Inside Germany During WWII
When World War I ended in 1918 and the world was at ease. Everybody was happy again, and people sought to go after peace. People at the time believed World War I would never happen again. In the end they were all wrong. World War II was not only World War I all over again, but more intense. In World War I only 3 million people died, but World War II had the death of 50 million people. Many of those 50 million deaths were caused by one man: Adolf Hitler. After being cheated badly out of the Geneva Convention, and being in depression, German morale was low. Hitler took that low morale, rose up to power, and started World War II. Hitler’s tyrannical rule brought Germany out of depression, but it caused much agony in Germany from the years 1939-1945, the years of World War II.
April 20, 1889 would be the day marking the birth of one of the most influential dictators in history, Adolf Hitler. Many causes led up to the rise of Hitler in the poverty-stricken Germany. At the time of Hitler’s rise in power, Germany was vulnerable because of the financial debts caused by the reparations for WWI. The German people were in a state of suffering and decline in national pride. When Hitler came to the podium, cries rang out saying “Heil!” to this man who made vague promises of hope and prosperity. He won the hearts of many Germans through his propaganda, spirited meetings, torch parades, and his Nazi newspapers were printed by the millions. Much of this propaganda succeeded in persuading the public. Germany used propaganda to convince the public the United States was their enemy. Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s Propaganda Minister, mastered the art of propaganda. Many of the ideas he spread were false, however, he claimed that the war was forced upon Germany because England pressured Germany’s social revolution. In his famous speech on Hitler’s birthday he claimed “…the goal of British plutocracy is to destroy the German people and the German Reich” (Goebbels). He describes their defeat in WWI as “…when it gave itself up to the arbitrary lust for revenge of the Western powers” (Goebbels). Goebbels painted events to reflect Germany in the best light and give more praise to Hitler. This gained him control over the minds of the German people. In this way, most citizens had no idea of what was going on outside of Germany except for what their government told them.
While the minds of Germans under Hitler’s control, he arose with the backing of his political party called the National Socialists’ German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP. Herman Göring gave a political speech about the party saying “…our idea grew out of the people” (Göring). This was the common basis for swaying the crowd of common people: to vote for their party as being for the good of Germany. Later, many knew the party simply as the “Nazi party”. Hitler was known for his entering with theatrical style, building of suspense, and the holding of his speeches in crowded halls which had good acoustics. In his speeches, he believed if he yelled loud enough and used repetition, people would believe him. Hitler continually repeated catch phrases and made ambiguous promises in order to give encouragement to the downtrodden German people. In the end, many Germans believed he would help them rise up again to greatness.
With the public swaying towards the Nazi Party, Hitler gained power and immediately increased national pride through Nazi programs. The Nazi Women’s League started in 1933 for German women to unite together. Gertrud Scholtz-Klink was appointed by Hitler as the Reich Women’s Leader and the head of the Nazi Women’s League in 1933. The League promoted male superiority and the importance of child bearing. Scholtz-Klink preached that for a woman her"…world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home” (Women in Germany). The Jungmadel was started for girls at the age of 10 and the German Girls’ League was started for girls at the age of 14. These two groups were sections of the Hitler Youth program. The intention of the Hitler Youth program was the recruitment of boys and girls at a young age into the Nazi Party and training of future soldiers. The structure of the Hitler Youth program was organized on a military model by using squads, platoons, and companies. A man named Baldur von Schirach was appointed as a leader in the Hitler Youth program. Unification of the vast number of Nazi youth programs into one program was Von Shirach’s primary goal. Through schools many children were automatically enrolled. By 1935, 60 percent of the the Hitler Youth program comprised of Germany’s youths. The percentage then augmented to 90 percent in 1939. It provided all of these children an easy transition to military positions once they were older.
In 1935, the German Heer, or army, formed. It formed after the passing of the “Law for the Reconstruction of the National Defense Forces”. This brought back a free standing army, a navy, and an air force. All of these forces had been banned after World War I. Between 1939 and 1945, the Heer bore fighting so fierce, like on the Eastern Front that may never be seen again. Many of the Heer units served with their own distinct styles across many thousand miles of battlefields. The army met its defeat after its last stand after “the bulge”. This final act of the Germans exhausted their last reserves until they could fight no more.
Life was very difficult for the German soldiers. Many men, who had never fought, were drafted and taught to perform all the requirements of a soldier, such as marching and shooting. All German men were required to donate a given amount of time serving their country. Often though, they were forced to serve in the military until the end of the war. German soldiers were required to endure harsh weather conditions while still obeying strict laws. Soldiers were actually required to walk around every so often during the cold winters just in case they might try to have their feet freeze to be relieved of their services. Many soldiers felt little to no hatred towards the “enemy” they were fighting against. They simply wanted to serve their country as best as possible. While the German soldiers were fighting, however, many of their towns were being destroyed. Eventually, one German city fell daily, and their capital was reduced to rubble by Russian shells. Many German soldiers felt no disgust toward the French, British, or Americans. They respected them for their fine fighting abilities. The Russians, on the other hand, were loathed because of their cruel treatment of the German prisoners of war.
With the rise of Germany’s strong national pride, and their powerful-respected army, came the growing rise of Jewish and minority persecution. Hitler was an open anti-Semitic. Soon, Jews were banned from restaurants and certain shops, they were called names on the streets and even those who resembled Jews were humiliated in public. Then, Jewish property was looted and destroyed. The marriage of Jews and Non-Jews was illegal, and Jews were seen as the weak and “inferior” race. They were even too “weak” to fight in the army, so they were not allowed to become soldiers. Jews were forced into working camps, and only pregnant women or women nursing were exempt. Jews and those who disagreed with the Führer, such as Communists, were sent to concentration camps, also. The German people knew that those sent to these camps were tortured and killed. When these camps were publicly known, WWII became imminent.
Germany had constructed many camps all over Europe. During World War II the Nazis had created about 10,000 camps and sub camps, smaller camps within the camps. The types of camps set up were POW camps, labor camps, extermination camps, transit camps, and concentration camps. Each of these camps exposed people to difficult labor.
The Nazi POW camps were made for the Soviet POW’s. Hitler considered Soviets to be inferior people, so he built POW camps where they were systematically killed. In POW camps Soviets were fed scarce amounts of food, not given shelter, and put through very intense labor. In October 1941, POW camps were so harsh that about 5,000 Soviet prisoners died each day. Nazis never killed Soviet POWs in the POW camps. Soviet POWs were sent to concentration or extermination camps to be killed. It was through the killing of Soviet POWs in concentration camps that Zyklon B gas was discovered, which the Nazis were known for killing the Jews with.
Concentration and extermination were interwoven together. Concentration camps were used to manipulate people, especially Jews, into doing harsh labor. Then, if people were deemed unfit to work in a concentration camp, or they simply not liked, they were sent to be killed in extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau. The transit camps held prisoners in between their journey from a concentration to an extermination camp. Labor camps were built starting with the taking over of Poland. The purpose of the labor camps was to replace all the male German workers who were off fighting in the German army. Jadwiga Chmielewski spent her teenage years from the ages of 14-16 in the Nazi labor camp of Augsburg, a sub camp of Dachau. She shared her experiences in the labor camp in an interview with her grandson on April 17, 2006. Before the interview began she said the labor camps were not anywhere near as harsh as concentration camps.
While the killing of many Jews, Russians, and other groups occurred in extermination, concentration, or POW camps, the conditions in labor camps were not near as harsh. Jadwiga said in her labor camp people were fed 3 meals a day, families were not separated, and no one was systematically killed. In Augsburg, Jadwiga said she was even allowed to leave the camp whenever she wanted and could go buy food from the farmers in the nearby city of Augsburg. She would pay the farmers with the very tiny amount of currency the camp paid the laborers. Conditions still were not great though, after all the world was at war. In labor camps people still were forced to work hard and though they were fed three meals a day, the meals were small since rationing needed to occur during wartime. Also even though systematic killing did not occur by gassing, people still died of diseases such as typhoid. Jadwiga had typhoid when the Americans came to liberate her camp. Jadwiga said in her interview “I was sick with typhoid at that time and I was in the hospital. When they did come I was told about it by a healthy person” (Chmielewski, 2).
Each different labor camp served to provide for a different need of Germany. For example the camp of Augsburg was located near a railroad. Men in the camps were sent to either work on the railroad, or they were sent out to help out on a nearby farm. About a mile or so away from Augsburg was a different labor camp where an airplane factory was located. The men in that camp worked in the airplane factory and aided Germany in the construction of their air force.
Hitler was able to get to power through his strong speech abilities. Once Hitler was in power he invaded Poland and began what is known today as World War II. World War II resulted in the deaths of 50 million people. Hitler killed many Germans by forcing them to be in his army as well as all the Jews, Russians, and other groups killed in his camps. Though Hitler’s terror in World War II was an atrocity, it has also benefited mankind by teaching it a lesson. The lesson of how the hatred and ideologies of one man can have such powerful effects. The effects resulting are nearly wiping out a race of people as well as killing the lives of many innocent people. Therefore the story of Adolf Hitler and his tyranny in the 1940’s must be told to future generations so that if one day a similar man like him is trying to do similar work, the world will understand that the man must be stopped, because the world will no what the hatred and ideologies of one man are capable of doing.
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By Ashley Porter, Michael Leclerc, Jason Koke