Cult of Personality

• Develops around a person, usually totalitarian

leaders where propaganda, mass media and
‘encouraged’ adulation creates an idealized
image which extends that person’s power

• Example: Stalin who argued that the Communist

Party itself suffered from false consciousness (and
from spies and traitors within its ranks) and therefore
needed an all-wise leader (Stalin himself) to guide
the party
 Remember…
• Propaganda is information that is especially
designed to influence opinion and as such, it is
usually of a biased or misleading nature. The
information can be true or false but it is
always carefully selected and deliberately
framed.
 Stalin
• Stalin outmanoeuvred the most
popular and the most brilliant
within the Communist elite after
the death of Lenin

• Stalin purged the party and

implemented two five year plans
that resulted in transforming the
USSR from being based in
agriculture to being an industrial
giant
 Benito Mussolini
• Dreamed of Italy being a great world power
like it had been in the time of ancient Rome

• Members of the lower middle classes wanted

security against the economic uncertainties of
inflation
 Question

How could Hitler rally so much support and

seize power?
 Goodbye Kaiser
• The constitution of the Weimar Republic was very
different from that the old system as there would
be no monarch. Instead there would be
a president, elected every seven years and whose
power would be limited by the Reichstag.
• A chancellor, appointed by the President, led the
government of ministers from within the
Reichstag.
• All adults over the age of 20 could now vote.
Weimar Republic
 Failure of the Weimar Republic
• Had a democratic constitution but was plagued by
extremist groups
– The extreme right wanted to return to an authoritarian
system, with a strong military leadership as the only way
to keep society safe
– Those on the left felt that communism was the fairest
form of government

• Chaos and extremism reigned despite the ideals

Between 1919 and 1923, extremist political parties resorted to
violent attempts to overthrow the government and take over
the country.
• Feeding off of and
encouraging hatred of
the Treaty of Versailles
• Many Germans felt
betrayed and that
they had not lost the
war and were being
punished unfairly
Perspectives
Hyperinflation caused desperation
• Inflation is when money
loses its value so you
have to pay more for the
same item
• Hyperinflation is
inflation that is very high
and prices increase so
quickly and by enormous
amounts
Hyperinflation
Hyperinflation
 Astronomic price increases
• November 1918 one loaf of bread cost
1 mark
• November 1922 one loaf of bread cost
163 marks
• September 1923 one loaf of bread cost
1 500 000 marks
• November 1923 one loaf of bread cost
2 000 000 marks
Effective Use of Propaganda and
Psychology
 Blaming scapegoats, in particular:

• Communists, Socialists, and liberals and

Jews

• Other targets included LGBTQ, people with

disabilities, Catholics, Roma and Slavs
• This is a poster from
the anti-Semitic movie,
The Eternal Jew which
was shown in theatres
throughout Germany
and depicted Jews in
the most appalling and
stereotypical manner
 Good to Know
• Racism and anti-Semitism was not new and in
fact the Nazis cultivated a connection
between racism and politics that had cultural
precedents

• In 1933 one of Hitler’s early laws decreed the

sterilization of ‘undesirables’ in order to
eliminate inferior genes
• 400 000 men and women were forcibly sterilized
 Pablo Picasso, Guernica
1937, 349 x 776 cm
Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid
 Before WWII there was Spain
• The Second Spanish Republic was the
democratically elected government of Spain
from April 1931
– It was pro-labour, anti-Church and lukewarm on
monarchy. The new constitution established
women's rights, allowed divorce, supported
unions and took education away from priests in
favour of professional teachers.
• Conservative groups that lost power fought
hard to regain control
 As you watch the video…
• Watch for the themes listed below. You are
responsible for knowing how each contributed
to the rise of Nazism
• Leadership
• The economy
• Treaty of Versailles.
• The Military
• The German nation
• Communism
• As you watch, keep note of any questions that
come out of the film
 Nazi Goals

• Lebensraum
• Rearmament
• Economic Recovery
 Solidification
• Hitler had legally come to power but resorted
to shady means of solidifying power

• Hitler claimed that Germany was threatened

from within by a Communist revolution and
persuaded the German Parliament to pass
emergency laws
– 2 months later Germany was a police state and Hitler was a
legal dictator
• Lebensraum
– Living space in which Hitler believed it was the
right and duty of the German master race to be
the world’s greatest empire
– German domination of central and eastern Europe
at the expense of Slavic peoples
• Primary target was ‘Russia and her vassal border states’
• Rearmament
– The Weimar Republic had begun secret
rearmament and Hitler continued and expanded
this (1935 renounced Treaty of Versailles)
– 23.5% of national income spent on defense in
1937 (USSR 26.4, Japan 28.2, US 1.5, British
Empire 5.7)
• Economic recovery
• Germany experienced full employment after 1936
• Built on rearmament and consumer products
• The state concentrated economic power in the hands of
a few strengthened big businesses

• War required full economic recovery

• “Hitler smiled very pleasantly and had a sort
of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes.
My sizing up of the man was that he...truly
loves his fellow men and his country.”
• William L. M. King as quoted in William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Loner
Who Kept Canada Together
• King thought that Hitler appeared to be “…a man of
deep sincerity and a genuine patriot." (Diary,
June 29, 1937) King saw similarities between himself
and Hitler, writing, "As I talked with him, I could not
but think of Joan of Arc. He is distinctly a mystic ....
He is a teetotaller and also a vegetarian; is
unmarried, abstemist in all his habits and ways."
(Diary, June 29, 1937)
 How Welcoming Was Canada?
• In 1939, the St. Louis travelled the world seeking safe
harbor from Nazism
• 937 passengers -- nearly all of the passengers
were Jewish, mostly German citizens, with some
eastern Europeans aboard
• Canada did not let them in
• 1933 -1945, Canada admitted fewer than 5,000
Jewish refugees. Countries hit harder by the
Depression admitted far more (the United States
admitted more than 200,000, Palestine 125,000 and
Britain 70,000)