Nazi Party in Germany

In 1919, Adolph Hitler, a veteran of World War I, was frustrated by Germany's loss. He joined a new group called the German Worker's Party. It believed in German nationalism and anti-Semitism. They wanted Germany for Germans and the Jews to leave. They thought that the western powers had fined Germany too much after the war for the damage it inflicted on other countries.

Hitler rose to become the leader of the group in July 1921, due to his charismatic nature and speeches filled with hatred for the Jews. He also wanted to make Germany the 'master race.' The group then became the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party, abbreviated Nazi party.

Throughout the 1920's, Hitler kept declaring that all of the problems in Germany would be solved if they could get rid of the Jews and communists. The membership in the party grew. After a failed takeover of Bavaria, a state in southern Germany, Hitler went to prison for five years for treason but spent less than a year there. During that period, he wrote the first volume of his autobiography, Mein Kampf, My Struggle. After he was released from prison, he began to build the party more vigorously.

After 1929, the Nazis began to win elections because they blamed the government in power for all the troubles of the country. In January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. He took total country of every part of the country. All other political parties were banned. They began a camp for political prisoners in Dachau where hundreds died from starvation and disease or were killed. Besides Jews, Hitler sent to this prison those he didn't feel fit for German society, including the mentally weak, handicapped and many different kinds of artists.

In the late 1930's, Hitler built the German army beyond what the Treaty of Versailles after WWI had stated. He annexed Austria in 1938 and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. Great Britain and France objected when the Nazis moved toward Poland. Hitler went ahead and invaded Poland. Great Britain and France then declared war on Germany.

Next, the Nazi party formed an alliance with Japan and then Italy. It didn't honor the agreement with the Soviets not to invade their territory, but began a huge invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The Nazis wanted to conquer totally the Soviets, but after the United States entered the war in 1941, the Nazis had to fight in France, Italy, North Africa and the Balkans at the same time. At the beginning of the war, they wanted to take over all of Europe, now they were fighting to survive.

When Hitler and his Nazis came to power in 1933, they put in place measures to try to get rid of the Jewish people. By 1938, Jews were forbidden from most public places. They had to wear yellow armbands at all times declaring they were Jews. During the war, attacks on the Jews increased. In the occupation of Poland, thousands of Polish Jews were shot or sent to concentration camps for execution. In 1941, when the Nazis entered Russia, they killed thousands of Russian Jews.

In early 1942, the Nazi Party decided on its final push to murder all Jews in Europe. Jews from the western part of Europe, including France and Belgium, were sent to the large death camps across Europe. The murder of Jews lasted until the last months of the war in 1945. Hitler committed suicide in July 1945. Six million Jews had died by then.

After the war, the western countries tried to erase every evidence of the Nazi Party from Germany. Its swastika flag was looked at as an evil symbol. Some leaders of the Nazi Party were convicted of war crimes in trials held in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945-1949.