The Holocaust, and the Power and Impact of Our Choices

To what extent was democracy in jeopardy in Weimar Germany?

Assignment Objective: To inquire about the problems Weimar Germany faced that
set the stage for the Nazi Party.

Instructions:
● Complete the tasks inside this document by analyzing the primary sources in the

attachments: “Society”, “Politics”, and “Economy”.

Task 1: Using the primary sources, identify examples that were good for the Weimar
Republic, and examples that were bad for the Weimar Republic.

>>>Use this sentence stem to shape your entries:
We see/find in the primary source (description of primary source; what is

happening/what does it say?)______________________________. This shows that
(explain how it was either good or bad for the Weimar Republic)__________________.

Politics

Excerpts from the
Weimar Constitution

Stabbed in the Back

Spartacists
Proclamation

Soldiers in German
Revolution

Kapp Putsch

Economy

Hyperinflation
statistics

Children stack inflated
currency

Women and Children
in line

Homeless Shelter

Worker’s
Demonstration

Society

Christian women go
vote

Jewish women
provides ID card

Anti Semitism incident

Education in Weimar
Germany

Task 2: Connections

1. How would you describe the overall mood and feelings by Germans in Weimar Germany?

2. What do you think was the most important factor in shaping distrust toward the Weimar
government? Explain.

3. In what ways was Germany divided in an “Us vs Them” society during this time? Be sure
to explain.

4. What do you think was the Weimar democracy’s greatest challenge to its existence?
Why?

Task 3: To what extent was democracy in jeopardy in Weimar Germany?
Write in a complete paragraph. State a clear topic sentence. Provide multiple points
supported with evidence from the primary sources, and a concluding sentence.

Unit Final Essay
Holocaust and Human Behaviour

Unit Essential Question: What does learning about the choices people made during the Weimar
Republic, the Nazi regime and the Holocaust teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?

The goal of our unit is to learn about the power and impact of the choices made during this history in
order to teach us about the power and impact of our choices today.

Essay Criteria

A. Structure

Introduction and Thesis
❏ Introduce the topic and purpose of the essay
❏ Present a clear and concise thesis–a 1-2 sentence statement addressing your response to the

essay question. What are 3 most significant lessons learned that teach you the power and impact
of our choices today? Organize them into themes.
❏ What happens when we don’t stand up for democracy? Your rights and freedoms? Each

other?
❏ What happens when people narrow their obligation toward others?
❏ What happens when we ignore our social responsibilities?
❏ What happens when we let others define our identities for us?

Body Paragraphs (3 in total, 1 paragraph for each lesson in your thesis)
❏ A clear topic sentence — includes a point (in our case, a lesson learned) you are making directly

connected to your thesis.
❏ Evidence — provide relevant and specific evidence of the choices that were made, and the

consequences of those choices (first 2 columns)
❏ Provide more than one piece of evidence per point. A variety (no more than 3) from

across the four research stages shows a stronger argument for your point.
❏ Use criteria (concepts of human behaviour) we have learned to assess the choices

and their consequences (identity, stereotypes, universe of obligation, us vs them
dynamic, pressures of conformity).

❏ Explanation — Column 3! You will notice that there will be overlap and patterns in Column 3
across the four stages of your research. Treat these as conclusions to your point. Fully explain
how the choices and consequences made in the past teach you about the power and impact of our
choices today with reference to major themes.

Conclusion
❏ Summarize the explanations (what did these lessons teach you about the power and impact of our

choices today?) presented in the three body paragraphs, and concluding thoughts such as what
this found knowledge will mean to you or can do for you in your life.

B. Formatting

❏ Title Page (Title, Name, Course, Block). See example for proper formatting.
❏ Minimum of 1700 words. Maximum of 2400.
❏ Paragraphs are indented, size 12 font, 1.5 line spacing.
❏ In-text citations. See example for proper formatting.

❏ Either directly reference the source’s title followed by a direct quote from the source, or
cite the source’s title at the end of the direct quote.

❏ Works Cited Page at the end of the essay. See example for proper formatting.
I am not asking you to do outside research. Any sources you use from class/Google Classroom
should be used as your supporting details for your evidence. For your Works Cited page, provide
the Titles of the sources in quotations that you used in your essay in alphabetical order. If there
isn’t a title (for example, an image), create one.

Title Page Formatting

The Holocaust, and the Power
and Impact of Our Choices

Jacob Bower

Social Studies 11
Block A

Works Cited Page Formatting

Works Cited

“A Matter of Obedience”

“Bystanders in Hartheim Castle”

“Difficult Choices in Poland”

“Hyperinflation Statistics”

“Public Humiliation”

“Who Chose the Nazi Party”

In-text Citation Example

Direct reference of the title followed by quote:

In “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato says, “He [human/prisoner] would be a wit’s end and in addition would

consider that what he previously saw [with his own eyes] was more unhidden than what was now being

shown [to him by someone else].”

Direct quote followed by Title in parenthesis:

This is shown when Plato says, “He [human/prisoner] would be a wit’s end and in addition would

consider that what he previously saw [with his own eyes] was more unhidden than what was now being

shown [to him by someone else]” (“Allegory of the Cave”).

Incomplete Developing Meeting Exceeding

Ethical Dimension

Uses Criteria
– Concepts of

human
behaviour
(identity,
stereotypes,
universe of
obligation,
us vs them
dynamic,
pressures of
conformity).

Student has not used
criteria to draw
conclusions from the
choices made in the
past to teach them
about the power and
impact of choices
today. Conclusions
are not explained,
appropriate, based on
relevant themes nor
addresses the essay
question.

Student uses some
criteria to draw
conclusions from the
choices made in the
past to teach them
about the power and
impact of choices
today. Conclusions
are somewhat
explained, reasonable,
based on relevant
themes, and addresses
the essay question.

Student uses most
criteria to draw
conclusions from the
choices made in the
past to teach them
about the power and
impact of choices
today. Conclusions
are explained,
reasonable, based on
relevant themes, and
mostly addresses the
essay question.

Student uses criteria
to draw conclusions
from the choices
made in the past to
teach them about the
power and impact of
choices today.
Conclusions are
articulate, insightful,
based on relevant
themes, and specific
to the essay question.

Essay Criteria

A. Structure
B. Formatting

Student has not
applied any of the
necessary criteria and
there are major errors
throughout the essay.
The essay has been
entirely
compromised.

Student has applied
some of the necessary
criteria with some
major errors which
has compromised the
essay to some degree.

Student has applied
all the necessary
criteria with some
minor errors without
compromising the
essay.

Student has
successfully applied
all the necessary
essay criteria without
errors in a masterful
way.

Written Clarity Student’s essay
contains many clarity
issues. Their points,
supporting details and
explanations contain
glaring spelling and
grammar errors, and
gaps that completely
take away from the
flow and train of
thought of the essay.

Student’s essay
contains some clarity
issues. Their points,
supporting details and
explanations contain
spelling and grammar
errors, and gaps that,
at times, take away
from the flow and
train of thought of the
essay.

Student’s essay is
mostly clear and
concise. Their points,
supporting details and
explanations contains
some minor spelling
and grammar errors
but overall the essay
is clear.

Student’s essay is
written clearly and
concisely. All points
are articulated,
supported with
evidence, and fully
explained without
errors, gaps or
confusing language.

Opportunism During Kristallnacht

Despite Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller’s instructions to state police that plundering be

held to a minimum (see reading, The Night of the Pogrom), the theft of goods, property, and

money from Jews by German police, SS members, and civilians amid the chaos of Kristallnacht

was widespread.

German newspapers reported the looting of and theft from Jewish-owned businesses.

According to Berlin’s Daily Herald newspaper, “The great shopping centers looked as though

they had suffered an air raid . . . Showcases were torn from the walls, furniture broken, electric

signs smashed to fragments.” The News Chronicle newspaper, also from Berlin, reported

looters “smashing with peculiar care the windows of jewellery shops and, sniggering, stuffing

into their pockets the trinkets and necklaces that fell on the pavements.”

In Vienna, Helga Milberg, who was eight years old during Kristallnacht, recalled that all

of the goods and equipment from her father’s butcher shop were stolen during the pogrom.

“My father saw that the other storekeepers had helped themselves to everything,” she wrote.

According to historian Martin Gilbert, when a British reporter asked a Nazi official

about the widespread theft of goods from Jewish businesses during Kristallnacht in Vienna, the

official responded:

“We began seizing goods from Jewish shops because sooner or later they would have been

nationalised [confiscated by the government] anyway.” The goods thus seized, the official

added, “will be used to compensate us for at least part of the damage which the Jews have been

doing for years to the German people.”

Gilbert also describes how Kurt Füchsl’s family lost their home.

Seven-year-old Kurt Füchsl was bewildered by the events of Kristallnacht, and by being

forced to leave home with his family early on the morning of November 10. He later recalled:

“What happened, as recounted to me by my Mother, was that an interior decorator had taken a

picture of our beautiful living room and displayed the picture of our apartment in his shop

window. A Frau [Mrs.] Januba saw the picture and heard that we were Jewish. She came

around to the apartment and asked if it was for sale. She was told it wasn’t, but a few days later,

on the morning of Kristallnacht, she came back with some officers and said, ‘This apartment is

now mine.’ She showed a piece of paper with a swastika stamped on it and told us that we

would have to leave by six that evening.” Kurt Füchsl’s mother protested to the officers who

were accompanying Frau Januba that she had a sick child at home who was already asleep. “All

right,” they told her, “but you have to get out by six in the morning.”

German officials also stole cash from Jewish businesses and families. Two weeks after

Kristallnacht, Margarete Drexler wrote the following letter to the Gestapo, requesting the

return of the money officials had taken from her home in Mannheim, Germany:

Mannheim, 24 November 1938

Margarete Drexler, Landau Pfalz Suedring St. 10

To the Secret State Police Landau (Pfalz) The sum of 900 Marks in cash was confiscated from

me in the course of the action of 10 November. I herewith request to act for the return of my

money, as I need it urgently for me and my child’s livelihood. I hope that my request will be

granted, as my husband died as a result of his injuries during the war — he fought and died for

his fatherland with extreme courage — and I am left without any income. Until recent years

you could have found a photo of my husband on the wall next to the picture of

Generalfeldmarschall [Paul] von Hindenburg in the canteen of the 23 Infantry regiment in

Landau. This was done to honour his high military performance. His medals and decorations

prove that he fought with great courage and honour. He received: The Iron Cross First Class,

The Iron Cross Second Class, The Military Order of Merit Fourth Class with swords. The

Military Order of Sanitation 2 class with a blue-white ribbon. This ribbon is usually bestowed

only upon recipients of the Max Joseph Order, which accepts only members of the nobility. I

can only hope that as a widow of such a man, so honoured by his country, my request for the

return of my property will not be in vain.

With German greetings,

(signed) Frau Margarete Drexler

Widow of reserve staff surgeon

Dr. Hermann Drexler

In 1940, Drexler was arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp in France, where

she died.

The Night of the Pogrom

Hugo Moses described what he experienced on Kristallnacht and in the days that

followed:

On the evening of 9 November 1938, the SA brown-shirts and the SS black-shirts met in

bars to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of [the Nazis’] failed putsch in Munich. Around

eleven o’clock in the evening, I came home from a Jewish aid organization meeting and I can

testify that most of the “German people” who a day later the government said were responsible

for what happened that night lay peacefully in bed that evening. Everywhere lights had been

put out, and nothing suggested that in the following hours such terrible events would take

place.

Even the uniformed party members were not in on the plan; the order to destroy Jewish

property came shortly before they moved from the bars to the Jewish houses. (I have this

information from the brother of an SS man who took an active part in the pogroms.)

At 3 a.m. sharp, someone insistently rang at the door to my apartment. I went to the

window and saw that the streetlights had been turned off. Nonetheless, I could make out a

transport vehicle out of which emerged about twenty uniformed men. I recognized only one of

them, a man who served as the leader; the rest came from other localities and cities and were

distributed over the district in accordance with marching orders. I called out to my wife: “Don’t

be afraid, they are party men; please keep calm.” Then I went to the door in my pajamas and

opened it.

A wave of alcohol hit me, and the mob forced its way into the home. A leader pushed by

me and yanked the telephone off the wall. A leader of the SS men, green-faced with

drunkenness, cocked his revolver as I watched and then held it to my forehead and slurred:

“Do you know why we’ve come here, you swine?” I replied, “No,” and he went on, “Because of

the outrageous act committed in Paris, for which you are also to blame. If you even try to move,

I’ll shoot you like a pig.” I kept quiet and stood, my hands behind my back, in the ice-cold

[draft] coming in the open door. An SA man, who must have had a little human feeling,

whispered to me: “Keep still. Don’t move.” During all this time and for another twenty minutes,

the drunken SS leader fumbled threateningly with his revolver near my forehead. An

inadvertent movement on my part or a clumsy one on his and my life would have been over. If I

live to be a hundred, I will never forget that brutish face and those dreadful minutes.

In the meantime, about ten uniformed men had invaded my house. I heard my wife cry:

“What do you want with my children? You’ll touch the children over my dead body!” Then I

heard only the crashing of overturned furniture, the breaking of glass and the trampling of

heavy boots. Weeks later, I was still waking from restless sleep, still hearing that crashing,

hammering, and striking. We will never forget that night. After about half an hour, which

seemed to me an eternity, the brutish drunks left our apartment, shouting and bellowing. The

leader blew a whistle and as his subordinates stumbled past him, fired his revolver close to my

head, two shots to the ceiling. I thought my eardrums had burst but I stood there like a wall. (A

few hours later I showed a police officer the two bullet holes.) The last SA man who left the

building hit me on the head so hard with the walking stick he had used to destroy my pictures

that a fortnight later the swelling was still perceptible. As he went out, he shouted at me:

“There you are, you Jewish pig. Have fun.” . . .

Towards dawn, a police officer appeared in order to determine whether there was any

damage visible from the outside, such as broken window glass or furniture thrown out into the

street. Shaking his head, he said to us, as I showed him the bullet holes from the preceding

night: “It’s a disgrace to see all this. It wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t had to stay in our

barracks.” As he left, the officer said, “I hope it’s the last time this will happen to you.”

Two hours later, another police officer appeared and told Moses, “I’m sorry, but I have

to arrest you.”

I said to him, “I have never broken the law; tell me why you are arresting me.” The

officer: “I have been ordered to arrest all Jewish men. Don’t make it so hard for me, just follow

me.” My wife accompanied me to the police station. . . .

At the police station, the officers were almost all nice to us. Only one officer told my

wife: “Go home. You may see your husband again after a few years of forced labor in the

concentration camp, if he’s still alive.” Another officer, who had been at school with me, said to

his comrade: “Man, don’t talk such nonsense.” To my wife he said: “Just go home now, you’ll

soon have your husband back.” A few hours later my little boy came to see me again. The

experiences of that terrible night and my arrest were too much for the little soul, and he kept

weeping and looking at me as if I were about to be shot. The police officer I knew well took the

child by the hand and said to me: “I’ll take the child to my office until you are taken away. If the

boy saw that, he’d never forget it for the rest of his life.”

After several weeks in prison, Moses was released, thanks to the wife of an “Aryan”

acquaintance. Soon after, he and his family managed to leave Germany. Moses told his story

for the first time in 1940, just a year and a half after the pogrom. He refused to reveal the name

of his town or the identities of those who helped him, because he did not want to endanger

those left behind.

A Visitor’s Perspective on Kristallnacht

René Juvet, a Swiss merchant, was visiting friends in the countryside during the events of

Kristallnacht. The next morning he drove to the town of Bayreuth, where he saw people

watching as houses burned to the ground. At one point, he got out of his car to take a closer

look at a crowd gathered in front of a warehouse where dozens of Jews were being held.

I was reluctant to add myself to the assembled crowd but I had to see with my own eyes

what was happening there. Through the great windows you could see perhaps fifty people

in a bleak, empty hall. Most of them stood against the wall, staring gloomily, a few walked

restlessly about, others were sitting—in spite of the severe cold—on the bare floor. Almost

all of them, incidentally, were inadequately dressed; some only had thrown on a topcoat

over their nightclothes. The SA people who had picked them up during the night had

apparently not allowed them time to put on more clothing. Compared to what happened

later, this was only a small beginning.

At the end of his description of Kristallnacht, Juvet writes:

To the credit of my [non-Jewish German colleagues] I can report that they—with the

exception of Neder, who took part in the operation in his role as an SA

Führer—disapproved of the excesses. Some more, others less. Waldmeyer said nothing,

but he was very thoughtful in ensuing days; Hoffmann, who could almost count himself as

one of the old guard, made no attempt to conceal his horror from me. I also heard that the

workers were outraged. . . .

A little while after this I met our Nuremberg representative, a harmless and industrious

person. He was a member of the SA but was, by chance, kept away from home that

evening. . . .

“I am happy I was not in Nuremberg that evening, it certainly would have rubbed me the

wrong way,” said our representative.

I asked him whether he would have taken part if he had been there. “Of course,” he said,

“orders are orders.”

His words clarified a whole lot of things for me.

A Family responds to Kristallnacht

Marie Kahle (a teacher), her husband (a university professor and Lutheran pastor), and their

sons witnessed the events of Kristallnacht in the city of Bonn and the effects those events had

on their Jewish neighbors and colleagues. Marie Kahle wrote about the choices she and her

family made the next day:

On 10 November, 1938, at 11:30 in the morning, the wife of a Jewish colleague came to me and

reported that both the synagogues in Bonn had been set on fire and that SS men had destroyed

the Jewish shops, to which I replied: “That can’t be true!” She gave me a manuscript to keep,

her husband’s life work. Then one of my sons brought the same news.

My third son immediately went, without my knowing it, to a Jewish clockmaker’s shop,

helped the man’s wife hide a few things and brought home a chest with the most valuable

jewelry and time-pieces. Then he went to a chocolate shop, warned the owner and helped her

move tea, coffee, cocoa, etc. to a room in the very back of the building. While three SS men

were destroying everything in the front of the shop, he slipped out the back door with a suitcase

full of securities and rode home with it on his bicycle. Later on, he spent weeks selling these

hidden things to our acquaintances and thus made money for the two shop owners that the

Gestapo knew nothing about. A Jewish colleague of my husband’s stayed with us all day long

on 10 November and thus avoided being arrested.

From 11 November on, my sons worked furiously to help the Jewish shopkeepers clear

out their shops. I couldn’t take part in this myself because I did not want to endanger my

husband’s position. I could only visit the poor people. During one of these visits, my eldest son

and I were surprised by a policeman, who wrote down my name. The consequence was a

newspaper article . . . for 17 November 1938 headed “This is a betrayal of the people: Frau

Kahle and her son help the Jewess Goldstein clear out.”

On the basis of this newspaper article, my husband was immediately suspended and he was

forbidden to enter . . . the university buildings. My eldest son was also forbidden to enter the

university. He was convicted by a disciplinary court. . . . During the night, our house was

attacked. Window panes were broken, etc. . . . The police came a short time later but went away

again immediately. One of the policemen advised me to look out into the street: there, we

found written in large red letters on the pavement: “Traitors to the People! Jew-lovers!” We

washed the writing away with turpentine.

However, since the people were constantly coming back in their car, I openly rode away

on my bicycle. I did not want to be beaten to death in front of my children and I was also only a

danger to my family. I found shelter in a small Catholic convent, where the nuns were kind

enough to look after me and my youngest child. During the interrogation by the Gestapo a few

days later, I was asked whether I knew the license number of the car whose occupants had

made the attack. When I said “no”, I was released. As I came out of the Gestapo building, this

same car stood in front of the door. I even recognized the driver.

Particularly important in this whole period was a visit in 1939 by a well-known

neurologist who, as Reich Education Director . . . was well up on Jewish matters. He told me,

on two afternoons when we were alone, what would happen to me and my family along the

lines of “Jews and friends of Jews must be exterminated. We are exterminating friends of Jews

and all their offspring.” Then he said that I could not be saved, but my family could. When I

asked what I should do, he gave his answer in the form of a couple of stories in which the wife

committed suicide and thereby saved her family. Then he asked: “How much Veronal [a

sleeping pill] do you have?” When I answered, “Only two grams,” he wrote me a prescription

for the quantity that I was lacking. I carried the Veronal around with me for a few days, but

then decided not to die, but instead to try to escape abroad with my family.

In four months, only three of my husband’s colleagues dared to visit us. I was not

allowed to go out during the day. When one evening I met a colleague’s wife and complained

that no friends or acquaintances had dared to visit me, she said: “That’s not cowardice; we are

just facing facts.”

Soon after, the family left Germany.

Discovering Jewish Blood

The Nuremberg Laws turned Jews from German citizens into “residents of Germany.”

Technically, the law made intermarriage between Jews and German citizens a criminal offense,

but existing marriages were not dissolved or criminalized, perhaps in order to maintain public

support.

The laws transformed the lives of Jews all over Germany, including thousands of people who

had not previously known their families had Jewish heritage. Among them were Marianne

Schweitzer and her siblings.

Although we were not a churchgoing family, we observed Christmas and Easter in the

traditional ways and belonged to the Lutheran church. My parents, my three siblings and I

were all baptized and I took confirmation classes with Martin Niemöller, the former

U-boat commander and his brother who substituted when Martin was in prison for

anti-Nazi activities.

It was in 1932 that my [older] sister Rele provoked my father to reveal our Jewish ancestry

for the first time. She played the violin and rejected a violin teacher because he “looked too

Jewish.” Our father had responded in a rather convoluted way by saying, “Don’t you know

that your grandmother came from the same people as Jesus . . . ?”

Our mother’s side, the Körtes, were “Aryan” by Hitler’s standards. But our father’s parents,

Eugen Schweitzer and Algunde Hollaender were Jews born in Poland who had been

baptized as adults. My father and his two brothers were considered Jews by Hitler’s laws.

Though all were married to non-Jewish wives, our lives were dramatically changed. The

whole family was devastated and worried about our future. My mother’s “Aryan” side

stood by my father. My Körte grandmother said, “If Hitler is against Ernst [my father], I

am against Hitler.”

We heard no anti-Jewish remarks at home, but the antisemitism of that time was so

pervasive and the images in periodicals such as Der Stürmer* so ugly, that Rele later wrote

of her shock at learning her relation to “monsters.” She considered herself “the typical

German girl with blond, curly hair.” I took the news more in stride. I was happy to be able

to stay in school and glad not to be eligible to join Hitler Youth. . . .

In September of 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were introduced. My “Jewish” father was

barred from treating “Aryan” patients, employing “Aryans,” attending concerts or the

theater, or using public transportation. Rele had passed her Abitur, the certification of

completing a high school degree, but as a Mischling**, was ineligible to attend university.

She couldn’t marry her “Aryan” boyfriend Hans, a medical student.

Der Stürmer* – anti-semitic newspaper

Mischling** – ‘mixed blood’

First Regulation to the Reich
Citizenship Law
Note: This law, passed on November 14, 1935, amended the original Reich Citizenship Law, passed on
September 15, 1935.

Article 3

Only the Reich citizen, as bearer of full political rights, exercises the right to vote in political affairs or
can hold public office . . .

Article 4

1. A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. He has no right to vote in political affairs and he cannot
occupy public office.

2. Jewish [government] officials will retire as of December 31, 1935 . . .

Article 5

1. A Jew is anyone who is descended from at least three grandparents who are racially full Jews . . .

2. A Jew is also one who is descended from two full Jewish parents, if (a) he belonged to the Jewish
religious community at the time this law was issued, or joined the community later, (b) he was
married to a Jewish person, at the time the law was issued, or married one subsequently, (c) he is
the offspring of a marriage with a Jew, in the sense of Section I, which was contracted after the Law
for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor became effective, (d) he is the offspring of
an extramarital relationship with a Jew, according to Section I, and will be born out of wedlock after
July 31, 1936 . . .1

1 Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Documents on Nazism 1919–1945 (New York: Viking Press, 1974), 463–67.

Handout

© Facing History and Ourselves visit www.facinghistory.org

From Democracy to Dictatorship

While the Nazis were focusing on putting Germans back to work in the midst of the Great

Depression, they also unleashed attacks on their political opposition as soon as Hitler became

chancellor. On the evening of February 27, 1933, alarms suddenly rang out in the Reichstag as

fire destroyed the building’s main chamber. Within 20 minutes, Hitler was on the scene to

declare: “This is a God-given signal! If this fire, as I believe, turns out to be the handiwork of

Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop us now from crushing out this murderous

pest with an iron fist.”

Marinus van der Lubbe was the man the Nazis captured that night. He confessed to setting the

building ablaze but repeatedly insisted that he had acted alone. Adolf Hitler paid no attention

to the confession. He saw a chance to get rid of what he considered the Nazis’ most immediate

rival—the Communists—so he ordered the arrest of anyone with ties to the Communist Party.

Within days, the Nazis had thrown 4,000 Communists and their leaders into hastily created

prisons and concentration camps. By the end of March, 20,000 Communists had been

arrested, and by the end of that summer more than 100,000 Communists, Social Democrats,

union officials, and other “radicals” were imprisoned.

Were any of them responsible for the fire? The question was irrelevant to the Nazis. They had
been given an opportunity to get rid of their enemies, and they took it.

After the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933, Hitler ordered the arrest of anyone with ties to

the Communist Party. By the end of March, approximately 20,000 people had been arrested.

The day after the fire, February 28, 1933, President Hindenburg, at Hitler’s urging, issued two

emergency decrees designed to make such arrests legal, even those that had already taken

place. Their titles—“For the Defense of Nation and State” and “To Combat Treason against the

German Nation and Treasonable Activities”—reveal how Hitler used the fire to further his own

goals. The two decrees suspended, until further notice, every part of the constitution that

protected personal freedoms. The Nazis claimed that the decrees were necessary to protect the

nation from the “Communist menace.”

On March 5, 1933, the government held an election for control of the Reichstag. The Nazis won

288 seats (43.9% of the vote). The Communists won 81 seats (12.3%), even though their

representatives were unable to claim those seats—if they appeared in public, they faced

immediate arrest. Other opposition parties also won significant numbers of seats. The Social

Democrats captured 119 seats (18.3%), and the Catholic Center Party won 73 seats (11.2%).

Together, the Communist, Social Democratic, and Catholic Center Parties won nearly as many

seats as the Nazis. But their members distrusted one another almost as much as they feared the

Nazis. As a result, these parties were unable to mount a unified opposition to the Nazi Party.

Still under Nazi control, the Reichstag passed a new law on March 21, 1933, that made it a

crime to speak out against the new government or criticize its leaders. Known as the Malicious

Practices Act, the law made even the smallest expression of dissent a crime. Those who were

accused of “gossiping” or “making fun” of government officials could be arrested and sent to

prison or a concentration camp.

Then, on March 24, 1933, the Reichstag passed what became known as the Enabling Act by a

vote of 141 to 94. It “enabled” the chancellor of Germany to punish anyone he considered an

“enemy of the state.” The act allowed “laws passed by the government” to override the

constitution. Only the 94 Social Democrats voted against the law. Most of the other deputies

who opposed it were in hiding, in prison, or in exile.

That same day, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler, then police commissioner for the city of

Munich, held a news conference to announce the opening of the first concentration camp near

Dachau, Germany. According to Himmler, the camp would have the capacity to hold 5,000

people, including Communist Party members and Social Democrats “who threaten the security

of the state.” Himmler continued, according to a newspaper report:

On Wednesday, 22 March, the concentration camp at the former gunpowder factory

received its first allocation of 200 inmates. . . . The occupancy of the camp will gradually

increase to 2,500 men and will possibly be expanded to 5,000 men later. A labor service

detachment recently prepared the barrack for the first 200 men and secured it for the time

being with a barrier of triple barbed-wire. The first job of the camp inmates will be to

restore the other stone buildings, which are very run-down. . . . The guard unit will initially

consist of a contingent of 100 state police, which are to be further reinforced by SA [storm

trooper] auxiliary police guards. . . . No visits are allowed at the Concentration Camp in

Dachau.

Throughout the spring and early summer of 1933, the Nazis used the new laws to frighten and

intimidate Germans. By May, they forced all trade labor unions to dissolve. Instead, workers

could only belong to a Nazi-approved union called the German Labor Front.

Then, in June, Hitler outlawed the Social Democratic Party. The German Nationalist Party,

which was part of Hitler’s coalition government, dissolved after its deputies were told to resign

or become the next target. By the end of the month, German concentration camps held 27,000

people. By mid-July, the Nazi Party was the only political party allowed in the country. Other

organizations were also brought into line. As historian William Sheridan Allen has put it,

“Whenever two or three were gathered, the Führer would also be present.”

Not everyone accepted the changes. Amid uncertainty about the future of the country under

Nazi rule, thousands of Germans, including 63,000 Jews, fled the country. Most who left ended

up in neighboring countries. The rest of the nation’s 60 million people stayed, by choice or

necessity, and adapted to life in the “new Germany.”

Answer on a separate sheet of paper.

1. Which 2 events were the most important in transforming Germany from a
democracy to a dictatorship?

2. Which choices made by groups or individuals seemed to have the greatest
consequences?

In the period following the end of World War I, Germany experienced a disastrous period of

inflation (where prices rise, at the same time, the value of currency decreases).

For example: One day, it costs $1 to buy a soda. The next day there is hyperinflation, and it now

costs $10,000 to buy a soda. As a result, your $1 has a much weaker buying power as it did.

The German government’s method of financing the war by borrowing heavily and printing

large quantities of unbacked currency began the inflationary spiral. This was elevated by the

loss of resources and reparations, which resulted from the Treaty of Versailles. And these

difficulties were in turn elevated by political violence. The unwillingness of industrialists and

labor leaders to put aside their narrow interests and work for the common good was yet

another factor which aggravated the situation. Many Germans, particularly those on fixed

incomes and pensions, endured great hardships and lived in sharply reduced circumstances.

By November of 1923, hyper-inflation paralyzed Germany and only foreign loans and the

issuing of a entirely new currency restored confidence and ended the crisis.

Date Marks U.S.

Dollars

1919 4.2 1

1921 75 1

1922 400 1

Jan. 1923 7,000 1

Jul. 1923 160,000 1

Aug. 1923 1,000,000 1

Nov. 1, 1923 1,300,000,000 1

Nov. 15,

1923

1,300,000,000,000 1

Nov. 16,

1923

4,200,000,000,00

0

1

German children build a pyramid with stacks of inflated currency, virtually worthless in 1923.

Women and children wait in line in Berlin, in hopes of buying sub-standard meat during a

period of hyper-inflation in Weimar Germany (1923).

The original caption for this photo, taken in Weimar Germany during the Great Depression,

reads: “When night comes! Picture taken in the municipal refuge for the homeless. View of one

of the dormitories which can house up to 100 people.”

Workers Demonstration in Weimar Germany

First Sign: Workers demonstration against bread tax and high rents! Second Sign: The upperclass

form a dictatorship of wealth against the working class!

1. German Christian women voting in 1919. German Christian women were newly

enfranchised.

Eastern European Jewish women are asked for ID cards in Berlin’s “Barn Quarter” in 1920.

Life in Weimar Germany was often unpredictable, as a former soldier, Henry

Buxbaum, discovered one evening in the early 1920s:

“The train was pitch-dark. The lights were out, nothing uncommon after the war when

the German railroads were in utter disrepair and very few things functioned orderly. . . . That

night, we were seven or eight people in the dark, fourth-class compartment, sitting in utter

silence till one of the men started the usual refrain: “Those God-damned Jews, they are at the

root of all our troubles.” Quickly, some of the others joined in. I couldn’t see them and had no

idea who they were, but from their voices they sounded like younger men. They sang the same

litany over and over again, blaming the Jews for everything that has gone wrong with Germany

and for anything else wrong in this world. It went on and on, a cacophony of obscenities,

becoming more vicious and at the same time more unbearable with each new sentence echoing

in my ears. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I knew very well that to start up with them

would get me into trouble, and that to answer them wasn’t exactly the height of wisdom, but I

couldn’t help it. . . . I began naturally with the announcement: “Well, I am a Jew and etc., etc.”

That was the signal they needed. Now they really went after me, threatening me physically. I

didn’t hold my tongue as the argument went back and forth. They began jostling me till one of

them . . . probably more encouraged by the darkness than by his own valor, suggested: “Let’s

throw the Jew out of the train.” Now, I didn’t dare ignore this signal, and from then on I kept

quiet. I knew that silence for the moment was better than falling under the wheels of a moving

train. One of the men in our compartment, more vicious in his attacks than the others, got off

the train with me in Friedburg. When I saw him under the dim light of the platform, I

recognized him as a fellow I knew well from our soccer club. . . . I would never have suspected

this man of harboring such rabid, antisemitic feelings.”

In the Weimar Republic, Germany’s schools remained centers of tradition. Most

teachers were conservative, both in their way of teaching and in their politics, and

many were anti-socialist and antisemitic. A young man known as Klaus describes

his schooling in the 1920s:

“We were taught history as a series of facts. We had to learn dates, names, places of

battles. Periods during which Germany won wars were emphasized. Periods during which

Germany lost wars were sloughed over. We heard very little about World War I, except that the

Versailles peace treaty was a disgrace, which someday, in some vague way, would be rectified.

In my school, one of the best in Berlin, there were three courses in Greek and Roman history,

four in medieval history, and not one in government. If we tried to relate ideas we got from

literature or history to current events, our teachers changed the subject. I really don’t believe

that anyone was deliberately trying to evade politics. Those teachers really seemed to think that

what went on in the Greek and Roman Empires was more important than what was happening

on the streets of Berlin and Munich. They considered any attempt to bring up current political

questions a distraction . . . because we hadn’t done our homework. And there was always a

great deal of homework in a school like mine, which prepared students for the university. At

the end of our senior year, we were expected to take a detailed and exceedingly tough exam

called the Abitur. How we did on the exam could determine our whole future. Again, the Abitur

concentrated on our knowledge of facts, not on interpretation or on the expression of personal

ideas.”