by Josh Owens

Created on: February 19, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

The Nazis were the Nationalist Socialist Workers party in Germany that was made up by many WWI veterans. The Nazis believed in a unified Germany and race n space. Hitler became leader of this party in the 1920's. Adolf Hitler was the son of a very harsh man, and his mother was much younger. Hitler never finished high school and then moved to Vienna to become an artist. After being denied entry into art school, Hitler moved to Germany and joined the military for WWI. All he did was become a courier, but he was very brave and rose to the rank of Corporal. His superiors say he didn't get any higher because he lacked leadership abilities. In the 1920's when Hitler came into leadership of the Nazis, he tried to take over Bavaria. He got this idea from Benito Mussolini, who had just recently marched on Rome, and the king of Italy made him Prime Minister, and later he took over the country. Of course Hitler looked up to this so that is what he tried in Bavaria. The Beer Hall Putsch was a failure and Hitler ended up in prison for 5 years yet he only served 13 months. In prison he wrote Mein Kempf or My Struggle which talks about his life and early on discusses his views on the Jews and what he would like to do to them. An event that could have motivated him was the fact that when his mother died she was being treated by a Jewish doctor. The Nazis slowly grew in power and right before the Great Depression, they had only 3% of the vote, but after the depression the party had around 32% of the vote. Hindenburg decided to appoint Hitler as Chancellor on the grounds that the rest of the cabinet was to remain outside the Nazi party. Hitler convinced them to allow two of his people on the cabinet, and Hindenburg allowed this. This was around 1933 and the Weimar was slowly losing its grip on democracy. Once he was Chancellor Hitler slowly started to consolidate his power and eliminate anyone that was a threat. Hindenburg died and Hitler is handed control of the country. Then Hitler got the government to pass a bill which gave him control of the military. To gain public support Hitler attacked communists first. Hitler put most of the communists in concentration camps and killed the rest. He also tested the waters at this time with the Jews. Hitler banned any Aryan from going to Jewish places of business. In the mid 1930's Hitler's idea of race and space was becoming a hot topic. Hitler was concerned about keeping German blood pure, so he continued on with harassing the Jews, but also homosexuals, Gypsies and Jehovah Witnesses. When it came to homosexuals and Jehovah Witnesses Hitler actually had public support. Between 1938 and 1939 Hitler started in on handicaps. Handicaps were sterilized so they could not reproduce and contaminate German or Aryan blood. By 1939 Hitler was in full power and he and the Nazi's needed space. First, they took the Rhineland, then Austria, and then came Czechoslovakia. No other foreign power did a thing to stop him. This actually made Hitler mad because he actually wanted to start a war. All this time the Jewish situation was going downhill, and in 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. The Nazi's and Hitler were in full swing with race and space going well.

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