European History: Leadership
European History: The Role of the Leader
In his positions as state leader (Reich President), head of government (Reich Chancellor), and leader of the Nazi political party, Hitler wielded despotic control over the German people (Fuehrer). In accordance with the principle of “Fuehrer,” Hitler had the ultimate say in all matters relating to legal state policy; Hitler had the authority to determine both internal legislation and German ties with other countries outside of Germany (Holocaust Encyclopedia n.p.). It was the racist concept that the Germans were destined to expand eastward through military force, and that a larger, racially superior German people should establish its control in Eastern Europe and Russia that guided Hitler’s foreign relations strategy.
When Germany and Russia agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, it effectively sealed a peace agreement between the two countries. Hitler, on the other hand, invaded Poland, and the country was partitioned between Germany and Russia within a few weeks of the outbreak of the war (The Open University n.p.). Hitler’s desire for additional territorial conquest leads him to launch an attack on Russia in June 1941, despite the fact that Germany had signed a peace pact with the Soviet Union. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler remarked that “the German question can only be resolved by means of force, and this is never done without peril…” (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.) Jewish Virtual Library The Nazi foreign policy had been designed from the beginning to bring about a world war of annihilation against Russia, and the years of calm had been exploited to prepare for this conflict. Hitler suffers a humiliating defeat in the war against the Soviet Union as a result of the German invasion of Russia, known as Operation Barbarossa.
A report by the Encyclopedia of World Biography states that Hitler retreated almost totally from the public eye as the German war operations began to lose their appeal. While reflecting on his previous wins over other military generals, his orders grew progressively erroneous, as he refused to accept the advice of his trusted military advisors. He began to feel increasingly nervous, and he began to suspect that treason efforts were being made against him all over the place. All of Germany’s soldiers were dispatched to the front lines under the motto “absolute triumph or total disaster,” despite the fact that many of them were ill-equipped and poorly trained. An assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, went horribly wrong and the reign of terror was further prolonged.
The Nazi regime began as a political movement intended to free the German people from the economic hardships that they had endured under the parliamentary democracy of the Weimar Republic, which was established in Germany following the end of World War I. The Nazi regime eventually evolved into a totalitarian regime. Hitler’s growing preoccupation with expanding his grip over other regions of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, drew his attention away from the political, social, and economic difficulties that many “Aryan” Germans were still experiencing at home. Consequently, many Germans who had previously backed Hitler heavily when he got to power turned against him as a result of his actions. Over time, the Nazi regime lost popularity in Germany as a result of the Holocaust.
German Jews were segregated and persecuted under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which were passed in response to the Holocaust. As a result of the destruction of Jewish property, companies, and synagogues, a large number of Jews were interned in concentration camps. Furthermore, the Jews were even asked to pay a punishment of one billion Reichmarks for the atrocities they had done against the “Aryan” Germans during World War II. When it came to education, the Nazis spent a lot of time and effort explaining to young children why it was so vital to expel the Jews from the country. The children were taught to despise persons of Jewish heritage through the use of anti-Semitic material, which asserted that they constituted a severe threat to the economic success of the German community. Every student should “stay an adversary of the Jews for the remainder of his life and raise his offspring as enemies (of the Jews),” according to official teaching instructions on Jewish questions (Jewish Virtual Library n.p.). Leaders of the Catholic and Protestant churches were not pleased with such teachings. A large number of religious leaders behaved in defiance of the Nuremberg Laws, and some even assisted in the hiding of Jews from the Nazi regime.
