Hakenkreuz (swastika)- The most important nazi symbol. The hooked or crooked cross is a rectilinear cross with oblique arms that turn clockwise. The symbol was adopted by Hitler as the official emblem of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the Nazi party, both before and after its rise to political power.
The swastika is one of the most ancient and popular of all ornamental forms. It appeared again and again among different peoples in both hemispheres. It was used on ceramics in Iran as early as the fourth millennium B.C., and it appeared later in Troy, Greece, India, Tibet, and Japan. Sometimes it served as a religious symbol or as a charm against the "evil eye". The American Indians often used the swastika in their handicraft work. On occasion it was employed to denote th movement of the sun. As early as 1910 the swastika was used in Germany to denote "the superior Aryan race." The propoganda machine of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels popularized the swastika as the official Nazi emblem.
Halder Plot- The first resistance movement within the officers corps designed to remove Hitler from power. The leader was Gen. Franz Halder, who on August 27, 1938, succeeded Gen. Ludwig Beck as chief of the General Staff of the Army. Soon after taking up his post, Halder made contact with several sympathizers: Maj. Gen. Hans Oster, chief of staff of the Abwehr, the counterintelligence unit; Hans Bernd Gesevius, who worked for the Abwehr; and Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, who had been removed from his office as president of the Reichsbank. The group enlisted Maj. Gen. Erwin von Witleben, a senior officer in the Wehrmacht, the armed forces. The conspirators proposed to seie the government by a military Putsch in Berlin and to install a parliamentary regime, but the plot never went beyond the discussion stage. Halder made an effort to enlist Gen. Walther von Bauchitsch, commander in chief of the Wehrmacht, but he was unsuccessful in obtaining the support of that key figure. The plan was dealt a severe blow when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his flights to Germany to appease Hitler. When the Munich Agreement was signed on September 30, 1938, the Halder Plot was swept away.
Harzburg Front- A projected alliance of rightists nationalists in 1931 in opposition to the government of Chancellor Heinrich Bruening. In 1928 Alfred Hugenberg, leader of the German Nationalists and one of the most powerful tycoons of heavy industry, urged Hitler to join him in a battle against the Young Plan on reparations. Hugenberg was anxious to use the strength of the National Socialists, who had won twelve seats in the Reichstag in the elections of May 20, 1928, receiving some 800,000 votes. At this time, Hitler was torn between the rightist and leftist wings of his party.
On October 11, 1931, in the little town of Bad Harzburg in Braunschweig, a conclave of rightist parties convened for the purpose of ousting Chancellor Bruening and establishing a "truly national Government." In this gathering were represented such varied groups as Nationalists, Pan-Germans, Junkers, Stahlhelm members, generals, admirals, spokesmen for heavy industry, and National Socialists. Among the individuals present were Hugenberg; Fritz Thyssen, director of the United Steel Works; Franz Seldte, head of the Stahlhelm; Hjalmar Schacht, banker and economics expert; and Hitler. Hugenberg, demanding that Germany be rescued from the Bolshevik periol and from bankruptcy, urged Bruening's resignation and new elections. Hitler, pleased by being included in this distinguished gathering, spoke along similar lines and predicted that Germany would either turn to nationalism or bolshevism.
The Harzburg Front represented money, influence, and political power, and with Hitler and his Nazis it would have mass support. Between the Harzburg combination and political power stood only the venerable President Paul von Hindenburg, who could keep a minority in power as long as he invoked the authority of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Harzburg Front was not successful in its goal, primarily becuase Hitler had no intention of diminishing his own strength by combining with the Nationalists. He suspected that Hugenberg wanted to use him for the interests of the Nationalist party, and he was resolved not to allow that. Hitler felt himself to be too close to political power to dilute his position in German politics.
Heldengedenktag Attentat (Heroes' Memorial Day Attempt) An attempt made on Hitler's life on March 21, 1943, by the Resistance. After the failure of the Smolensk attentat on March 13, the conspirators decided to try again a week later. The day selected was one dedicated to commemorate the dead of World War I. A ceremony was held annually at the Zeughaus on Unter den Linden, Berlin. It was Hitler's custom to attend the ceremony this time to see a collection of weapons captured from the Russians. Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, operational chief of the plot, selected a colleague, Maj. Gen. Rudolf Christian Freiherr von Gersdorff, for the task of killing Hitler. Von Gersdorff was supposed to use a ten-minute fuse for the bomb, but he was unable to find one in time, and decided to abandon the plot. Ironically, Hitler remained for just eight minutes after the ceremony.
Herbstreise (Autumn Journey). Code name for a large-scale feint to be undertaken in conjunction with Operation Sea Lion (Seelowe). In early August 1940 Hitler issued a directive for the conduct of air and naval warfare against England. Late that month he gave additional orders for a series of deceptions to be carried out with Sea Lion, of which Herbstreise was one. Four large passenger liners, including the Europa and the Bremen, together with ten transports and four accompanying cruisers, were to leave Norwegian waters and head for the British coast between Newcastle and Aberdeen. There would be only necessary crews aboard the armada, which would move toward the British coast two days before the contemplated invasion and then turn back home in the darkness. The entire plan of Operation Sea Lion was canceled the next month, when the Luftwaffe received a sound beating in the Battle of Britain.
Hercules- Code name for the proposed capture of Malta by German parachute troops in the spring of 1942. The operation was postponed when large British forces got through to the island on June 16, 1942. British aircraft soon drove the Luftwaffe from the skies around Malta, and British planes based on the island sank most of the supply ships seeking to reach Gen. Erwin Rommel in North Africa.
Hess Flight- The airplane flight of Rudolf Hess, Deputy Fuhrer of the Third Reich, to Scotland to seek British collaboration against the Russians. On May 10, 1941, the No. 3 Nai parachuted safely into Scotland following an 800 mile forbidden flight from Germany. After hte outbreak of World War II in 1939, Hess, who had operated closely in the shadow of the Fuhrer, was gradually relegated to the background. Fretting about his bad fortune, he began to devise plans to regain Hitler's attention by a magnificent act of sacrifice. It was a tragedy, he believed, for Germans and British, "Aryan blond brothers," to fight one another in the war. He would fly alone to the British isles, arrange a peace with the British, and get them to join in the war that the Fuhrer would soon begin against Bolshevik Russia. Hess was certain that he would be welcomed in Britain. During the Olympic games held at Berlin in 1936, he had met a British aristocrat who later became the Duke of Hamilton. After the war began, Hess wrote to the duke and presented a peace feeler, but the latter, acting on goverment instructions, did not reply. Hess nevertheless believed that if he could get to Scotland, the duke, as land steward to the royal family, would lead him directly to the kind, and help him on his mission of peace.
Hess prepared carefully for the flight. He had been forbidden by the Fuhrer to fly, but he managed to induce Willy Messerschmitt, the aircraft designer, to give him facilities for long-distance-flying training inside Germany. He concentrated on learning air navigation. On May 10, 1941, he took off from Augsburg in an unarmed plane without fuel for a return trip. He was dressed as a Luftwaffe flight lieutenant and carried a map on whihc he had penciled his course. His navigation was remarkable. He had intended to land his plane near the estate of the Duke of Hamilton, but he was unable to find a suitable spot. Stalling for a crash, he bailed out and floated down on a Scottish farm. Unarmed and unresisting, he allowed himself to be captured by a farmer armed with a pitchfork. Suffering from a broken ankle but otherwise unharmed, the smiling Hess was removed to a Glasgow hospital. At first he gave his name as Horn, but later admitted that he was Rudolf Hess and showed various photographs of himself at different ages in order to establish his identity.
Hess was astonished when high British officials, apparently at a loss for what to make of the flight, declined to talk to him. To an officer in the Foreign Office, who had known him before the war and now came to the hospital to see him, Hess gave his personal message. If the British would only halt hostiliites, they could join their brothers in Germany in a crusade against Bolshevism. Hitler would give the British a free hand in their empire, while Germany would maintain control of the European continent. There were some conditions: Germany's colonies, which had been stolen from her by the Treaty of Versailles, must be returned; Iraq must be evacuated; and the British must conclude an armistice with Mussolini. This was the price for peace. Moreover, the British must know that the Fuhrer would not negotiate with Prime Minister Churchill and that it would be best if Churchill were forced to resign.
From Germany came anguished cries of disbelief and disavowal. Hitler ordered Propoganda Minister Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels to infomr the world that Hess had taken leave of his senses. The press release was explicit: "It seemed that Party Member Hess lived in a state of hallucination, as a result of which he felt he would bring about an understanding between England and Germany. . . . .The National Socialist Party regrets that this idealist fell victim to his hallucination. This, however, will have no effect on the continuance of war which has been forced on Germany."
Churchill ordered that Hess be treated with dignity, as if he were an important general who had fallen by accident into British hands. The prisoner was eventually moved to the Tower of London, where he was held until October 6, 1945, when he was transferred to a cell at Nuremberg. Later Churchill stated that, whatever his moral guilt because as a German he stood by Hitler, Hess had atoned for this by "his completely devoted and frantic deed of lunatic benevolence." The British Prime Minister believed that Hess had come to England of his own free will and that although without any authority, he had something of the quality of an envoy. Churchill concluded that Hess was a medical and not a criminal case and should be so regarded.
Himmler-Kersten Agreement- A late agreement signed by Heinrich Himmler and Dr. Felix Kersten, his personal physician, on the treatment of concentration capm prisoners. On March 12, 1945, at a time when the Third Reich was coming to its end, Himmler and Kersten, in a darkened room of the SS sanatorium at Hohenlychen, signed the following statement. Himmler himself added the heading
Agreement in the Name of Humanity
It was decided:1. That concentration camps will not be blown up.
2. On the approach of Allied Troops, a while flag will be hoisted.
3. No more Jews will be killed, and Jews will be treated like other prisoners.
4. Sweden is allowed to send food parcels to individual Jewish prisoners
(Signed) Himmler and Kersten
Hindenburg-Hitler Interview- Interview in which Reich President Paul von Hindenburg offered Hitler a post in the Cabinet and was refused. In the Reichstag elections of July 31, 1932, the Nazis returned 230 deputies, but in the following November 6 elections they won seats for 196 deputies, sustaining a loss of 34 seats. Nevertheless, an attmpt was made to appease the Nazi leader. On August 13, 1932, Hitler was received by Chancellor Franz von Papen, who invited him to be interviewed by President von Hindenburg. A chilly affair, the interview lasted only fifteen minutes. Von Hindenburg offered Hitler a Cabinet post. To the question whether he and the nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei were ready to enter the Von Papen Cabinet, Hitler replied,"We are ready to take over fully responsibility for German political policies in every form, provided that that means unequivocal leadership of the government. If that is not the case, then the National Socialist movement can accept neither power nor responsibility. Specifically, it declines entrance into a cabinet headed by Von Papen." To Von Hindenburg this meant "all or nothing at all." The Nazis claimed, to the country, that the Fuhrer never demanded "complete power" but only "unequivocal leadership of the government." Whatever the attitude, Von Hindenburg broke off the negotiations as fruitless. Both sides were contemptuous. Von Hindenburg had already said several times: "Hitler--Chancellor? Never, as long as I live, and certainly not by these indelicate, blackmailing methods." Hitler began to repeat his own favorite refrain: "Hindenburg. He is 85 years old, I am 45. I can wait!"
Hitler Jugend (HJ, Hitler Youth) The male branch of the German youth movement. It was regarded as a Gliederung (limb) of the Nazi party. Hitler believed that the survival of his Third Reich for 1,000 years depended upon the education of the youth. "A violently active, dominating, brutal youth--that is what I am after. youth must be indifferent to pain. . . .I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men.
To promote this educational goal, Hitler set up two state-controlled organizations in 1933, the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) and the Bund Deutscher Madel, the League of German Girls. All the youth clubs existing at the time were brought into the new German organization. By 1935, the Hitler Youth was a huge organization comprising almost 60% of German youth. It was placed under the direction of Reichsjugendfuhrer (Reich youth leader) Baldur von Shirach. At the September 1935 Nazi party rally at Nuremberg, 54,000 representatives of the Hitler Jugend marched before Hitler. The Fuhrer addressed them in glowing tones. What was desired of youth, he said, was quite unlike what former generations wanted. The dull philistine youth of yesterday were succeeded by the lanky athlete, "swift as the greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel." National Socialism would replace yesterday's degenerate and would educate the new youth in strict discipline and perfect self-respect.
The education of the Hitler Jugend was carefully regulated. At first came the preliminary steps. By March 15 of the year in which he would celebrate his tenth birthday, every German youngster had to register with the Reich Youth Headquarters. After a thorough investigation of the boy's record and that of his family, with special attention to his racial purity, he was admitted free of tain in the year's group of initiates to the Deutsches Jungvolk. This section included boys aged from ten through thirteen years. The honor took place in a ceremony on the Fuhrer's birthday, April 20, in the presence of a high party functionary. The Hitler Jugend accepted youngsters from fourteen to eighteeen. At the age of eighteen, the young man was graduated from the youth organizations to the National Socialist party and eventually into the SA. At the age of nineteen young Nazis were called for six months into the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the State Labor Service, in which they were subjected to manual labor and strict discipline. After this stage they went into the Wehrmacht, the armed forces, for their two years of military service. In this way the Nazi party never relinquished its hold on German youngsters from the age of ten to twenty-one.
Hitler-Stalin Pact- Agreement between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. It was signed on August 23, 1939, in Moscow by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav M. Molotov. The pact provided that the two countries would not support any third power in the event that it attacked either of the two signatories, that they would consult with each other on matters of common interest, and that each would refrain from associating with any grouping of powers aimed at the other. A secret protocol, made public in 1948, divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres, and each signatory was given territorial gainst in lands lying between them.
The signing of the pact was a political bombshell. For years there had been a war of ideologies between the two hostile countries. In Mein Kampf and in many speeches Hitler had excoriated bolshevism as the archenemy of civilization, and in turn Stalin had denounced the Nazis as fascist beasts. The surprising end to the war of words came because both dictators saw benefits in the agreement.
Stalin regarded the pact as advantageous. he had long dreaded a combination of Britain, France, and Germany directed against his country. He would not allow London and Paris to channel fascist expansion eastward. Moreover, the Soviet Union, weakened by military purges and uncertain of British and French intentions, needed time to complete the military industrialization envisioned in the Third Five-Year Plan. In late September 1938, at the time of the Munich Agreement, the U.S.S.R. was left alone in Europe. What Stalin feared most was the four partners at Munich might form a coalition directed against Russia. In early 1939 negotiations began between Russia and the Western states. When Britian suggested that the Soviet Union make a unilateral guarantee of assistance to any neighboring state that wanted such a pledge, Stalin replied with a suggestion that made clear the price the Western democracies would have to pay. In addition to a mutual assistance agreement and a military convention, they would have to guarantee as a defensive barrier against Nazi aggression all the states between the Baltic and the Black Sea (Poland, Romania, Finland, the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Greece). This was far too great a price for Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and premier Edouard Daladier, who believed that such an agreement would give the Russians a huge zone of influence which would soon be occupied by Soviet troops. In turning to Germany, Stalin was accepting a second choice for the security he needed.
For Hitler, the pact was an achievement of the first order. Above all it relieved him of the fate of Emperor William II, who had been caught between two fronts in World War I. The Fuhrer saw no difficulty in assigning to Russia the Balkan states and parts of Poland and Romania. He did not want to concern himself with the eastern front in the event that Britain and France really came to Poland's aid. True, he had emphasized the Bolshevik menace as long as Britain and France had allowed him to win victories in Spain, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. He would turn for the time being to Soviet Russia. Later, after he had defeated the democracies, he could attend to matters in the east.
Hitler's Last Will- On the morning of April 29, 1945, s Berlin was engulfed in a sea of flames, Hitler married Eva Braun in his underground bunker at the Chancellery. While the Wedding was being celebrated, Hitler sent for his secretary, Frau Gertrud Junge, and dictated two documents, his last will and his political testament. In his private will Hitler explained his marriage, disposed of his property, and announced his impending death. The next day at 3:30 pm, Hitler and his wife committed suicide. The bodies were burned and then buried in the Chancellery grden or taken away by the Russians. The text of the will follows:
As I did not consider that I could take responsibility, during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career, to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the practically beseieged town in order to share her destiny with me. At her own desire she goes as my wife with me into death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through my work in the service of my people.What I possess belongs--in so far as it has any value--to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State; should the state also be destroyed, no further decision of mine is necessary.
My pictures, in the collections which I have bought in the course of years, have never been collected for private purposes, but only for the extension of a gallery in my home town of Linz on Donau.
It is my most sincere wish that this bequest may be duly executed.
I nominate as my Executor my most faithful Party comrade, Martin Bormann
He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He is permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life, for my brothers and sisters, also above all for the mother of my wife and my faithful co-workers who are well known to him, principally my old Secretaries Frau Winter, etc. who have for many years aided me by their work.
I myself and my wife-in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation-choose death. It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out the greatest part of my daily work in the course of twelve years' service to my people.
Given in Berlin, 29th April 1945, 4:00 AM
(Signed) A. Hitler
Witnesses
Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels
Martin Bormann
Colonel Nicholaus von Below
Hitler's Political Testament- After writing his last will, Hitler wrote a political testament in which he defended his work and career. In the first part he maintained that he had not wanted to go to war in 1939 and placed the blame for the conflict on "International Jewry". In the second part he expelled from the party the men who he decided were traitors to his cause, including Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, appointed his successors, and outlined the form of government that they should adopt.
The authenticity of Hitler's political testament was challenged by a writer to the London Daily Telegraph, who noted the "un-German" characteristics of the typescript. H.R. Trevor-Roper, the British historian, regards the validity of the testament as established beyond doubt by a mass of internal and circumstantial evidence, including expert scrutiny of the signatures and the testimony of Frau Gertrud Junge, who typed the documents. Trevor-Roper characterizes this last advertisement of the Nazi movement, designed as a valedictory to the world and a message to later generations, as "nothing but the old claptrap, the negative appeal, the purposeless militarism, of the Revolution of Destruction. . . ." The text of the testament follows:
More than thirty years have now passed since I in 1914 made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the first world war that was forced upon the Reich.In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts, aand life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man. I have spent my time, my working strength, and my health in these three decades.
It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for the responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me. I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even against America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything. International Jewry and its helpers, will grow.
Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem-similar to that in the case of the Saar district, under international control. This offer also cannot be denied. It was only rejected because the leading circles in English politics wanted the war, partly on account of the business hoped for and partlly under influence of propoganda organized by International Jewry.
I have also made it quite plain that, if the nations of Europe are again to be regarded as mere shares to be bought and sold by these international conspirators in money and finance, then that race, Jewry, which is the real criminal of this murderous struggle, will be saddled with the responsibility. I further left no one in doubt that this time not only would millions of children of Europe's Aryan people die of hunger, no only would millions of grown men suffer death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children be burnt and bombed to death in the towns, without the real criminal having to atone for this guilt, even if by more humane means.
After six years of war, which in spite of all setbacks, will go down one day in history as the most glorious and valiant demonstration of a nation's life purpose. I cannot fursake the city which is the capital of this Reich. As the forces are too small to make any further stand against the enemy attack at this place and our resistance is gradually being weakened by men who are as deluded as they are lacking in initiative, I should like, by remaining in this town, to share my fate with those, the millions of others, who have also taken upon themselves to do so. Moreover I do not wish to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses.
I have decided therefore to remain in Berlin and there of my own free will to choose death at the moment when I believe the position of the Fuhrer and Chancellor itself can no longer be held.
I die with a happy heart, aware of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our soldiers at the front, our women at home, the achievements of our farmers and workers and the work, unique in history, of our youth who bear my name.
That from the bottom of my heart I express thanks to you all, is just as self-evident as my wish that you should, because of that, on no account give up the struggle, but rather continue it against the enemies of the Fatherland, no matter where, true to the creed of a great Clausewitz. From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National Socialist movement and thus the realization of a true community of nations.
Many of the most courageous men and women have decided to unite their lives with mine until the very last. I have begged and finally ordered them not to do this, but to take part in the further battle of the Nation. I beg the heads of the Armies, the Navy and the Air Force to strengthen by all possible means the spirit of resistance of our soldiers in the National Socialist sense, with special reference to the fact that also I myself, as founder and creator of this movement, have preferred death to cowardly abdication or even capitulation.
May it, at some future time, become part of the code of honor of the German officer-as is already the case in our Navy-that the surrender of a district or of a town is impossible, and that above all the leaders here must march ahead as shining exacmples, faithfully fulfilling their duty unto death.
Holidays, Nazi- A cycle of red-letter days designed to inculcate a note or reverence for the National Socialist party. The festivals were also expected to serve as substitutes for religious high holy days. The following days were set aside for special celebrations.
Holocaust- Term used to describe Hitler's attempt to exterminate all European Jews. Roughly equivalent to the coined term genocide, the holocaust refers to the physical destruction of approximately 6 million Jews in Europe. There had been instances of concentrated persecution of Jews throughout history but never before a state-inspired movement of this magnitude carried through systematically and with such terrible consequences.
The young Hitler roaming the streets of Vienna before World War I felt the impact of the social Darwinism that had intensified hatred for Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He absorbed all the pseudoscientific aspects of anti-Semitism and made them the focal points of his own philosophy. He was determined to allow nothing to stand in the way of eliminating the Jewish danger. It was, he said, a life-and-death struggle not only for Austria and Germany but also for the entire. world. He had a shrewd understanding of how anti-Semitism could be exploited for political purposes. In the Twenty-Five Points of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, a manifesto issued on February 25, 1920, points 4 and 5 were aimed at the expulsion of Jews from German life. In Mein Kampf, the blueprint of his ideology, Hitler condemned the Jews as a culture-destroying race. "If, at the beginning [of World War I], someone had only subjected about 12 or 15,0000 of these Hebrew enemies of the people to poison gas. . . .then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain." Very few Germans or Jews understood the significance of that idea burid in the recesses of Hitler's mind.
Hitler's persecution of the Jews began a month after he became Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Hit first step was a boycott of Jews in response to the "atrocity campaign" led by Jews abroad against the National Socialists. Within weeks Jewish personnel were being dropped from local governments, law courts, and universities; windows of Jewish shops were broken; and synagogues were wrecked. An act promulgated on April 7, 1933, called for the reestablishment of the career civil service and the dismissal of Jews. Non-Aryan doctors were no longer allowed to work in hospitals, Jews were excluded from the cultural life of the nation on the ground that they had overwhelmed the arts, and Jews were forbidden to engage in certain trades and industry. The regular police made no effort to protect the Jews from attack on the streets.
The early anti-Semitic campaign lasted until September 1935. Hitler released the nUremberg Laws on citizenship and race at a Nazi party rally. Despite criticism from foreign countries, the anti-Semitic measures were contnued, reflecting the central theme of the Fuhrer's philosophy. On July 23, 1938, every Jew was required to apply to the police for an identity card to be shown to the police on demand. On August 17, 1938, male Jews were ordered to add the name Israel and female Jews the name Sara to their non-Jewish first names. On October 5, 1938, it was announced that passports held by Jews for foreign travel would be valid only if marked J for Jew. By this time most German Jews were no longer able to earn a living and had to exist on whatever money they had or on private charity.
Meanwhile, Nazi authorities awaited a pretext to bring about the total exclusion of Jews from German national life. It came with the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a third secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, by Herschel Grynszpan on November 7, 1938. The Kristallnacht pogrom, the Night of the Broken Glass, of November 9-10, 1938, was a new wedge in the campaign to destroy the existence of the Jews in Germany. Hermann Goering began to speak about "our final reckoning with the Jews." On January 30, 1939, on the sixth anniversary of his assumption of political power, Hitler spoke to the Reichstag and publicly made a threat of extermination: "If international-financed Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed once more in plunging nations into another world war, the consequence will not be world Bolshevism and thereby the triumph of Jewry, but the annihilation (Vernichtung) of the Jews in Europe."
The precise moment at which Hitler made up his mind that the Jews had to be destroyed physically cannot be determined from the available evidence, but there are some clues. The concentration camp at Auschwitz was set up originally in May 1940, and its first commandant, Rudolf Franz Hess, later stated that he personally received orders from Heinrich Himmler in May 1941 to proceed with the gassing of Jews. On July 31, 1941, Goering ordered Reinhard Heydrich to proceed: "I herewith instruct you to make all necessary preparations as regards organizational, financial, and military matters with a total solution (Gesamtlosung) of the Jewish question within the area of German influence in Europe." At the Wannsee Conference held on January 20, 1942, the details were worked out for the "Final solution" (see Endlosung, Die). Heydrich's specialist at SS headquarters, Adolf Eichmann, would be responsible for the adminstrative problems of genocide. Heydrich informed his audience: "Undoubtedly a great number of Jews will disappear through natural diminution (Naturliche Verminderung). The remainder that may be able to survive must be treated accordingly, because these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development. See the experience of history."
Preparations were made at succeeding conferences to organize a mass movement to the concentration camps and extermination camps. The Gestapo and the SD went to work in the gradually accelerating program to channel Jews to extermination camps. The elimination of jews from European life in the midst of Wrold War II became a major undertaking of the Nazi regime. What the readers of Mein Kampf had regarded as exaggerated political propoganda now became a precise, highly organized procedure to eliminate the Jews by wholesale slaughter.
At the fulcrum of the extermination system in Poland were the camps at Auschwitz, Maidanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor. There were in all more than 400 camp centers, but these included transit and evacuation camps for Poles to be sent to the west for slave labor. Auschwitz was the most notorious of the extermination centers. At the height of its activity Auschwitz could house more than 100,000 men and women and could provide for the gassing and incineration fo 12,000 prisoners a day. Two SS doctors on duty met the incoming transports, mostly Jews, and made instant decisions. Those who were fit were sent into the camp; others; including all children, were dispatched immediately to the gas chambers. The Auschwitz gas chambers could accommodate 2,000 prisoners at time. Rudolf Hess testified at Nuremberg: "When I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Zyclon B, which was a crystallized prussic acid which we dropped into the death-chamber from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death-chamber depending on climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited for half-an-hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special commandos (Sonderkommandos- made up of prisoners who were partially trusted) took off the rings and extracted the gold teeth of the corpses.
By the winter of 1944, the extermination camps were being threatened by the advancing Russians. At this time, Himmler and his SS comrades were beginning to have some reservations about the whole program. It became more and more difficult to dispose of the great hordes of prisoners. The Russians entered Aushwitz in January 1945. During March and April 1945 Himmler made the gesture of releasing some Jewish prisoners for evacuation to Switzerland under the sponsorship of the International Red Cross, but it was too late to undo the ravages of the holocaust. The British and American armies now learned at first hand the extent of the catastrophe.
There was consternation both inside and outside Germany when the scope of the holocaust was realized. There had been countless episodes of torture, brutality, and execution in the past but nothing to compare with this deliberate mass extinction. The SS, in its efficient way, had kept a vast archive of documents that was captured and used to throw light on the crimes which could not have been witnessed by outsiders.
There is general agreement among historians that the holocaust was one of the worst lapses into barbarism in the entire course of civilization. Not only historians but also psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts have sought a rational explanation. In colleges and universities, study groups and courses have been initiated for the purpose of understanding the tragic phenomenon. The persecution set into motion by the National Socialist regime with diabolical consistency and implemented with cold-blooded efficiency remains a unique phenomenon in history.
Horcher Restaurant Incident- A clash between Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering on the issue of total war in 1943. On February 18, 1943, Goebbels delivered a speech in the Sportpalast on total war. He followed it up by an order to close Berlin's luxury restaurants and places of amusement. Goering promptly intervened to protect his favorite restaurant, Horcher's, from the edict. Some demonstrators, probably instigated by Goebbels, appeared at the restaurant and smashed its windows. The dispute was settled by closing the restaurant to the public but operating it as a private club for the Luftwaffe. The incident was one of a number of examples of bad blood existing between the Propoganda Minister and the head of the Luftwaffe.
Horst Wessel Lied (Horst Wessel Song)- The official marching song of the Nazi party. Horst Wessel was a young Storm Trooper, a student who had broken with his father, a Protestant military chaplain. He preferred to lead the lfie of a bohemian with a girlfriend in the slums of Berlin. In early 1930 either a love rival or perhaps a Communist invaded Wessel's room and killed him. Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, chief propogandist for the Nazi party, praised Horst Wessel as a hero and martyr. The young storm trooper wrote the lyrics of a marching song tha tincluded many of the party's most popular slogans, and his verses were set to music borrowed from a North Sea fisherman's song. For Dr. Goebbels the "Horst WEssel Song" exactly the right sort of tune "whose chords would ring out on the barricades of freedom." The following are the first three stanzas:
Hossbach Conference- A secret meeting at which Hitler informed his closest advisers that he planned to go to war. In speeches to the Reichstag or to foreign correspondents, Hitler always insisted that he wanted peace, but to his intimates he often spoke of the "duty to war." At a meeting held on November 5, 1937, at the Reich Chancellery, he outlined the steps he intended to take in achieving Lebensraum, or living space, in the east, and the means he would use to provide for its Germanization. With him at the conference were Col. Friedrich Hossbach, his military aide; Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, Minister of War; Gen. Werner Freiherr von Fritsch, commander in chief of the armed forces; Adm. Erich Raeder, commander in chief of the navy: Col. Gen. Hermann Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, and Constantin Freiherr von Neurath, Foreign Minister. After pledging his colleagues to secrecy, Hitler informed themof his decisions and urged them to regard his words as a political testament in the even of his death. Colonel Hossbach wrote the record of this conference, which later came to be known as the Hossbach Neiderschrift.
Hossbach Neiderschrift (Hossbach Memorandum; also called the Hossbach Protocol) The record for the Hossback Conference held on November 5, 1937, in the Reich Chancellery. Col. Friedrich Hossback, Hitler's Wehrmacht adjutant, wrote the minutes of the conference from his notes five days later. Dated November 10, 1937, the Hossback Memorandum was introduced in evidence before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg on November 24, 1945.
At the conference Hitler began by asserting that the solid racial core of the German nation gave it the right to greater Lebensraum, or living space. The future of Germany depended on satisfaction of its need for space. The future of Germany depended on satisfaction of its need for space. Expansion could not take place without destroying resistance, and the problem was how to gain the most at the lowerst cost. Once it was decided to use force, timing and execution were to be determined. The latest time would be between 1943 and 1945; a date later than those years would be to Germany's disadvantage.
The Fuhrer began by stating that the subject of the present conference was of such importance that its discussion would in other countries certainly be a matter for a full Cabinet meeting, but he- the Fuhrer- had rejected the idea of making it a subject of discussion before the wider circle of the Reich Cabinet just because of the importance of the matter. His expositioon to follow was the fruit of thorough deliberation and the experiences of his 4 1/2 years of power. He wished to explain to the gentlemen present his basic ideas concerning the opportunities for the development of our position in the field of foreign affairs and its requirements, and he asked, in the interests of a long-term German policiy, that his exposition be regarded, in the even of his death, as his last will and testament.
House of German Art- A building constructed in Munich by Hitler to exhibit what he considered to be the best paintings produced by Nazi artists. On October 15, 1933, the Fuhrer solemnly laid the cornerstone for the House of German Art. During the next four years, he worked with one of his favorite younger architects, Albert Speer on the pseudoclassical structure. He was highly elated by its appearance, which he regarded as "unparalleled and inimitable." The building was formally opened in the summer of 1937. In his dedicatory speech, made on July 18, 1937, Hitler denounced "neurotic artists opening of this exhibition hass come the end of artistic lunacy and the artistic pollution of our people."
The first exhibition showed some 900 works by Nazi artists, selected from 15,000 submitted. Modern German artists of great reputation, including Oskar Kokoschka and George Grosz, were deliberately excluded. Hitler himself made the final selection. It was reported that in viewing examples of modern art he lost his temper and kicked holes in several of them with his jackboot.