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Propaganda played a crucial role in selling the myth of the "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) to so-called "Aryan" Germans. The photograph on this cigarette card was taken by Nazi propagandist Heinrich Hoffman. It depicts a crowd of people smiling and giving the Nazi salute as a guard holds them back. Written in German, the caption on the back reads, "Every day the same picture: Fans welcome the leader." Beginning in the 1920s, cigarette cards were a popular collectible item in Germany. This card…
When Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler became German chancellor on January 30, 1933, no step-by-step blueprint for the genocide of Jews as a “race” existed. After the outbreak of World War II, millions of Jews came und...
Joseph Leo Diamantstein was born in Heidelberg, Germany, on December 1, 1924, to Jewish parents. He was the youngest of four children. His family experienced antisemitism in Frankfurt, and ultimately decided to leave Germany. Beginning in 1933, the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls had an important role to play in the new Nazi regime. Through these organizations, the Nazi regime planned to indoctrinate young people with Nazi ideology. This was part of the process of Nazifying German…
Fritz and Ida Lang, Jewish proprietors of a dry goods store in Lambsheim, posed for this picture around 1934. In the early 1940s, Nazi authorities deported the Langs and their young daughter, Freya, to detention camps in France. Ida died after deportation to Auschwitz. Fritz survived and reunited with his daughter in 1946. Lambsheim, Germany, ca. 1934.
1936 poster: "All of Germany Listens to the Führer with the People's Radio." The poster depicts a crowd surrounding a radio. The radio looms large, symbolizing the mass appeal and broad audience for Nazi broadcasts. Bundesarchiv Koblenz (Plak003-022-025)
A leading researcher of sex, sexuality, and gender, German Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld was forced to live in exile after the Nazi rise to power.
On November 8–9, 1923, Hitler and the Nazi Party led an attempt to overthrow the German government. This attempted coup came to be called the Beer Hall Putsch.
The Weimar Republic existed in Germany from 1918-1933. Learn more about German police during that time.
Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, aimed to eliminate Europe's Jews and other perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. Learn more.
Walter was born in Kassel, north central Germany, but grew up in the Rhineland. As a youth, Walter questioned the German superiority and antisemitism he was taught. His father, an anti-Nazi, refused to allow Walter to enter one of the Adolf Hitler Schools, but did permit him to join the Hitler Youth. However, Walter's rebellious streak led him to hide a Jewish friend in his basement. He also formed a gang that played pranks on young Nazis and helped French prisoners of war. They called themselves Edelweiss…
Hanne's family owned a photographic studio. In October 1940, she and other family members were deported to the Gurs camp in southern France. In September 1941, the Children's Aid Society (OSE) rescued Hanne and she hid in a children's home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Her mother perished in Auschwitz. In 1943, Hanne obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland. She married in Geneva in 1945 and had a daughter in 1946. In 1948, she arrived in the United States.
The Weimar Republic was a liberal democratic republic founded in Germany in the aftermath of WWI. Learn about the era’s political and economic crises and social trends.
The Nazis used propaganda to to facilitate persecution, war, and ultimately genocide. Read more about the cult of the leader around Adolf Hitler.
In Nazi Germany, German military personnel swore an oath directly to Adolf Hitler. Learn about the oath and its impact.
The "Jewish boycott" ("Judenboykott") of April 1, 1933, was the first coordinated action undertaken by the Nazi regime against Germany’s Jews. Learn more.
In February/March 1943, non-Jewish Germans protest the incarceration of their Jewish family members at Rosenstrasse 2-4 in Berlin. Learn about the impact of the protest.
Hitler rose to power during a time of economic and political instability in Germany. Learn more about how and when Hitler came to power.
As Nazi anti-Jewish policy intensified, Kurt's family decided to leave Germany. Kurt left for the United States in 1937, but his parents were unable to leave before the outbreak of World War II. Kurt's parents were eventually deported to Auschwitz, in German-occupied Poland. In 1942, Kurt joined the United States Army and was trained in military intelligence. In Europe, he interrogated prisoners of war. In May 1945, he took part in the surrender of a village in Czechoslovakia and returned the next day to…
Prisoners arrested during the crackdown on leftists and other targeted groups exercise in the courtyard of the Alexanderplatz prison. Munich, Germany, April 10, 1933.
Learn about the role of the legal profession as the Nazi leadership gradually moved Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship.
Adolf Hitler was determined to overturn the military and territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Learn more about Nazi German territorial aggression before WWII.
The trauma of WWI would profoundly shape the attitudes and actions of leaders and ordinary people during the Holocaust. Learn more about the aftermath of the conflict.
Display from "Der ewige Jude" (The Eternal Jew), a Nazi antisemitic exhibit which claimed that Jews heavily dominated the German performing arts. A phrase at the top of the display states "Shameless Entertainment." Berlin, Germany, November 11, 1938.
Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. He spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Germany, 1937.
Nazi propaganda postcard showing a crowd of saluting Germans superimposed on an enlarged image of Adolf Hitler with a member of the SA (Storm Trooper) who holds a swastika flag. Munich, Germany, ca. 1932.
Group portrait of German girls posing outside their school in front of a Nazi flag. Among those pictured is Lilli Eckstein six months before she was expelled from the school for being Jewish. Heldenbergen, Germany, 1935.
On the day of book burnings in Germany, massive crowds march from New York's Madison Square Garden to protest Nazi oppression and anti-Jewish persecution. New York City, United States, May 10, 1933.
This image shows a 1935 poster by the antisemitic Der Stürmer (Attacker) newspaper. The poster justifies prohibiting “interracial” relationships between Jews and non-Jews under the Nuremberg Race Laws. Many Germans reported suspicions of the “crime” of interracial relationships to the police. The police needed the public to be their “eyes and ears” in this and other matters. Informers were variously motivated by political beliefs, personal prejudices, the desire to settle petty quarrels, or…
Election poster reading "The People Vote Listing One: Nationalsocialism," 1932-1933
On the night of February 27, 1933, an unemployed Dutch construction worker named Marinus van der Lubbe set fire to the Reichstag (German parliament) building, causing serious damage. The Nazis blamed the Communists for the fire and claimed emergency powers to crush all opposition. Bolstering Nazi claims, the police also arrested three Bulgarian members of the Communist International, who were in Germany at the time, and a leading German Communist. Despite Nazi claims, however, responsibility for the fire…
Portrait of Alfred Rosenberg. One of a collection of portraits included in a 1939 calendar of Nazi officials. Germany, 1939.
Sign used during the anti-Jewish boycott: "Help liberate Germany from Jewish capital. Don't buy in Jewish stores." Germany, 1933. (Source record ID: X89-204/08)
On the day of his appointment as German chancellor, Adolf Hitler greets a crowd of enthusiastic Germans from a window in the Chancellery building. Berlin, Germany, January 30, 1933.
In 1945, Robert Mills Donihi was practicing law in Nashville, Tennessee. He accepted a government assignment to Tokyo where he worked on the trial of 28 high-ranking Japanese officers. After a year, he left for Germany, and arrived in Nuremberg in January 1947. Donihi was a member of the legal team at the postwar US trials in Germany, serving as both an interrogator and a prosecutor.
Fascism is a far-right authoritarian political philosophy. Learn about the history and principles of fascism and its implementation in Nazi Germany.
The SA established a protective custody camp at Hainewalde in March 1933. Well-known journalist and writer Axel Eggebrecht was among its early prisoners.
Article 48 allowed the German president to declare a state of emergency in times of national danger and effectively to rule as a dictator for short periods. Learn about its far-reaching effects.
The US 8th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne Divisions arrived at the Wöbbelin camp in May 1945, witnessing the deplorable living conditions in this subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp.
In the 25-point program, Nazi Party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from "Aryan" society and to abrogate Jews' political, legal, and civil rights. Germany, 1931.
The White Rose, led by students including Hans and Sophie Scholl, was an anti-Nazi group during WWII. Its members spread leaflets denouncing the regime.
The Law against the Founding of New Parties proclaimed the Nazi Party as the only political party in Germany, which became a one-party dictatorship led by the Nazis.
Karl Höcker created a personal album of photographs chronicling SS officers’ activities at Auschwitz. Learn about this chilling collection.
Learn about the establishment and history of the Dachau subcamp München-Schwabing, and the role of Eleonore Baur (also known as Schwester Pia or Sister Pia).
A certificate of "Aryan" descent, issued to Joseph Schäfer of Mühlheim, Germany. To prove one's "Aryan" racial status in Nazi Germany, an individual had to trace their ancestry back to 1800. Signed by an official justice of the peace, this certificate attests to Schäfer's parentage and baptism. Dated January 14, 1936.
A newspaper advertisement for the Damenklub Violetta, a Berlin club frequented by lesbians, 1928. Before the Nazis came to power in 1933, lesbian communities and networks flourished in Germany.
At the end of World War II, more than three-quarters of the city of Nuremberg, Germany, lay in rubble. This US Army Air Corps color footage shows some of the war damage in Nuremberg, which had been host in the 1920s and 1930s to massive and lavish rallies for the Nazi party.
In 1933, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and quickly turned the nation's fragile democracy into a one-party dictatorship. Police rounded up thousands of political opponents, detaining them without trial in concentration camps. The Nazi regime also put into practice racial policies that aimed to "purify" and strengthen the Germanic "Aryan" population. A relentless campaign began to exclude Germany's one-half million Jews from all aspects of German life. For two weeks in August…
After Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, he persuaded his cabinet to declare a state of emergency and end many individual freedoms. Here, police search a vehicle for arms. Berlin, Germany, February 27, 1933.
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