Rise of Nazism

First it is important to have some clear terms, Nazi or Nazism refers to the National Socialist movement which is the contraction of the German word Nationalsozialistische.

The ideology we are going to talk about is Nazism which emerged in Germany in the 20's but did not reach significance until the 30's, when the harsh peace terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (1919) are coupled with the global crisis on Black Thursday in 1929. Globally, liberal democracies were strongly discredited. The world situation seemed to give reasons to the workers' demands traditionally linked to Marxism and nineteenth-century socialists. The accumulation of production led to the bankruptcy of enterprises, massive layoffs and the situation is further aggravated. In Germany the situation is even more acute since the devastating economic effects are compounded by the obligation to pay the tribute of defeat in the First World War and the popular discontent with the unfair situation that made the streets be filled with extremists demonstrations of all kinds, both left and right.

The Nazi group was one of the most destructive groups of people ever to assemble. This group was a faction of Germans who were anti-Semitic, and racist as a whole. They were later referred as the Nazi party and they had a plan. They wanted to exterminate all contaminating factors of the human race and they felt that the Jews were the main cause of an impure a stained race.  In order to accomplish this, they needed the support of people, as much support of Germans as possible. Also the leaders of the party were smart to jump into workers groups. The members of the Nazi group joined the Workers Party in Germany, which was an already established society and gain much support from the move.

The aftermath of the Great Depression that began in 1929 gave the Nazi party a great opportunity to seize power in Germany and begin its practice of genocide. The Nazi party had the right people in office and the right moves; they would be able to continue to rise in the infrastructure of the German social and political structure.

Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party; he had the will to help his party rise to the top of the German government. The Nazi party finally rose to power in January 1993 when Hitler was essentially handed the power of Germany. 

The main causes that led the rise of Nazism were the social unrest, the compensation that Germany had to pay after the war, upset the middle classes and the bourgeoisie because it impoverished. All this events were compounded by the fear of the communist expansion and the economic crisis of 29.

The geopolitical and economic conditions, promoted the growth of Nazism, capturing quickly the political stratus of Germany and with the support of the people to achieve the unification of Germany; that had been weakened in WWI, to rebuild the principle of German nationalism and to exclude any ethnic or economic group that interfere in their plans for power, giving rise to the persecution of the Jews and the German genocide in WWII.


References:
http://www.nazism.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

By: Nicole Miñan

Main Nazi Leader: Adolf Hitler (Rise to power)

The main leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, the ambitious man was born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary and he died at the age of 56 on April 30, 1945 in Berlin, Germany. He was an Austrian citizen until 1925 and a German after February 1932. 

Hitler was the most notorious of all the dictators. He was a politician and leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party). Hitler became dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945. During World War I he served bravely but he was a veteran and he joined the German Workers Party (precursor of the Nazi Party) in 1919.

Hitler became a powerful man because of his ambitious personality; he had a tremendous will-power.  Hitler had a lot of power over big crowds and individuals. However, it took Hitler many years of planning and struggle before he became Führer. In Germany the system set up after WWI was called the Weimar Republic and it faced many problems.

The rise to power of Hitler really starts in 1923, when in November of 1923; he and other Nazi leaders in Munich organized a demonstration in an attempt to take over the government. This event is known as the Munich Putsch, it was a fail and it led the leaders to jail. During his imprisonment Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) book in which the doctrinal foundations of Nazism are written. It is about Germany, its history, race and also partly autobiographical.  Since this inconvenient Hitler learned to concentrate in the legal path to power, by strengthening the party in the country and increasing the number of seats in the Reichstag (German Parliament). 

Later in the 1932 elections Hindenburg won, he was isolated, without support. He was forced to ask Hitler to take part of the government with him in 1933. Hitler takes over as Chancellor.  The strong Communist Party was the most serious immediate threat to Hitler. The formations of the elite of the SS (Schutz-Staffen) and the Hitler Youth organized the burning and destruction of books deemed anti-Germans. The SA attacked communist opponents and social democrats. On the night of February 1933 the Reichstag building was gutted by fire.  The SS set fire to the Reichstag and the Communists were accused. 

Hitler made the Reichstag pass an “Enabling Law” which gave him enormous powers; he used them to make all other political parties, apart from the Nazis, illegal. Hitler was not satisfied unless he had control of the army and the S.A. The social control was obtained in the “Night of the Long Knives” in which the SA leaders opposed to the policies of Hitler were murdered. The next month President Hindenburg died. Hitler took over the powers of the president and the title of Führer (Leader).

Hitler was an imposing figure and he was an avid of power, he was captivated of power. The pursuit of power is combined with his personality that influenced the masses, through his thought that the Aryan race was a pure race and that is what determines the conception of Nazism, that only the Aryan race would rule the world. 


References: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html

By: Nicole Miñan

Causes of the Great Depression

Before we start analyzing the main causes of the Great depression we need to know what the great depression was, it was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in the 20th century, it´s used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's economy can fall. All the world was affected. It was originated in the US. It was not just one factor that caused it, but several factors.

Here a list considering the most important facts that led to the Great Depression.

The stock market crash, on October 29, 1929 is one of the big causes. (The stock market is an everyday term we use to talk about a place where stocks and bonds are "traded", meaning bought and sold. For people, that is the first thing that comes to mind for investing. The goal is to buy the stock, hold it, and then sell the stock for more than you paid for it). Two months after this crash, stockholders lost more than 40 billion dollars. After some time the stock market regained some of it losses, but it wasn’t enough and America entered to the Great Depression.

After this stock market crash people started to be afraid and stopped to purchase items. This led to a reduction in the number of items produced and a reduction in the workforce. People started to lose their jobs so they started to be unable to keep up with paying for items they had bought through installment plans so their items were repossessed. As a consequence more inventories began to accumulate.

The percentage of people without work rose above 25% this was a huge problem to society.

Another cause: the American Economic policy with Europe. Because business began to fail, the government created the smooth-Hawley tariff in 1930 to help protect the American countries, raising US tariffs to high levels. This charged a high tax for imports and lead to less trade between America and foreign countries. As consequence the world trade declined. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff fostered distrust among nations leading to less cooperation in the political and economic realms.

And finally the drought on Mississippi Valley in 1930 was another cause. Droughts are caused by a depletion of precipitation over time. This drought was of such proportions that many couldn’t pay their taxes or other debts and had to sell their farms for no profit to themselves. Since this drought destroyed a large part of agricultural production, it contributed to the Graeat depression.


The Great Depression had really bad effects on society and in the world. People stayed without work and the entire world was subjected to this big crisis. The stock market crash was the biggest cause because many people stayed without work and banks closed, meaning lots of looses for society.


References:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_Great_Depression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015890/posts
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/f/smoot_hawley.htm

THIS CAN HELP YOU: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b1dTvNaL0Q

Valerie V.

Consecuences of the Great Depression

As I said before the great depression brought many changes in society and it affected in a huge way the economy during the decade preceding wwII.

It did not only caused economic problems, but  psychological problems, that’s why many people started to commit suicide because they thought there was no hope. Many also decided not to marry or to have kids because they didn’t want their kids to suffer these bad conditions of life. Also there was a loss of desire to go to college.

Breadlines and soup kitchens provided cheep or free meals to those people that didn’t have a work. 

The Great depression left many people without work, so they didn’t have money to pay their homes, they lost their homes. People start to constructs “houses” from anything they found, the group of theses houses constructed by people without money was called: Hoover-villes, this as a direct insult to president Hoover.  These houses became very popular because there was a huge amount of people without money and without work. People didn’t have money to buy many of the other things that they used to. The prices weren’t as they used to be, so it was hard to make any profit at all.

People before the great depression had bad farming techniques, this caused severe dust storms after the Great Depression from the destroyed top soil, so people without work and without homes were forced to leave the mid-west…huge problem right? This entire people went to the streets trying to find a work. Thirteen million people were unemployed. Some people had to move to other places to search for jobs, this caused the separation of many families.

Some people had their life savings destroyed after the great depression, some people started wishing for an authoritarian government that could save them from this situation, but imagine all the world being in crisis, not only the government can save them from the great depression, people should have a little more of hope that in the future things would change, because committing suicide or just going to the streets to ask for a job won’t make things better.

As consequence there were raising some fascist movements, Mussolini was already in power, and Hitler’s political base was growing in Germany.

Fortunately this time of crisis ended with the elections for the new president: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he had to make many reforms for fixing this crisis along with the people. He promised a "New Deal" in which the government would intervene to reduce unemployment by work-creation schemes such as painting of the post offices and street cleaning. In general the Great Depression had bad effects on society that later would be fixed up and most things would return as they were before, but it took time to restore things, it’s not easy to give work to many people, it’s not easy to give homes to many people. Nothing was easy because of the effects of the great Depression in which almost the entire world was affected.

References:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/effects-of-the-great-depression.html

http://predaking.hubpages.com/hub/Effects-of-the-Great-Depression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-cbtPdt0MQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyAZGqFtVjw&feature=related

Valerie. V

The terrifying Lebensborn project

How frightening and creepy it can sound an organization which provided maternity homes and financial assistance to the wives of SS members and single mothers, with the only goal of expanding the Aryan race? For me too much and almost impossible to understand. But it really exists and it was called the Lebensborn project or organization.

Lebensborn project that means “wellspring of life” or “fountain or life” was one of most secret and terrifying Nazi projects and it was founded by Heinrich Himmler on December 12, 1935, the same year the Nuremberg Laws outlawed intermarriage with Jews and others who were deemed inferior. Germany’s birthrate was decreasing and Himmler’s goal was to reverse the decline and increase the Germanic/Nordic population of Germany. Himmler encouraged SS and Wermacht officers to have children with Aryan women. He believed Lebensborn children would grow up to lead a Nazi-Aryan nation.

This society offered to young girls who were deemed “racially pure” the possibility to give birth to a child in secret. The child was then given to the SS organization which took charge in the child’s education and adoption. Both mother and father needed to pass a “racial purity” test. Of all the women who applied, only 40% passed the test and were admitted to the Lebensborn program. The majority of mothers were unmarried.

But this project became worst when Himmler issued a proclamation that every SS soldier should father a child before he left for war. The child could then be born and raised at the Lebensborn facilities. Through these policies the birth rate increased.

The Lebensborn transformed into places where “racially pure” Germen women wanted to meet and have children with SS officers. The children born were then taken by the SS. Lebensborn provided support for expectant mothers, we or unwed, by providing a home and the means to have their children in safety and comfort. The first Lebensborn home was opened in 1936 in Steinhoering, near to Munich.

But by 1939, the program had not produced the results Himmler had hoped, so he issued a direct order to all SS and police to father as many children as possible to compensate for war casualties. Luckily the order created controversy and Himmler backpedaled, but he never condemned illegitimacy outright. Himmler himself had two illegitimate children.

Lebensborn soon expanded to welcome non-German mothers. In a policy formed by Hitler in 1942, German soldiers were encouraged to fraternize with native women, with the understanding that any children they produced would be provided for.

But that was not enough, one of the most horrible side of the Lebensborn policy was the kidnapping of children “racially good” in the eastern countries after 1939, organized by the SS. They take by force children who matched the Nazis’ racial criteria (blond hair and blue or green eyes). Everything was done to force the children reject and forget their birth parents. The children who refused the Nazi education were often beaten; most of them were finally transferred to concentration camps and exterminated. The others were adopted by SS families. Thousands of children were transferred to the Lebensborn centers in order to be “Germanized.” It is known that thousand of children were not deemed "good enough" to be Germanized were simply exterminated.

After war of 250,000 children that were kidnapped and sent to Germany only 25,000 were sent back to their families. But several German families refused to give back the children they had received from the Lebensborn centers. In some cases, the children themselves refused to come back to their original family - they were victims of the Nazi propaganda and believed that they were pure Germans.

Did you know Anni Frid the famous ABBA singer was a Lebensborn child? Anni was born on, 1945 in Norway, five months after World War II end, as a result of a relationship between Synni (mother), and a married German sergeant, Alfred Haase. Anni-Frid always believed that his father had died when their boat sank back to Germany during the war. After a German magazine published the story of its origin in 1977, Anni-Frid discovered that his father never dies and she was able to meet him. Surprising isn’t it?

The racial policies of Nazi Germany, the things they made like the Lebensborn and the Holocaust, were terrifying and demented ideas that in the XXI century sound impossible and many times we don’t want to learn about them, because sometimes we have fear to face them. But these things happen. Many people got kill because of nothing. As we know Nazism ideology is mainly concentrate in racism and considered "Aryanism" as more important and claimed Aryan master race over all other races.

Many children were born and then kidnapped just because they believed that the Arian race was superior and they viewed the progress of humanity as depending on the Aryans. Imagine how many kids suffer in these places, their lives were a lie, they didn’t knew their real parents, and the most important thing they were not born from love.  This is not the only horrible idea of Nazism, to maintain the purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews, Romani, and the physically and mentally disabled also.

Racism is present in our times too, especially with homosexual people. Of course these measures sounds radical and exaggerated, but how many times we hear that a homosexual could not get to a restaurant or a party, anywhere, or a black child suffer from bullying at school, they are different ways of discrimination, but the point is the same.  The disappearance of discrimination is very difficult to achieve, but we have the obligation to do everything possible for it to decrease. We have to teach the little ones and those around us that if someone is different don’t have to be discriminated or mistreated because finally he or she is a human being, and he deserves respect.

References and for more information:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Lebensborn.html

http://bigsiteofhistory.com/hitlers-racism-and-political-theory-in-practice-between-the-world-wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel

By: Luciana López-Albújar

Woman after the World War I

Women in the XXI century are independent women, who are able to work at any job, study any career, as well as advocacy, engineering, diplomacy, such as education and psychology, whatever they wish;  they can participate in politics aspect, for example many of them are congressmen, ministers and something bigger, presidents. This means that women have reached equal value and rights as men, they are now treated equally (not in the entire world, but most of it), and have the same opportunities that men. But this equality achieved by women did not emerge from the overnight; the role of women has been changing since the beginning of history. One of the most important and main changes happened in the WWI and the Interwar Period.

World War I was to give women the opportunity to show a male-dominated society that they could do more than simply bring up children and tend a home. In World War One, women played a vital role in keeping soldiers equipped with ammunition and in many senses they kept the nation moving through their help in manning the transport system.

With so many young men volunteering to join the army, and with so many casualties in Europe, a gap was created in employment and women were called on to fill these gaps. World War I was to prove a turning point for women.

Before the war upper class women did not work, whilst women from the middle and the working class did. The working class women worked mainly as maids, in domestic service and in factories. They worked very hard to keep their families going. There were fewer middle class women working than working class but those that did, worked as teachers, nurses, telephonists, typists and as sales assistants. When women from the middle class married, most of them had to quit their jobs. Upper class women didn't have to work because they were all ready well off.

But the war soon changed all this; it allowed lower class women to work in higher careers like lawyers, accountants, civil servants and doctors. This is because of the Sexual Qualification Removal Act that actually allowed women to work in the same jobs as men, and the Right to Serve procession that made the government change their minds about women working as this was the only way to keep up production.

Women were also allowed to join the services, such as the Women's Land Army. With this women's services were established in 1917. Many women joined the Women's Land Army Auxiliary Corps, the Women's Royal Naval Services and the Women's Royal Air Force. Here they took over clerical and administrative jobs normally done by men. This enabled the men to go to the front.  Women also found employment in transport (the rail lines and driving buses and trams).

Once the war started women were quickly recruited into traditional nursing jobs. 23,000 women served as qualified nurses.  A further 80,000 volunteered as nursing assistants in the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD). Women in the VAD had only basic first aid training and were not paid, so they tended to come from wealthy families.

At the start in August 1914, those in political power had been left angered by the activities of the Suffragettes and women had no political power whatsoever. By the end of the war, in November 1918, women had proved that they were just as important to the war effort as men had been and in 1918 women were given some form of political representation. Women could stand for election into Parliament and Lady Astor was the first women to be elected into a seat in 1919. Women were able to vote at the age of 30 in 1918.

At that time nobody thought that a woman would fulfill such important and vital role, but this prove them they were wrong. They need women to survive. All of these made women's life change, they were treated like it was supposed. They were allowed to work in higher professions and in jobs like factories making ammunition, on the Women's Royal Air Force where they worked on planes as mechanics, on farms in the Women's Land Army, in shipyards etc, jobs that before 1914 had been for men only. They achieved what they want and were waiting, they achieved equality and they were able to have the same opportunities that men have.  This was the start of a new way of life to women, they will start to be value, their ideas will be listen, and their participation in the political aspect will be necessary. The life and the role of women in society will always change, no matter what, little changes or big ones are going to happen always.

References and for more information:

http://www.infobarrel.com/Roles_of_Women_in_WW1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/women_employment_01.shtml

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world_war_one_and_women.htm

http://www.sachem.edu/schools/seneca/socialstudies/guttman/per5/roleofwomen/link1.htm

By: Luciana López-Albújar

Nazi Education: Indoctrination

Nazism Education: Indoctrination

During 25 years from 1920 to 1945 the education of the German Youth was taken by the Nazi regime. They wanted to create a kind of students with a different view of the world.

To achieve this, boys and girls of ten years old, enter Nazi’s organizations to get a little fresh air of the movement.

This was wrong because the children will grow up with a single point of view and isolated from the rest of the world.

Four years later, when they were in their fourteens, they get into the Hitler youth organization and stay there for another four years. At that age, almost 18, they were ready to belong to the German arm forces.

As we can see, this method was a way of introducing propaganda in the minds of millions of children which will later serve and obey the Nazi regime. All of these methods were contrary to the universal way of teaching, that enables us to perform as world citizens with open criteria’s and strong values for our countries and neighbors.

The ideas that were taught, glorify Nordic and other Aryan races, while denigrating the other ones calling them an inferior class, incapable of creating culture or civilizations.
The teachers of these schools that didn’t obey to these ideas were thrown out from the school system because they were pointed as Jews or politically unreliable.  Almost 300,000 persons were these teachers that later joined the Nazi party, becoming the biggest number of any other profession.

As an example, devotion to the Nazi regime was very important in the training for these students, making Hitler’s birthday, April 20, a national holiday were they swore fidelity and loyalty to Hitler and make promises to serve the nation and its leader as future soldiers.

The schools also played an important role spreading the Nazi ideas. As an example, the classical and traditional books were removed from the classrooms, and were replaced by new textbooks that taught the students obedience, militarism, racism, love for Hitler and anti-Semitism.

In every classroom, there was a portrait of Adolf Hitler and the books frequently described the emotion of a child seeing the German leader for the first time. Toys were also a part of the racial and political propaganda that was given to the German Youth.

The principal instruments that the Nazi regimes use to spread their beliefs and theory were these two organizations, the Hitler Youth and the League of German girls. They receive an education oriented in a single way (to praise Hitler), sometimes more than their own families.

In 1936 membership in Nazi youth groups, became obligatory for all boys and girls between 10 and 17 years.

There was camping trips oriented to train the children to be loyal to the Nazi party and their future leaders. Sports and outdoor activities were combined and always having the ideology as the goal to achieve.

In 1945, the German forces surrendered and during the following years, the Allies started “de – Nazification process” by training the students, the youth and the Germans into new ways of democracy in order to forget the effects of this 25 years of Nazi propaganda  that were taught.

As a conclusion we can say that these kind of education has not a good end because in life whatever is imposed by force doesn’t have the positives results that are expected. By the other hand, when people are free to choose their education, we can see a better future for the world.

References:

http://histclo.com/schun/country/ger/era/tr/nazi-ed.html

http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/gcse/germany/education.htm#.T9gZbBfKEsc

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8UlviPpTzs

Francesca Montalbetti

Güernica

The Guernica paint

It’s a paint made by Pablo Picasso in 1937, during the Spanish civil war, after a German air attack to the Basque city of Guernica, in the north of Spain. It represents the impact that these attack produce to Picasso to this city mainly habited by women, children and old people, because men were at war.

In the Guernica we can find different symbols such as “the strong bull” that represents the Spanish people defending themselves against Franco’s (Spanish president Francisco Franco). We can also find “the horse” at the center of the paint that symbolizes Spanish femininity, and also a dove flying between the bull and the horse, representing the peace and liberty that the Spanish people desire. There are also another faces representing agony, sadness, some faces with an open mouth and exorbitant eyes.
Expressions could be the appropriate word to use for this kind of paintings.

The Guernica is painted in black and white with different tones of grey and blue that we can slightly see. The sizes are big (329 x 776 cm) and the style that Picasso used is called “cubism”, as a representative of the surrealist school, was a figure represents different images.

The paint consisted of 8 figures that suffered different changes while they were painted. At first sight we can think that Picasso painted this canvas in a disordered way, but then we know that first he studied the position and forms of the different components. Before he made his final painting, he made different studies of what could be the Guernica that we actually know.

The canvas is formed by a central pyramid, crowned by a little light bulb, a candle that is hold by a woman that comes out from a window and a head of an agonizing horse. This pyramid surrounds the body of the horse, the semi naked women to the right and the mutilated body of a man to the left. At the sides of the pyramid we see a woman with her raise arms and her head that holds a candle to the right. In the left side we see the bull in an upright and in an unmoved position denoting the Spanish symbol, a woman that holds with her arms the dead body of her son and a bird.

Guernica belongs to the mature era of Picasso and is one of the most important works of all the XX century art. It was painted at the request of the Director General of the arts of Spain, when it was ruled by the Republicans. They asked Picasso to paint this so it will be exposed at the international exposition of 1937 in Paris, in order to bring public attention to the republican cause during the Spanish civil war.

During the forties, Spain was ruled by Dictator General Franco and because of that, the Guernica paint that showed the war effects, could not be exhibit in Spanish territory. It was taken to New York Museum of modern art and stay there until 1981 after General Franco dead.
Here we can see the kind of authoritarianism that ruled Spain during this period.

Actually the Guernica is in Queen Sofia Museum in Madrid were we can see it permanently.

In conclusion, what I see in this paint is the indignation and frustration that the Spanish civil war produced on Picasso’s mind. The colors that he used (white, black and grey), was a way of describing the mood of the Spanish people. These colors represent sadness, agony, hopelessness, etc. I don’t see military weapons, or blood that can remind me the painting of a war, but the figures that appears in the Guernica, is way of describing the symbols that a war leaves.
This is the best representation of the Cubism era.

References:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(cuadro)

http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGLKpyWFyS8

Francesca Montalbetti