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War and its Legacy 1939-1955

1939-42 – The War Effort

  • Hitler had been preparing Germany for war since he took power in 1933
    • Despite this, Germans were not happy about going to war as they remembered the atrocities of WWI
  • During the war, the Nazis used all available methods to ensure that the people said and did the right things
  • The SD and Gestapo monitored the mood of the people in more subtle ways, including sending agents into bars to listen to people’s conversations
  • As the government tightened control over the people, it also controlled the economy more closely
  • As German forces conquered territories, they seized raw materials and goods to supply the war effort
    • They took 20% of Norway’s entire production in 1940
  • From 1942, the German economy shifted more towards armaments
    • IG Farben were producing chemicals, explosives and gas for the extermination camps
    • Forced labourers made up approximately 25% of the German workforce
    • Production was hampered by Allied bombing and some factories were even moved underground
    • Three times as many aircrafts and tanks were built in 1944 than in 1942
  • As more women entered the German workforce, the Nazis were torn between wanting the women to be a ‘perfect’ Aryan mother and between wanting them to work
    • There was no option for women to serve in the armed forces
  • In 1939, involvement in Hitler Youth was compulsory however such organisations were in crisis as the well-trained leaders were drafted into the army, leaving older teenagers to run the groups
    • The sessions became all about the war effort and military drill
  • The popularity of these youth groups decreased, and an anti-Hitler Youth movement was established
    • The Nazis were concerned about this however they couldn’t exterminate the teenagers as they were the future of the Nazi work and military force
    • The Nazis therefore responded uncertainly, sometimes ignoring them and sometimes imprisoning them
    • In 1944 in Cologne, Pirate activities escalated; they sheltered army deserters and escaped prisoners and they stole armaments
    • They also took part in an attack on the Gestapo in which its chief was killed
      • In response, the Nazis rounded up 12 ringleaders and publicly hung them

1939-42 – Wartime Opposition

  • The Catholic bishop Clemens Galen criticised the Nazis throughout the 1930s
    • In 1941, he led a popular protest against the Nazi policy of killing mentally ill and disabled people, forcing the Nazis to temporarily stop the programme
    • Galen had such a strong support that the Nazis concluded it was a bad idea to silence him as it would risk unwanted social unrest during the war
  • Protestant pastor Martin Niemoller was one of the most high-profile critics of the Nazi regime in the 1930s
    • Along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he formed an alternative Protestant Church to the official Reich Church
    • Niemoller spent 1938-45 in a concentration camp for resisting the Nazis
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached against the Nazis until the Gestapo stopped him in 1937
    • He then became involved with members of the army’s intelligent services who were strictly opposed to Hitler
    • He helped Jews escape from Germany and gradually increased his activity
    • In 1942, he contacted the Allied commanders and asked what peace terms they would offer Germany if Hitler was overthrown
    • He was arrested in October 1942 and hanged in April 1945
  • The army was the only group that had a chance of overthrowing the Nazis, but as war progressed the army became increasingly integrated with the Nazi regime
    • Senior army officers still made attempts to assassinate Hitler; five attempts are known of between June 1940 and December 1943, but all failed
  • The closest to success was in July 1944, by this stage officers knew they were going to lose and were sure Hitler was leading them to defeat
    • Army colonel Count von Stauffenberg left a bomb in Hitler’s conference room on 20 July; the plan was to kill Hitler, close radio stations, round up the other leading Nazis and take over Germany
    • It failed in every respect due to poor organisation and planning, the Nazis took revenge by killing 5000 people
  • There were various groups of low-level resistors who caused concerns to the Nazis
    • The SS and Gestapo were concerned about discontent caused by bombing raids, food shortages and heavy casualties
    • Anti-Nazi jokes were a common form of resistance, allowing people to show their discontent without much risk
    • Some civilians refused the salute ‘Heil Hitler’ and hid food from authorities
    • Others went further still by hiding Jews and aiding their escape
  • There were also better-known resistance groups who publicly stood up against the Nazis
    • The White Rose run by Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends was a well-known resistance group who published and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets
    • The movement was small, but members were brave
    • The Scholls were executed in February 1943
  • The above resistance must not be exaggerated as it only includes a minute percentage of the population and Nazi support was strong for most of the duration of the war
    • The Nazis maintained strong control and people reported others to the Nazis
    • Many Germans still believed in Hitler and the ‘Hitler Myth’ remained intact
    • Even in 1944, when the war was going badly for Germany, many people still believed that Hitler would lead them to victory

1939-42 – Persecution of Jews

  • Once the war began, the persecution reached new depths of brutality and it simultaneously became more carefully organised
  • Polish ghettos were established
    • After invading Poland in 1939, the Nazis began ‘Germanising’ western Poland
    • They transported Poles from their homes and replaced them with German settlers
    • Around one in five Poles died either in the fighting or because of racial policies in the period 1939-45
    • Polish Jews were rounded up and transported to the big cities where they were herded into sealed areas – ghettos
    • Able-bodied Jews were used for slave labour but the young, old and sick were left to die of hunger, cold and disease
  • Mass murder began
    • In 1941, Germany invaded the USSR; within weeks, the Nazis were in control of         3 million Soviet Jews as well as the Jews of the other conquered countries
    • German forces were ordered to round up and shoot Communist Party activists and their Jewish supporters; their executions were carried out by a special SS unit called the Einsatzgruppen
    • By the autumn of 1941, mass shootings were taking place all over the occupied land in eastern Europe
    • In Germany, all Jews were ordered to wear the Star of David on their clothing to mark them out
  • The ‘death camps’ were established
    • In January 1942, a group of senior Nazis met to discuss the ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’
    • There, Himmler (head of the SS and Gestapo) was put in charge of the systematic killing of all Jews within the territory
    • Slave labour and death camps were built at Auschwitz, Treblinka and Chelmno in Poland, among other places
    • The old, sick and young were killed immediately and the rest were sent to work in labour camps
    • 6 million Jews, 500 000 European Gypsies and countless political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and prisoners of war were sent to these camps where they were worked to death, gassed or shot
  • Historians have long debated whether the ‘Final Solution’ was planned by Hitler from the start
    • Intentionalists believe the whole process had been intricately planned from the start
    • Structuralists argue that there was no clear plan and that the mass murder policy evolved during the war years
  • Despite whether Hitler planned it or not, the genocide of the Jews would not have been possible without other organisations
    • The Civil Service bureaucracy – this collected and stored information about the Jews
    • Police forces in Germany and the occupied territories – many victims of the Nazis were taken by the police rather than the Gestapo or the SS
    • The SS – Adolf Eichmann devised a system of transporting Jews to collection points and then on to death camps, he was also in charge of looting the possessions of the Jews; the SS Death’s Head battalions and Einsatzgruppen also carried out many of the killings
    • The Wehrmacht (German armed forces) – army leaders were fully aware of what was going on
    • Industry – many companies such as Mercedes and Volkswagen had their own slave labour camps, IG Farben competed with other companies for the German’s contract to make the Cyclon B gas
    • The German people – anti-Semitism was widespread, even if people didn’t take part in the mass murder, they saw the full reality
  • Many Jews escaped Germany before the mass murder started, others managed to live undercover and some joined resistance groups
    • For example, Gad Beck led the Jewish resistance to the Nazis in Berlin; he was finally captured in April 1945; on the scheduled day of his execution he was rescued by troops from the Jewish regiment of the Soviet army
    • There were 28 known groups of Jewish fighters and there might have been more
    • In 1945, the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto revolted against the Nazis and held out for four weeks
    • There were armed uprisings in the concentration camps, and Greek Jews managed to blow up the gas ovens and Auschwitz
    • Many non-Jews helped Jews by hiding and smuggling them out of German territory
      • The industrialist Oskar Schindler protected and saved many people by getting them on to his ‘list’ of workers
      • The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg worked with other resistors to provide Jews with Swedish and US passports to get them out of mysterious circumstances in 1945
    • Most successful resistors kept a low profile and have never been discovered

1944-45 – Fighting till the End

  • It was clear from 1944 that Germany would lose the war, but the Nazi leadership wouldn’t admit defeat
    • A reason for this is that they felt they had nothing to lose; they knew they would be tried and executed for their war crimes and even civilians who knew of the atrocities may have felt the same way
  • Goebbels, as propaganda minister, was committed until the end
    • In July 1944, he was made ‘Plenipotentiary (minister) for Total War’
    • In 1945, Hitler ordered the formation of the Volkssturm (People’s Storm); a force like the British Home Guard and put Goebbels in charge
      • He had to organise teenagers and old men to fight the invading Soviet, US and British forces
      • Most of these people were inexperienced and undertrained
      • It was a desperate and hopeless measure that illustrates the stubborn persistence of the Nazi regime and its leaders
  • In 1945, Himmler daringly started negotiations with the British and Americans
    • Hitler ordered his arrest and he was forced to go into hiding
    • Through spring 1945, when Germans were losing grounds on all sides, the army was ordered to keep fighting
    • They only surrendered when Soviet troops entered Berlin and Hitler committed suicide
  • The Nazi Reich was over; Germany was left to pay for Hitler’s vision

1945-48 – Defeat and Division

  • Since 1943, the Allies had been discussing what they would do with Germany when the war ended
    • They had many conflicting ideas, but they agreed that the countries should be divided into four zones; run by the USA, the USSR, Britain and France
    • They also agreed that Germany would be demilitarised, denazified and democratised
  • Demilitarisation was simple; Germany was shattered, the country and its people were in no state to fight
  • People began to forget and rebuild very early on
    • Women known as the Trummerfrauen (rubble women) began clearing the remains of bombed buildings with their bare hands, neatly making piles for when the rebuilding began
      • As time went on, they were given equipment and their roles became more organised
  • Germany was facing an extreme refugee crisis as Germans in eastern Europe were forced to leave their homes
    • The official Allied policy was that all German speakers in eastern Europe would move to Germany to avoid revenge attacks
    • Still, attacks took place; the Germans of Czech Sudetenland suffered particularly brutal treatment from the advancing Soviet army
    • An estimated 12-14 million German speakers became refugees and they were forced to walk hundreds of kilometres across eastern Europe towards Germany, pulling simple hand carts containing possessions
    • Despite them speaking its language, Germany was never their home and they felt like a burden to the ruined country

1945-48 – Denazification in the Soviet sector

  • The Soviets had suffered terribly; over 20 million people had died
  • One of the Nazis key aims was to crush communism; so, the USSR wanted to crush Nazism
    • They tore down any evidence of Nazis in the street and made it illegal to display any symbols, flags, banners, etc
    • High-ranking Nazis were imprisoned in the Soviet’s camps
    • Thousands of government and military officials were sent to the camps
    • They scrapped the school curriculum and textbooks and removed one-third of German teachers who were said to be Nazi sympathisers
    • Many public servants were sacked
  • Getting rid of societal Nazism was more difficult
    • The Soviet military administration set up local commissions across the Soviet sector, which investigated thousands of individual members of the Nazi Party
      • German officials were appointed to carry out this process as there were not enough Soviets for this mammoth task
    • Soviets pressurised the commissions to make it quick however, tribunals were time-consuming
    • Overall, 300 000 Germans were convicted of low-level involvement with the regime; some were imprisoned, and others were banned from being in authoritative positions
  • By 1948, the USSR had reinstated an elected government in its sector of Germany
    • This was run by communist East German leader Walter Ulbricht
    • He grew tired of the slow process of the commissions and chose to abandon the entire process

1945-48 – Denazification in the Western Zones

  • The western powers also took denazification seriously
  • US and British army intelligence units began to gather information about high-ranking Nazis in October 1944, as they feared they would all go into hiding after the war
  • Once Germany surrendered, the Allies implemented measures to remove any Nazi influence
    • Leading Nazis were quickly arrested
    • All Germans aged 18+ had to complete a questionnaire, detailing political actions, beliefs and jobs held
    • Allied intelligence investigated all senior public officials and 50 000 were dismissed
    • Teachers and medical staff were investigated as well
    • Later, leaders of businesses, industries and worker organisations were all investigated
  • Like the Soviets, the western powers discovered what a huge task this was
    • By September 1945, they created German Review Boards, run by Germans appointed by the Allied military and answerable to it
    • By 1948, these boards had investigated around 3.5 million cases
    • 4000 people out of 5000 trials were found guilty
    • Just under 500 people were executed
    • Around 200 000 individuals were held prisoner but then released due to lack of evidence
  • In addition to tracking down Nazis, France, Britain and the USA introduced a re-education programme
    • They exposed Germans to the full horror of what the Nazis had done
    • German citizens were forced to view pamphlets, photographs and newsreels
    • In 1948, the western powers wound down denazification and focused on rebuilding

1949-55 – Rebuilding the Eastern Zone

  • The Soviets introduced elected assemblies in the eastern sector of Germany quite early on and they allowed political parties to be formed
  • On the creation of the FRG, the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic (GDR) / East Germany
    • In theory, this was a multi-party democracy which held free elections to an assembly and was headed by a president
    • In reality, the USSR ensured that the East Germany Communist Party (SED) was a dominant force
  • The key figure in East Germany was Walter Ulbricht, a German but also a deeply committed communist
    • He had been trained by the USSR during the war and was installed by the Soviets when they took over East Germany
  • As the war ended, many Germans fled from the Soviet zone to the Western zone but far more remained in the East
    • Just as the West, most people were concerned about finding food and shelter in the immediate aftermath of the war
    • Some welcomed the Soviet’s emergence of communism
      • Victor Klemperer was a Jewish university professor who survived the war with a hatred of Nazism and hoped that communism might transform Germany for the better
  • The experiences of those who live in the Soviet sector of Germany were harsher than in the western sectors
    • Between 1945-47, Josef Stalin was determined that Germany should pay for its wartime actions in the USSR
      • Food, industrial equipment and other resources were shipped out of the GDR and into the USSR, whilst looting and rape were widespread
  • By 1948, this had largely ended when a new communist government was established under Ulbricht – he continued policies that the Soviets had begun
    • Around 7000 large landowners had their estates confiscated and redistributed to peasants
  • Ulbricht abolished private schools and brought in free education for all; such policies encouraged communist’s support
  • Ulbricht effectively scrapped East Germany’s democratic constitution in 1950, creating a Central Committee and a Politburo, with himself as head of state
    • A purge of political opponents began; the state took control of the media and education system and the newly formed Stasi kept a close eye on potential enemies
  • In 1952, Ulbricht announced a new programme for East Germany – the Building of Socialism
    • People hoped for economic improvements, but Stalin was instructing Ulbricht to manufacture food to aid the recovery of the USSR
      • This meant that industrial items were produced rather than the consumer goods which drove West Germany’s ‘economic miracle’
  • Ulbricht also brought in compulsory state control of agriculture and he hoped to grow enough food to feed the population with a surplus that could be shipped to the USSR
  • He also decided to build up the military in East Germany which was an unpopular move
  • Shortages and repression were the result of Ulbricht’s policies for East Germans
    • Basic foods such as butter and sugar had to be rationed
    • Consumer goods were scarce and expensive
    • Any attempts to protest or challenge Ulbricht were dealt with harshly by the Stasi
  • The result of the problems was a violent protest in June 1953 when workers in East Berlin went on strike and began protesting in the streets
    • Within days, an estimated 1 million people in towns and cities across East Germany followed suit
    • Ulbricht responded quickly and ruthlessly
      • East German police alongside Soviet tanks and troops moved in and crushed the rebellion
        • Estimates put the death toll at around 500
      • Around 5000 people were arrested and more than 1200 of them served long prison sentences
  • There was outrage in the West at Ulbricht’s actions, but little could be done; the two Germanies were on entirely different paths

1949-55 – Rebuilding the Western Zone

  • In 1949, the US, British and French zones were merged to become the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) / West Germany with a new capital called Bonn
  • The FRG was founded on a constitution called the Basic Law
    • The Basic Law was similar to the Weimar Constitution which was established to ensure that no individual could assume too much power over Germany
    • It built important safeguards to protect democracy
    • The position of president was much less powerful
    • No party could send representatives to the new parliament unless it gained 5% of the votes
      • This was to stop aggressive minority parties like Nazis or Communists from causing problems
  • The chancellor of the FRG was Konrad Adenauer
    • He had been the mayor of Cologne when the Nazis took power
    • He had been arrested several times by the Nazis and disliked them and the communists
    • In 1945, he formed the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) which attracted 30% of the vote in Germany; Adenauer was able to form coalitions with other parties
    • He was chancellor from 1949-63
    • During his time, the people were divided over the direction that the country should take
    • Adenauer banned the right-wing Socialist Reich Party (SRP) in 1952 and the Communist Party (KDP) in 1956 because they were felt to be a threat to the country’s constitution
  • Betriebsunfall means ‘accident in the works’
    • Many Germans struggled to come to terms with what happened in the war
    • One response was that the Nazi period had effectively been a 12-year aberration – an accident in the works
    • It was almost written out of Germany’s history
    • Betriebsunfall probably helped some people feel loyal to the new state
    • This was a positive factor as it brought stability
    • However, it also meant that the best opportunities in education and jobs still went to the wealthy, middle and upper classes
    • Adenauer was concerned that some citizens would feel that the republic had failed them like the Weimar did
      • In the 1949 election, 22% of the public didn’t vote, which suggested Adenauer was right
  • The ‘economic miracle’ of the German economy growing by 8% per annum in the years between 1948-54 won people’s support for the FRG
    • By the early 1950s, Germany was exporting high-quality manufactured goods all over the world
    • Unemployment fell from 8% to 4% in 1955, despite the huge increase in population
    • Adenauer was cautious about the policy and didn’t promise radical changes; Germans felt this was sensible
    • West Germans began to associate democracy with economic success and prosperity
    • Support steadily grew and in 1957 the CDU gained a majority
  • There were various factors that contributed to the economic miracle
    • Marshall Aid from the USA was sent
    • East German migrants had valuable technical skills which boosted the economy
    • The government introduced a compensation scheme for those who had lost savings and property in the war
      • People used the compensation to set up businesses which contributed to economic growth
    • The government became involved with industrial relations which eventually prevented strikes as workers were happier which also prevented communism
      • Under the Co-determination Law of May 1951, large businesses had to allow trade union representatives to sit on the board of directors to represent their workers
      • In 1952, firms were obliged to set up Works Councils which made it compulsory for companies to keep their workers informed about management plans
  • Life in the FRG was still not perfect; the country was divided, wealth was unequally distributed and big industries which had aided the Nazis were thriving
    • Adenauer looked for ways to reassure the rest of Europe that Germany was peaceful and prosperous
    • In 1950, Germany and France formed the European Coal and Steel Community which set up a joint industry of coal and steel
      • This was the first step in today’s European Union by tying one of Germany’s key war industries to France, making it harder to fight another war
  • By 1954, West Germany was deemed stable enough to have its own armed forces again and to join NATO
    • From 1955-89, West Germany remained a stronghold of democracy until the union of East and West Germany in 1990

Describe two examples of the effects of occupation in Germany. [2]

Describe one example of the effect of war on the persecution of Jews. [2]

Describe one example of the impact of war on Aryan Germans. [2]

Describe one example of denazification. [2]

Explain how war affected Germans in the years 1939-45.  [10]

Did the war increase opposition to the Nazi regime? [10]

Explain why denazification proved to be a difficult task in the years 1945-48 in Germany. [10]

Why was Source 1 on page 172 produced in March 1940? [5]

Explain why Sources 3 and 4 on page 173 are different. [10]

‘German people were committed to the war effort.’ How far do you agree with this view? [18]

‘The biggest change that affected Germans in the period 1939-45 was war.’ How far do you agree with this view? [18]