Germany, 1918-45 - class-X

• The National Socialist Party or the Nazis was formed in the year 1921. By 1923, Adolf Hitler was their leader.
• The ideas of Nazism are documented in Hitler's book Mein Kampf.

• Jesse Owens won 5 Gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, undermining Hitler's claim that whites were the superior race.
• Owens worked for under privileged children and was eventually awarded the USA Medal of freedom in 1976.

German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister in 1933, which gave him power over all German radio, press, cinema and theater.
In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made Gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical der Angriff. He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928. By  exploiting mob emotions and by employing all modern methods of propaganda Goebbels helped Hitler to gain power.
His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler's rise to power in 1933. When Hitler seized power in 1933, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until death, Goebbels used all media of education and communication to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler Cabinet Council.

National Socialist German Workers' Party came to be known as the Nazi Party.It was a German political party started in 1920 and it created and supported the ideology of National Socialism.

On 3 March 1933, the famous Enabling Act was passed. This Act established dictatorship in Germany. It gave Hitler all powers to sideline Parliament and rule by decree. All political parties and trade unions were banned except for the Nazi Party and its affiliates. The state established complete control over the economy, media, army and judiciary. 

The Nazi state utilized a combination of extra-constitutional powers, the Gestapo, concentration camps, and the removal of legal protections to establish its reputation as a criminal state.

The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced only 11 leading Nazis to death for their brutality and their crime. Other Nazis were imprisoned for life. Though their crime was very brutal yet this time Allies did not want to be as harsh on defeated Germany as they had been after the First World War. This time they felt that German experience at the end of the First World War formed the background to rise of Nazism.

At the end of second world war, an International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to try and prosecute the Nazi war criminals for Crimes against Peace, for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Germany's conduct during the war, especially those activities which came to be called Crimes Against Humanity, raised serious moral and ethical questions and invited worldwide condemnation.

The economic crisis due to the great economic depression and political instability due to the instable weimar republic formed the background to the rise of Nazism.

Gestapo was the Secret State Police of the Nazi state. Along with Gestapo, the SS(the protection Squads), Criminal Police and the Security Service(SD) were established. It was the extra-constitutional power of these newly organised forces that gave the Nazi state its reputation as the most dreaded criminal state.

Nazi supporters hated Jews or their look alike. They felt that Nazism would bring prosperity and improve general well- being. Every German was not Nazi.  Many German people organised active resistance to Nazism, braving police repression and death. The large majority of German, however, were passive onlookers and apathetic witnesses. They were too scared to act, to differ, to protest. They preferred to look away.

Hjalmar Schacht was an German Economist, politician and Banker. But he was famous as a founder of the German Democratic Party. 

The 4th Annual Plan was introduced by Hitler in 1934. It was part of the alternative governmental structure created by Hitler and the Nazi Party. The plan included entities such as Organisation Todt and the unification of the SS and the German police forces. The main purpose of the Four Year Plan was to provide for the rearmament of Germany and to reach for self-sufficiency in four years.

Great depression took place during 1930s in which there was a severe worldwide economic depression. This hit Germany very hard. This led to following: banks collapsed and businesses shut down, workers lost their jobs and middle classes were threatened with destitution. When politics started collapsing due to above reasons, Hitler took the advantage, and Nazism became a mass movement.

The birth of Weimar Republic coincided with the revolutionary uprising of the Spartacist League. The political atmosphere in Berlin was charged with demands for Soviet-style governance. Those who opposed to this met in Weimar to give shape to the democratic republic. The Weimar Republic crushed the uprising with the help of a war veterans organisations called Free Corps. The Spartacist founded the Communist Party of Germany.