Nazi Worldview
Nazism and the Rise of Hitler Class 9 History Previous Years’ Board Questions:
Ans. Hitler’s geopolitical concept of Lebensraum:
(i) He believed that new territories had to be acquired for Settlement.
(ii) This would enhance the area of the mother country, while enabling the settlers on new land to retain an intimate link with the place of their origin.
(iii) It would also enhance the material resources and power of the German nation.
Q. Describe the Ideology of racial hierarchy propounded by Hitler. [2015]
Ans. Ideology of racial hierarchy propounded by Hitler:
(i) No equality between people. Blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top.
(ii) Jews were located at the lowest rung of the Society. They came to be regarded as an anti-race, the archenemies of the Aryans.
(iii) All the coloured people were placed in between depending upon their external features.
Q. Explain briefly the theory of Herbert Spencer used by Hitler. [2013]
Ans. Theory of Hebert Spencer used by Hitler:
(i) Herbert Spencer propounded the Idea of ‘survival of the fittest’.
(ii) According to this idea, only those species survived on earth which could adapt them to changing climate conditions.
(iii) Used by racist thinkers and politicians to justify imperial rule over conquered people. According to Nazi argument, the strongest race would survive and the weak ones would perish.
Q. How were the ideas of Darwin and Herbert Spencer adopted by Hitler or Nazis? Explain.
Ans. (i) Hitler’s Racism was heavily borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.
(ii) The ideas written by Darwin in ‘The Origin of Species’ by means of natural selection was used by Hitler to justify his imperial rule over conquered people.
(iii) Adopting the Idea of the ‘survival of the fittest’ propounded by Herbert Spencer, the Nazi Government suggested that the strongest race, that is Nordic German Aryans would survive and the weak ones would perish.
Q. Why was Nazi propaganda effective in creating a hatred for the Jews? Explain any five reasons. [2015, 2012]
Ans. Reasons:
(i) The Nazi regime used language and media with care.
(ii) They used chilling terms. They never used the words ‘kill’ or ‘murder’.
(iii) Mass killing was termed as special treatment leading towards the final solution (for the Jews).
(iv) Nazi ideas were spread through visual images, films, radio, posters, etc.
(v) Propaganda films were made to create hatred for Jews. (vi) They were referred to as vermin, rats, pests. Nazism worked on minds of the people.
Q. Highlight any five peculiar features of Nazi thinking. [2014]
Ans. The peculiar features of Nazi thinking are:
(i) There was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. In this view, blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while the Jews were located at the lowest rung. All other coloured people were placed in between, depending upon their external features.
(ii) The Aryan Race was the finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate the World.
(iii) Nazis glorified war. Their only aim was to unite All people of the Aryan race under one state that is Germany.
(iv) Hitler believed that new territories had to be acquired for settlement. It would enhance the material resources and power of the German nation.
(v) Nazis wanted only a society of pure and healthy Nordic Aryans. They alone were considered ‘desirables.
(vi) Nazis hated Jews. They terrorised, pauperised and segregated them and compelled them to leave the Country.
(vii) Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews and worship Hitler.
(viii) While boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine and steel-hearted, girls were told that they had to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children.
Q. How did the Nazis proceed to realise their murderous racial ideology by eliminating the undesirables? Explain. [2014]
Ans. (i) Once in power, the Nazis quickly began to implement their dream of creating an exclusive racial community of pure Germans by physically eliminating all those who were seen as ‘undesirable’ in the extended Empire as they were mentally or physically unfit Germans, Gypsies, Blacks, Russians and Poles.
(ii) But Jews remained the worst sufferers in Nazi Germany. They were stereotyped as ‘killers of Christ and usurers’.
(iii) Until medieval times, Jews were barred from owning land. They survived mainly through trade and money lending. They lived in separately marked areas called ‘Ghettos’.
(iv) They were often persecuted through periodically organised violence and expulsion from land. All this had a precursor in the traditional Christian hostility towards Jews for being the killers of Christ.
(v) However, Hitler’s hatred of the Jews was based on pseudo-scientific theories of race, which held that conversion was no solution to ‘the Jewish problem’. It could be solved only through their total elimination.
