Lesson 2

Document Based QuestionDirections: Read through the documents and answer the guiding questions with your desk group. Then, you will write a five-paragraph essay on the prompt below individually. See the rubric for grading guidelines and requirements.

Prompt: Analyze the extent to which political, economic, and social factors contributed to the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany.

Source: Austrian Political Cartoon, 1919

1. Who are each of the two characters in this cartoon?

2. What is this cartoon trying to suggest?

Document 1

Lesson 2

1. What is Hitler’s main problem with Jews in this speech?

2. Why would Hitler make this speech?

Document 2

Source: Adolf Hitler on the Jews, taken from the transcript of a speech given to NSDAP members in July 1922

That is the lurking danger, and the Jew can meet it in one way only – by destroying the hostile national intelligentsia. That is the inevitable ultimate goal of the Jew in his revolution. And this aim he must pursue; he knows well enough his economics brings no blessing: his is no master people: he is an exploiter: the Jews are a people of robbers. He has never founded any civilisation, though he has destroyed civilisations by the hundred. He possesses nothing of his own creation to which he can point.

Lesson 2

1. What is Goebbels most upset about in this document?

2. Why is he upset about this?

Document 3

Source: Joseph Goebbels in a 1927 Editorial

These days anyone has the right to speak in Germany – the Jew, the Frenchman, the Englishman, the League of Nations, the conscience of the world, and the Devil knows who else. Everyone but the German worker. He has to shut up and work. Every four years he elects a new set of torturers, and everything stays the same. That is unjust and treasonous. We need tolerate it no longer. We have the right to demand that only Germans who build this state may speak, those whose fate is bound to the fate of their fatherland.

Lesson 2

Source: German propaganda poster, 1943

1. What war is the poster referring to?

2. Who does the man in the poster represent?

3. How would this poster help the Nazis rise to power?

Document 4

Text: That is who is to blame for the war

Lesson 2

1. Who do you think is suffering most during the hardships discussed in the document? Why?

2. What message does von Papen make in his fourth point? Who is he referring to when he talks about political radicalization?

Document 5

Source: Chancellor Franz von Papen’s June 1932 address on the German economic crisis

The German situation is characterized by the following:

1. A high level of interest, which crushes agriculture and also industry.

2. The burden of taxation, which is so oppressive that it cannot be increased, but has nevertheless been increased, to assure the very existence of the State.

3. External or foreign debt, the service of which becomes ever more difficult by reason of the progressive decline in exports.

4. Unemployment, which is relatively more widespread than in any other country… What is particularly fatal is that an ever-growing number of young people have no possibility and no hope of finding employment and earning their livelihood. Despair and the political radicalization of the youthful section of the population are the consequences of this state of things…

Germany could not by herself arrest this development. No international decision has been taken up to now to arrest this development. The very wise initiative of President Hoover in June 1931 was inspired by the idea of giving the world a respite destined to produce a solution of the most urgent economic problems. This goal, nevertheless, has not been reached. Sufficient account has not been taken of economic reality.

Lesson 2

1. What do you think Hitler meant when he talked about the “values” and “character” of the German people?

2. What did Hitler want to use the theatre, cinema, literature, etc. for? How do you think he did that?

Source: Nazi Recruitment Poster, circa mid 1930’s

Document 7

Document 6

Source: Adolf Hitler explains his political agenda in a speech to the Reichstag, March 1933

With this political purification of our public life, the Government of the Reich will undertake a thorough moral purging of the body corporate of the nation. The entire educational system, the theatre, the cinema, literature, the Press, and the wireless – all these will be used as means to this end and valued accordingly. They must all serve for the maintenance of the eternal values present in the essential character of our people. Art will always remain the expression and the reflection of the longings and the realities of an era.

Lesson 2

1.

What do you believe the text on the image is trying to say?

2. What is the image of the family suggesting?

Top Text: The Nazis protect the people

Bottom Text: Your fellow comrades need your advice and help, so join the local party organization

Lesson 2

1. Is the author in favor of the Nazis? How do you know that?

2. Do you believe the author’s role holds any significance? Why?

Document 8

Source: Robert Ley, the head of the German Workers’ Front, addressing an audience on the Nazi economic recovery in 1936

Look at the workers! Look with me into Germany’s factories. I might remind some in this room what they thought three years ago, not only about their party or the government, but of their whole view of life, their views of labor, the fatherland, their people, their community, or about socialism – all these things that have always concerned humanity. They will have to agree that they are of entirely different opinions today.

Germany has been born anew. The Fuhrer said at the last party rally, as he always says, that for him the greatest miracle of the age is how people have changed. Once there was hopelessness, today there is joy and affirmation, once there was general desperation, today there is resurrection and reawakening. Once each was the enemy of his neighbor. Envy, mistrust, and hatred were everywhere; today, everyone tries to do something good for the next person, even if sometimes with too much energy and enthusiasm. Each wants to be a good comrade, loyal, friendly.