[The Course]
Adolf Hitler was the head of the Nazi Party in Germany and the Chancellor of Germany during the period from 1933 to 1945. In 1934 Hitler became a Führer of Germany, which meant that he in fact became the dictator of Germany. Hitler was initiator and central figure of the World War II and Holocaust (genocide of Jews).
Information about Adolf Hitler is worth saving, because it has a lot of lessons to learn. In particular, the period of Nazi rule in Germany showed, how important it is to be a responsible citizen. Hitler demonstrated the easiness, with which millions of people can be disoriented and literally led to the state of animals and blood-thirsty murderers.
But we can’t blame only Hitler himself in that situation. Possibility of dictatorship in Germany was in much reasoned by too unfair attitude towards Germany after its defeat in the World War I.
And the horror of Holocaust should also be kept as a reminder of what can happen, if people are blamed only because they don’t fit the requirements established by nation leader or anyone else.
The other similar persons of that time like Italian leader Benito Mussolini or Francisco Franko from Spain could be chosen. Both of them were also dictators in their countries and had much in common with Hitler. But they were not chosen, because German Fuhrer was an example of much more violence towards other-minded people and impatience of contradictions then people mentioned above.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi system inspired by him are highly contradictory phenomena. And it would be wrong to mention only negative consequences of Nazi rule in Germany. So many Germans supported Hitler not only because of well-organized propaganda, but also due to significant and obvious progress in economy development.
The number of unemployed people in Germany was 6 million in 1933, when Hitler came to power. And in 1939, when the World War II started, it was only 302 thousand (Weber). This was achieved by both purely economic actions as well as by statistics manipulation. Economic efforts included building railroads, canals and high-speed roads (Autobahnen), planting trees in the forests, assisting farmers by digging irrigation ditches etc. By the late thirties Germans were fully employed and the prices were stable. From the other side, women and Jews (starting from 1935) were not included into statistics. And German unemployed people had a choice: whether to do any work provided by government or to be qualified as “work-shy person” and put into concentration camp (Trueman).
The famous “people’s car” – Vokswagen – was introduced in the 1930s. The idea was to develop a scheme, when a car would be affordable to many people. Vokswagen Beetle model, designed by Ferdinand Porsche, cost 990 marks, which was equal to 35 weeks salary of average works. People could take the car by instalment, having to pay as low as 5 marks per week (Trueman).
The reasonable way to get support from majority of population was to give them opportunities of cheap vacations. Holidays in Bavarian alps cost only 28 marks, cruise to Canary Islands cost 62 marks and for two-week tour in Italy person should have paid 155 marks. All these prices were affordable to the average German workers (Trueman). Therefore, it is not a big surprise, that they supported Hitler.
But we should not forget, that these benefits were available not for all social groups. In particular, during the Third Reich women lost all of their rights, which were granted to them in Weimar Republic: receiving high-quality education, opportunity to have high-paid jobs, voting rights. Propaganda developed a complicated system, according to which woman was treated mainly as a mother and a person, who should have cared about the family. This resulted in famous “Three Ks principle”: Kinder (children), Kirche (church), Küche (kitchen). There was even a special award to the women, who gave birth to many children – the Mother’s Cross.
The similar approach was followed in education. Until 1933 Germany had a decentralized education system, when majority of schools were operated by local authorities. After 1933 the central Ministry of Education became responsible for the education system in the whole country. At that time the number of Physical Education doubled and Religious Educations classes were cancelled. All these actions were performed in order to prepare children to future army service or hard physical work.
All the subjects in school were presented from Nazi point of view. History textbooks made an emphasis on the Germany military success in the past. Jews and Communists became “responsible” for recession. A special attention was paid to Jew children separation from other children. This allowed to make children strongly believe that Jews were bad people (BBC).
One of the most horrific examples of inhuman treatment in Germany was genocide of Jews. A lot of efforts were made to depict Jews as enemies of German state. The wide range of propaganda methods were used to achieve this goal. For instance, in 1937 series of photographs were published, on which there were disabled people. Images were subscripted in discriminative way like “Jews – typical subhumans”, “Jews with deformed headshapes”. The actions like this formed a very negative public opinion to Jews, which allowed to perform the anti-Jewish pogrom called “Kristallnacht” (the night of broken glasses), which was reported in German press as a heroic victory. Researchers believe, that most part of Germans realized, what was actually going on, but they were too scared to stand against this (Ezard, Kirsch).
Jews as well as other social groups, which were not in favor of German authorities(e.g., communists, homosexual minorities, representatives of nations treated as one-down like Slavic people, Roma etc.), were punished using a sophisticated system of concentration and death camps. There people were held in terrible conditions and were used as a source of free forced labor. In case of non-obedience to camp administration orders people risked being murdered. The methods of such murders ranged from being shot, which was considered to be the best way to die among prisoners, and from numerous kinds of tortures like beating, gas chambers and medical experiments.
If we talk about countries, which supported Hitler’s regime, we can name first of all the other two countries of so called Axis Powers – Italy and Japan. The Axis ally grew out of German, Italian and Japanese efforts pointed towards securing their expansionist interests in 1930s. The first thing done was signing agreement between Germany and Italy in 1936. Italian leader Benito Mussolini claimed that from now on all the rest of European countries would “rotate on Rome – Berlin axis”. The next step was signing Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan, which were joined by Italy one year later. And finally, in 1940, Tripartite Pact was agreed in 1940, which led to military integration between Germany, Italy and Japan (The Avalon Project). The Soviet Union was also a situational ally of Germany during the period between occupation of Poland by German and Soviet troops in September 1939 and start of German-Soviet war in 1941. Their allied relationships were secured by Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in August 1939 (Bernd).
The countries which stood against German policy were called Allied Powers. The main role in Allied Powers was played by the countries like the United Kingdom, the United States (after Pearl Harbor attack) and the Soviet Union (after German-Soviet war start). These three countries made the biggest contribution into the victory over Nazi Germany and other countries of Tripartite Pact and consequent ending of the World War II.
As for cultural aspect of the Hitler’s policy, it was also much dependent on political aims of the Nazi regime. General objective of German cultural policy in 1933-1945 was disseminating Nazi world view via returning to traditional “Nordic” values, excluding foreign influence on German nation (especially Jewish) and shaping new German society according to Nazi ideology. Such cultural policy was certainly very different from those accepted in most of other countries.
The first action done was nationwide book burning ceremonies in May 1933. The books by such “anti-German” writers as Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Bertolt Brecht were flamed. The new aesthetics brought by Nazis promoted realism trends, which glorified family values, village life, military heroism, self-sacrifice and “racial purity of the Arians”. By contrast, the art in the rest of the world developed other concepts like expressionism, abstractionism and surrealism. This fact of cultural difference was used by propaganda to underline superiority of German culture over “degenerate art” of other countries.
The Nazi approach to culture also influenced cinema art. Cinema was proven to be very effective propaganda tool, therefore it was subsidized by state authorities. Thanks to generous funding such high-quality films as “Triumph of the Will” and “Hitler Youth Member Quex” by Leni Riefenstahl emphasized the role of Nazi Party in the German progress (Holocaust Encyclopedia).
It seems reasonable to compare Adolf Hitler with another dictator of that time – Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union. There’s no clear answer on the question of who of them made more damage to the humanity. But both of them rested themselves upon extreme level of violence towards those, whom they considered to be their enemies. From one side, it may seem that Hitler actioned more violently. Suffice to say that he aimed to destroy the nations like Jews as a whole. And this objective was actively put into heads of German people making their values pervert and due to this killing as much as total of 11 million noncombatant people, who didn’t agree with Nazi ideology (Snyder).
In today’s world the life of the person like Adolf Hitler would have shaped completely different, because people’s attitude to such phenomena as Nazism, Holocaust and other ones, connected with Germany in 1933-1945 is today is clearly negative. And the most severe prohibition of Nazi ideology is at the place where it was originally born – in Germany. The most important evidence of the fact that people don’t want to get back is the level of neo-Nazi parties support. They appeared almost immediately after the World War II was over and they are present now in many parts of the world. However, elections results in different countries show that their popularity is low. And neo-Nazis popularity is even not influenced by modern economic crises – the principle, which Hitler successfully used in the process of coming to power in Germany in 1920s and 1930s. Absolute majority of people nowadays have a strong immunity to neo-Nazi and neo-fascist ideas.
Besides that, the context of 1920s and the present context of international situation are completely different. People now need to be much more responsible, because having the nuclear weapons they now have technical possibility to destroy the whole humanity. There was no such option at the beginning of the XX century. Therefore, today the emerge of such leaders as Adolf Hitler, who adhere to expansionist politics similar to Nazis in the 1930s, can lead to total humanity race extinction. Moreover, today’s system of checks and balances in the global political system is functioning much better that at the beginning of the XX century. By this reason emergence of new dictatorships in the modern world seems unrealistic.
The chosen historical information about Adolf Hitler will definitely be a benefit for future generations. Though this information and the lessons from it are usually negative, they will be a good example of what can be done with the whole nation for as few as several years in order to turn the majority of people into obedient followers of dominant ideology. There are certain risks of such situation repeat (though they can't be estimated as high), thus people should be very careful, when they define the further way of the whole society development on the elections.
Remembrance of events in Germany between two global wars will emphasize importance of the core humanity values, which were ignored in the Third Reich: equality of different people, zero tolerance to any kinds of discriminations (racism, antisemitism, gender discrimination etc.), multiculturalism, ability and readiness to perceive the point of view, which is different or even opposite to yours.
It seems that the most reasonable future scenario, which will require the lessons learned from the personality of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi ideology as a whole, is possible future expansion of such terrorist networks as ISIS. Their objectives are in some sense similar to those, which Hitler proclaimed. In particular, they adhere to a very specific kind of Islam religion, the main principles of which are built around the idea of the Judgement Day.
If described simply, this terrorist state is devoted to destroying “kuffar”, the people who don’t support radical ideas promoted by ISIS. In fact, according to ISIS ideology, all the modern states in the world can be referred to as “kuffar” states, including other Islamic states, which follow not that orthodox beliefs. This means that they are going to battle the whole world. Such approach is even more radical, discriminatory and violent than Hitler’s views (Withnall).
In case of any significant success in its territorial expansion ISIS policy and ideology can lead to even more catastrophic consequences comparing to those inspired by Nazis – especially in terms of attitude to human’s life. Human’s life is not worth anything ISIS, which is proven by numerous video materials from there, when ISIS combatants perform executions of hostages being absolutely cold-blooded at those moments. There are even special schools and training centers in ISIS, where children are taught to be violent and intolerant to “kuffar”. This fact also has something in common with youth politics in the Third Reich, which was mentioned above.
Thus, people representing civilized world should take into consideration this similarity and realize what can happen in case of their passive attitude to what is going on nowadays in the Mid-East.
Summarizing all the judgements and estimates mentioned above, it seems reasonable to save the historical information about Adolf Hitler personality, his specific biography and the system with dominating Nazi ideology, which he shaped in Germany. The clear understanding of Nazi’s ideology, social and cultural policy will allow future generations not to be disoriented just the same way – even if there will be people interested in repeating Nazi scenario of the 1930s. The modern threats like ISIS terrorist state have much in common with the Third Reich state, therefore attitude to them should be just the same. The only negative consequence of saving this information is that the principles of Nazi ideology will be saved and can be relatively easily misused in the societies, which are not familiar well with negative consequences of Hitler’s rule of Germany in 1933-1945. But it is hoped that people’s immunity to ideologies promoting discrimination, racism and violence is very strong and they will be able to avoid temptation to repeat such catastrophic social experiments in future.
Works Cited
Alvarez-Rivera, Manuel. “Elections to the German Bundestag.” Election Resources on the Internet. Election Resources on the Internet, 25 May 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.electionresources.org/de/>.
“Changing Life in Germany.” BBC Bitesize. BBC, n. d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/tch_wjec/germany19291947/2economicsocialpolicy1.shtml>.
“Concentration Camp System: In Depth.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n. d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007387>.
“Culture in the Third Reich: Disseminating the Nazi Worldview.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n. d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007519>.
Ezard, John. “Germans knew of Holocaust horror about death camps.” The Guardian.The Guardian, 17 Feb. 2001. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard>.
Johann, Bernd. “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: A 'honeymoon' for two dictators.” Deutsche Welle. Deutsche Welle, 23 Aug. 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.dw.com/en/molotov-ribbentrop-pact-a-honeymoon-for-two-dictators/a-17873179>.
Kirsch, Adam. “The System.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2015. Web.28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/the-system-books-kirsch>.
Snyder, Timothy. “Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse?” NYR Daily. The NewYork Review of Books, 27 Jan. 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-who-was-worse/>.
“Three-Power Pact Between Germany, Italy, and Japan, Signed at Berlin, September 27, 1940.” The Avalon Project. Yale Law School, 27 Sep. 1940. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/triparti.asp>.
Trueman, C. N. “The Nazis and the German Economy.” The History Learning Site. The History Learning Site, 9 Mar. 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/the-nazis-and-the-german-economy/>.
Weber, Mark. “How Hitler Tackled Unemployment and Revived German’s Economy.” Institute for Historical Review. Institute for Historical Review, 2011. Web.28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.ihr.org/other/economyhitler2011.html>.
Withnall, Adam, Romero, Danny. “Isis, a year of the caliphate: What is it that the so-called 'Islamic State' really wants?” Indepenent. Independent, 29 Jun. 2015. Web.28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-a-year-of-the-caliphate-what-is-it-that-the-so-called-islamic-state-really-wants-10352950.html>.
