The Truth About Germany: Multiculturalism
In this week's episode, our roving reporter Michael Wigge dispels notions about the stereotypical German by looking at the more than 15 million people living in Germany who hail from a different ethnic background. To get a first-hand look at multiculturalism as experienced in Germany, Wigge goes straight to the capital Berlin which is home to residents from 190 different countries. He meets the German soul, hip-hop and reggae band "Culcha Candela" whose 7 members come from 5 different countries and speak four different languages. He also explores Berlin's working-class neighborhood Wedding where one in three inhabitants are either foreign-born or second-generation immigrants. Here he asks Germans as well as members of the country's largest ethnic minority group, the Turkish community, how much they actually know about one another.
Chapter 17 The West Between the Wars 1919-1939
Read a detailed account of the life of Hitler
Cf. http://library.thinkquest.org/19092/hitler.html
Test yourself on how Hitler came to power
Cf. http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/lessons/riseofhitler/index.htm
Nazi propaganda posters: Election, Sower of peace, 'One People, One Nation, One Leader,' Saving for a Volkswagen, Jews, Anti-Bolshevism.
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/nazi_propaganda_gallery.shtml
Hitler and His Views Cf. http://www.pearsonsuccessnet.com/snpapp/iText/products/0-13-133374-7/audio.html?fname=audio/audio_WH07Y03252.mov
Rise of Nazism
Victory of Nazism
The Nazi State
The State and Terror
Once in power, Hitler and the Nazis moved to build a new Germany. Like Mussolini, Hitler appealed to nationalism by recalling past glories. Germany’s First Reich, or empire, was the medieval Holy Roman Empire. The Second Reich was the empire forged by Bismarck in 1871. Under Hitler’s new Third Reich, he boasted, the German master race would dominate Europe for a thousand years.
To achieve his goals, Hitler organized an efficient but brutal totalitarian rule. Nazis controlled all areas of German life—from government to religion to education. Elite, black-uniformed system of troops, called the SS, enforced the Führer’s will. His secret police, the Gestapo (guh stah poh), rooted out opposition. The masses, relieved by belief in the Nazis’ promises, cheered Hitler’s accomplishments in ending unemployment and reviving German power. Those who worried about Hitler’s terror apparatus quickly became its victims or were cowed into silence in fear for their own safety.
Economic Policies
To combat the Great Depression, Hitler launched large public works programs (as did Britain and the United States). Tens of thousands of people were put to work building highways and housing or replanting forests. Hitler also began a crash program to rearm Germany and schemed to unite Germany and Austria. Both measures were a strong repudiation, or rejection, of the hated Versailles treaty.
Spectacles and Organizations
To build for the future, the Nazis indoctrinated young people with their ideology. In passionate speeches, the Führer spewed his message of racism. He urged young Germans to destroy their so-called enemies without mercy. On hikes and in camps, the “Hitler Youth” pledged absolute loyalty to Germany and undertook physical fitness programs to prepare for war. School courses and textbooks were rewritten to reflect Nazi racial views.
Triumph of the Will - Hitler Youth Rally 2
Fr Joseph Ratzinger, a priest amidst the Nazis
When Joseph Ratzinger was a child, Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich visited his parish. Young Joseph was so impressed that he set out to become either an artist or a Cardinal when he grew up.
Those first impressions led to playing with the idea of becoming priest.
Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother
"We had a small house altar, which our uncle had made for us. We also had paraments, albs that is, and tunicals. The seamstress who sowed the dresses for my mother and my sister, sewed these paraments, practically tunicals for us. It was great fun. And we paid attention to how it is done in church, to be able to re-enact it as accurately as possible."
The age of fun and games was over and soon the time came for big decisions. In 1939, at the age of only 12, Joseph Ratzinger entered the Freising seminary.
There he lived through the most difficult years of World War II. One of the consequences of the war was the interruption of the school year.
In 1943, 16-year-old Joseph was called up to duty, like all his fellow classmates and friends, and assigned tasks in Munich's anti-aircraft defense.
One night, an SS official woke everyone up in the barracks where the soldiers were sleeping. Playing on their fear and fatigue, the official tried to convince them to enroll as volunteers in the SS. Joseph said no because he wanted to become a priest. The official humiliated and made fun of him.
Monsignor Thomas Frauenlob
Former dean, Minor Seminary, Traunstein, Germany
"He always said that his calling to become priest came very early. But it was in this confrontation with National Socialism, this huge lie which took hold, that he moved to becoming a priest."
When we returned to Freising after the war in January 1946, his seminary was in ruins. That's why the first task for future priests was to rebuild it.
Monsignor Georg Ratzinger
Pope's brother
"Rebuild is saying too much. It was very seriously damaged, run-down and dirty. But there my brother and I helped rebuild it."
They studied hard in the seminary in Freising and later at the University of Munich until June 29, 1951, when Cardinal Faulhaber, the same man that so impressed Ratzinger as a child, ordained him a priest in the cathedral of Freising.
It was an unforgettable moment that Joseph Ratzinger remembers as the most important day of his life.
The Nazis also sought to purge, or purify, German culture. They denounced modern art, saying that it was corrupted by Jewish influences. They condemned jazz because of its African roots. Instead, the Nazis glorified old German myths such as those re-created in the operas of Richard Wagner (vahg nur).
Hitler despised Christianity as “weak” and “flabby.” He sought to replace religion with his racial creed. To control the churches, the Nazis combined all Protestant sects into a single state church. They closed Catholic schools and muzzled the Catholic clergy. Although many clergy either supported the new regime or remained silent, some courageously spoke out against Hitler.
—Martin Niemöller, quoted in Time magazine
Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran minister, preached against ruthless Nazi policies and was ultimately jailed. He later observed:
“[The Nazis] came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Cf. http://www.pearsonsuccessnet.com/snpapp/iText/products/0-13-133374-7/audio.html?fname=audio/audio_WH07Y03233.mov
Women and Nazism
Like Fascists in Italy, Nazis sought to limit women’s roles. Women were dismissed from upper-level jobs and turned away from universities. To raise the birthrate, Nazis offered “pure-blooded Aryan” women rewards for having more children. Still, Hitler’s goal to keep women in the home and out of the workforce applied mainly to the privileged. As German industry expanded, women factory workers were needed.
To understand this material, refer to the Women in Nazi Germany diagram.
Anti-Semitic Policies
In his fanatical anti-Semitism, Hitler set out to drive Jews from Germany. In 1935, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews of German citizenship and placed severe restrictions on them. They were prohibited from marrying non-Jews, attending or teaching at German schools or universities, holding government jobs, practicing law or medicine, or publishing books. Nazis beat and robbed Jews and roused mobs to do the same. Many German Jews fled, seeking refuge in other countries.
On November 7, 1938, a young Jew whose parents had been mistreated in Germany shot and wounded a German diplomat in Paris. Hitler used the incident as an excuse to stage an attack on all Jews. Kristallnacht (krih stahl nahkt), or the “Night of Broken Glass,” took place on November 9 and 10. Nazi-led mobs attacked Jewish communities all over Germany, Austria, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia. Before long, Hitler and his henchmen were making even more sinister plans for what they called the “Final Solution”—the extermination of all Jews.
To understand this material, refer to the
Jews in Nazi Germany diagram.
Reading Check
Summarizing
What steps did Hitler take to establish a Nazi totalitarian state in Germany?
Preview
Section 4 Cultural and Intellectual Trends
Mass Culture: Radio and Movies
Reading Check
Explaining
Why was the radio an important propaganda tool for the Nazis?
Mass Leisure
Reading Check
Examining
How did the "Strength through Joy" program help to support the Nazi regime?
Artistic and Literary Trends
Art: Nightmares and New Visions
Literature: The Search for the Unconscious
Reading Check
Examining
Why were artists and writers after World War I attracted to Freud's theory of the unconscious?
The Heroic Age of Physics
Reading Check
Explaining
How did Heisenberg's uncertainty principle challenge the Newtonian worldview?
Ch. 17 References
The Great Depression
Photo Essay on the Great Depression
Cf. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/tools/browser12.html
Diaries of people who lived during the Depression
Cf. http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/our_america/great_depression/
People and events of the Dust Bowl
Cf. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/dustbowl/
Original photographs from the times
Cf. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fatop1.html
Cf. Click on links to view original documents from Mussolini's life and times.
Cf. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/heroesvillains/g3/
Weimar:
Cf.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/weimaract.shtml
Nazis:
Cf.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/nazisact.shtml
Click on "Germany Image Gallery" for the slideshow.
Cf. http://www.worldwar2database.com/cgi-bin/slideviewer.cgi?list=preludegermany.slides
Read a detailed account of the life of Hitler
Cf. http://library.thinkquest.org/19092/hitler.html
Test yourself on how Hitler came to power
Cf. http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/lessons/riseofhitler/index.htm
Nazi propaganda posters: Election, Sower of peace, 'One People, One Nation, One Leader,' Saving for a Volkswagen, Jews, Anti-Bolshevism.
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/nazi_propaganda_gallery.shtml
Soviet Russia
Stalin and Industrialization of the USSR
See original documents and learn more about Stalin's methods.
Cf. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/heroesvillains/g4/
View Soviet posters
Cf. http://www.internationalposter.com/country-primers/soviet-posters.aspx
Review Stalin's takeover of power from the BBC:
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/russia/stalinsact.shtml
Find out more about jazz
Cf. http://www.smithsonianjazz.org/class/whatsjazz/wij_start.asp
Hitler Youth Anthem: Es zittern die morschen Knochen
This is the official song of the youth wing of the NSDAP, the Hitler Youth.
Television broadcasting in The Third Reich
Joseph Goebbels - Götterdämmerung (Wagner)
Hitler Speeches and Wagner Music, from the documentary "Triumph of the Will", footages of Hitler's speeches with Wagner (Ride of the Valkyries).
Email to gmsmith@shanahan.org
Wednesday: p. 551, Connecting to the Past, #1-3
