Why did unemployed follow hitler

By parties committed to the destruction of the Weimar Republic held seats out of a total of in the Reichstag, with many workers turning to communism. The communists had their own version of the SA, the Communist Red Fighting League, which broke up opposition party meetings. However, ultimately, the party that did better out of all this unrest were the Nazis. The growth in support for the Nazis, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January Without these loans German industry collapsed and a depression began: The most obvious consequence of this collapse was a huge rise in unemployment.

The impact of unemployment The rise in unemployment significantly raised government expenditure on unemployment insurance and other benefits.

Germans began to lose faith in democracy and looked to extreme parties on both the Left the communists and the Right the Nazis for quick and simple solutions. By , this had been increased to five hours every day. Subjects such as religion became less important, and were eventually removed from the curriculum altogether.

The Nazis also adapted where the students learned from. They introduced new textbooks which were often racist, and promoted ideas such the need for Lebensraum. Any textbooks used to educate students had to be approved by the party.

The Nazis also placed great emphasis on who the teachers were. Under the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act of 7 April , just three months after Hitler became chancellor, all Jewish teachers, and teachers with undesirable political beliefs such as communists , were dismissed.

This act also made membership of the Nazi Party compulsory for all teachers. The National Socialist Teachers League, creation in , became responsible for the control and education of teachers following the Nazi rise to power. In universities, all Jewish professors were dismissed.

This had a large impact, as these professors made up twelve percent of all German professors. In , in addition to the dismissal of teachers, a quota was imposed on schools and universities, so that they could only accept a certain number of Jewish students. In , these students were banned from attending public schools and universities entirely. In addition to these changes, the Nazis also created several new schools which aimed to train the future Nazi elite.

Napolas were for students hoping to become future political and military leaders, and Adolf Hitler Schools were solely to train those hoping to go into Nazi politics. The Nazis also created another school called Order Castles. Order Castles were the pinnacle of Nazi education, aimed at young adults who aspired to the highest ranks of the Nazi party. To be considered for entry, applicants had to have attended an Adolf Hitler School for six years, undertaken state labour for two and a half years, and spent four years in full-time work.

Only four Order Castles were ever established. All three of these new types of schools focused on indoctrinating pupils in Nazi policies and beliefs to the highest possible degree. When the Nazis rose to power in , there was an unemployment crisis with over six million people unemployed.

In their election campaign the Nazis had promised to reduce unemployment. After in year in power, by , unemployment had dropped to 3. By , the Nazis claimed to have no unemployment.

On the surface, these figures suggest that the Nazis were able to successfully control and boost the employment for workers in the Third Reich. On the 2 May , the Nazis banned trade unions and arrested their leaders. This was called the German Labour Front. This programme aimed to give opportunities to working class people for leisure activities usually reserved for the middle classes, such as sports facilities or holidays.

The programme was relatively popular, and some groups, such as the 28, workers from Siemens in Berlin, were able to take a holiday. However, smaller incentives such as free theatre tickets or subsidized day trips were much more common. The Reich Labour Service was an organisation that used unskilled or unemployed workers to complete large-scale government projects. Examples of these projects include the building of the Autobahn , and the Olympic stadium.

The service primarily employed men between the ages of In , the service became compulsory for men, as Germany adopted a rearmament policy.

Whilst most people were now employed, wages were fixed at a lower level than they had been prior to the Wall Street Crash and were not up for negotiation. The maximum working hours per week were increased from 60 to The schemes also limited the choice of profession open to workers in Germany. Many were forced to work as laborers or in factories for the war effort.

The Nazis soon broke their Concordat agreement with the Vatican and interfered with the practice and activities of Catholics in Germany. This poster, likely used by the Nazis in the late s, aimed to persuade Catholic boys and girls to leave their Catholic youth clubs and join the Hitler Youth. The Confessing Church opposed the Nazi regime, its activities, and specifically its interference in religion.

Germany, like the rest of Europe, was primarily Christian when the Nazis rose to power. As with trade unions and other group organisations, the Nazis saw religion as a threat to their total power. Hitler and the Nazis oppressed and persecuted all Jews. Whilst the Nazis believed that Christianity and Nazism were ideologically incompatible, they were not initially openly hostile to the Protestant and Catholic Churches.

However, this approach did not last long. Catholics made up a smaller faction of the population than Protestants, but still made up approximately one third of the population. As Catholics had a single, central leader in the Pope, infiltrating and taking control of the religion was extremely difficult. Instead, Hitler opted for a policy of conciliation towards Catholics. In July , the Nazis signed a Concordat with the Vatican.

The Concordat agreed that the Nazis would not interfere in the Catholic Church. In return, the Vatican would diplomatically recognise the Nazi regime. The Nazis soon broke their Concordat with the Vatican. The Ministry for Church Affairs was established in with a range of anti-religious policies aimed at undermining the influence of religion on the German people. Catholic schools were gradually shut.

As the regime intensified its oppressive policies in the late s, members of the Catholic Clergy were killed and imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime.

Protestantism was the primary religion in Germany and the Protestant Church was viewed as one of the main pillars of society. There were many different factions of Protestantism in Germany. These different factions, and lack of a single central leader, made Protestantism easier for the Nazis to infiltrate than Catholicism.

Some Protestants supported the Nazis during their rise to power. They had been hostile to the Weimar Republic, and agreed with some of the Nazis policies. The Reich Church aimed to be a new national church which advocated a form of Nazi Christianity.

It instructed preachers to exclude any teaching from the Old Testament, as this was considered a Jewish document. However, not everyone was willing to accept this new church. A copy of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, published in As a communist from a previously prominent Jewish family although his father had converted to Christianity, his grandfather and uncle were Rabbis Marx was one of the many authors blacklisted by the Nazis and many of his works were burned and destroyed.

Professor Arno Breker, a Nazi-approved artist, in his studio creating his sculpture Prometheus. Prometheus was created for the garden of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in This exhibition intended to evidence how music not approved of by the Nazis, such as music by Jewish or black artists or Jazz, was corrupt. The exhibition ran from the 8 November to the 31 January , attracting over , visitors.

The department was split into seven different sections aiming to cover all areas of cultural life: the press, art, theatre, radio, music, films and literature. This topic will use three of these sections, art, literature and music, to evidence how Goebbels used culture to achieve control over the German public. The Nazis promoted traditional forms of German art and photography, such as landscapes.

Germany was particularly badly affected by the Wall Street Crash because of its dependence on American loans from onwards. As the loans were recalled, the economy in Germany sunk into a deep depression.

Investment in business was reduced. People in full time employment fell from twenty million in , to just over eleven million in In the same period, over 10, businesses closed every year. As a result of this, the amount of people in poverty increased sharply. The Depression associated economic failure and a decline in living standards with the Weimar democracy. By , Germany had reached breaking point.

The economic crisis, which in turn had led to widespread social and political unrest in Germany, meant that it could no longer afford to pay reparations. This concession helped to give the economy a small boost in confidence. One example of this was the work creation schemes which began in the summer of These work creation schemes would later be expanded and reinvested in by the Nazis to combat unemployment.

These small improvements, only truly evident with the benefit of hindsight , were still at the time completely overshadowed by the poverty and widespread discontent about the general economic situation. The political instability in the late s and early s played an important role in helping the Nazis rise to power. Political parties seemed to be putting aside their differences and coming together for the good of Germany. But this was not how it worked out.

As the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash hit Germany and unemployment spiralled, the government struggled to balance its budget. On top of its usual payments, the amount of people claiming unemployment benefits was increasing.

President Hindenburg was a right-wing conservative politician and therefore disliked having the left-wing SPD in power. This set a precedent of governing by presidential decree and moved the Republic away from parliamentary democracy. Extremism became more popular as people desperately sought a solution. Von Papen agreed with the conservative elite that Germany needed an authoritarian leader to stabilise the country.

He called for another election in November , hoping to strengthen the frontier against communism and socialism. The Communist Party gained votes, winning eleven more seats in the Reichstag. Once again, no one party had a majority. The election was a failure. He refused, and von Schleicher became chancellor. However, without a majority of his own in the Reichstag, von Schleicher faced the same problems as von Papen.

Hindenburg refused to grant von Schleicher permission to rule by decree. The conservative elite were the old ruling class and new business class in Weimar Germany. They believed that a return to authoritarian rule was the only stable future for Germany which would protect their power and money. Between Article 48 was used a total of 16 times.

In alone this rose to 42 uses, in comparison to only 35 Reichstag laws being passed in the same year. In , Article 48 was used 58 times. The conservative elite and the Nazi Party had a common enemy — the political left.

Once in power, Hitler could destroy the political left. Destroying the political left would help to remove the majority of political opponents to the ring-wing conservative elite. Once Hitler had removed the left-wing socialist opposition and destroyed the Weimar Republic, the conservative elite thought they would be able to replace Hitler, and appoint a leader of their choice.

A group of important industrialists, including Hjalmar Schacht and Gustav Krupp, also wrote outlining their support of Hitler to President Hindenburg. Once elected, the conservative elite soon realised that they had miscalculated Hitler and his intentions. Despite the party restructure, the reorganisation of the SA and the initial development of their propaganda under Goebbels, the Nazi Party gained very little in the elections.

They won just 2.