Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Session
2023-24
PRACTICAL FILE
SUBJECT: SOCIAL SCIENCE
• Who:
– Major Allied Powers: Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and USA
– Major Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire
• How: Huge scale attacks with new deadly technologies including mechanized
weapons, chemical weapons, long range artillery and air power
• Where: Most battles were fought in Europe (Western and Eastern fronts) with
some conflict in colonial holdings across Asia and Africa
• Results:
– 9 million people died and 20 million injured
– Europe economically devastated and politically unstable at the end of war
– Treaty of Versailles ending WW-I set stage for WW-II 20 years later
World War-I (1914-1918): Central Powers Versus Allied
Powers
• Nazism & Rise of Hitler was mainly during
late 1930s and early 1940s – period of
World War-2
In retaliation of
attack on Pearl
Harbour and to end
the WW-II
Overview of Chapter
• Birth of the Weimar Republic
– The Effects of the War
– Political Radicalism and Economic Crisis
– The Years of Depression
• Hitler’s Rise to Power
– The Destruction of Democracy
– Reconstruction
• The Nazi Worldview
– Establishment of the Radical State
– The Racial Utopia
Birth of Weimer Republic
• Germany, a powerful nation in the
early years of 20th century, fought the
1st World War (1914-1918) alongside
the Austrian empire and against the
Allies (England, France and Russia)
• War prolonged for more duration
than anticipated and gradually
Europe was drained of its resources.
Germany made initial gains by
occupying France and Belgium.
However, Allies, strengthened by the
US entry in 1917, won, by defeating
Germany and Central Powers in
November 1918
• This Republic, however, was a failure because of lack of faith of people in it and Treaty
of Versailles to end the war. The peace treaty at Versailles was harsh for Germans.
• Germany lost its overseas colonies, a 10th of its population died, 13% of its territories,
75% of its iron and 26% of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania
• The Allied powers demilitarized Germany to weaken its power. The War Guilt Clause
held Germany responsible for the war and damages Allied countries had suffered.
• Germany was forced to pay compensation of 6.6 Billion Pounds. The Allied armies also
occupied the resource-rich Rhineland in 1920s
• Many Germans held the new Weimar Republic responsible for not only the defeat in
the war but the disgrace at Versailles
Peace Treaty of Versailles, 1919
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace
treaties at the end of World War-I. It ended the
state of war between Germany and the Allied
Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly
five years after the assassination of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on
the German side of World War I were dealt with
in separate treaties.
Political Radicalism and Economic
Crisis
• Germany had fought the war largely on
loans and had to pay war reparations in
gold
• The State established complete control over the economy, media, army and
judiciary.
• Special surveillance and security forces were created to control and order
society in ways that the Nazis wanted.
Destruction of Democracy
Contd…
• Regular police in green uniform.
• SA or the Storm Troopers included the
Gestapo (secret state police), SS
(protection squads), criminal police and
Security Service (SD).
• It was extra constitutional powers of these
newly organized forces that gave the Nazi
state its reputation as the most dreaded
criminal state.
• People could now be detained in Gestapo
torture chambers, rounded up and sent to
concentration camps, deported at will or
arrested without any legal procedures.
• The police forces acquired powers to rule with
impunity.
Concentration/ Death Camp
Reconstruction
• Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to
economist Hjalmar Schacht who aimed at full production and
full employment through a state-funded work-creation program
• This project produced famous German superhighways and the
people’s car, the Volkswagen.
• In foreign policy, Hitler acquired quick successes
• Pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the
Rhineland in 1936 and integrated Austria and Germany in
1938 under the slogan, One people, One empire, and One
leader.
• He then went on to wrest German speaking Sudetenland from
Czechoslovakia, and gobbled up the entire country.
• In all this he had an unspoken support of England who also
considered the Versailles too harsh.
• These quick successes at home and abroad seemed to
reverse the destiny of country.
Reconstruction Contd…
• Hitler did not stop here. Schacht had advised Hitler against investing hugely in
rearmament as the state still ran on deficit financing.
• Hitler choose war as an option to tackle the economic crisis – resources to be
accumulated by expansion of territory.
• In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France
and England.
• In September 1940, Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and
Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international power.
• Puppet regimes, supportive of Nazi Germany, were installed in a large part of
Europe.
• By the end of 1940, Hitler was at the pinnacle of his power. He now moved to
achieve his long-term aim of conquering Eastern Europe.
• He wanted to ensure food supplies and living space for Germans. Therefore,
he attacked Soviet Union in 1941.
Reconstruction Contd…
• In this historic blunder Hitler exposed the
German western front to British aerial bombing
and eastern front to the powerful Soviet armies.
• Soviet army defeated Germany at Stalingrad.
Soviet Red Army reached till heart of Berlin.
• USA resisted involvement in war due to huge
losses incurred in WWI.
• Japan was expanding its power in the east. It
had occupied French Indo-China and was
planning to attack US naval bases in the
Pacific.
• When Japan extended support to Hitler &
bombed Pearl Harbor, USA entered the WW-II.
• The War ended in 1945 with defeat of Hitler
and USA dropping off nuclear bomb on
Hiroshima.
The Nazi Worldview
• The crimes that Nazi’s committed were linked to a system of belief and a set of
practices
• According to this, there was no equality between people rather only a racial hierarchy
• Nordic German Aryans were at top and Jews at lowest rank (Hitler’s racism idea was
borrowed from Charles Darwin – evolution and natural selection; Herbert Spencer –
survival of fittest)
The Nazi Worldview Contd…
• Strongest race would survive and weakest would perish
• Aryans – finest race, pure, strong and would dominate the world
• The other aspect of Hitler’s ideology was related to geopolitical
concept of Lebensraum or living space. He believed that new
territories to be acquired for settlement.
• This would enhance area of mother country and enable new
settlers. Also enhance the material sources and power of
Germany.
• Hitler intended to extend German boundaries y moving eastwards,
to concentrate all Germans geographically in one place.
• Poland became the laboratory for experimentation
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Nazi’s wanted
a society
• This means that Germans who were seen as impure or abnormal had no
right to exist.
• Physically eliminated all those who were not desirable
Establishment of the Racial State
Contd…
• Euthanasia Program – German physically or mentally unfit were
condemned to death
• Jews were not only the community classified as “undesirable”.
There were other Inferior clans i.e. Gypsies and Blacks (inferiors),
Russian and Poles (considered as subhuman).
• When Germany occupied Poland and parts of Russia, captured
civilians were forced to work as slave labour. Many of them died due
to starvation and hard work.
• Jews remained the worst sufferers in Nazi regime because they had
been stereotyped as killers of Christ and usurers.
• Until medieval times, Jews were barred from owning land. only trade
and do moneylending and lived in specially marked areas called
Ghettos.
Establishment of the Racial State
Contd…
• They were often prosecuted through periodic organized violence and
expulsion from the land.
• Hitler hatred of Jews was based on pseudoscientific theories of race
according of which Jews total elimination is the solution.
The Racial Utopia
• Under the shadow of war, the Nazis proceeded to realize their
murderous, racial ideal.
• Genocide and war became two sides of the same coin. Occupied
Poland was divided up.
• Much of the north-western Poland was annexed to Germany.
• Poles were forced to leave their homes and properties behind for to
be occupied by ethnic Germans brought in from occupied Europe.
• Poles were then herded like cattle the other part called General
Government, the destination of all “undesirables” of the empire.
• Members of the Polish intelligentsia were murdered in large
numbers in order to keep the entire people intellectually and
spiritually servile.
The Racial Utopia Contd…
• Polish children who looked like Aryans
were forcibly snatched from their
mothers and examined by race experts