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NATIONAL SOCIALISM – ANTI-SEMITISM, ENEMIES

AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL

AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL

NATIONAL SOCIALISM – ANTI-SEMITISM, ENEMIES

The official ideology of the German state under Hitler (1933‒45) was National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus) – Nazism/Hitlerism. This was a German version of fascism, based on racist convictions that included extreme anti-Semitism. Hitler’s racist views went hand in hand with the need to unite Germans around a common goal. He knew that a way of bringing the nation together was to find a common enemy. According to Hitler, the chief enemy of the German Third Reich were the Jews, who were responsible for starting the Great War, and the Communists. Hitler regarded their destruction to be a prerequisite for achieving dominance in Europe.

LEADERS

A man dressed in an uniform is speaking with commitment. Gaze directed upwards. Photograph taken from a worm's-eye view.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-16195-2.

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945). Leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), chancellorcreator and dictator of the German Third Reich. He was the main responsible for the outbreak of the Second World War and the crimes perpetrated in its course, ommitted suicide shortly before the fall of besieged Berlin.


Portrait photograph of a man wearing a light-coloured German uniform. At the collar of the uniform two medals. Gaze to the side. Focused, serious expression.

Source: Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe [National Digital Archive] (henceforth: NAC)

Hermann Göring (1893–1946). Marshal of the Third Reich, commander of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), one of Hitler’s closest associates. Sentenced to death by the Nuremburg Tribunal, committed suicide in a prison cell.


Portrait photograph of a man in German uniform. Face focused, facing to the side. Horn-rimmed glasses. On his head a cap - part of the uniform. On the cap a skull together with crossed tibias - Totenkopf.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S62673.

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945). Commander of the Third Reich SS and Police. One of the chief Nazi leaders and criminals, responsible for the policies of terror and mass murder. Committed suicide after being arrested by the British Army Forces.


Portrait photograph of a man wearing a double-breasted suit with gold buttons. On the sleeve of the left arm an armband with a swastika. Face focused, directed towards the camera. Serious expression, lips pursed.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-0821-502.

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945). Third Reich Minister of Propaganda, one of Hitler’s closest collaborators. Committed suicide soon after the Führer’s death.


The front page of the anti-Semitic newspaper “Der Sturmer,” with a caricatured depiction of a Jew as a man in a cap, a coat and with an unfriendly face.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (henceforth: USHMM)

Anti-Semitic caricature in the weekly newspaper Der Stürmer. German propaganda fuelled anti-Semitism in Germany as well as in allied and occupied countries.


Three men dressed in SA uniforms standing in front of a shop window closed behind bars. One of them is holding a banner that reads:

Source: USHMM

Nazi functionaries of the SA (SA – Sturmabteilung) enforcing the boycott of Jewish shops.


Source: USHMM, courtesy of Hans Frankl.

One of Anti-Semitic road signs on the entrance to a German city: “Jews are not welcome here”.


Hitler’s foreign policy was aimed at the rearmament of Germany as well as the recovery of territories lost to Poland and France. Moreover, Hitler promised the Germans solutions to economic problems and a restoration of national pride. He defined the main objective of the German nation as the acquisition of ‘living space’ (Lebensraum), the creation of the so-called Greater German Reich and its domination of the world. German living space was to be in those parts of Eastern Europe primarily inhabited by Slavic nations ‒ the Poles, Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians in particular. Speaking of future conquests, Hitler declared that he intended not so much to ‘Germanise’ the conquered nations as to ‘Germanise’ their lands. He assumed that the current non-German inhabitants would be removed from these territories. Only land can be Germanised, not people.

A group of children - several-year-old each - dressed in navy clothes. They are holding small bannerets with Nazi flags - swastikas.

Source: Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-P055423.

Children holding Nazi flags in Berlin approx, in 1934.


In the foreground, on the right Adolf Hitler standing and speaking in front of a microphone. In the background officers and soldiers on the stands behind him.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-16195-1.

Hitler holding a speech adressed to young people - members of Hitlerjungend during the NSDAP Convention in Nuremberg in 1934.


A street in Nuremberg. A row of soldiers standing along the building with numerous Nazi flags hanging on it. On the left Adolf Hitler is walking past them. Heinrich Himmler follows him closely. Crowds in the background.

Source: USHMM

Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler visisting the personal guard (SS Leibstandarte) during the Reich Rally in Nuremberg.


Adolf Hitler on the right greeting the crowd. Smiling women are greeting him back. One by one they want to shake his hand.

Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1992-128-17A.

Adolf Hitler greeted by the crowd participating in the harvest festivities in Bückenberg, the picture was taken between 1934 and 1937.


The Nazi system of government was a form of state terror that limited civil liberties, strictly controlled all aspects of social life and used violence against political opponents. The NSDAP was the only legal political party. Free trade unions, the free press and all independent associations as well as other organisations were closed down. The political instrument of terror were the concentration camps, where the Nazis isolated their political opponents, and later also the Jews and Roma. Up until the outbreak of the Second World War the camps were of a repressive-preventive nature, later they primarily became facilities for the extermination of the inhabitants of occupied Europe.

Dachau 1933

Sachsenhausen 1936

Buchenwald 1937

Mauthausen 1938

Flossenbürg 1938

Ravensbrück 1939