Few people in history in our own time have become as infamous as Adolf Hitler, the dictator who alone started perhaps the greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind – World War II. But how did it really happen? In this series of articles, we make an attempt to shed some light on the events and circumstances that enabled Hitler to seize power in Germany in 1933.
Hitler and the First World War
In August 1914, World War I broke out. Hitler called the outbreak of war “a liberation”. “I fell on my knees and thanked God with all my heart,” he said.
National moods prevailed everywhere. The students on the streets of Munich sang “Die Wacht am Rhein”. Kafée Fahring on Karlsplatz was vandalized when musicians refused to play the national anthem over and over again. Hail the emperor! Heal the Lord! was heard everywhere. Everyone with German as their mother tongue must gather in one kingdom and become a people. That was the mentality in Munich for a few weeks during the hot August days of 1914.
Hitler had previously been misled in the muster and was considered unfit to bear arms. But now he was accepted as a volunteer in the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment. An eyewitness says that when he got his rifle out, he looked at it with the same delight as a woman looks at her jewels.
Adolf Hitler never became popular with his comrades in the trenches. He was a “patriot” and acted as an important petter. The comrades thought he was a strange figure living in his own world. When the others talked about women, Hitler kept to himself. He then engaged in his reading and painting. But he gave esteemed “lectures” on art and architecture. Hitler always had a book with him and was therefore considered an intellectual. His comrades also admired Hitler’s ability to sneak forward in the Indian way. That was what he practiced during his childhood Indian games.
Hitler served as a reporter (ordonnans) and performed many missions. At one point, he and one of his comrades were ill. For every meter they advanced, they were exposed to enemy bullets and grenades. They had to take shelter in water-filled graves and ditches. The comrade collapsed and Hitler dragged him back to safety. However, Hitler lacked leadership qualities and never became more than a corporal. In addition, he had a weak, non-military attitude. But he still received the Iron Cross for his efforts during the war. And the one who made sure that Hitler got the Iron Cross was a Jew, the battalion adjutant Hugo Gutmann.
Hitler in the hospital
During the last days of the war, Hitler was injured by gas. He later woke up far away from the front of a makeshift hospital in eastern Germany.
While he was there, World War I ended. The old world order went to the grave and a new chaotic world appeared. To his disgust, Hitler discovered that left-wing revolutionary letters were circulating in the hospital. Hitler could not accept that Germany had lost the war. Jews and communists must have dealt a stab wound to the back of the German soldiers, he thought.
He writes: “So everything had been in vain. Was this the meaning of the victims that the German mothers brought to the motherland? Had this happened so that a band of criminals would get their hands on it? During those days, the hatred within me grew towards those who were responsible for this evil. “
Marxists and Jews are blamed for Germany’s defeat
Hitler was just one of many who experienced connections between the Jews and the revolutionary movements, those who accepted Germany’s defeat and the Peace of Versailles . In early January 1919, the Marxists in Munich staged a coup led by Kurt Eisner, an elderly Jew with wild hair. The Spartakist Uprising in Berlin was led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, both of Jewish descent (read about the Spartakist Uprising in the fact box below).
The notion of a Jewish world plot gave new impetus to the already strong anti-Semitism in Central Europe. The Völkisch (popular) movement was prominent in Germany at this time. It meant belief in the innate superiority of the German nation and culture. They cherished a mysterious German nationalism and spoke of a pure, Aryan race .
At the same time as unemployment worsened in Germany, Jews fled the persecution in Russia and Poland . Now they flocked to Germany and competed with the native Germans for the increasingly rare jobs. Völkisch supporters called these Jews outcasts who defiled the Aryan race. Stories were spread about Jewish ritual killings of Christians and about Jewish conspiracies to achieve worldwide political domination. The attitude was that it was the Zionists who planned the First World War as well as the post-war revolutions. It would thus be part of the Jewish world conspiracy. Among the authors were pan-Germanists (those who wanted to unite all of Europe’s German speakers in a single “Greater Germany”) and anti-Semites.
Hitler received Eckart’s racist pamphlets (“political pamphlets”), which were similar to those he had read in turn-of-the-century Vienna . Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazis’ future chief ideologue, also spoke with Hitler about a major global Jewish conspiracy to conquer the world. Rosenberg then pointed out, among other things, Zion’s minutes (see the gray box below). Nobody cared that the writing was long ago revealed as a forgery. This anti-Semitic writing, which was allegedly a program of a Jewish world plot, fit exactly as evidence in Hitler’s own argument against the Jews. He used it as a genuine document. We know the consequences today …
The Spartacus uprising
Left to right
Against right-wing forces, the far left was organized in the Spartacus League. The Spartacists wanted to create a Soviet Germany in the same way that the Communists in Russia at this time created the Soviet Union . Karl Liebknecht, one of the leaders of the left in Germany, wanted an immediate armed takeover. But Rosa Luxemburg , another left-wing leader, advocated a more cautious approach.
Liebknecht and Luxemburg were the driving force behind the frequent, huge rallies that took turns in Berlin. There was competition between the Social Democrats and the revolutionary socialist groups. The Social Democrats wanted to allow a socialist society to emerge based on democratic rules of the game. The more revolutionary socialists instead wanted to take advantage of the chaos in Germany and Europe to push through their policies quickly. The Social Democrats’ struggle against radical socialists and Spartacists was supported by both the military and the free forces. The Social Democrat and Minister of Defense Gustav Norske was particularly active in this collaboration. The Spartacists occupied strategic places in Berlin. They published the newspaper Die Rote Fahne . Their revolutionary propaganda aimed at a coup attempt.
At the beginning of January 1919, the Spartacus uprising broke out in Berlin. The Social Democratic government responded by appealing to the Liberals for help. The military joined forces with the government. Fierce and ruthless street fighting broke out in Lichtenberg, a suburb of Berlin. Everyone arrested with weapons was shot on the spot. Both Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered.
The Spartacus uprising is put down
It must be remembered that behind Ebert and Norske in this struggle, stood the forces of old Germany. Gustav Norske behaved with great firmness towards the communist insurgents. On January 13, the uprising could be described as the downfall. This would not have been possible without the help of loyal forces of the old army who made themselves available to the government to fight German Bolshevism.
Also Read: Hitler Road to Power Part II
Also Read: Adolf Hitler’s Short Biography
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Also Read: World War I History
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