class 9 history topic : ordinary people and the crimes against humanity

• Many saw the world through nazi eyes and spoke their mind in Nazi language. They felt hatred and anger when they saw someone who looked like a Jew.
• They believed nazism would bring prosperity and improve general well being.
• But not every German was a Nazi.
• However, passive onlookers and apethetic witnesses. But they were too scared to act to protest against nazi.
• What Jews felt in nazi Germany, Charlotte Beradt secretly recorded people’s dream in her diary and published them in a highly concerting book called “THIRD REICH OF DREAMS”.
• They dreamt of their hooked noses, black hair, eyes, body movements, images published in Nazi press haunted the Jews in their dreams and they died many deaths before they reached the gas chamber.

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST

• Information about Nazi tricked out of Germany during last years and of what happened. when Germany was defeated the world came to realize horrors 
• Jews wanted the world to remember the sufferings they had during the nazi killing operations called “ HOLOCAUST”.
• When the war seemed lost nazi leadership distributed petrol to destroy all evidence available in the offices.
• The Jews witnesses in the ghettos preserved documents and camp inhabitants wrote diaries, notebooks, created archives.
• The memory of the holocaust live on in memories, documentaries, poetry, fiction and in many museums of the world today.
• These are a tribute to those who resisted it, an embarrassing reminder to those who collaborated and a warning to those who watched in silence.

class 9 history topic: the nazi worldview

• The crimes that nazi committed were linked to a system of belief and set of practices.
• Nazis ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s world view. According to this there was no equality between people but only a racial hierarchy.
• In this view blond, blue-eyed were Nordic Germans at the top while Jews were at the lowest rung. They regarded as anti-race.
• All other colored people were placed in between depending upon their external features.
• His ideas were used by racist thinkers and politicians to justify imperial rule.
• According to nazi strongest race would survive and weak one should perish and dominate the world.
• He believed that new territories had to be acquired for settlement to retain and intimate link with the place of their origin.
• Poland became the laboratory for racial experiment.

ESTABLISHMENT OF RACIAL STATE

• Nazi wanted only a society of pure and healthy Nordic Aryans. 
• They were considered desirable as they were seen as worthy, prospering and multiplying against all others.
• Who were undesirable, impure or abnormal had no right to exist.
• Gypsies and blacks were considered as racial inferiors and widely persecuted.
• Russians and Poles were considered subhuman and were forced to work as slave labour and many of them died through hard work and starvation.
• Jews had been stereotyped as killers of Christ and were barred from owning land.
• They lived in separately marked areas called Ghettos.
• From 1933-1938, Nazis terrorized, pauperized and segregated them to leave the country.
• In 1939-1945, they aimed at concentrating in certain areas and killed them in gas chambers in Poland.

THE RACIAL UTOPIA

• Under the shadow of war, Nazi proceeded to realize their murderous racial ideal. Genocide and war became the two sides of the same coin.
• Poles were forced to leave their homes and properties later occupied by ethnic Germans.
• Poles were herded like cattle In the other part  called General Government.
• The polish intelligentsia were murdered to keep the entire people intellectually and spiritually servile. 

HITLER'S RISE TO POWER {CLASS 9 HIS CHAP-2 }

• Hitler was born in Austria in 1889. He spent his youth in poverty. 
• When the first world war broke out he enrolled for the army acted as a messenger, became a corporal and earned medals for bravery. Treaty of Versailles made him furious and he joined a small group called German worker's party in 1919.
• He subsequently took over the organisation and renamed it National Socialist German Workers party. this party came to be known as Nazi Party.
• In 1928, nazi party got 2.6% votes in Reichstag. By 1932, it had become the largest party with 37% of votes.
• Hitler was a powerful speaker. He promised to weed out all foreign influences and resist all foreign conspiracies against Germany.
• He promised to build a strong nation and instill a sense of unity among the people.
• The red banners with the swastika, the nazi salute and the ritualized rounds of applause after the speeches were all part of this spectacle of power.
• Nazi propaganda skillfully projected Hitler as a messiah, a saviour as someone who had arrived to deliver people for their distress. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY

• On 30th January 1933, President Hindenburg offered him chancellorship in the cabinet of ministers.
• Having acquired power Hitler set out to dismantle the structure of democratic rule.
• The Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 suspended civic rights guaranteed by the Weimar constitution.
• On 3rd march the famous Enabling Act was passed. This act established dictatorship in Germany. It gave Hitler all powers, sideline parliament and rule by decree.

RECONSTRUCTION

• Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery, full employment through a state funded work creation program.
• He pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933 and reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan "one people one empire one leader".
• In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and England.
• In September 1940 a Tripartite pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan. Supportive of Nazi Germany were installed in a large part of Europe. By the end of 1940, Hitler was at the pinnacle of his power.
• He attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 which inflicted a crushing and humiliating defeat on Germany at Stalingard.
• When Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US base at Pearl Harbour, US entered the second world war. The war ended in May 1945 with Hitler's defeat and the US dropping of the atom bomb at Hiroshima in Japan.

birth of weimar republic { class 9 history chapter:2 }

BIRTH OF WEIMAR REPUBLIC

•Germany was a powerful empire in the early years of the twentieth century.

• It fought the First World War (1914-1918) alongside the Austrian empire and against the Allies (England, France and Russia).

•The Allies were strengthened by the US entry in 1917 and won the war in November 1918.

•The parliamentary parties met at the National Assembly at Weimar and established a democratic constitution

• Universal suffrage was allowed for electing the Deputies to the German Parliament (Reichstag).

Versailles Treaty

•As per the peace treaty signed at Versailles, Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13% of its territories, 75% of its iron and 26% of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.

•The War Guilt Clause forced Germany to pay compensation amounting to £6 billion.

• The resource rich Rhineland was occupied by the Allied armies.

•many Germans were not happy with the Weimar Republic.

The Effects of the War

•Europe had turned into a continent of debtors from being a continent of creditors.

• The Weimar Republic was forced to pay for the sins of the old empire.

• The supporters of the Weimar Republic became easy targets of the attacks by the conservatives.

Glorification of Soldiers

•After the First World War, the soldiers came to be placed above civilians all over Europe.

•Politicians and the media glorified the life of a soldier.

•Aggressive war propaganda and national honour became the theme of public debate.

•Democracy was a nascent idea which could not survive the war-ravaged Europe.

Political Radicalism and Economic Crises

•This was the time when the Spartacist League revolution began to rise on the pattern of Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

•The socialists, democrats and the Catholics met in Weimar to give shape to the democratic republic.

•uprising of the Spartacist was crushed with the help of war veteran organizations called Free Corps.

•The Spartacist later founded the Communist Party of Germany.

•The economic crisis of 1923 further heightened the political radicalization in Germany.

•Germany had to pay war reparations in gold which led to depletion of gold reserve.

•The French occupied its leading industrial area Ruhr; to claim their coal.

•Germany responded with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly.

•Finally, America decided to bail out Germany from this mess. America introduced the Dawes Plan.

•According to this plan, the terms of reparations were reworked to ease the financial burden on Germany.

The Years of Depression

•Some stability could be seen between 1924 and 1928.

• But that stability was short-lived because the industrial recovery in Germany was dependent on short-term loans.

•This support was withdrawn after the infamous Wall Street crash.

•The Wall Street Exchange crashed in 1929 and people sold their shares in a mad spree.

•This was the beginning of the Great Depression.

•On the streets of Germany you could see men with playcards around the neck saying “willing to do any work”.

•Unemployed youth played cards, simply sat at street corners.

•Desperately queued up at local employment exchange as jobs disappeared. They took criminal activities.