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Nazi Germany – The Rhineland

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles 1919 Germany was not allowed to have any military force, building or armaments in the Rhineland area. To ensure German compliance the area was occupied by British and French troops. Under the terms of the Treaty of Locarno...

Nazi Germany – The Reichstag Fire

The Facts At 10pm on 27th February 1933 the Berlin Fire Department received a call that the Reichstag building was on fire. A young communist Marinus van der Lubbe was discovered on the premises clad in just trousers and footwear. A number of small fires had been...

Nazi Germany – Munich Beer Hall Putsch

Following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm and defeat in World War One, the government of the new German Weimar Republic were forced to accept the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which included the payment of reparations to the allies of 6,600 million. The...

Nazi Germany – Concentration Camps and Killing Centres

Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazis opened around 20,000 concentration camps in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries to deal with the numbers of people arrested as enemies of the state. The camps were run by the SS and inmates faced harsh, insanitary conditions, poor diet,...

Nazi Germany – Minority Groups

Adolf Hitler was familiar with the work of 19th century scientists who spoke of Northern European blond-haired, blue-eyed peoples as being Aryan, a ‘Master Race’ because they had remained racially pure throughout the ages. In his book, Mein Kampf (Mein Struggle),...

Nazi Women and the Role of Women in Nazi Germany

Nazi women, far fewer in number than their male counterparts in the Third Reich, still played a critical role in the lead-up to and beginning of the Second World War. After all, Adolf Hitler had very clear ideas about the role of women in the Third Reich. Women were...

Nazi Germany – Hitler Youth

In the early 1920s, the Nazi party had established a youth movement led by Kurt Gruber, with the aim of attracting young men who could be trained to become members of the SA (Stormtroopers). On 4th July 1926 the group was renamed the Hitler Youth, League of German...

Nazi Germany – SchutzStaffel SS

The SchutzStaffel or SS was formed in April 1925 as a section of the SA and functioned as a personal bodyguard for the NSDAP leader, Adolf Hitler. The SS was considered to be an elite force and membership was restricted to those who were pure Aryan Germans. On 6th...

Nazi Germany – Stormtroopers Sturm Abteilung SA

At the end of World War One many German soldiers became members of the Freikorps ad hoc right-wing militia groups used to break up Communist meetings and prevent a Communist uprising. In 1920 the newly formed German Workers’ Party needed its own militia group to...

Nazi Germany – Propaganda

Propaganda is the art of persuading people to have a particular view about something. Propaganda is always biased. It is used by political leaders or organisations to deliberately mislead a population into believing a certain set of facts or beliefs to be true....