The History of WWII Podcast XX
[0] Welcome to True Spies, the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
[1] Suddenly out of the dark, it's a bit in love.
[2] You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
[3] What do they know?
[4] What are their skills?
[5] And what would you do in their position?
[6] Vengeance felt good seeing these.
[7] People paid for what they'd done, felt righteous.
[8] True Spies, from Spyscape Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.
[9] Hello, and thank you for listening to a History of World War II podcast, Episode 10, Freedom's Winter.
[10] So in the last episode, Hitler had removed his political enemies, Rom and the SA, and now he just had to wait for Hindenburg before he had complete freedom and control.
[11] By the summer of 1934, Hindenburg's health was sinking quickly, and he died August 2, 1934, at 9 a .m. He was 87 years old.
[12] At noon the same day, it was announced on the radio by Dr. Goebbels that the offices of the Chancellor and the President had been combined.
[13] On the previous day, while Hindenburg was still alive.
[14] This was clearly against the Constitution.
[15] Hitler was now the head of state and the commander -in -chief of the armed forces.
[16] And it was also announced that the title of president was abolished.
[17] From now on, Hitler would be known as the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor.
[18] Hitler did not, according to the Constitution, call for an election of a new president, but he decided he would allow another plebiscite.
[19] to let the people vote on the idea of Hitler taking the President's office and powers.
[20] That plebiscite would be on August the 19th.
[21] It was more of a popularity vote.
[22] To be honest, the deed was done, and Hitler was now the law of the land.
[23] But just to be safe, Hitler had all the officers and soldiers in the army swear an oath of allegiance to him, not to the country or the Constitution, but to him personally.
[24] The oath went, I swear by God this sacred oath.
[25] that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath.
[26] Now, in our more cynical times, it's hard to imagine an oath being taken seriously by someone.
[27] But for German culture at the time, it was very serious and it would never be broken lightly.
[28] For the generals who took this oath, it tied them to Hitler and his success.
[29] Even though they didn't know what all his plans were, they had to back him up at all times now.
[30] So later on, when the atrocities are occurring, for the generals, it gave them an out.
[31] And for those who didn't want to go along with Hitler, they were certainly tied to him by this oath.
[32] After the death of the president, Dr. Goebbels got on the radio and told everyone that no one could find a last will and testament of the president's.
[33] But on August 15th, four days before the plebiscite, documents were given to Hitler, supposedly from Hindenburg, from, of all people, Papen, the former vice chancellor.
[34] It contained a message from Hindenburg talking about his life, his love for Germany, his devotion to the fatherland, and all that he tried to do.
[35] And at the end of the letter, it praised Hitler and his work as well.
[36] Dr. Goebbels wasted no time in pouring this letter into the propaganda machine.
[37] And then later on, the letter was augmented by a message from Oscar von Hindenburg, the president's son.
[38] And he gave a radio announcement to the German people the night before the plebiscite.
[39] He said, to vote for the handing over of my father's office to the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor.
[40] But honestly, the surviving evidence does not support the supposed attention of the late president.
[41] For one thing, Oscar was promoted to a major general from a colonel soon after his address.
[42] The evidence that does survive shows the president wanted a return to the monarchy.
[43] which may be hard for us to envision now, thinking that a monarchy is actually a step forward.
[44] But at the time, there was so much backstabbing and lack of progress in the political parties toward each other that he was thinking that one person being supported by everybody, or at least by a majority of the people, could actually make progress and get things moving again in Germany.
[45] It certainly suited German culture at the time.
[46] Now, at the end of the war, when the Nuremberg trials were going on, Pappen, who somehow survived all this, gave his account of what happened after the president died.
[47] He's certainly not to be believed wholeheartedly.
[48] He's certainly not above self -serving.
[49] But here's what he said happened after the president died.
[50] Hindenburg called Pappen into his office the summer before.
[51] and asked him to write his last will for him.
[52] Hindenburg wasn't going to dictate it.
[53] Hindenburg knew that Papen had an idea of what he felt, what he believed, and he just wanted him to go write something and bring it back to him.
[54] So Papen did this, and in his writing he put, it was a bad idea to combine the office of president and chancellor.
[55] It would just give one person, i .e. Hitler, way too much power.
[56] So Papen writes the letter, brings it back to the president in April of 1934.
[57] Hindenburg called Pappen back a couple days later and said he didn't like the draft.
[58] And after thinking about it, he would let the people themselves decide what their future should be.
[59] In his letter, he would only recommend a return to the monarchy.
[60] So Pappen left thinking there would be no document.
[61] And after the president died, Hitler called on Pappen and asked him if there was a will that he knew about.
[62] He said he didn't know of one, but he would ask Oscar.
[63] Oscar looked around for it in his father's office but couldn't find it.
[64] It turns out that Hindenburg's main secretary had it all along.
[65] So the secretary gave it to Pappen and Pappen gave it to Hitler.
[66] But it turns out there were two documents, both signed by the President on May 11, 1934.
[67] The first letter was to the German people recommending the return to the monarchy, and the second one was to the Reich Chancellor, which is where Hinderberg talked about his love for the fatherland, all he tried to do, and at the end of it, he said some nice things about Hitler.
[68] Pepin gave those two to Hitler on August 15.
[69] Hitler opened the envelopes and read them.
[70] He discussed them with his inner circle and with Pappen as well.
[71] Thinking about it, Hitler said he would decide if they were to be published.
[72] And of course, Pappen said he begged him to publish both letters.
[73] Now again, all this is according to Pappen after the war.
[74] But Hitler only gave the letter address to himself, to Goebbels, for public consumption.
[75] And of course, that was the letter that talked about how much Hindenburg loved Germany and all the complimentary things about Hitler and all his work.
[76] The second letter addressed to the people talking about the recommendation was never seen again.
[77] Even after the war and the sheer tonnage of documents that were found by the Allies, that document was never found.
[78] It's assumed that Hitler wasted no time in destroying it.
[79] But in all honesty, the second letter would have made very little difference.
[80] Hitler already had the President's power.
[81] It was given to him the day before he died.
[82] Was this illegal?
[83] Yes.
[84] Was it unstoppable?
[85] Yes.
[86] The Enabling Act back in 1933 protected the president's office, but that was totally ignored.
[87] So all that was according to Papen.
[88] So after it's done, Papen is sent to Vienna to be the new German minister there.
[89] He had to deal with the uproar because Austria's Chancellor Dolphus was killed by Austrian Nazis on July 25, 1934.
[90] They broke into the chancellery and shot Dolphus in the throat from two feet away.
[91] He died very slowly right there on the floor, bleeding.
[92] It took him hours.
[93] They then took over the radio station and announced that Dolphus had resigned.
[94] Now, when news of this got back to Hitler, he was at the Wagner Festival.
[95] He was told the news, and he tried to appear sad, but according to Wagner's granddaughter, he could barely keep the excitement off his face.
[96] Now, months before the assassination of Dolphus, Hitler had organized and supported the Austrian Nazis.
[97] There was terror, there were bombings and killings of Dolphus' supporters.
[98] Mussolini, who saw Dolphus and Austria as one of his clients, told Dolphus to stand up to the terrorism, so basically to stand up to Hitler.
[99] And it's a rumor that Mussolini had his own plans for Austria one day.
[100] But the coup failed because there were loyal Austrian forces.
[101] They stopped the rebels and they took back the chancellery.
[102] The rebels were promised safe passage to Germany.
[103] But after they surrendered, 13 were arrested and hanged.
[104] Mussolini, who had met Hitler only a month before, was promised by Hitler that he would not try anything in Austria.
[105] And obviously Mussolini was very upset.
[106] by being lied to right to his face.
[107] So Mussolini, very angry, mobilized four divisions along the Brenner Pass, which is a mountain pass that connects northern Italy to Austria.
[108] And he got England and France to make a public declaration for the continued independence of Austria.
[109] Days before Dolphus was killed, he and Mussolini had been writing letters to each other.
[110] Dolphus and his family was going to come to Italy for a vacation.
[111] In fact, Dolphus' wife and two children were already there waiting for him.
[112] So Mussolini had the unenviable task to tell the wife that her husband had been assassinated.
[113] Mussolini was good to his wife and two children for years, and in March of 1938, he was able to get them out of Austria, which was under Nazi control by then, and to Switzerland.
[114] During the meeting between Hitler and Mussolini a month before, Mussolini had to sit there for hours and listen to Hitler's tirade against Jews, against the Slavs, against Austria being separated from Germany.
[115] So Mussolini now, in a fit of rage, unleashed sarcastic remarks about Hitler, about the Nazi views, and about all the writings in Mein Kampf.
[116] He said that the Nazis hated everyone.
[117] They didn't believe in anything, and they had no core.
[118] They didn't offer anything to civilization.
[119] So after all this, Hitler backed down.
[120] He had to.
[121] Austria wasn't ready to be taken over yet.
[122] In fact, he already had newspaper headlines.
[123] ready to put out the next day about the greater Germany had started because Austria was being taken in by Germany.
[124] They had to switch that to the cruel murder of a statesman and that this was entirely an Austrian affair.
[125] So Hitler sent Papen to smooth things over and preached peace to the world at large.
[126] Hitler realized that Germany wasn't ready.
[127] It wasn't strong enough to stand up to the unified countries around it yet.
[128] But there had been a change.
[129] After 1934, all eyes were focused on Berlin.
[130] Mussolini was now in Hitler's shadow.
[131] So the plebiscite was conducted on August 19th.
[132] 95 % of the registered voters turned out, and 90 % of them voted for Hitler to take the president's powers.
[133] He was now the supreme political and military leader of Germany.
[134] He was only 45 years old.
[135] So on September 4th, the Nazi Party Congress was assembled.
[136] Hitler was at center stage, holding court.
[137] because now he was a king.
[138] He was finally free from all restraint, and he knew soon Germany would be free as well.
[139] But free for what?
[140] No one was even asking that question.
[141] Free for his plans, which he had spelled out in Mein Kampf, and in a thousand different speeches that for years have been made fun of or ignored.
[142] Hitler was now the political power of a great nation, but now he had to put those people into motion for his plans.
[143] By the fall of 1934, freedom in Germany was gone.
[144] But as the joke was banding about, also gone was the freedom to starve.
[145] For most Germans, the shameful past was gone and hope was restored.
[146] There was a Nazi saying, the common interest before self, was the message that everyone heard over and over again through the radio and the newspapers.
[147] But there wasn't really quality.
[148] Goering and the Nazi elite were enriching themselves at the people's expense.
[149] also hemmed into Germans by the Nazis, was that the Germans were superior.
[150] They were a superior race.
[151] So in the next breath, when they...
[152] complained about the Jews being the problems of the world, and the only way to deal with them was by banning their rights, that was overlooked.
[153] Of course, there were many examples of individuals helping Jews with food or with escaping, but there was no massive organized help.
[154] The German people didn't have an example of someone standing up to the Nazis.
[155] They finally had jobs, they had food, and no one wanted to be the first one to revolt against the SS.
[156] The German people heard next to nothing about themselves in the foreign press or foreign opinions.
[157] They could travel outside of their own country, they could go on vacations, and Germany was open to visitors.
[158] In fact, for the first couple of years of the Third Reich, tourism thrived, which brought in much -needed foreign currency.
[159] Visitors could go anywhere except for labor camps and military installations.
[160] The economy prospered, and the people finally had work and food.
[161] They had their pride back.
[162] In fact, Germany was doing better than other industrialized nations when it came to unemployment, including England.
[163] But for the Jewish people, reality set in very early.
[164] In 1933, the first year of the Third Reich, they were not allowed in public office, which took away their political power.
[165] In 1934, they were out of the stock exchanges.
[166] And by 1935, the laws against the Jewish people were increasing and becoming more pervasive.
[167] September 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were handed down, and these deprived Jews of their citizenship.
[168] They were now subjects of the Reich, whatever the subject is.
[169] It forbade marriage between Jews and the Aryans, or sex between them.
[170] And the next few years would see 13 more decrees outlawing Jews completely.
[171] drip by drip to make it more tolerable to the German people.
[172] By 1938, they were banned from medicine and the law, not that those laws were needed by then because it was pretty much over for them.
[173] In 1936, Germany hosted the Olympics.
[174] The suppression of the Jews and of the two churches, the Catholics and the Protestants, and we'll get to that in a minute, was put on hold.
[175] Signs banning Jews were quietly taken down, and Germany put on its best behavior.
[176] The Nazi elites threw lavish dinner parties for the foreigners.
[177] They would have a party and there would be hundreds of people there just charming them.
[178] The Americans, when they got to Berlin, could not find any of the suffering that had been described in the papers covering Berlin.
[179] So here's a little bit about the Olympics.
[180] Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain in April of 1931, before the Nazis came to power.
[181] Hitler only allowed members of the Aryan race to compete for Germany, thus further promoting his ideological beliefs and racial superiority.
[182] In an attempt to clean up Berlin, the German Ministry of the Interior authorized the chief of police to arrest Romani, or gypsies, and keep them in a special camp until the Olympics were over.
[183] von Schammer was trusted by Hitler with the details of the organization of the Games, and he put Theodor Leewald and Karl Diem in charge.
[184] Diem was highly competent and made original innovations like the Olympic torch relay from Athens, which is still used today.
[185] There was some controversy over the question of would athletes give the Nazi salute as they passed by Hitler in his reviewing stand, because he was the host of the games.
[186] The confusion was because the Olympic salute was with the right arm held out straight at a slight angle from the shoulder, so it looked a lot like the Nazi stiff -arm salute.
[187] The participation of Jesse Owens was controversial because of his race.
[188] Back in America, where segregation was normal, they weren't sure how he was going to be treated in Germany.
[189] But once he was in Berlin, he was free to use public transportation and go into bars, and he actually experienced more freedom in Berlin than he did back in the States.
[190] There were reports of Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging Jesse Owens' victory, and he refused to shake his hand.
[191] But Owens said, when I passed the Chancellor, he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him.
[192] I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.
[193] And then Owens said, Hitler didn't snub me. It was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram, unquote.
[194] While Hitler did not personally congratulate Owens, he didn't congratulate any athlete, including his own, after the first day, in accordance with the IOC guidelines that he should remain neutral.
[195] However, Hitler's contempt for Owens and those races he deemed inferior arose in private, away from the Olympics.
[196] According to Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and later war armaments minister said in his book Inside the Third Reich, Each of the German victories, and there were a surprising number of these, made him happy.
[197] But he was highly annoyed at the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner Jesse Owens.
[198] People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug.
[199] Their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games.
[200] Hitler also was jolted by the jubilation of the Berliners when the French team filed solemnly into the Olympic Stadium.
[201] If I am correctly interpreting Hitler's expression at the time, he said, he was more disturbed than pleased by the Berliners' cheers.
[202] The German crowds loved Jesse Owens and he forged a long -term friendship with German competitor Luz Lange.
[203] Back in America, there was a debate going on about whether America should participate in the Olympics.
[204] They didn't want to see themselves as supporting the Nazi regime and their anti -Semitic policies.
[205] However, others in America urged that the game should be not about political views, but about a strict contest of great athletes.
[206] Most of the African -American newspapers supported participation in the Olympics.
[207] The Philadelphia Tribune and the Chicago Defender both agreed that if there were black victories, in the Olympics that would undermine the Nazis' views of Aryan supremacy and spark a renewed African -American pride.
[208] As can be expected, the Jewish organizations wanted America to stay out of the Olympics.
[209] The American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee staged rallies in supporting the boycott of German goods and the Olympics to show their disdain for American participation.
[210] The Spanish government, which had been beat out by Berlin to host the Olympics, boycotted the games, and their newly elected left -wing popular front party put on their own games called the People's Olympiad.
[211] It was held in Barcelona.
[212] However, right before the Olympiad was to start, it was aborted because of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, which we'll get to in a future episode.
[213] The games were the first to have live television coverage.
[214] Telefunctin broadcast over 70 hours of coverage to special viewing rooms throughout Berlin and Potsdam and to a few private TV sets.
[215] Italy's football team continued their dominance in the Olympics.
[216] They won the gold medals as well as the consecutive World Cups in 1934 and 1938.
[217] Much like the successes of the German athletes, this triumph was claimed by the supporters of Benito Mussolini's regime as a vindication of the superiority of the fascist system.
[218] And just as a side note, I think this is hilarious.
[219] Basketball was added to the Olympic program for the first time.
[220] In the final game, the United States beat Canada 19 -8.
[221] The contest was played outdoors on a dirt court in the driving rain.
[222] Because of the quagmire, the teams could hardly dribble the ball, which is why the score was so low.
[223] And Joe Fortuneberry...
[224] was the high scorer for the U .S. with seven hole points.
[225] Spectators did not have seats, and there were about a thousand of them, and they had to stand for the entire game in the rain.
[226] Welcome to True Spies.
[227] The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
[228] Suddenly out of the dark it's appeared in love.
[229] You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
[230] What do they know?
[231] What are their skills?
[232] And what would you do in their position?
[233] Vengeance felt good.
[234] Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous.
[235] True Spies from Spyscape Studios.
[236] Wherever you get your podcasts.
[237] Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events.
[238] His German competitor, Luz Long, offered Owens advice after he almost failed to qualify for the long jump.
[239] And Mr. Long was posthumously awarded the Pierre de Corbin 10 medal of sportsmanship.
[240] In the marathon, two Korean athletes won.
[241] Song Ki -chung won the gold and Nan Song -yong won the bronze.
[242] And they were running for Japan.
[243] Japanese names.
[244] Japan had annexed Korea in 1910, so it was considered a part of Japan.
[245] British India won the gold medal in the field hockey event, and they would win the field hockey event from 1928 to 1956 in every Olympic game.
[246] They defeated Germany 8 -1 in the final.
[247] However, the Indians were considered Indo -Aryans by the Germans, so there was no controversy regarding their victory.
[248] Hitler knew that he could have no higher power in the country besides himself.
[249] which meant focusing on the churches.
[250] The first year when he came to power, on March 23, 1933, Hitler gave a speech in the Reichstag about respecting churches, respecting religion, and improving relations with the Holy See.
[251] But after the Night of the Long Knives, June 30, 1934, the leader of the Catholic Action Group was killed, and many Catholic publications were suppressed.
[252] But a month later, on July 20th, the Nazis signed a concordant with the Vatican, guaranteeing freedom of Catholic religion and the church can handle their own affairs.
[253] But ten days after that, on July 30th, the Nazis tried to dissolve the Catholic Youth League.
[254] The church protested and the Nazis backed down.
[255] They weren't ready for that yet.
[256] The churches tried to cooperate with the Nazis, just like a lot of other entities and people did, but it did no good.
[257] By March 1937, the Catholic Church knew what would happen, and in Germany they proclaimed the Nazis hostile to Christ and his church.
[258] Hitler was nominally a Catholic, but of course that meant nothing to him.
[259] But to understand the Protestants, you have to know two things about them, especially the ones in Germany.
[260] Martin Luther was a passionate anti -Semite and believed in absolute obedience to authority.
[261] So the Germans were upset by the treatment of their churches, but they went along with it.
[262] They had been conditioned to for centuries.
[263] Hitler knew this about them and despised them for it.
[264] As the Catholic churches were attacked, the Protestant priests were arrested and forbade to make collections.
[265] And when a priest was released from jail or given to light of a sentence, they were taken into protective custody, which usually meant a concentration camp.
[266] So Hitler knew he had to replace the churches with something.
[267] The people had to have something higher than themselves to believe in, something for their soul.
[268] So he set up the National Reich Church in 1936.
[269] They had a 31 -point program, but here's just the six most important ones, just to give you an idea.
[270] The Reich Church would control all other churches.
[271] It would exterminate the foreign Christian faiths that were imported into Germany in the year 800.
[272] There would be no pastors, only Reich Orders.
[273] There would be no publishing or disseminating of the Bible anymore.
[274] Mein Kampf was the greatest of all documents, and all crosses in Germany would be replaced by the swastika.
[275] As far as the Nazification of the German culture, that began very early.
[276] On May 10, 1933, the first year Hitler came to power, the book burning had begun.
[277] Under Dr. Goebbels' direction, any book that attacked German thought.
[278] was to be burnt.
[279] Books by Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, H .G. Wells, Freud, Zola, and Proust were burnt.
[280] German culture was basically put into a Nazi straitjacket.
[281] Library circulation was curbed, and all aspects of German culture was regimented.
[282] On September 22, 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture was created, and it would draw the line of progress.
[283] There were seven subchambers set up under that, and if you were an artist in a certain field, you had to join that subchamber to keep your job.
[284] At this point, many of the artists and intelligentsia fled Germany.
[285] Quality declined in the arts, but fortunately music suffered the least, because it was the least political.
[286] except, of course, for Jewish musicians.
[287] The theater did well if it stuck to the classics, like Goethe, Schiller, and Shakespeare, again, except for Jewish actors, producers, and directors.
[288] The art in Germany was made drab by the Nazis.
[289] Art in Germany wasn't the best, but it was expressive and it represented the modern influences.
[290] Hitler, unfortunately, considered himself an artist, even though he failed many times in Vienna, and he hated modernism or any art that was better than his own.
[291] Some 6 ,500 paintings were taken down, including Van Gogh and Picasso.
[292] The summer of 1937, the House of German Art was opened, and Hitler made the final selections.
[293] But Zeigler, who was head of the Reich Chamber of Art, hated his selections so much that he put his boot through most of the selections, so they had to get new paintings.
[294] Goebbels, showing his brilliance, knew that if you squeezed the people too tightly, they would begin to fight back.
[295] So he took a lot of the removed art and put it in another building, in a very bad neighborhood, in a very...
[296] shabby building, but the people flooded in because they wanted to see real art. Goebbels was embarrassed and had to quickly shut it down before Hitler found out.
[297] At the time in the world, the newspapers were the main tool and the control of the press soon came under the Nazi leaders.
[298] The editors of the Berlin papers had to meet each morning with Dr. Goebbels and they were told what to print.
[299] how to write it, and what the editorial should be, and what to suppress.
[300] These smaller papers outside of Berlin were told the same thing by Telegram.
[301] On October 4, 1933, the Reich Press Law was passed.
[302] Journalism was now a vocation.
[303] It was regulated by law that a member of the press had to join the appropriate Nazi party or lose the job.
[304] There were three main papers in Berlin, and they were either shut down or taken over.
[305] The first one...
[306] Wasiske Zeitung started in 1704, and it only lasted until April 1, 1934.
[307] The second, Berliner Togblatt.
[308] In 1933, the owner was pushed out, and the paper was gone by 1937.
[309] The third one, the Frankfurter Zeitung, the Jewish owner gave it up, and Rudolf...
[310] Kircher was made editor.
[311] He was a former liberal, but he switched to Nazism with such passion that it was joked that he was more papal than the Pope.
[312] This paper was kept around because it was internationally known, and it gave the Nazis respectability, and they also used it to spread their propaganda.
[313] As you can imagine, the quality in the newspaper sunk, and the people were very quickly bored with their news, which, to be honest, the Nazis didn't mind.
[314] They just wanted people to keep their heads down and be obedient.
[315] The number of papers fell in Germany and the Nazis gathered up a lot of papers paying pennies on the dollar and made huge profits for the ones that they kept.
[316] Radio broadcast, like other European countries, was controlled by the state.
[317] So the Nazis automatically got that when they came to power in 1933.
[318] And they used that as a propaganda tool as well.
[319] They had the same messages put on the radio over and over again.
[320] And even intelligent people would fall for them because they weren't hearing anything else except for what the Nazis wanted them to hear.
[321] Films were still in private hands, but every aspect of the film industry was controlled by the state.
[322] Radio became boring.
[323] very quickly, like the newspapers, and films became boring as well.
[324] Again, Goebbels, trying to give the people some outlet, brought in a few foreign films, what we would call Hollywood B -films.
[325] The people obviously flooded to the theaters.
[326] When German films were shown, the German people would hiss really loudly, and it got to the point where the Minister of the Interior had to issue a warning over the radio for the people to quit hissing their own films.
[327] Education in the Third Reich was quickly brought under control as well.
[328] On April 30, 1934, the Obergruppenführer Bernard Rust of the SA was named Reich Minister of Science, Education, and Popular Culture.
[329] Strangely, he was one of the few people who was actually qualified for his position.
[330] He was a former provincial schoolmaster.
[331] Before 1933, he had preached Nazism, lost his job, but obviously rebounded when the Nazis came to power.
[332] Hitler had a lot of content for professors.
[333] Part of it was class consciousness and part of it was they didn't recognize how brilliant he thought he was.
[334] And in Mein Kampf, he clearly talked about taking the youth of the country and using it for the state.
[335] And that's exactly what he did.
[336] From the first grade all the way through college, everything was Nazified.
[337] The instructors were set to school for intensive training on the nationalist socialist principles, which emphasized Hitler's racial doctrines.
[338] All teachers had to join the Nazi party to keep their job, and there was a law that was created making teachers civil servants.
[339] So again, the Jews were out.
[340] By 1937, there was a Civil Service Act, which created an oath for the teachers to take.
[341] They had to be ready to defend the National Socialist State, and yes, there was another oath to Hitler.
[342] All education was now under the control of the Reich Minister of Education.
[343] Textbooks were rewritten and falsified, and they introduced the new subject of racial science.
[344] The textbooks also exalted Germans as the master race and portrayed the Jews as the cause of most of the world's problems.
[345] Germany's position in the natural sciences in 1933 was preeminent, but that quickly began to deteriorate.
[346] Professors of quality were fired or retired.
[347] Courses were now called German physics, German chemistry, German mathematics.
[348] In essence, science was politicized and used to attack Jewish conspiracies.
[349] All this ignored the fact that between 1903 and 1931, 10 German Jews were won Nobel Prizes for contributions to science.
[350] Enrollment in universities fell, especially in institutes of technology, and the standards fell quickly in the workplace.
[351] Before Hitler came to power, the Hitler Youth only had just over 100 ,000 people as members, but the other German groups had about 10 million total.
[352] So when Hitler comes to power, all the property of all those youth groups are taken over, millions of dollars of land and property.
[353] They seized the property first and then made it legal.
[354] They did that on purpose.
[355] They were sending a message of terror to everyone.
[356] On December 1, 1936, Hitler outlawed all other non -Nazi organizations for young people.
[357] The structure of the Hitler Youth was like this.
[358] Boys from ages 6 to 10 were an apprenticeship to the Hitler Youth.
[359] They were called pimps.
[360] Each boy had a book recording his growth physically and ideologically.
[361] And yes, they had to take another oath to Hitler.
[362] At 14, a boy would join the Hitler Youth proper until he was 18.
[363] And then they either joined the labor force or the armed forces.
[364] No trying to figure yourself out.
[365] No taking the summer off.
[366] You did one or the other.
[367] For the girls, the girls ages 10 to 14, they joined the Jung Maidens.
[368] They exercised a lot and were given ideas about being future healthy mothers with healthy children.
[369] At age 14, they joined the League of German Maidens.
[370] At 18, they did a year called the Land Year.
[371] They worked on farms and in a household.
[372] There were a lot of moral problems that arose because a lot of the girls ended up pregnant.
[373] But the Nazis needed future soldiers, so they didn't do much about it.
[374] Finally, in 1939, there was a law conscripting all youth into the Hitler Youth.
[375] They had to join it.
[376] There was no choice.
[377] The best students went to the Adolf Hitler School.
[378] They were taken at age 12, and they had six years of intensive training for leadership in the party.
[379] They had a Spartan discipline and diet, and then they were eligible for the university.
[380] All this was in the context of Hitler's plan of Lebensraum, or living space, for the growing Germany.
[381] Again, just like he said in Mein Kampf, they were going to take land from the Slavs in the east.
[382] The farmers were suffering terribly when Hitler came to power in 1933.
[383] Their income was at a new low, and collectively they were about $12 billion in debt.
[384] So on September 29, 1933, Hitler created the Hereditary Farm Law, which said that any farm over 308 acres could not be sold, divided, or foreclosed on because of debts.
[385] So the farmers would never lose their land.
[386] And when a farmer died, the land went to a son or to the oldest male relative.
[387] So they had protection.
[388] That was the good news.
[389] The bad news was they were never allowed to leave the land.
[390] They were tied to the land.
[391] And prices were fixed so they could receive a small profit.
[392] The economy in general was seen as a miracle by foreigners.
[393] In 1932, there were 6 million people out of work.
[394] In 1936, there were less than a million Germans out of work.
[395] National production rose 102 % between 1932 and 1937, and income doubled.
[396] Most of this was done by expanded public works like building the Audubon and stimulating the private enterprises.
[397] But the core reason for the economic miracle was rearmament.
[398] Some of it was secret, some of it wasn't.
[399] It started in earnest in 1934.
[400] Even the Republic had rearmament going on when it was in power.
[401] Hitler had the war economy created, which was designed to work in times of war, but also for now in a time of peace.
[402] Dr. Schacht, who was made minister of economics by Hitler.
[403] Hitler was ignorant of economics.
[404] He was bored.
[405] He never even thought about it.
[406] He just gave it to other people and expected them to get it right.
[407] And between the two of them, the idea was to keep rearmament a secret until at least March 16, 1935.
[408] That would give Hitler enough time to reorganize the army and have it stronger.
[409] And on that date, he would announce a conscription for an army of 36 divisions.
[410] And a lot of the money they used came from confiscated Jews or exiled Jews.
[411] Dr. Schacht printed money at first when he needed it, and he created something called the Mifo Bills, which was used solely for rearmament.
[412] It was issued secretly by the Reich Bank.
[413] It was kept off the books, but all banks in Germany were forced to accept it.
[414] The next phase of the plan started in September of 1936 with the four -year plan under Goering.
[415] He didn't know business either, but he certainly knew how to motivate people through fear.
[416] Germany went on a total war economy, and the idea was to make Germany self -sufficient in case there was a blockade.
[417] They came up with synthetic rubber, textiles, fuel, and the Hermann Goering works to make steel.
[418] The businessmen were making money, but even then they were only cogs in the Nazi machine.
[419] To many of the Nazis, money was meaningless.
[420] They really believed in this.
[421] But being German...
[422] as certainly the culture of the time, each transaction would cause numerous forms to be filled out.
[423] It was estimated that bureaucrats spent 50 % of their time pushing paper, which was one of the reasons why so many documents were found after the war was over.
[424] But big business did start to get disillusioned.
[425] Prices were set, products were set, and they were forced to make special contributions to the party.
[426] But times were even tougher for smaller businesses who were squeezed out.
[427] Wages fell slightly while profits soared.
[428] Again, there were no strikes because it was now illegal to strike.
[429] And Hitler kept a promise to big business.
[430] On October 24, 1934, he made a law that said the workers were tied to their job or factory like the farmers were tied to the land.
[431] Officials in the party only came from the SS or the SA.
[432] It was the only way to move up within the Nazi party, which is why so many people joined in.
[433] By June of 1935, there was a new law that said state employment offices could control who worked where and when, and another law that said each worker had to carry a workbook which displayed their skills and their experience.
[434] With all this regimentation and regulation, the workers needed distracted from their new drab life, so Dr. Ley of the Nazi party came up with the idea of strength through joy.
[435] This would control the adult's leisure time.
[436] All the social groups for adults now were controlled by the Reich party.
[437] There were some good things, like vacations were now cheap, whether it was on the land or sea.
[438] A trip to the Bavarian Alps would only cost $11.
[439] That included car fare, room, ski lessons, and rentals.
[440] The highbrow opera was now affordable for the middle class.
[441] And Dr. Ley's labor front had to provide all the money for this, and it cost him a lot, obviously.
[442] So he basically had to swindle the German people.
[443] And the biggest and best -known swindle was the Volkswagen.
[444] The idea was that a car would be built...
[445] by the Austrian automobile engineer, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, and Hitler wanted it to cost $396 in today's money.
[446] Of course, no one could build a car for that cheap, so Dr. Ley came up with the pay -before -you -get -it plan.
[447] They started working on the largest auto factory in the world in 1938.
[448] It was designed to put out a million and a half cars a year, so the workers would pay five marks a week, and when they got up to 750 marks, they would get a number, was ready they could pick it up.
[449] The problem was not a single car was sold, not a single car was created to put out for the public.
[450] By then the war had broken out and the factory had to be retooled for the army.
[451] So the German people were busy but distracted.
[452] They were working and providing for their family.
[453] In general the people did not support Hitler but they were leaderless and not eager to revolt.
[454] Early on in the Third Reich, it became clear that Hitler and the Nazi elite were laws unto themselves.
[455] At their word, someone could be sent to camp.
[456] Any SS man who had punished someone too severely, if he was going to be tried or arrested, could be saved by them.
[457] And if someone was given a sentence that Hitler saw as too light, they would disappear into a camp.
[458] Goering and the others were open to bribes, but Hitler was not.
[459] For him, it was pure ideology, and the Gestapo was their muscle.
[460] It was established by Goering for Prussia on April 26, 1933, and by April 1934, Goering made Himmler the deputy chief of the secret police.
[461] And this organization grew under this mild -mannered, sadistic, former chicken farmer.
[462] On February 10, 1936, there was a new law created putting the Gestapo above the law and the courts.
[463] So technically, anything they did was not illegal.
[464] There was no due process.
[465] People were just taken away to a camp.
[466] The first camp was created in 1933, the first year of Hitler coming to power.
[467] And by the end of 1933, 50 camps were set up by the SA.
[468] During the first year, when you went to a camp, mostly you were harassed, beaten up, and probably ransomed to your family.
[469] But there were some killings in the camps the first year, mostly in Dachau, near Munich in the south.
[470] Many citizens thought that the camps would be over after June 30, 1934, the Night of the Long Knives.
[471] They assumed that because the resistance was over, the camps would be dismantled.
[472] But after June 1934, the camps were handed over to the Efficient SS to run.
[473] Smaller camps were shut down and the larger ones were created.
[474] There was also another branch to the secret police, the SD, created by Himmler in 1932.
[475] It was the intelligence branch of the SS.
[476] In charge of it was Reinhard Heydrich, called Hangman Heydrich, who watched over the members of the Nazi party as well.
[477] And by 1938, they watched over the entire Reich.
[478] Soon, 100 ,000 part -time informants were telling on everyone.
[479] Microphones were everywhere.
[480] Besides a dictatorship, it was now a police state.
[481] Hitler liked to remind everyone that his government was based on law.
[482] Remember back on February 23, 1933, the Enabling Act, which protected the people in this state from terrorism, was signed by Hindenburg.
[483] And then on March 24, 1933, the legislative powers of the Reichstag were turned over to Hitler's cabinet for four years.
[484] So every four years, that law had to be renewed.
[485] The Reichstag, which was powerless, only met 12 times before the war.
[486] There were no votes or debates.
[487] They just listened to Hitler's speeches that were televised.
[488] The cabinet met less and less after Hindenburg's death, and after February 1938, they never met again.
[489] So all this was controlled by Hitler, and under him there were 42 executive agencies.
[490] And Hitler let his aides run the country.
[491] He was bored with day -to -day governing.
[492] So Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, Dr. Lay, all ran everything, and they had their own personal empires.
[493] The only time Hitler stepped in was when they started fighting each other.
[494] It made him look important and feel necessary, and it made sure there was no conspiracies against him.
[495] Ribbentrop was finally decided to head the foreign office, but since that was Hitler's one love, he really ran everything, and Ribbentrop was...
[496] just his errand boy.
[497] So finally Hitler has the power, he has the people working towards his plans, and now he's ready to begin with his plans spelled out in Mein Kampf.
[498] Step one was to destroy Versailles and its limitations.
[499] On October 1, 1934, Hitler ordered the Army to triple its strength from 100 ,000, which was the limit they were allowed to have, to 300 ,000.
[500] And construction for two battlecruisers of 26 ,000 tons each began.
[501] For now, they held off on building submarines.
[502] Goering was busy as well.
[503] Between 1933 and 1935, he was building Germany's Air Force, which was supposedly civilian.
[504] It was called the League for Air Sports.
[505] And even by 1933, the Krupp family, which was Germany's main armament family, already had the tank designs made.
[506] They weren't building anything, but they had it all on paper, ready to go, waiting for Hitler's word.
[507] And he gave it to them.
[508] In 1934, the Nazis began building 240 ,000 plants for war production.
[509] Of course, all this activity was hard to keep from the prying eyes of Versailles and the name of Britain and France and Italy.
[510] They all knew of Hitler's rearmament to some degree.
[511] Great Britain, tired of all the games, just wanted to recognize it as a done fact, but France quickly opposed that.
[512] So Britain had the idea of giving Germany equality of arms if Germany would join an eastern settlement with Russia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, like the Western Locarno Treaty protecting the Western countries, with mutual defense and arms equality.
[513] the European countries were holding their breath, wondering if Germany would say yes to this mutual defense pact.
[514] And on January 13, 1935, the Saar region voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Hitler.
[515] It had been separated from Germany after World War I. It was a coal -rich territory in the southwest.
[516] After that, voted to come back to Germany.
[517] Hitler told the world that...
[518] Germany had no future claims on French soil.
[519] He was now satisfied.
[520] He would not try to take any other territory.
[521] So the European leaders expected Hitler to say yes.
[522] When he gave his answer, it was very vague on February 14, 1935.
[523] He welcomed a plan of peace, and he wanted the chance to rearm openly, but he knew secretly that any kind of pact with the countries in the east would tie his hands.
[524] That was the area that he wanted to go into.
[525] That's the area he wanted to expand into.
[526] So Hitler knew he needed to separate Britain from France.
[527] France had a partnership with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia, and he knew they would never agree, so he decided to focus on Britain.
[528] He asked Britain to send an envoy to him early before the talks on March 6, 1935.
[529] Britain, to be honest, was more focused on their own safety than their other countries.
[530] But before the British envoy, Sir John Simon, could come to Berlin, a British white paper wrote of Germany's obvious rearmament activities.
[531] Hitler pretended to be mad and canceled the meeting, which made England very nervous.
[532] Then the French government actually showed some courage and had a bill in their parliament to extend military service from 18 months to two years, due to the shortage of youth after World War I. After this, Hitler thought he finally found a way to kill Versailles forever.
[533] On March 10th, Hitler had Goering confessed to a British reporter who was pro -German that Germany did, in fact, have an air force, a military air force.
[534] This news flouted Versailles' treaty specifically.
[535] According to the treaty, Britain and France had every right to arm themselves and invade Germany.
[536] But Sir John Simon told the House of Commons he still wanted to go to Berlin.
[537] He still wanted to talk.
[538] The English had accepted Hitler breaking Versailles, and the French had went along with him.
[539] So on Saturday, March 16th, Hitler normally saved his surprises for Saturdays, to create a law that established universal military service for a peacetime army of about a half million men.
[540] Versailles would be dead if England and France did nothing.
[541] They'd managed a protest, but took no action.
[542] England even called Hitler to see if they could still send their diplomat.
[543] Hitler graciously said yes.
[544] Sunday, March 17th, was a day of rejoicing in Germany.
[545] Versailles was finally dead.
[546] The German defeat and humiliation of World War I was over.
[547] A German might not like Hitler, but he was able to do what no republic could, restore German honor.
[548] Sunday was also Heroes Memorial Day.
[549] At the State Opera House in Berlin, the floor was covered with a sea of German uniforms again, which hadn't been seen since 1914, and people got to see the new uniform of the Luftwaffe.
[550] run by gering the day was normally to honor germany's war dead but it turned out that it was celebrating the death of versailles and the limits of a german armament and german conscript army next time hitler will continue to preach peace and prepare for war Mussolini will extend the new Roman Empire by invading Ethiopia, but Hitler, needing a weak Mussolini because he still had a sight set on Austria, will arm the desperate Ethiopians who were facing the Italian modern machines of war.
[551] Welcome to True Spies.
[552] The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
[553] Suddenly out of the dark it's appeared in love.
[554] You'll meet the people who live life undercover.
[555] What do they know?
[556] What are their skills?
[557] And what would you do in their position?
[558] Vengeance felt good.
[559] Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous.
[560] True Spies from Spyscape Studios.
[561] Wherever you get your podcasts.