Class 9

November-09-11
6:04 PM

Triumph of the Will

Leni Riefenstahl (1935)
o Director of the controversial "triumph of the will" film
o State propaganda film for Hitler
o World's first documentary
Most famous example of the propaganda film genre
o Film called "Triumph of the Will"
o Film shows strength, power and popularity of Hitler and Nazi party
International recognition
o Venice 1935 (Gold Medal)
o Paris World Exposition: 1937 (Gold). Was screened there.
o Significant because France was not under a Nazi regime.
Riefenstahl's postwar career
o Claimed to have not supported Nazis
o Not a member of the NSDAP
o Never intended for her film to be propaganda but a documentary
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003)
"I was only interested in how I could make a film that was not stupid like a crude
Propagandist newsreel, but more interesting. It reflects the truth as it was then, in 1934. It
is a documentary, not propaganda". - BBC News
Nazism in the 1930s
Churches
o Protestant churches split
o "German Christians"
o Confessing church
Very critical of Hitler
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
One of the spokesman for confessing church
Openly opposes Hitler and his anti-Semitism
Finds himself in a concentration camp
o Original Nazi plan to install a Reich Bishop
Wanted to increase state's role in Catholic churches
o Resistance to restructuring of confessional schools
o Catholic Concordat of July 1933
Agreement of church with Hitler - Catholic church accepts and will never
question Hitler's power. In exchange church gets to keep its school system.
Catholic protests

Jewish Policy
o Boycotts
o Nuremberg Laws of 1935
Stripped Jews of German citizenship.
Now a minority "national"
Prohibit inter-marriage.
Significant because it enshrined anti-Semitism in legislation
o Kristallnacht - "night of the broken glass"
November 1938
Wide range of Jewish shops and synagogues were vandalized and burnt to
the ground
What did "ordinary" Germans think about the Nazi discrimination of Jewish
communities?
o Average German did not support the violence against Jews
o They would have supported legislative anti-Semitism
o Many just didn't care about Jewish minority

Nazi Foreign Policy

Revision of Versailles treaty
o Signs a non-aggression pact with Poland and Soviet Union
o Shows Nazi's diplomatic side, willing to sit down and negotiate
Austria
o Does not want to give up Austria. Violates Versailles treaty
Creation of satellite states
o Germany having control over smaller, less powerful countries in Europe
France
o Signs a Franco-Soviet pact to protect itself from Germany
o Germany marches and occupies Rhine Land in France
Russia
o Non-aggression pact with Russia
World domination
Diplomacy & rearmament
Withdrawal from the League of Nations
o Germany getting in League of Nations was a significant event that showed
Germany's return to world stage as a respectable member. Hitler decided to ignore
that.
Bilateral agreements with national governments
o Hitler takes approach of negotiating with individual countries
Does it for secrecy purposes, more efficient
Lead up to WWII
Rome-Berlin Axis
Ribbentrop

o Germany's foreign minister

The Anschluss
o Hitler troops march into the country and take it over
o Little Austrian resistance
o What was European response
Churchill gives a speech and supports taking an active opposition against
Hitler
Different position than Chamberlain, who preferred a softer approach
(negotiation)
Crisis of summer 1938
o Czechoslovakia
There were 3 million Germans living there in Sudetenland
o Chamberlain
Western leaders sit down with Hitler and negotiate Czech future without
Czech involvement
Leads to dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, some of it transferred to
Germany.
Hitler later takes back more of Czechoslovakia
o Policy of Appeasement
People worry Chamberlain's policy is not doing much
o Munich Conference
o Sudetenland
Czechoslovakia area containing 3,000,000 Germans
Poland
o Britain guarantees Polish independence
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
o August 23, 1939
o Russia and Germany sign a non-aggression pact
September 1, 1939
o Germany invades Poland
o Blitzkrieg - fast war
September 3, 1939
o Britain & France declare war on Germany
Blitzkrieg
o 3 week long conflict - relied heavily on fast aerial warfare
Part of Poland incorporated into the Reich
The other half transformed into the "General Gouvernement"
Satellite state
The "Phoney War" (Siltzkrieg)
o Very little fighting on the ground
o Winter 1939-1940

Hitler turns to the West

May 1940
o German success in Holland, Belgium and France
o Occupation of north and western France
France fell quickly due to French not being prepared for aerial war
Never recovered demographically from WWI
o Vichy regime
o Significance of military success

Nazi offensive in the West

Luftwaffe
o German air force
Air raids on Britain - The Blitz
o Britain proved more resistant
o September 7, 1940 - to May 10, 1941
Aerial bombardment lasted for 2 months
o Approx. 43,000 civilian deaths
o Hitler's first significant defeat - not being able to take over Britain
Hitler turns East & Expansion of Conflict
Spring 1941
o Yugoslavia and Greece attacked
Barbarossa
o Operation to attack Soviet Union
o Two front war
o Stalingrad Defeat 1943
Major turning point in the war
Scorched Earth - retreating behind and burning your own stuff, so that
enemies won't get it
Transformation into World War
o Hitler declares war on United States
December 1941
Pearl Harbour
Asia gets involved
The Holocaust
Two aims:
o Lebensraum
Free up Jewish populations in Poland for Germans to live there
o Rid Germany and Europe of Jewish populations
o Initial ideas
Was the policy of extermination (the "Final Solution") pre-determined, or was it ad hoc?
o Not surely known. Debatable on both sides.
Einsatzgruppen

o Units of soldiers in Eastern Europe who went around and executed Jews. (Poland,
Ukraine, Baltic States). Started in 1940.
Wansee Conference - January 1942
o Hitler firmly decides to exterminate Jewish European population in a systematic
way
o Never publicly used terms "exterminate", "kill", "murder", etc., used euphemisms:
"final solution", "cleansing"
Zyklon B gas
o Gas used for killing. First people with disabilities were killed.
How much did ordinary Germans know of what was going on?
o Hard to tell
Dissent
o "Edelweiss Pirates"
Student group in Germany who openly criticized Hitler for anti-Semitism
o Swing Culture
Young Germans not interested in Hitler politics
More interested in US's music and culture
o White Rose - Catholic resistance
The July Plot (1944)
o Plot to assassinate Hitler
o Failed but made Hitler very paranoid
Goldhagen vs. Browning debate