GERMAN PROVINCES LOST IN 1919

Günter Grass (born 1927 in Gdansk/Danzig) * Protestant, German father/ Catholic, Polish- Kashubian mother * 1944/45: Drafted into German army * 1959: Publishes The Tin Drum * 1969: Campaigns for the Social Democrat Willy Brandt * 1999: Nobel Prize for Literature * 2006: Outed as a veteran of Waffen-SS

The Rise of the Kingdom of Prussia,

Estimated population loss in Germany during the Thirty Years’ War ( )

King Frederick William I (r ) and his “Regiment of Giants”

“The Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sans Souci”

The Seven Years’ War, : France, Austria, & Russia seek to destroy Prussia

The Three Partitions of the Kingdom of Poland,

Europe in 1922, with a large Republic of Poland

ADOLF HITLER’S YOUTH AND START IN POLITICS 1889: Born in Braunau, where his father collects tolls on the border between Bavaria and Austria 1898: Move to Linz (where Adolf struggles in high school) : VIENNA YEARS—Hitler twice fails the entrance exam to the Vienna Art Academy, drifts to Munich in : SOLDIER YEARS : Star orator for the “National Socialist German Workers’ Party, attempts Beer Hall Putsch Nov : Imprisoned for treason : Great Depression fuels rapid growth for the Nazi Party.

The Hitlers came from the borderland between Lower Austria & Bohemia, in an Austrian Empire wracked by ethnic tension Austria granted Home Rule to Hungary in 1867 but no such rights to Czechs, Croats, etc.

Alois Hitler ( ): This illegitimate son of a maid achieved respectability as an Austrian civil servant Klara Hitler ( ), the third wife of Alois and his second cousin “I had honored my father, but my mother I had loved.” (Mein Kampf, end of chap. 1)

“Carriage Shafts” (Austria, 1900): “Schmul’s Patented Automobile. Cheapest operation! Completely safe!”

Watercolor by Hitler, Munich, early 1914

Munich’s Odeon Square, August 2, 1914 “To me those hours seemed like a release from the painful feelings of my youth. Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time” (M.K., p. 161)

German trench in the Great War (1915)

Adolf Hitler with two fellow dispatch runners and his dog, Foxl, in Fournes, France (1915).

SPD leaders proclaim Germany a Republic from the balcony of the Reichstag on 9 November 1918 The top generals and officials of the Empire had appealed to them to organize elections and oppose the Bolsheviks.

Only in Munich did the Communists actually gain power (the “Red Army” marches under Munich’s short-lived “Soviet Republic” in April 1919)

The Free Corps “restore order” in Munich, May 1919 Some Free Corps men adopted the swastika as a symbol of racial purity; many later joined the Nazi Party. Most Bavarians approved of the summary execution of hundreds of “Reds”.

“The Stab in the Back” (Nazi magazine cover, 1924)

Anton Drexler, the railroad machinist who invited Hitler into his “German Workers’ Party” in September 1919 and renamed it the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in 1920

25-Point Program of the German Workers’ Party (Feb. 1920) #1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a Great Germany. #3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the nourishment of our people and for settling our excess population. #4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the state. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. No Jew therefore may be a member of the nation. #7. If it is not possible to nourish the entire population of the state, foreign nationals (noncitizens of the state) must be excluded from the Reich. #8. All non-German immigration must be prevented. #11. Abolition of incomes unearned by work. #13. We demand nationalization of all businesses (trusts). #14. We demand that the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared. #16. We demand creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of wholesale business premises, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders….

“HITLER SPEAKS!” (mass rally in Munich’s Cirkus Krone, 1923)

Alfred Rosenberg and Adolf Hitler review marching Stormtroopers in Munich, 4 November 1923

Nazi Stormtroopers outside Munich City Hall, 9 November 1923

Wilhelm Frick, General Erich Ludendorff, Hitler, and Röhm at their trial for treason

Postcard of Hitler in Landsberg Prison (1924), where he dictated vol. 1 of Mein Kampf TOTAL GERMAN SALES: 1929: 23, : 80, : 1,500, : 10,000,000

SEARCHING FOR THE RIGHT IMAGE in the photography studio of Heinrich Hoffmann, 1920s

“Combative” “Commanding”

“Visionary” ---- “Ironic”

UNEMPLOYMENT RATES, : The SPD and liberals deadlocked in March 1930 over whether to raise taxes or slash jobless benefits (The French figures are probably understated.)

THE POLARIZATION OF THE GERMAN ELECTORATE (the Nazis peaked at 37% in July 1932)

The Nazis campaigned in Aug/Sep 1930 on the platform that war reparations had caused the economic crisis “Freedom and Bread” They astonished everyone in September 1930 by winning 18% of the vote & 107 Reichstag seats

By July 1932 the Nazis focused their propaganda not on anti-Semitism but on foreign enemies and the traditional bogey-men of middle-class Protestants, the Reds and the Blacks: “The Final Blow!”