7 Adolf Hitler 7was the Volk (“the people”), of which the German people
were the greatest. Beyond Marxism he believed the great-
est enemy of all to be Jews, whom Hitler described as “a
parasite within the nation.”
The years 1924 to 1928 were prosperous for Germany,
and from 1925 to 1927 Hitler was even forbidden to speak
publicly in either Bavaria or Saxony. Then a worldwide
depression plunged Germany again into poverty and
unemployment, and the Nazis began to gain votes. By
1930 Hitler had the support of many industrialists and the
military caste. He unsuccessfully opposed Paul von
Hindenburg in the presidential election of 1932 but was
appointed chancellor in 1933. After Hindenburg’s death,
Hitler merged the offices of chancellor and president in
1934 and adopted the title of Führer (“leader”). After
establishing a totalitarian police state in Germany, Hitler
then turned his attention to foreign policy, and his aggres-
sively expansionist policies triggered World War II, which
lasted from 1939 to 1945. At its height, Hitler’s Germany
briefly occupied most of Europe.
Dictator
Hitler sought to establish a “New Order” in Europe. From
1933 to 1939 and in some instances even during the first
years of the war, Hitler’s purpose was to expel the Jews
from the Greater German Reich. In 1941 this policy
changed from expulsion to extermination, resulting in
the Holocaust. The concentration camps created under
the Nazi regime were thereby expanded to include exter-
mination camps, such as Auschwitz, and mobile
extermination squads, the Einsatzgruppen. Although
Catholics, Poles, homosexuals, Roma (Gypsies), and the
handicapped were also targeted for persecution—if not