Essay How far did the Nazis succeed in their aim of creating a Volksgemeinschaft? The Nazis aimed to achieve a Volksgemeinschaft by gaining support for Nazism, creating a harmonious and unified community and to develop a racially pure society. The Nazis did succeed to a certain extent, but they still faced opposition. Not everyone was happy under the Nazi regime, but the majority were which shows that the Nazis may have succeeded in creating a Volksgemeinschaft. The Nazis aimed to gain support through their ideology.
The propaganda effort led by Joseph Geobbels also played a huge role in controlling the public. Geobbels made sure to incriminate the Weimar Republic by for example burning the Weimar Flags and then hoisting the Nazi flag instead. This process was well liked by the Germans as it showed the new Nazi vision and implied that the Nazi party were saving Germany by taking down the Weimar Republic and establish a new Greater Germany. The Nazi party also organised large book burnings for the public to take part in, the books
The Nazi’s had also made promises to solve the problems and promised most groups in Germany what they wanted such as being promised jobs, employers having restored profits, farmers higher prices and shopkeepers protection against competition. At the time, Hitler made sense to the Germans and united everyone by providing explanations for Germany’s problems. It always also important in getting the Nazis into power because Hitler had managed to gain the support of the industrialists who had previously voted for the Conservatives - but after 1930 had stopped supporting them. This caused the Nazi’s to receive financial backing from big business. This then allowed them to run his
Legality was a policy where Hitler’s objective was to legally consolidate power which was suitable and pleased most of the German people. The Nazis policy of legality was vital in giving the Nazis legal means to begin the seizure of power and thereby consolidate their power. This was to gain support from the majority of the population of Germany. This was evident from the result of the Reichstag fire which was a clever act by Hitler. The Reichstag Fire allowed the Nazis to legally consolidate their power this was by issuing the emergency decree ‘For the protection of the people and state’ on 28th February.
Without Hitler’s massive personal popularity, the high level of ‘plebiscitary acclamation which the regime could repeatedly call upon’ (Kershaw), would have been unattainable. To ensure Hitler had enough popularity he enlisted the help of Joseph Goebbels, to promote the Fuhrer as the heroic leader of the German people. Using mass medium Goebbels projected Hitler as the leader chosen by fate to save the German people, he connected Hitler with the old key figures of Germany such as; Frederick the Great and Bismarck. With the defeat of World War I still looming and the instability and division that followed, the situation became perfect for a new strong leader to come and save the German people. Hitler became favoured by the German people, especially the strong nationalistic middle-class, who believed Hitler would finally unite the nation with his strong leadership.
‘Mussolini's political skill was the main reason he came to power in 1922'.Explain why you agree or disagree with this view. (24) Mussolini’s journey to power required him to use his political skill to win support of key interest groups, yet his coercive measures meant that his opponents were weakened, and driven away from challenging his authority by fear of the repercussions. One of the reasons that display’s how Mussolini gained power through his political skill, was the way in which he seduced different conservative groups. He gained the support of the King by promising to end Italy’s political instability, the King feared a civil war if Fascism was denied power, and Mussolini seemed willing to respect the monarchy and the army. He won over the support of the Catholic Church as Mussolini’s fascist squads were destroying socialism, he also offered to aid the church financially, and he introduced policies specifically to gain church support.
The Nazis felt like this political group was trying to undermine their “people’s community”. Hitler made it very clear that he did not want the communists in his people community when he and the Nazi party realised their 25 point programme of 1920.However the Nazis also portrayed the socialist and any other party of which had taken part in coalition governments during the Weimar republic as they collaborated with communism and Jewish democracy. Hitler wanted to introduce the policy of volksgeminschaft in this case because if he could eliminate the communists and the other parties who were associated as collaborating with them, the Nazis could then get their votes as they had a high amount of supporters, which would mean them having the majority and coming into power. Anybody who the Nazis believed that represented a threat to the racial purity of which Hitler wanted would come under the socialism categories. This included, Jews, gypsies and those who were seen as mentally or physically unfit.
Hitler bowed deeply in front of Hindenburg and gave a very impressive speech. However Hitler’s intentions were more clearly seen in a piece of legislation introduced in the same day, the Malicious Practices Law, marking the brutality and resilience of the Nazi Party, banned criticism of the regime and its policies. Propaganda was a key tool to help maintain the appearance of legality and to increase Nazi support by playing on the communist threat, for example after Reichstag fire it portrayed the decree as a necessary step in the battle against communism and it paved the way for the March 1933 election success. The strength of the widely perceived communist threat
Propaganda is the use of the Media to aggressively promote ones point of view. Firstly, the Nazis used different forms of media to strengthen their position once in power by forcing their views on different kinds of people. Newspapers, which were read by all adults and some older teenagers, were encouraged by the Nazis – but they had to provide views which the Ministry agreed with or face the consequences. Journalists were sometimes given direct instructions what to right. Therefore, there could be no free press in Germany; every newspaper was a Nazi newspaper.
However by looking at the longer-term effects of the Putsch it is clear to see that the Putsch had many benefits to the Nazi Party and could be considered to be instrumental in their rise to power. Hitler’s arrest, although seemingly catastrophic for the Nazis, was actually of great benefit to them. Hitler was put on trial, which meant extensive publicity for the Nazi Party. Hitler used his trial as a propaganda tool to get the message of the Nazi Party across, he knew that the trial judge would be lenient on him because of an earlier incident he’d been involved in. This gave Hitler the freedom to express his ideas to the national press without fear of damning himself in court.