• Early career: Austrian-born, failed art student, decorated WWI veteran. Drifted into far-right politics in postwar Munich.

Mein Kampf (1925)

Hitler's autobiography and political manifesto, written during imprisonment after the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Set out his ideology of racial nationalism, anti-Semitism, and Lebensraum ("living space") to be conquered in Eastern Europe.

Building the Nazi Party

Through the 1920s Hitler rebuilt the Nazi Party as a mass political organization. The Great Depression made Nazi promises appealing to millions.

1932-1933

Nazi Party became the largest party in the Reichstag (parliament). President Hindenburg, a conservative elite, appointed Hitler Chancellor in January 1933, expecting to control him.

Reichstag Fire (February 1933)

A communist was blamed for burning down the Reichstag. Hitler used the crisis to push through the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties.

Enabling Act (March 1933)

Granted Hitler dictatorial powers for four years. From this point Hitler ruled by decree.

Night of the Long Knives (1934)

Hitler purged rivals within the Nazi Party, especially the SA leadership under Röhm.

Death of Hindenburg (August 1934)

Hitler combined the offices of chancellor and president, becoming Führer (leader) of the Third Reich. Total dictatorship was complete.

Nazi ideology

Racial nationalism

The German Volk was a racial community. "Aryans" (the racial category Nazi ideology constructed for northern Europeans) were superior. Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other groups were inferior or sub-human.

Anti-Semitism

Central to Nazi worldview. Jews were blamed for Germany's defeat in WWI, for communism, for capitalism (held to be a Jewish conspiracy), and for cultural decadence. This anti-Semitism led directly to the Holocaust.

Anti-communism

Communism was Nazi enemy number one in domestic politics and number one in foreign policy, leading eventually to the invasion of the USSR.

Lebensraum

"Living space." Nazis claimed Germany needed to expand eastward into Slavic lands to provide territory and resources for the German people.

Führerprinzip

Leader principle. Hitler was the source of all authority, and absolute loyalty to him was required.

Nazi policies (domestic)

• Suppressed all opposition; sent dissidents to concentration camps
• Eliminated labor unions; replaced them with state-controlled Labor Front
• Rebuilt the German military in violation of Versailles
• Public works programs (highways, etc.) reduced unemployment
• Nuremberg Laws (1935) stripped Jews of German citizenship and prohibited intermarriage with Aryans

• Kristallnacht (November 1938) was a state-organized pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues across Germany and Austria
• Mass propaganda under Joseph Goebbels controlled news, film, and culture
• Hitler Youth indoctrinated children in Nazi ideology