HIST3025 Hitler and the National Socialist Ideology Spring Semester 2013 Lecture: Thursday (CPD-3.22) Seminar (5 Feb-): Thursday 4.30–5.20 (RRT, 10/F, 1028) hist3025course.html

HIST3025 Hitler and the National Socialist Ideology Lecture 2: Hitler’s Life January 2013

Alois Hitler ( ) Father of Adolf Hitler Alois the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber 1842 Marriage of his mother with Johann Georg Hiedler 1876 His father Alois legitimated and assuming the surname “Hitler” Customs Officer in Austrian service

Adolf Hitler: Youth * 20 April 1889, Braunau am Inn (Austria) 1892 in Passau (Bavaria, Germany) 1895 in Linz (Lower Austria) 1903 in Vienna ►Hamann, Brigitte, Hitler’s Vienna (1999) = His Anti-Semitism probably acquired in Vienna, hotbed of religious prejudice and racism

Hitler’s readings Friedrich Nietzsche’s ( ) ‘will to power’ (Untimely Reflections, ) Arthur de Gobineau’s ( ) race theory Houston Steward Chamberlain’s ( ) race struggle theory Gregor Johann Mendel’s ( ) theory of heredity (1865-) → science of genetics Alfred Ploetz’ ( ) social-Darwinist ideas Karl Haushofer’s ( ) expansionist ‘geopolitics’

Hitler: Soldier 1913 in Munich (Bavaria, Germany) 1914 War volunteer in World War I with Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment Iron Cross Second Class 1916 Wounded in Battle of the Somme 1918 Temporarily blinded by mustard gas 1918 Iron Cross First Class = Embittered over collapse of war effort

Anti-Republicans on the Right Propagated ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend Saw war defeat as Jewish/Leftist/Bolshevist conspiracy Some wanted back monarchy (not Hitler) Demanded strictly revisionist foreign policy Opposed to fulfilment of Versailles Treaty

Adolf Hitler: Party politician 1920/21 DAP renamed in NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers’ Party: Swastika (Hakenkreuz) as party emblem + Völkischer Beobachter (Racial Observer) as party organ : Twenty-Five Point Program: A combination of nationalist, socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-Semitic ideas : First chairman of NSDAP → Wide powers → Important group of supporters: Rosenberg, Hess, Göring, Amann

Hitler Putsch or: Beer-Hall Putsch, 8 Nov 1923 Unsuccessful attempt of Hitler & Ludendorff to seize power for NS party Amazing achievement of political nobody = Sentenced to 5 years imprisonment = Released after 8 months only = Wrote first part of autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle)

NSDAP’s ‘new founding’ (1925) 3 new principles after Hitler’s come-back : Legal tactics instead of putsch to achieve mass mobilisation of voters Centralised structure to be distinct from competing rightist parties + to place party army SA (Storm Troopers/Brown Shirts) fully under Hitler Absolute obedient tool of Hitler = Hitler as NSDAP dictator called Führer

‘National Opposition’ in Weimar Republic Strived for different political & economic system in Germany Not prepared to abide to rules of Republic Split over question if change by violence or parliamentary majorities = From very different social & ideological backgrounds ↓ Extreme Leftists (KPD) and Extreme Rightists (NSDAP) = A typical & most disastrous defect of Weimar Republic