Hitler - OverSimplified (Part 2)
Vocab level: C1
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Since Germany's military had to be reduced, Hitler could no longer remain a soldier after the war,
but he kept working for the army as an informant.
After the war, communists in Germany had attempted a revolution,
and the government was worried about communism in general,
so Hitler was tasked with infiltrating and reporting on any new political parties that could pose a communist threat.
A new party called the German Workers' Party threw up a whole bunch of red flags,
so Hitler went along to one of their meetings but found that they weren't communists at all -
they were extreme right, and shared many of his extreme beliefs,
so he left the army, and signed up to join the party.
His fantastic speaking abilities impressed the party's leadership and supporters, and he very quickly rose to the top.
He decided the party needed a makeover, so he renamed it to the National Socialist German Workers' Party,
or Nazi for short, and he gave it a new color scheme.
The Nazis weren't very specific on policy,
but Hitler made extravagant promises to return Germany to it's former glory,
by undoing the Treaty of Versailles, and reuniting all ethnic Germans into one nation.
He also said that only pure Aryan people should be allowed to be citizens
and that all Jews would lose their citizenship.
These ideas were already common in extreme right politics,
but what set the Nazis apart was Hitler himself,
and they quickly became the leading party on the extreme right.
Many of the political parties in Germany at the time had paramilitary wings, and the Nazis were no different.
Hitler set up the very descriptive "Hall Protection Detachment",
later changed to the very delightful "Gymnastic and Sports Division"
and finally settling on the ominous "Storm Detachment", or SA for short.
Their job was to defend Nazi party meetings and intimidate political opponents,
and they were frequently engaged in battles with communists on the streets.
Since the allies had demanded a reduction in Germany's military size,
many trained soldiers were left unemployed.
They liked the Nazi ideology, and it was only natural for them to join the SA, which grew larger and larger over time.
The new democratic government that formed after World War I was pretty weak and ineffective.
In order to pay reparations to the Allies, it started printing more money.
The problem is that printing money doesn't actually give a country more money -
it just makes money less valuable.
So as the country printed more and more money, it became worth less and less and the currency crashed.
In 1919, 1 US dollar was worth about 4 German marks,
by December 1923, one US dollar was equal to 4.2 trillion marks.
The price of bread rose to 200 billion marks.
Banknotes became worthless.
Unsurprisingly, in such an economic crisis, Germany struggled to pay the allies.
The French were pissed about this.
So they occupied the Ruhr, an area full of factories, and took the economic output from the area as payment.
They treated the German civilians badly
and in total approximately 130 Germans were killed during the occupation.
Germans were furious and Hitler and the Nazis thought that now would be a great time to lead a revolution.
In November 1923, inspired by something a certain bold Italian man did a year earlier,
Hitler stormed a meeting at a beer hall, and called for an uprising against the government.
With his supporters, he marched on the streets of Munich, hoping the police would join his side.
They did not.
Hitler was put on trial for treason.
He could have been sentenced to life, but the right-wing judges thought he was a pretty cool guy.
Hitler knew the judges and knew that they would be lenient.
So he took the opportunity to make impassioned speeches during the trial
and in the end he was sentenced to just five years in prison, of which he only served nine months,
and when I said prison, it was more like a pleasant hotel stay where he had plenty of time to write a book.
The whole affair was covered by the media nationwide, and it made Hitler famous.
Hitler and his extreme message were now known throughout Germany.
But the everyday German still didn't care much for him.
In the 1928 election, the Nazis only won about 2% of the vote.
Many were still intimidated by all the violence and the shouting and how un-politician-like he was,
but a new economic crisis would change all of that.
To help Germany pay its reparations, America agreed to give it loans.
In October 1929, the Wall Street crash happened and America wanted its money back.
The economic strain this put on an already struggling Germany was severe.
Unemployment skyrocketed.
Poverty was widespread and Germans were sick of it.
It was clear that the newly formed democracy wasn't working.
In the face of crisis, Germans began moving to the political extremes.
If you were German and want to change, your choices now were either the communists or the Nazis.
Hitler claimed that he was the only one who could return Germany to its former glory.
The Nazi party used propaganda to make Hitler seem like a great and powerful man
and they gave the German people a scapegoat to blame for all their suffering.
The promise of a single strong dictator was a breath of fresh air for Germans after years of failing democracy.
Some bought into his extreme ideology.
Some didn't agree with the racism, but were willing to vote for him anyway.
Many didn't know much about politics at all, but just got caught up in the hype.
Election after election, the Nazis became more and more popular.
Until in 1932, they became the biggest party in the German parliament.
Hitler came to truly believe that he was some sort of great destined savior of Germany.
He turned megalomaniac.
He decided to run for president and did surprisingly well,
but still lost to the extremely popular World War I general, Paul von Hindenburg.
Since he was now the leader of the biggest party, though,
he demanded President Hindenburg make him chancellor.
But Hindenburg was reluctant, seeing that Hitler was clearly such a big racist.
Industry leaders urged Hindenburg to give Hitler the chancellorship,
fearing the rising support for communism,
and leader of the center party von Papen,
who had been secretly negotiating with Hitler, said to Hindenburg,
"How about we make Hitler chancellor on the condition that I get to be vice chancellor
and most government jobs go to us, moderate conservatives.
That way I'll get to keep my power, I mean, we'll get to keep our power and we'll control Hitler like he's our angry little puppet.
What could possibly go wrong?"
As it turned out, EVERYTHING.
Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933, but he was not yet a dictator.
In February, the German Parliament building was set on fire.
Historians still aren't sure who did it and many suspect the Nazis did it themselves, but Hitler blamed the communists,
and he convinced president Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree
allowing him to imprison all communists and other political opponents.
Communists and others were sent off to the first concentration camp in Dachau.
At this time, the elderly president Hindenburg passed away, giving Hitler the perfect opportunity.
He introduced a law to parliament that would allow him to make all future laws and decisions entirely on his own.
With his political opponents in prison and the SA intimidating others, Hitler's law passed.
Just two months after becoming chancellor, Hitler was now a dictator.
He still had one problem.
The leader of the SA wanted the SA to take over the job of the regular German Army
and the German Army didn't like that idea.
Hitler needed to maintain the support of his professionally trained German army,
more so than his rough and rowdy SA.
So one night in June 1934,
he had Rohm and many other of his own SA officers rounded up and murdered.
While he was at it, he took the opportunity to brutally settle some personal scores as well.
Politicians who had disagreed with him in the past,
reporters who had printed negative articles about him,
one guy who did absolutely nothing, but they thought he was someone else.
In some cases, even their families were murdered.
In total, up to 200 people were killed in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives.
The army, now satisfied that they wouldn't be replaced,
pledged total allegiance to their new fuhrer and Hitler's control was now absolute.
Life in Germany changed violently.
Freedom of the press, expression, and public assembly were suspended.
Jews were initially branded and their businesses boycotted,
and eventually, Hitler would go on to have six million Jewish men, women, and children killed in concentration camps.
Hundreds of thousands of people were forced into sterilization for physical and mental imperfections.
The Hitler Youth became a way to brainwash the young.
Boys were trained to fight and returned home from camp violent.
Girls were told their purpose was to have many pure Aryan children
and they would sometimes return from camp pregnant.
When their parents were understandably horrified,
their children would threaten to turn them over to the Gestapo for standing in the way of Germany's greatness.
The standard greeting changed and you could be sent to a concentration camp for not using it.
This way, it seemed like everyone was a Nazi supporter.
If you dare to pose Hitler or speak out against him in any way,
you also would be sent to a concentration camp.
German Nationalism captivated the young Adolf.
Extreme ideology and anti-semitism vested in him as a young man living a hard life on the streets.
Germany's defeat in the First World War filled him with hatred and a thirst for vengeance.
A political movement that treated him like a god
and hundreds of thousands looking up to him as their savior made him a megalomaniac,
and soon, his aggressive foreign policies would drag the world into a second tragic global conflict,
otherwise known as...
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