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Private Notes
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed "Reich Chancellor". Within a very short time, he manages to expand his power and turn Germany into a one-party state. Political opponents are the first to feel the iron arm of the new government. After the Reichstag fire of 27 February, Hitler had them imprisoned in concentration camps and all other parties banned, legitimised by the new Enabling Act.
After political opponents, Hitler is slowly getting rid of his opponents in his own ranks. Ernst Röhm, Chief of Staff of the SA, was the first to feel this. On June 30, 1934, Hitler personally had Röhm and some loyalists arrested in Bad Wiessee. Six SA men were immediately shot on his orders, Röhm a day later. On July 2, 1934, the Reich government retrospectively justified the murderous action, which was disguised by the Nazis as the "Röhm Putsch", as a "state of emergency".
A gigantic election propaganda was followed by the more than clear victory in the Saar referendum of 13 January 1935. In this way, Hitler succeeds in bringing the Saar region, which had been separated from Germany after the Treaty of Versailles, "home to the Reich". Meanwhile, party leaders are urging Hitler to enact "race laws." The Jews were to be expelled from the National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft once and for all. The "Nuremberg Laws" soon made public discrimination possible.
The year 1936 is marked by the Olympic Games, which are held for the first time in a dictatorship. After the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Summer Games will take place in Berlin in August. Nazi propaganda used this opportunity to embellish Germany's image abroad. Thus, all anti-Semitic graffiti as well as the striker boxes disappear.
At the beginning of 1937, Germany was apparently experiencing an economic boom. In fact, however, this is bought at a high price with an enormous national debt. In reality, the state is suffering from a shortage of raw materials and is on the verge of insolvency. But foreign policy successes distract from domestic problems. In the Spanish Civil War, for example, German soldiers were deployed outside their home country for the first time since 1918.
In March 1938, German troops invaded Austria and Adolf Hitler proclaimed in Vienna the annexation of his homeland to the German Reich. The veneration of the "Führer" now knows no bounds. In November, all the anger of the Nazis against the Jewish roommates is unleashed: During Kristallnacht, riots break out all over the country. Jewish businesses are vandalized, synagogues are reduced to rubble.
At the beginning of 1939, Hitler presented himself as statesmanlike and cosmopolitan. In doing so, he continues to pursue only one goal: war. In March, German troops occupied Slovakia, and shortly afterwards the Memelland was reintegrated into the Reich. On 1 September, German troops invade Poland without declaring war. Only two days later, England and France declare war on the German Reich.
In 1940, the war machine in the "Third Reich" was running at full speed. Right at the beginning of the year, compulsory military service is introduced for students and the armaments industry now also employs women. In order to be successful in the air battle against England, German troops conquer Denmark and Norway within a very short time. In addition, the Nazis occupy Paris and force France to surrender. But Hitler is far from having reached his goal.
The year 1941 begins with quick victories. The tactics of the blitzkrieg seem successful. With the war against the Soviet Union, a new form of warfare begins: the so-called war of annihilation. By the end of 1941, the Baltic States, Belarus and large parts of Ukraine had already been occupied. But shortly before Moscow, the German attack came to a standstill, and at the beginning of December, icy temperatures of over minus 40 degrees Celsius brought the attack to a complete standstill.
In the Winter Battle of 1941/42, the Wehrmacht began to retreat westwards. The advance into the Caucasus leads to an overstrain on the German troops and finally to the encirclement and capture of the 6th Army in the Stalingrad pocket. The Nazis also suffered setbacks in the other theatres of war. After initial successes in Africa, Erwin Rommel suffered his first defeats at the end of the year against the British superiority.
Despite Joseph Goebbels' pathetic proclamation of "total war" in February 1943, the psychological consequences of the defeat at Stalingrad are devastating. The Wehrmacht lost the aura of invincibility invoked by Nazi propaganda and the last major German offensive "Citadel" ended in disaster in July 1943.
Under the pressure of German defeats, more and more allies are falling away from Germany. The German population, too, increasingly doubts the nimbus of invincibility invoked by Nazi propaganda. At the beginning of 1944, Erwin Rommel took command of the German Army Group in northern France. He is supposed to repel the planned invasion of the Allies. But even the gigantic Atlantic Wall could not stop the invasion of Normandy.
At the end of January 1945, the advancing Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. The full extent of the Holocaust is now becoming clear to the Allies. At the Yalta Conference, they agree on further military and political action. While the Americans are conquering city after city in the west, Russian troops are advancing in the east. After the Battle of Berlin in April 1945, the end of the Nazi regime was sealed. Hitler commits suicide in the bunker of the New Reich Chancellery.
