While often illogical and full of grammatical errors, Mein Kampf was provocative and subversive, making it appealing to the many Germans who felt displaced at the end of World War I.
With millions unemployed, the Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to the parliamentary republic and increasingly open to extremist options.
In , Hitler ran against year-old Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 36 percent of the vote in the final count. The results established Hitler as a strong force in German politics. Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor in order to promote political balance. Hitler used his position as chancellor to form a de facto legal dictatorship. The Reichstag Fire Decree, announced after a suspicious fire at Germany's parliament building, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial.
Hitler also engineered the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave his cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and allowed for deviations from the constitution.
By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. Military opposition was also punished. The demands of the SA for more political and military power led to the infamous Night of the Long Knives , a series of assassinations that took place from June 30 to July 2, Rohm, a perceived rival, and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler's political enemies, were hunted down and murdered at locations across Germany.
The day before Hindenburg's death in August , the cabinet had enacted a law abolishing the office of president, combining its powers with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named leader and chancellor. As the undisputed head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of the armed forces.
Fueled by fanaticism over what he believed was a superior Aryan race, he encouraged Germans to keep their bodies pure of any intoxicating or unclean substances and promoted anti-smoking campaigns across the country. From until the start of the war in , Hitler and his Nazi regime instituted hundreds of laws and regulations to restrict and exclude Jews in society.
On April 1, , Hitler implemented a national boycott of Jewish businesses. The law was a Nazi implementation of the Aryan Paragraph, which called for the exclusion of Jews and non-Aryans from organizations, employment and eventually all aspects of public life.
On April 1, , SA troopers urge a national boycott of Jewish businesses. Here they are outside Israel's Department Store in Berlin. The signs read: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews. Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden! The store was later ransacked during Kristallnacht in , then handed over to a non-Jewish family. Additional legislation restricted the number of Jewish students at schools and universities, limited Jews working in medical and legal professions, and revoked the licenses of Jewish tax consultants.
By , Jewish actors were forbidden from performing in film or in the theater. On September 15, , the Reichstag introduced the Nuremberg Laws, which defined a "Jew" as anyone with three or four grandparents who were Jewish, regardless of whether the person considered themselves Jewish or observed the religion.
In , Hitler and his regime muted their Anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions when Germany hosted the Winter and Summer Olympic Games , in an effort to avoid criticism on the world stage and a negative impact on tourism.
After the Olympics, the Nazi persecution of Jews intensified with the continued "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses, which involved the firing of Jewish workers and takeover by non-Jewish owners. With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad, as well as the landing of U. As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.
Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July , when Col. Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June , the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces. But after January , he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin.
With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan. After dictating his political testament, Hitler shot himself in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, , bringing the war in Europe to a close.
William L. Holocaust Memorial Museum. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The instability created in Europe by the First World War set the stage for another international conflict—World War II—which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating.
Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Since , the word has taken on a new and horrible meaning: the ideological and systematic state-sponsored Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners.
However, it evolved into a network of camps where Along with members of the newly In the s, however, the Nazi Party was still a fringe group of ultraextremists with little political power. It received only 2. But the worldwide economic depression and the rising power of labor unions and communists convinced increasing numbers of Germans to turn to the Nazi Party.
The Nazis fed on bank failures and unemployment—proof, Hitler said, of the ineffectiveness of democratic government. Hitler pledged to restore prosperity, create civil order by crushing industrial strikes and street demonstrations by communists and socialists , eliminate the influence of Jewish financiers, and make the fatherland once again a world power.
As an adult, Janine Simone Hopkins was encouraged by her family to record her experiences and reflections of her life in Paris during the German occupation.
Attached to Canadian and British forces, the first Americans to see ground combat in Europe witnessed disaster at Dieppe. This article examines how World War II marked an important moment in the political history of modern zoos.
When the war in Europe ended in the spring of , Romani survivors were scattered, exhausted, and traumatized. How Did Hitler Happen? Adolf Hitler. Like this article? Oxford Reference. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again.
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