HISTORY 322 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Civil Service, Identity Crisis, Erich Ludendorff
● Hitler Lecture:
1st: problems with weimar republic (for book report)
● Constitutional contradiction
● Weimar const. -- by the people for the people, Versaille = restore europe
○ Identity crisis, what are we about?
■ (punitive peace v founding principles)
● Decaying family structure, shifting gender roles
○ Demographic
○ Rollback of women's’ rights
○ Women = disease holderes
● Insufficient provision of financial aid
○ Welfare crisis due to provisions from revolution being rolled back
○ Also breaks down family structure - parets are’t ale to paret → lads hildre i
institutions
● Breakdown in law and order
○ Increase in rhetoric about law and order too
○ Crime (in book)
○ Political biases of judiciary -- people who make decisions about crimes are the same
people that would have made decisions during imperial period
● Social inequalities:
● Unemployment
● Start with challenge for book
○ Link to other social problems
○ Don’t just give history
● Hitler intro:
● Nothing inevitable about the rise of Hitler
● Hitler’s ideas were not particularly unique
○ Ideological cocktail was commonstalk of the political right
Hitler:
● Rise to power was a “coincidence”
● Father born in Austria
○ Illegitimate child
○ Johann Hiedler adopts him and establishes legitimacy
○ First “social climber”
■ Civil servant
■ Married 3 times and fathered 9 children
■ Middle class bourgeois
■ Evidence he beat hitler/siblings’/mother
■ Died and left hitler with his mother who died a couple years after
● Was not a great student -- went thro secondary school and then dropped out
○ Idle life between when he leaves school and mothers death
● Wanted to be a painter
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
○ Vienna - hoped to become admitted to Viennese academy of the arts
■ Dazzling occulance at the time: arts, cafes, etc.
● Poverty and destitution too
○ Crime / prostitution
■ Emblematic of the tensions of a multi-ethnic empire
■ Large proportion of jewish citizens (8%)
● Largest population in any german speaking city
● Hitler becomes exposed to his ideas about jews/jewish life for 1st time
● Part of upper - middle/middle classes
○ Well educated/connected to political figured
● Sizable number of very poor jews
○ Resembled jews of eastern europe with more traditional outlook
(compared to those who integrated who were very secular)
■ Lived near where hitler spent a lot of time
Influences in Vienna:
● Ritter o Shoerer → ati-semitism
○ Conservative member of high society + aristocrat
○ National / german socialism
■ Not an international movement but bred for only Germans
■ Ignored masses, we are going to do good things for people like us (Germans)
● Spread wealth around a little
○ Hitler believed with conservative/nationalist idea coupled with the fact that govt should
provide for people who share same language, culture, etc.
● Adler, Austria soialist → orgaizatio ad atiis
● Luger: Mayer of Vienna
○ Anti-semitism - pragmatic
○ Program of social reform
■ Populist democracy
■ Propaganda to whip up masses - commanding of masses
● Victor Adler, Socialist
○ Hated socialism but appreciated level of organization/mass mobilization
■ By actually organizing the working classes in a systematic fashion
● Hitler/Women and Sex:
● Had serious aversions to sexual activity
○ Thought masturbation was abhorrent
○ Fear of contamination - germaphobe
■ Terrified of catching something
● Eva Braun = wife
● Sexual encounters do not bear explanatory power why he became the person he became
○ Nothing signified he was a deranged psychopath, etc.
○ Was a bit of a “loser”
● Orthodox Jews in Vienna Leopoldstadt:
● Roams around city and lands in mens home with these jews (1910)
○ Before (1909) no money - with other social drifters
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
1st: problems with weimar republic (for book report) - by the people for the people, versaille = restore europe. Identity crisis, what are we about? (punitive peace v founding principles) Welfare crisis due to provisions from revolution being rolled back. Also breaks down family structure - pare(cid:374)ts are(cid:374)"t a(cid:271)le to pare(cid:374)t la(cid:374)ds (cid:272)hildre(cid:374) i(cid:374) institutions. Increase in rhetoric about law and order too. Political biases of judiciary -- people who make decisions about crimes are the same people that would have made decisions during imperial period. Nothing inevitable about the rise of hitler. Ideological cocktail was commonstalk of the political right. Johann hiedler adopts him and establishes legitimacy. Married 3 times and fathered 9 children. Died and left hitler with his mother who died a couple years after. Was not a great student -- went thro secondary school and then dropped out. Idle life between when he leaves school and mothers death.
