43 Facts About Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship.

Under Hitler's rule, Nazi Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government.

Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Nazi Germany by merging the offices and powers of the chancellery and presidency.

Shortly after, Nazi Germany pressured Lithuania into ceding the Memel Territory.

Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe.

Related searches

Nazi Germany exploited the raw materials and labour of both its occupied territories and its allies.

Large-scale aerial bombing of Nazi Germany escalated in 1944 and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Nazi Germany was known as the Weimar Republic during the years 1919 to 1933.

Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation.

The Nazi Germany government declared a "Day of National Labor" for May Day 1933, and invited many trade union delegates to Berlin for celebrations.

Nazi Germany was still in a dire economic situation, as six million people were unemployed and the balance of trade deficit was daunting.

Nazi Germany was now a totalitarian state with Hitler at its head.

The Nazi Germany Party obtained and legitimised power through its initial revolutionary activities, then through manipulation of legal mechanisms, the use of police powers, and by taking control of the state and federal institutions.

Britain agreed to Nazi Germany building a naval fleet with the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement on 18 June 1935.

Nazi Germany assumed full control in France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944.

For example, Nazi Germany refused to share their formula for synthetic oil from coal until late in the war.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe.

Nazi Germany was particularly dependent on foreign supplies of oil, coal, and grain.

Nazi Germany permanently postponed the invasion, a plan which the commanders of the German army had never taken entirely seriously.

Suicide rates in Nazi Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing.

Nazi Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in the Anschluss of 1938.

Nazi Germany annexed parts of northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, while Mussolini ceded Trieste, South Tyrol, and Istria to Nazi Germany in 1943.

Nazi Germany occupied the Italian protectorate of Albania and the Italian governorate of Montenegro in 1943 and installed a puppet government in occupied Serbia in 1941.

Nazi Germany ideology brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum for the Germanic people.

The Nazi regime believed that only Germany could defeat the forces of Bolshevism and save humanity from world domination by International Jewry.

Related searches

Nazi Germany viewed the government structure as a pyramid, with himself—the infallible leader—at the apex.

Plans unveiled in late 1938 for massive increases to the navy and air force were impossible to fulfil, as Nazi Germany lacked the finances and material resources to build the planned units, as well as the necessary fuel required to keep them running.

Nazi Germany war economy was a mixed economy that combined a free market with central planning.

Foreign workers brought into Nazi Germany were put into four classifications: guest workers, military internees, civilian workers, and Eastern workers.

Nazi Germany plunder included private and public art collections, artefacts, precious metals, books, and personal possessions.

Nazi Germany ordered that those of Germanic descent who refused to be classified as ethnic Germans should be deported to concentration camps, have their children taken away, or be assigned to forced labour.

Nazi Germany philosophy prevented large numbers of women from being hired to work in munitions factories in the build-up to the war, so foreign labourers were brought in.

Nazi Germany leaders endorsed the idea that rational and theoretical work was alien to a woman's nature, and as such discouraged women from seeking higher education.

Nazi Germany's hope was that each SS family would have between four and six children.

Nazi Germany had a strong anti-tobacco movement, as pioneering research by Franz H Muller in 1939 demonstrated a causal link between smoking and lung cancer.

Nazi Germany society had elements supportive of animal rights and many people were fond of zoos and wildlife.

Nazi Germany extensively employed Christian imagery and instituted a variety of new Christian holidays and celebrations, such as a massive celebration marking the 1200th anniversary of the birth of Frankish emperor Charlemagne, who Christianized neighbouring continental Germanic peoples by force during the Saxon Wars.

Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Nazi Party Office of Foreign Affairs and Hitler's appointed cultural and educational leader for Nazi Germany, considered Catholicism to be among the Nazis' chief enemies.

Nazi Germany planned the "extermination of the foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany", and for the Bible and Christian cross to be replaced in all churches, cathedrals, and chapels with copies of Mein Kampf and the swastika.

Nazi Germany itself suffered wholesale destruction, characterised as Stunde Null.

Nazi Germany was succeeded by three states: West Germany, East Germany (the German Democratic Republic or "GRD"), and Austria.

However, expression of Nazi Germany views was frowned upon, and those who expressed such views were frequently dismissed from their jobs.

Once study of Nazi Germany was introduced into the school curriculum starting in the 1970s, people began researching the experiences of their family members.