IB History Germany: Hitler Key Definitions

The catastrophic collapse in the value of the German mark in 1923, driven by the Ruhr occupation crisis, which destroyed the savings of much of the German middle class.

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938, uniting the two countries in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

The forced transfer of Jewish-owned businesses and property to non-Jewish German ownership, typically at unfairly low prices, escalating sharply after the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom.

The 1940 air campaign in which the Royal Air Force successfully defended Britain against the German Luftwaffe, preventing a planned German invasion and marking Hitler's first major military setback.

A prolonged and catastrophic battle on the Eastern Front, ending in the destruction of the German Sixth Army in early 1943, marking the definitive turning point of the war against Germany.

The Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, opening a major Western Front against Germany and beginning the liberation of occupied Western Europe.

Loosely organised groups of German working-class youth who rejected Hitler Youth conformity, adopting informal styles and engaging in minor acts of defiance during the Nazi period.

The 1933 law that allowed Hitler to pass legislation without the Reichstag's approval for four years, effectively ending parliamentary democracy in Germany and establishing the legal basis for dictatorship.

An economic programme launched under Hermann Göring's direction in 1936 to prepare Germany's economy for war and achieve self-sufficiency, or autarky, in key materials.

The Nazi secret police (Geheime Staatspolizei), responsible for investigating and suppressing political opposition. It operated outside the legal system and used surveillance, informants, torture, and arbitrary detention.

The Nazi policy of coordination, forcibly bringing all German political, social, and cultural institutions under Party control after 1933.

The Nazi Party's youth organization for boys aged 14-18. Boys aged 10-13 joined the Deutsches Jungvolk first. Membership was made compulsory in 1936 and near-universal by 1939. The organization combined physical training, ideological indoctrination, military preparation, and group activities. By 1939, it had around 8 million members. The Hitler Youth emphasized loyalty to Hitler above family or church, racial ideology, discipline, and preparation for military service. Its counterpart for girls was the League of German Girls (BDM).

A failed right-wing attempt to overthrow the Weimar government in March 1920, defeated by a general strike after the army declined to intervene against it.

The Nazi ideological slogan meaning children, kitchen, church, summarising the regime's prescribed domestic role for women.

A Nazi leisure organisation providing subsidised holidays, concerts, and cultural events to German workers as part of the regime's strategy for building popular loyalty.

The "Night of Broken Glass" (9-10 November 1938), a state-coordinated pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria. Synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses destroyed, and around 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps.

The "Night of Broken Glass," a nationwide pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938. Organized by the Nazi regime following the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish teenager, the pogrom destroyed around 7,500 Jewish businesses, burned over 1,400 synagogues, killed at least 91 Jews directly, and resulted in the arrest and deportation of around 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps. The name refers to the broken glass from shop windows that covered the streets. Kristallnacht marked an escalation from legal persecution to open physical violence against Jews and is often cited as a key step toward the Holocaust.

Germany's broad middle class of small business owners, farmers, and salaried professionals, a social group whose economic anxiety and fear of communism proved significant in Nazi electoral support.

The Nazi organisation whose membership became essential for anyone wishing to work as a teacher in Germany, used to enforce ideological conformity in education.

A pronatalist policy offering low-interest loans to newly married German couples, with the amount owed reduced for each child born, introduced under the June 1933 Law for the Reduction of Unemployment.

The purge of 30 June to 2 July 1934 in which Hitler ordered the murder of SA leader Ernst Röhm and other perceived rivals. It eliminated the SA as a political threat and secured the loyalty of the army.

The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the Nazi Party. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers' Party (DAP) and renamed in 1920, it was led by Adolf Hitler from 1921. The party combined extreme German nationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and opposition to the Weimar Republic's democracy. Its paramilitary wing, the SA (Sturmabteilung), used violence against political opponents. The NSDAP won only 2.6% of the vote in 1928 but surged to 18.3% in 1930 and 37.4% in July 1932 as the Great Depression deepened. Hitler became Chancellor on January 30, 1933, and the party established a one-party state within months.

Two laws passed at the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in September 1935 that institutionalized racial antisemitism in German law. The Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of German citizenship, making them "subjects of the state" without political rights. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour banned marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans. A supplementary decree defined who counted as Jewish: anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was fully Jewish; those with one or two Jewish grandparents were classified as "Mischlinge" (mixed-race). The laws affected around 500,000 German Jews directly and created a legal framework for systematic persecution.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union launched in June 1941, opening a second major front and widely regarded as Hitler's most consequential strategic error.