कर दिया। वे शुद्ध और स्वस्थ नॉर्डिक आर्यों का समाज चाहते थे। यहूदी, जिप्सी, अश्वेत, रूसी, पोल्स, यहां तक ​​कि कुछ जर्मन और असामान्य लोगों को अवांछनीय माना जाता था।हिटलर की विचारधारा का दूसरा पहलू लेबेन्सरम, या रहने की जगह की भूराजनीतिक अवधारणा से संबंधित है।

    नाज़ी जर्मनी में यहूदी सबसे अधिक पीड़ित थे। हिटलर नस्ल के छद्म वैज्ञानिक सिद्धांतों में विश्वास करता था जिसमें कहा गया था कि धर्मांतरण यहूदी समस्या का समाधान नहीं है। इसे उनके संपूर्ण उन्मूलन के माध्यम से हल किया जाना था।

    1933-1938 तक - नाज़ियों ने यहूदियों को आतंकित किया, कंगाल किया और अलग कर दिया, जिससे उन्हें देश छोड़ने के लिए मजबूर होना पड़ा।

    अगले चरण, 1939-1945, का उद्देश्य उन्हें कुछ क्षेत्रों में केंद्रित करना और फिर पोलैंड में मिन गैस चैंबरों को नष्ट करना था।

    नस्लीय यूटोपिया

    नरसंहार और युद्ध एक ही सिक्के के दो पहलू बन गये। अधिकृत पोलैंड विभाजित हो गया। पोल्स को यूरोप के कब्जे से लाए गए जातीय जर्मनों द्वारा कब्जा करने के लिए अपने घरों और संपत्तियों को छोड़ने के लिए मजबूर किया गया था।

    नाज़ी जर्मनी में युवा

    हिटलर को लगा कि बच्चों को नाजी विचारधारा सिखाकर एक मजबूत नाजी समाज की स्थापना की जा सकती है। सभी स्कूलों को जर्मन शिक्षक दिए गए। बच्चों को दो समूहों में विभाजित किया गया - वांछनीय और अवांछनीय। पाठ्यपुस्तकों को फिर से लिखा गया, स्कूलों में खेल का कार्य हिंसा और आक्रामकता की भावना को बढ़ावा देना था। दस साल के बच्चों को जुंगवोल्क में प्रवेश करना पड़ा। 14 साल की उम्र में सभी लड़के 'हिटलर यूथ' में शामिल हो गए, 18 साल की उम्र में वे श्रम सेवा में शामिल हो गए।

    मातृत्व का नाज़ी पंथ - महिलाओं को अच्छी माँ बनने और शुद्ध रक्त वाले आर्य बच्चों का पालन-पोषण करने के लिए कहा गया था। उन्हें कई बच्चे पैदा करने के लिए प्रोत्साहित किया गया। उन्हें आर्य संस्कृति और नस्ल का वाहक बनना था।

  • The Art of Propaganda — The Nazi regime used language and media with care and often to great effect. They used films, pictures, radio, posters, etc. to spread hatred for Jews. Nazism worked on the minds of the people, tapped their emotions, and turned their hatred and anger at those marked as ‘undesirable’.Crimes against Humanity — People saw the world through Nazi eyes and spoke the Nazi language. At times even the Jews began to believe in the Nazi stereotypes about them.

    Knowledge about the Holocaust —It was only after the war ended that people came to know about what had happened. The Jews wanted the world to know about the atrocities and sufferings they had endured during the Nazi killing operations. They just wanted to live, even if it was for a few hours, to tell the world about the Holocaust.

  • प्रचार की कला - नाज़ी शासन ने भाषा और मीडिया का उपयोग सावधानी से और अक्सर बड़े प्रभाव के साथ किया। उन्होंने यहूदियों के प्रति नफरत फैलाने के लिए फिल्मों, चित्रों, रेडियो, पोस्टरों आदि का इस्तेमाल किया। नाज़ीवाद ने लोगों के दिमाग पर काम किया, उनकी भावनाओं का दोहन किया, और 'अवांछनीय' के रूप में चिह्नित लोगों के प्रति उनकी नफरत और गुस्से को बदल दिया।मानवता के विरुद्ध अपराध - लोग दुनिया को नाज़ी नज़रों से देखते थे और नाज़ी भाषा बोलते थे। कभी-कभी यहूदी भी उनके बारे में नाजी रूढ़िवादिता पर विश्वास करने लगे।

    प्रलय के बारे में ज्ञान - युद्ध समाप्त होने के बाद ही लोगों को पता चला कि क्या हुआ था। यहूदी चाहते थे कि दुनिया नाज़ी हत्या अभियानों के दौरान उनके द्वारा सहे गए अत्याचारों और पीड़ाओं के बारे में जाने। वे दुनिया को नरसंहार के बारे में बताने के लिए बस जीना चाहते थे, भले ही वह कुछ घंटों के लिए ही क्यों न हो।