Why did Hitler gain public support in Germany during the 1930's?
Lots of answers being thrown out and most are relatively good. Everyone though, fails to grasp the scope of the situation that allowed him to come into power. As insulting as this may seem, as you read this response, think about our own country and the current situation and new President. Around the world, national economies were tanking out, the U.S., Germany, England, France and Italy all were in the same boat. Regardless of where you looked, the story line was basically the same. People were unemployed, people were losing their homes to bank foreclosures, the cost of living was constantly going up and there seemed to be no end in sight. Most everyone blamed the previous administration for their troubles. In the U.S., it was Hoover. In Germany, it was von Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic. A new political party had started to take hold (socialism/communism) and people began taking sides. Like most politicians, Hitler used fear as a tool to persuade people to vote for him. He convinced the industrialists that he could increase consumerism and in turn, production. All of which would restore national pride and standing both at home and in world standing. He was a man who'd never been heavily involved in politics, yet, he offered hope and a promise of change. The people were desperate and he played on it. They listened and voted for him and his new party. At first, it wasn't so great, he'd only won a foot hold in the German version of parliament. Given and inch, he took a mile. It wasn't long, and he had the whole world agreeing that he was the man of change. Even Time Magazine in the U.S. voted him "Man of the Year." He promised hope, change, national greatness and he made good on those promises. He ignored the treaty that ended the first world war, he promised everyone a new car in their garage and gave them "the People's car" aka the Volkswagon "Beetle" (bug). The economy turned around and began to grow. People were working again.
NAZI GERMANY & ADOLF HITLER?
Since you've got the time period of Nazi Germany all wrong, it explains why you've got so many other historical facts wrong. His stance on the Jews are one of the reasons the German people supported his rise to power. Without the Jews and others as scapegoats, he couldn't have rallied his supporters and strongly as he did in the 1930s Were he alive today, Hitler would be well into his hundreds. With his health problems near the end of the war, it's VERY unlikely he would have made it to the end of that decade, much less sixty years more. Fighting five countries at once? What makes that smart. Besides, he had Italy, Japan, and, for a while, the Soviet Union on his side, not to mention Spain and other lesser players. And, it's not the number of countries on one side or the other that counts, it's the number of soldiers, the manufacturing base, ships, planes, transports, etc that determines a winner. Not to mention a winning strategy. Hitler made a LOT of mistakes, like Dunkirk, not allowing the Wermacht to pursue and destroy the evacuating fighters, turning against the Soviets in mid war, pushing his Eastern Front commanders to fight on in Winter and not providing the cold weather support they needed, keeping his armor away from Normandy when his commanders in the field were telling him he was wrong and the invasion of Europe was actually happenning and countless other bad choices he made. So, what is it about Nazi Germany that you respect? The pretty uniforms?
How do German kids feel when they learn about what Hitler did in WWII?
A German teenager here, and we are learning it in school right now. First: The History class is not the only class where we get in contact with the war. (Yes, when we talk about WWII we just call it "the war"). I give some examples:Music: Songs about the war/written during the war. There's a concentration camp in my area and the prisoners composed a song on their own. Everyone here knows it.Songs after the war (Rock'n'Roll/Schlager). Both used to forget the war. Schlager are German songs with easy and hella gooey texts.German: From Year 7-12/13 we do text analysis. Analysing speeches and poetry. The language, how it affects us (with which tools?), what the speaker wants to achieve. Guess, why. Geography: Learning about different cultures. How beautiful they are. How could our ancestors destroy them? Art: Analysing. Again. Oh- and paintings painted/ photographs taken during the war. Also very popular in history class.Religion: We learn about different religions and that we Christians have our origin in the Jewish religion and how could our ancestors possibly hurt them?!?Of course they don't tell us that this is the extended pack to our history class. But because of our German lessons, we read between the lines.Okay, now imagine you broke an incredibly precious vase and it's unrepairable. Everyone hates you. You're ashamed and don't tell your kids about it.They, however, find out and feel incredibly guilty for what you've done. They tell their kids what a bad family they are and that they are so sorry. Those kids feel guilty too and have more children.Those kids slowly grow up and wonder whether they really have to feel sorry for something their great-grandpa has done. These kids are my generation. Of course we are shocked. Of course we think that should never ever happen again.But do we have to feel guilty? Are we really not allowed to be proud of our country? Our media and our government say yes. We slowly say no.We must keep it in our minds so that we are able to act smarter in the future, we must learn from our ancestors' mistakes. But don't expect me to like you when you ask me whether I secretly think Hitler was okay.I guess, we begin to look at it objectively now and refuse to feel guilty. Which is good. Feeling guilty for something we didn't do cannot be healthy.
Is it wrong to feel bad for Hitler?
hmmmmmmmmm.. But people always mention him. Although there have been worse dictators who outdid him in the realm of cruaulty. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc atrocities done by the Japanese during WW2 etc...seem to be forgotten and made Hitler look like a choir boy. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-dictators-by-richard-overy-9808 Even in present society, everybody who committed anything would have a good excuse, no jails, no punishment, no nothing. Some people grow up among very very bad conditions ( abuse, poverty etc) and yet become decent citizens. I believe in what is called a conscience or lack thereof.