chapter-3, Nazism And the Rise of Hitler (class -9th )(Economics)

                CHAPTER-3

      NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER

Q1. Who are allies?

Ans. The allied powers led by the UK and France. In 1941 they were joined by the USSR and USA. They fought against the Axis Powers, namely Germany, Italy and Japan.

Q2. When and between whom was the first world war fought? What was the result?

Ans. 1) The first world war was fought between allies power and axis powers in 1914 to 1918.

 2) The allies strengthened by the US entry in 1917, won, defeating Germany and the central powers in November 1918.

Q3. What political changes come in Germany after the defeat in first world war?

Ans. 1) The defeat of imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor gave an opportunity to parliamentary parties to recast German polity.

2) National assembly met at Weimar and establish a democratic constitution with a federal structure.

3) Deputies were now elected to the German parliament or Reichstag, on the basis of equal and universal vote caste by all adults including women.

Q4. ‘The treaty of Versailles was harsh and humiliating treaty for Germany’. Justify.

Ans. 1) Treaty at Versailles with the Allies was the harsh and humiliating peace. Germany lost its overseas colonies.

2) 13% of its territories, 75% of its iron and 26% of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.  

3) The Allied powers demilitarised Germany to weaken its power.

4) The war Guilt Clause held Germany responsible for the war and damages the Allied countries suffered.

5) Germany was found to pay compensation to 6billion.

6) The Allied armies also occupied the resource-rich Rhineland for much of the 1920s.

Q5. What was the impact of first war on Germany?

Ans. 1) The war had a devastating impact on the entire continent both psychologically and financially.

2) The infant Weimar Republic was being made to pay for the sins of the old Empire.

3) The republic carried the burden of war guilt and national humiliation and was financially crippled by being forced to pay compensation.

Q6. Who were called as November criminals? Or

Define November criminals.

Ans. Those who supported the Weimer Republic, mainly socialists, Catholics and Democrats, became easy targets of attack in the conservative nationalist circles. They were mockingly called the ‘November criminals’.

Q7. What was the effect of first world war on European society?

Ans. 1) The first world war left a deep imprint on European society and polity.

2) Soldiers came to be placed above civilians.

3) Politicians and publicists laid great stress on the need for men to be aggressive, strong and masculine.

4) The media glorified trench life. The truth, however, was that soldiers lived miserable lives in these trenches, trapped with rats feeding in corpses.

5) Aggressive in these propaganda and national honour occupied centre stage in the public sphere.

Q8. What factors led to economic crisis in Germany in 1923? Who helped Germany to move act of crisis?

Ans. 1) Germany was hit by the economic crisis of 1923.

2) Germany had fought the war largely on loans and had to pay war reparations in gold.

3) This depleted gold reserves at a time resources were scarce.      

4) In 1923, Germany refused to pay, and the French occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr, to claim their coal.

5) Germany retaliated with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly.

6) With too much printed money in circulation, the value of the German mark fell.

7) As the value of the mark collapsed, prices of goods soared. This crisis came to be known as hyperinflation.

8) The Americans intervened and bailed Germany out of the crisis by introducing the Dawes plan.

Q9. What was the effect of great economic depression of 1920s on USA and Germany?

Ans. 1) 3 years, between 1929 and 1932, the national income of the USA fell by half.

2) Factories shut down, exports fell, farmers were badly and speculators withdrew their money from the market.

3) The effects of this recession in the US economy were felt worldwide.

4) The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crisis.

5) By 1932, industrial production was reduced to 40% of the 1929 level.

6) Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages.

7) As jobs disappeared, the youth took to criminal activities and total despair became commonplace.

Q10. “The economic crisis in Germany due to the great depression created deep anxieties and fears in the people of Germany”. Explain

Ans. 1) The economic crisis created deep anxieties and fears in people. The middle classes, especially salaried employees and pensioners, saw their savings diminish when the currency lost its value.

2) Small businessman, the self-employed and retailers as their businesses got ruined.

3) Only organised workers could manage to keep their heads above water, but employment weakened their bargaining power.

4) Big business was in crisis.

5) The large mass of peasantry was effected by a sharp fall in agricultural prices.

Q11. Justify with 4 points that politically the Weimar republic in German was fragile.

Ans. 1) The Weimer constitution had some inherent defects, which made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship.

2) Another defect was Article 48, which gave the president the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree.

3) Within its short life, the Weimar republic saw 20 different cabinets lasting on an average 239 days.

4) People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions.

Q12. State the main feature of enabling act passed by Hitler.

Ans. 1) On 3 March 1933, the famous enabling act was passed. This act establishing dictatorship in Germany.

2) It gave Hitler all powers to side-line parliament and rule by decree.

3) All political parties and trade unions were banned except for the Nazi party and its affiliates.

4) The state established complete control over the economy, media, army and judiciary.

Q13. Which event marked the beginning of the second world war?

Ans. 1) In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and England.

2) In September 1940, a tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan strengthening Hitler’s to international power.

Q14. Why did not USA joined world war 2^nd in the beginning? Which incident led to its entry in the war?

Ans. 1) The USA had resisted involvement in the war.

2) It was unwilling to once again face all the economic problems that the first world war had caused.

3) But it could not stay out of the war for long.

4) Japan was expanding its power in the east. It had occupied French Indo-china and was planning attacks on US Naval bases in the Pacific. When Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US base at Pearl Harbour, the US entered the 2^nd world war.

5) The war ended in May 1945 with Hitler’s defeat and the US dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.

Q15. State the main features of Nazi ideology.

Ans. 1) Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview.

2) According to this, there was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy.

3) In this view blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while Jews were located at the lowest rung.

4) Other coloured people were placed in between depending upon their external features.

Q16. Write a note on school under Nazism.

Ans. 1) Ale schools were ‘cleansed’ and ‘purified’. This meant that teachers who were Jews or seen as ‘politically unreliable’ were dismissed.

2) Children were first segregated: Germans and Jews could not sit together or play together.

3) Subsequently, ‘undesirable children’ – Jews, the physically handicapped, Gypsies- were thrown out of schools.

4) ‘Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi schooling.

5) School textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race.

6) Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler.

Q17. Discuss the life of youth in Nazi’s Germany.

Ans. 1) Youth organisations were made responsible for educating German youth in the ‘the spirit of National Socialism’.

2) At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation- Hitler Youth- where they learnt to worship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies and all those categorised as ‘undesirable’.

3) After a period of rigorous ideological and physical training, they joined the labour service, usually at the age of 18. Then they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi organisations.

Q18. What were Nazi’s views about equality of men and women?

Ans. 1) Children in Nazi Germany were repeatedly told that women were radically different from men.      

2) The fight for equal rights for men and women that had become part of democratic struggles was wrong and it would destroy society.

3) While boys were to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted, girls were told that they had to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children.

Q19. What treatment were given to the mothers in Nazi’s Germany?

Ans. 1) In Nazi Germany, all mothers were not treated equally.

2) Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced racially desirable children were rewarded.

3) They were given favoured treatment in hospitals and were also entitled to concessions in shops and on theatre tickets and railway fanes.

4) To encourage women to produce many children, Honour crosses were awarded.

Q20. What punishment were given to the women who deviated from the prescribed code of conduct given by Nazi’s in Germany?

Ans. 1) All ‘Aryan’ women who deviated from the prescribed code of conduct were publically condemned, and severely punished.

2) Those who maintained contact with Jews, Poles and Russians were paraded through the town with shaved heads.

3) Blackened faces and placards hanging and their necks announcing ‘I have sullied the honour of the nation’.

4) Many received jail sentences and lost their civil honour as well as their husbands and families for this ‘criminal offence’.

Q21. Discuss the role of media in spreading Nazi ideology in Germany.

Ans. 1) Media was carefully used to win support for the region and popularise its worldview.

2) Nazi ideas were spread through visual images, films, radios, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets.

3) In posters groups identified as the ‘enemies’ of Germans were stereotyped, mocked, abused and described as evil.

4) Socialists and liberals were represented as weak and degenerate.

5) Propaganda films were made to create hatred for Jews.

Q22. How did media portrays Jews under Nazi Germany?

Ans. 1) Propaganda films were made to create hatred for Jews.

2) Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and mocked.

3) They were shown with flowing beards wearing Kaftans.

4) Their movements were compared to those of rodents.

5) Nazism worked on the minds of the people, trapped their emotions and turned their hatred and anger at those marked as ‘undesirable’.

Q23. How did the common people react to Nazism?

Ans. 1) Many saw the world through Nazi eyes and spoke their mind in Nazi language.

2) They felt hatred and anger surge inside them when they saw someone who looked like a Jew.

3) But not every German was a Nazi. Many organised active resistance to Nazism, braving police repression and death. 

4) The large majority of Germans, however, were passive on lookers and apathetic witness. They were too scared to act, to differ, to protest.

5) They preferred to look away.

Q24. How did the Jews felt about themselves in Nazi Germany? Explain with the help of writing of Charlotte Beradt.

Ans. Charlotte Beradt secretly recorded people’s dreams in her diary and later published them in a book called the Third Riech of Dreams.

2. She describes how jews themselves began believing in the Nazi streotypes about them.

3. They dreamt of their hooked noses, black hair and eyes, Jewish looks and body movements.

4. The stereotypical images publicised in the Nazi press hunted the jews.

5. They troubled them even in their dreams , jews died many deaths even before they reached the gas chamber.

Q25. How did the world came to know about the torture of Nazi on the Jews in Germany?

Ans. It was only after the war ended and Germany was defeated that the world came to realise the horrors of what had happened to the Jews in Germany.

2. The Jews wanted the world to remember their sufferings they had endured during the Nazi killing operations – also called the Holocaust.

3. This indomitable spirit to bear  and to preserve the documents can be seen in many Ghetto and camp inhabitants who wrote diaries kept notebooks, created archieves.

Q26. Write a short  note on early years of  Hitler’s life.

 Ans. Born in 1889 in Austria , Hitler spent his youth in poverty. When the first world war broke out , he enrolled for the army, acted as a messenger, in the front, became a corporal and earned medals for bravery. The German defeat horrified him and the Versailles treaty made him furious. In 1919, he joined a small group called the German workers party. He subsequently took over the organisation and renamed it with National Socialist. German worker’s Party. This party came to be known as Nazi Party.

Q27. How did Nazi party become a popular party in Germany?

The Nazi could not effectively mobilise popular support till the early 1930s. It was during the great depression that Nazism became a mass movement. As we have seen after 1929, banks collapsed and business shut down workers lost their jobs and the middle classes were treated with destitution. In such a situation Nazi propaganda stirred hopes of the better future.

Q28. “Hitler was a powerful speaker” support the given statement with 3 points.

Ans. Hitler was a powerful speaker. His passion and his words moved the people.

2. He promised to build a strong nation, under the injustice of the versallies treaty and restore the dignity of the German people. He promised employment for those looking for work and a secure future for the youth.

3. He promised to weed out all foreign influences and resist all foreign ‘conspiraces’ against Germany.

Q29. How did Hitler re-construct Germany?

Ans. Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to the economics Hjalmar Schact who aimed at full production and full employment through a state – funded work creation programme.

2. This project produced the famous German super highway and the people’s car , the Volkswagen.

3. He reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 and integrated Austria and Germany in 1936 under the slogan ‘one people, one empire and one leader’.

Q29. What was the Nazi ideology about races ?

Ans. Nazi ideology did not give equality to the people.

2. Only Nordic German Aryans were regarded as the superior and Jews regarded as the superior and the Jews were at the lowest track.

3. According to this only those species could be regarded as superior who were purely Aryans.

4. The Nazi’s said that the strongest species would survive and the weak perish.