Third Reich Day by Day: 1927

The failure of the Munich Putsch was the low point in the Nazi Party’s fortunes. However, Hitler’s lenient sentence meant he could rebuild the party relatively quickly. Though the party performed poorly at the elections in the 1920s, the world economic depression in 1929 gave Hitler and his followers a much-needed boost, as the German people saw their economy and standard of living nose-dive, and they began to listen to Hitler’s rantings about Jews, communists and international conspiracies against Germany.

August

Nazi Party, Third Party Day

Hitler at the party Day held at Nuremberg in 1927. On the right is Franze Pfeffer von Salomon, SA commander.
Hitler at the party Day held at Nuremberg in 1927. On the right is Franze Pfeffer von Salomon, SA commander.

Hitler’s speeches of the last few months have indicated that he is obsessed with his personal ideology, his Weltanschauung (World View).This states that the Aryan-Nordic race was the founder and is the maintainer of civilization, whereas the Jews are destroyers. Again and again he hammers at race and the fact that Germany’s future lies in conquest of Eastern territories. Over and over he preaches his pseudo-Darwinist sermon of nature’s way: conquest of the weak by the strong. This programme is carried a step forward at the third Party Day. Almost 20,000 members, 8500 of them in uniform, flood into the ancient city of Nuremburg accompanied by the usual pageantry: marching with flags and standards to the strains of rousing military airs. It is on the last day of the celebrations, Sunday August 21, that Hitler connects the the central concept of Lebensraum (Living Space) with anti-Semitism, but few realize the significance of this misbegotten marriage, for the terms are too vague. He reiterates his demands for more living space for the German people, then points out that power and power alone is the basis for acquisition of new territory. But, he says, Germany has been robbed of her God-given power by three abominations: internationalism, democracy and pacifism. Hitler then links this evil trinity with racism. Are not internationalism, democracy and pacifism all creations of the Jew? Surely, if obscurely, Hitler has mated Lebensraum with anti-Semitism. His unsystematic search for Weltanschuung is close to realization.

Lebensraum was an integral part of Nazi ideology, which linked the twin concepts of space and race. Hitler believed that Germany needed more farmland to support itself - the need to be self-sufficient. Given the Nazi theory of race, it was only natural that she should take lands from the “inferior” Slav peoples of Poland and the Soviet Union.