Adolf Hitler and the German People

Today's Overview Question: Did the German people elevate Hitler, or did Hitler victimize the Germans?

How do historians formulate claims about complex historical events? In this lesson, you will consider competing historical claims about responsibility for the rise of Adolf Hitler and then examine primary sources to generate and support your own historical claims. You will also consider what the significance of these claims might be for today's society.

Before we begin you will need the Staking a Historical Claim handout

Historical Warm-Up:  Watch this short film of crowds cheering as Adolf Hitler is driven through the streets of Berlin in 1940. As you watch, write down everything you notice. Afterwards, write two questions you have about what you just watched.

Discussion Questions:  What is happening in this film? What does it tell you about the time and place that it depicts? What more do you want to know about the setting and context?  What have you learned previously about Hitler and Nazi Germany? What perspective does this film give you on Hitler and his supporters? What questions do you have? And finally: How and why do you think Hitler was able to become so popular in Germany?

Related Information:  In the article “Hitler Exhibition Explores a Wider Circle of Guilt,”Michael Slackman discusses an exhibition at the German Historical Museum in Berlin that focuses on the society that gave rise to Hitler:

"As artifacts go, they are mere trinkets — an old purse, playing cards, a lantern. Even the display that caused the crowds to stop and stare is a simple embroidered tapestry, stitched by village women.

But the exhibits that opened Friday at the German Historical Museum are intentionally prosaic: they emphasize the everyday way that ordinary Germans once accepted, and often celebrated, Hitler.

The household items had Nazi logos and colours. The tapestry, a tribute to the union of church, state and party, was woven by a church congregation at the behest of their priest.

“This is what we call self-mobilization of society,” said Hans-Ulrich Thamer, one of three curators to assemble the exhibit at the German Historical Museum. “As a person, Hitler was a very ordinary man. He was nothing without the people.”


Questions:  Please answer the following in your notebook

1. What does it mean that the exhibition is “intentionally prosaic”? Why was it designed that way?
2. What is the message of the exhibition? Is this a new way for you to think about Hitler and pre-World War II Germany?
3. Why does the curator of the exhibition think that Germans today need to hear this particular story about Hitler and the Germans who supported him? Do you think the message of this exhibition could be valuable for people in your community? Why or why not?
4. Why does Hans-Ulrich Thamer believe that extremists need to be isolated from society? Do you agree? Why or why not?
5. Klaus Peter Triebel says, “Our teachers in the past were integrated in that system.” What system is he talking about? What role does education play in how we remember history? Why does it matter how teachers tell the story of Hitler?

Related Resources:

FROM THE LEARNING NETWORK

• Lesson: The Politics of Memory
• Resources: The Holocaust
• Historic Headlines: World War II

FROM NYTIMES.COM

• Times Topics: Adolf Hitler
• Germany Confronts Holocaust Legacy Anew
• How Democracy Produced a Monster

AROUND THE WEB

• Time Photo Essay: Hitler’s Rise to Power
• BBC: The Rise of Adolf Hitler
• Spiegel Online: The Führer Myth

Your Job:  Two quotations from the article stand out: “Hitler did not corral the Germans as much as the Germans elevated Hitler” and “The Germans were the first victims of Hitler.” 

These statements are competing historical claims about the German people’s responsibility in promoting the rise of Hitler. Your job, as a historian, is to examine historical evidence and then make historical claims supported by that evidence.

In small groups (3 or 4), you will examine primary source evidence in the form of videos, images, artifacts and historical newspaper articles. Using the evidence that you collect, you are to make your own historical claims about the extent to which the German people were responsible for the rise of Hitler.

When the  small-group work is complete, the class will come together to engage in a round-table discussion at which all groups of historians will present their claims and supporting evidence and engage in discussion about the significance of their findings for today's society. 

More sources for you to consider:

• The slide show of artifacts in the exhibition
  
• About.com’s collection of photographs of Hitler
• Newspaper Article from the New York Times about Hitler's Election
• Spiegel Online’s graph of German election results from 1928 to 1933
• The German Propaganda Archive’s collection of pre-1933 Nazi propaganda and photographs of children at play 
• Rise of Hitler webquest

---