In the last two months, we learned about the spiritual awakening which spread across Eastern Europe prior to WWII. If you missed those posts and would like to read them, here are the links:
Courtesy of Professor John L. Heineman, Boston College
Today the story moves to . . . Hungary.
Dr. Alexander de Csia, the chief physician for the Hungarian Railway, witnessed the changes taking place in the churches of Czechoslovakia (See the story “A Message of Hope in the Time of Need – Eastern Europe, 1936–1939”), so he invited Evangelist James Stewart to Hungary to hold evangelistic meetings on behalf of the Evangelical Alliance of Hungary. Dr. Csia was burdened to see God work in his country and refused to accept the attitude of many that revival in Hungary was impossible.
Hungary, Spring of 1939
Stewart enlisted Christians to pray “around the clock,” and they each dedicated one hour a day for prayer. The first meetings were held in a small Methodist hall in Budapest, but after two days the services moved to the larger building of the German Baptist Church. After two or three more days, the crowds overflowed this location, and the meetings moved to the big Reformed Church, which boasted seating for 2000 people. Soon the overflow crowd had to stand in the center aisle during the entire service.
Just like he had done in other Eastern European countries, Stewart had scripture choruses and gospel songs translated and printed in booklets so everyone attending the meetings would have a copy. He introduced “Into My Heart,” “Jesus Never Fails,” “Yes, I know,” “Wounded for Me” and other songs. It wasn’t unusual to hear these tunes hummed in shops and whistled by delivery boys riding their bicycles down the street.
Stewart shared the message of John 3:16 and invited those who wanted to give their hearts to Christ to leave their seats immediately and go to the front. Hundreds of people surged forward, making their way through the overflow crowd in the aisles.
More prayer meetings formed in other parts of Budapest, and many Christians attended morning meetings on the topic of God’s plan for living a holy life. They left these meetings “determined to make things right in their own lives.” The revival campaign ended before Christmas but began again in 1938. The organizers rented the biggest concert and dance hall in Budapest, the “Redoubt.” In a few days, the crowds outgrew this location.
And the results . . .
Many Hungarians turned to Christ.
Many Christians confessed the sin in their lives and renewed their relationships with God and with each other.
New converts attended discipleship meetings.
School officials, including those from Roman Catholic schools, invited Stewart to speak to their students.
Students from the Baptist Seminary and Training School in Budapest went home to their villages and spread word about the revival.
Interested folks from all over Hungary extended invitations to hold meetings in their towns and cities.
Campaigns were set up in many locations throughout Hungary.
Andi Ungar, a Christian Jew, interpreted for Stewart at many of the meetings, and the two men spoke as if one person. Anti-Semites criticized Mr. Ungar’s role in the meetings, but Stewart and the other leaders ignored the criticism.
A great outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place in the city of Debrecen in eastern Hungary. Debrecen had long been called “The Geneva of Hungary” and “The Calvinist Rome.” Services were held at the Reformed Seminary, which had been established 300 years earlier. In addition to the evening gospel services, meetings carried on day after day for women and girls, for children, for prayer, for youth, and for Bible study. Many people shared about the work God was doing in their hearts.
In the spring of 1938, Stewart held his last campaign in Budapest in “The Tattersall,” a horse riding academy. At the end of each day, “hired laborers quickly cleaned the huge arena, put down fresh shavings, and arranged four thousand chairs which had been rented for the purpose.” The chairs were gathered and stored after the meeting each night.
Members of the Salvation Army and various Baptist groups formed a brass orchestra, which accompanied the revival songs. Several thousand people attended the meetings each night during the two-week campaign. On the final Sunday, over five thousand young people from Budapest and the surrounding towns and villages gathered for a youth rally.
James Stewart left Hungary in 1938, but the revival led by the Hungarian people continued to spread across the country. More souls turned to Christ. More hearts and lives changed. Stewart returned to Hungary for short visits in 1939, 1940, and in 1946 after WWII. He was overjoyed to witness the revival fires still burning, despite the ravages of war.
Buda Castle and Danube River – Budapest. By Costel Slincu.
Source:
Stewart, Ruth. James Stewart Missionary, A Biography. Revival Literature, 1977.
Last month, we learned about the message of faith and hope which spread through Latvia, Estonia, Eastern Poland, and Czechoslovakia from 1934 to 1936. If you missed that post and would like to read it, here’s the link: A Pre-WWII Great Awakening in Eastern Europe.
Today we continue the story in Czechoslovakia in late 1937.
Prior to WWII, Czechoslovakia consisted of four regions – Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, and Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. Young Scottish evangelist James Stewart, invited and backed by the Czech Brethren, held revival meetings in Bohemia and Moravia in western Czechoslovakia.
Map of Czechoslovakia and northern Austria, 1928-1938. Created by PANONIAN [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.
Following the great revivals seen in the cities of Kutna Hora and Kolin (see the story “A Pre-WWII Great Awakening in Europe”), people from all walks of life filled large rented halls in the nearby capital city of Prague, Bohemia, to hear the gospel preached. Many surrendered their hearts to Christ as a result of these meetings.
Next, Stewart was invited to hold meetings in a large rented hall in the city of Brno, Moravia. Members of a Brno church were greatly concerned for the state of their congregation. The church was dying as a result of differences of opinion, hard feelings among the members, and a generation gap. Stewart challenged the believers to trust God for revival, for the salvation of their own children, and for the salvation of hundreds more.
Before the meetings began . . .
Round the clock prayer meetings were organized – each volunteer prayed for an hour.
Believers made sure their hearts were right with each other. They righted wrongs.
And the results . . .
God worked and the church experienced:
Love among the believers
A warm atmosphere
Life among the young people
Many souls won to Jesus Christ
A prodigal son in the church gave his heart to Christ, his behavior completely changed, and he became the leader of the young people, who willingly followed him.
From 1936 to 1939, Stewart held nine campaigns in large halls in Brno for two to three weeks at a time. He was only 26-years-old, preached simple messages, was of plain appearance and dress, but was joyful, earnest, enthusiastic, and spent hours in prayer each day.
In March of 1938, Hitler annexed Bohemia and Moravia and sent thousands of German soldiers and government workers to set up and maintain the new order. Despite the fact that every fifth person in and around Brno was German, the young people who were reached through the revival campaigns . . .
Held gospel services in hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons
Held gospel meetings and Bible studies in the nearby villages where many accepted Christ
Forty years later, Ruth Stewart, the widowed wife of James Stewart, traveled to Czechoslovakia and visited with some of these former young people, who were then in their 50‘s and 60’s. They had survived the war and their faith was strong in spite of having lived under communism for many years. Over and over again the former young people told her, “‘God knew what was coming to us of sorrow and suffering, and He brought revival into our midst to prepare us for standing strong in the faith in those difficult times.’”
Source:
Stewart, Ruth. James Stewart Missionary, A Biography. Revival Literature, 1977.
Eastern Europe was heavily impacted by WWII. Millions of civilians and soldiers lost their lives when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union initially invaded and then reconquered these lands later in the war. Both countries massacred many civilians and soldiers and deported hundreds of thousands to either Germany or Siberia, where the deportees often died of starvation.
What was the emotional and spiritual state of the general population in these countries prior to WWII? Did the people expect such widespread devastation, and were they prepared for the suffering ahead? Did they think about their spiritual welfare?
It so happens that a great spiritual awakening took place across denominational lines in Eastern Europe in the 1930‘s and continued into the war period. God, in his love and mercy, sent witnesses and opened the windows of heaven prior to the great calamities which followed.
In 1934 a young evangelist from Scotland traveled to Riga, Latvia, a small northern country bordered by the Baltic Sea on the west and the Soviet Union to the east. Even though he didn’t personally know anyone in the country, James Stewart clearly felt God had called him to this land. He arrived almost destitute and penniless, his clothing inadequate for the harsh winter weather. He found refuge in the home of Pastor Robert Fetler and held a revival campaign in Fetler’s church. Twelve hundred people attended the meetings nightly, which often lasted until three o’clock in the morning.
Fetler’s brother, William, pastored the Salvation Temple Revival Church, also in Latvia, and the church was holding a revival convention the week Stewart arrived in the country. The congregation had prayed for revival for many years and hundreds of believers participated in a twenty-four-hour-a-day prayer circle for that purpose.
Stewart preached in the Salvation Temple’s services where over two thousand people gathered every day for weeks and months. The meetings continued sometimes all day and all night, and those attending attested to the “awful sense of the majesty and holiness of God.” The Russian, German, and Polish churches which met in the building were “touched by the power of God.”
ESTONIA
Physically exhausted from ministering daily in Latvia, Stewart went north to the little country of Estonia to rest. It wasn’t long before he made contact with a pastor whose people had also been praying for revival. They began gospel meetings and soon had to move the services to the largest Protestant building in the capital city of Talinn. They ran out of space in that church and asked church members to stay home to make room for the visitors. Then it became necessary to rent the largest public hall in the city, which seated thousands.
Stewart arrived at the new location one night and found a crowd waiting outside. When he asked the people why they hadn’t been allowed inside, they answered that the hall was crowded and there wasn’t any more room.
During the course of the meetings, Stewart lost his voice and went to another town to rest. After his voice returned, he conducted meetings entitled “Lectures on the Bible” and gave each attendee a New Testament. As he both taught and preached from the Scriptures, the listeners gave their hearts to Christ, including his interpreter, a university professor.
POLAND
Creative Commons
In 1935, James Stewart left for Warsaw and met with the Russian Missionary Society to receive instructions on how to assist pastors ministering in the small towns and villages among the Russians of eastern Poland. Stewart visited and encouraged these pastors, arranged for the systematic distribution of Scriptures in the villages, and conducted evangelistic meetings in rented public halls and theaters.
Stewart was especially burdened for the large number of Jews he encountered, so he held special meetings for them. Both orthodox and liberal Jews attended, packing the buildings so tightly that the gas lamps went out for lack of sufficient oxygen.
The films of actor James Stewart played in the same cities and towns where missionary James Stewart led people to Christ. Some folks traveled to town to watch the movies but went to the wrong hall by mistake. After listening to the gospel message, they gave their hearts to Christ. Stewart held ten-day campaigns in the larger towns of Rowne, Baronowicze, Vilna, Pruzana, and Lutsk, and the rented cinema buildings filled to overflowing.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Map of Czechoslovakia and northern Austria, 1928-1938. Created by PANONIAN [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
James Stewart returned to Warsaw, and an associate asked him where he planned to go next. “Czechoslovakia,” he said without a pause. His friend asked if Stewart knew anyone there. No, he didn’t. But that same day, Mr. Zdened Koukol, a chocolate manufacturer from a town near Prague, Czechoslovakia, walked into the associate’s office. He met Stewart and asked him when he planned to come to his country and hold revival meetings.
Stewart traveled to Czechoslovakia and, under Koukol’s sponsorship, held meetings starting in October of 1936. After two weeks of speaking to a cold and unresponsive congregation in Kutna Hora, the young preacher packed his bags, planning to move on. Koukol urged him to stay longer. James prayed and the Lord convicted Him for his impatience.
Koukol encouraged the believers in the towns of Kutna Hora and Kolin to pray and believe that revival was possible, starting in their own hearts. Koukol rented a large public hall in Kolin, and young people flocked to the meeting. No one responded the first night. However, very late that same night, a Christian woman who held an important position in the Kolin church appeared at Koukol’s home.
The woman feared that sin in her life had prevented God’s blessing upon the revival meeting. Stewart counseled with her, and she left determined to make things right. A very different atmosphere was evident at the meetings in the following days. Many heard the gospel for the first time and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
Source:
Stewart, Ruth. James Stewart Missionary, A Biography. Revival Literature, 1977.
The V-2 rocket was a much more sophisticated bomb than the V-1 and was enormously expensive to build. The Germans launched the first V-2 to hit London on September 8, 1944, three months after D-Day, in a last-ditch effort to turn the war around in their favor. They fired more than thirteen hundred V-2’s at England and hundreds more at Belgium and France as the allies advanced toward Germany.
The V-2 was forty-six feet high, as tall as a 4-story building. Launched from a mobile unit and propelled by a powerful rocket engine which burned a mix of alcohol-water and liquid oxygen, the bomb blasted more than fifty miles above the earth— to the edge of space—and returned to earth at supersonic speed, hitting its target five minutes later. Each one carried a ton of explosives and was equipped with an automatic guidance system—an on-board analogue computer with a pre-programmed destination.
Unlike the buzzing noise of the V-1 engine which alerted those on the ground to its impending arrival, the V-2 crashed and exploded without warning. No one heard it coming—only the bang after it had landed and exploded. The V-weapons caused immense suffering in Britain—30,000 casualties and hundreds of thousands homeless. Despite these statistics, the V-weapons caused less destruction than the bombing during the Blitz (1940-1941).
The V-2’s were manufactured at Mittelwerk, a huge underground factory. Slave laborers who possessed the needed skills were brought from concentration camps to perform the work. Conditions were so bad that an estimated 20,000 died from starvation, a lack of sleep and proper sanitation, and torture as well as frequent executions.
Wernher von Braun Public Domain
The V-2 bombings came to an end when Allied troops overran the last launch sites in March of 1945. According to the BBC, the V-2 was “the world’s first space rocket” and was responsible for launching the space age. Wernher von Braun, the engineer who helped design and develop the V-2, surrendered to the Americans and later “developed the rockets that launched the United States’ first space satellite Explorer 1” and became “the chief architect of the Saturn V super heavy-lift launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon” (Wikipedia).
In an effort to terrorize and demoralize British civilians, the Germans unleashed a new weapon on England just one week after Allied troops landed in France on D-Day in 1944. The V-1 flying bombs were launched from ramps on the northern coast of France until the Allies overran the launching sites. The last one left France on September 7, 1944. Later the Germans launched the V-1’s from other locations, including from special mounts attached to bombers, although this proved dangerous to the German airmen.
A German Crew Rolls out a V-1 Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1973-029A-24A / Lysiak / CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Each V-1 was twenty-five feet long with a wingspan of about twenty feet. The bombs, resembling small airplanes, traveled at a speed of 400 miles per hour and crossed the English Channel in five minutes. They had a range of 150+ miles and were capable of reaching London from northern France. The Germans launched 25,000 V-1’s at targets in England and later Belgium, but only about 2,400 hit the capital city and its environs. Because the bombs flew straight and level, gun batteries posted along the southern and eastern coasts of Britain, Allied fighter planes, and barrage balloons successfully stopped thousands of V-1’s from reaching their targets.
Barrage balloons on the south-eastern approaches to London to combat V-1 flying bombs, 1944. Courtesy of Bellamy W (Flying Officer) Royal Air Force Official Photographer via IWM
A Bofors gun battery fully manned, situated on the South Coast of England. Courtesy of O’Brien (Lt.) War Office Official Photographer via IWM
Powered by a jet engine, the V-1 could be heard ten miles away, and it was nicknamed “doodlebug” and “buzz bomb” because of its noise. An air-driven gyroscope and a magnetic compass controlled the bomb’s course, and a barometric altimeter controlled its altitude. Once the V-1 reached its programmed target, a device mounted in the rear caused it to pitch nose-down and the engine quit. Once the buzzing engine died, those on the ground knew they had twelve seconds to seek shelter. The warhead exploded on impact.
Back in Germany, the Nazis called the V-1 a wonder weapon (Wunderwaffe) and tried to convince the German people that it along with other weapons could turn the war in their favor. Although Hitler was advised to launch the V-1 at southern England where the Allies were gathering ships and equipment to invade France, he was intent on targeting London.
In an effort to fool the Germans, the British publicized inaccurate information and recruited double agents to send back false reports on where the V-1’s had landed. The Germans believed the reports and adjusted the flight patterns, causing the bombs to fall short of their targets.
Searching for belongings in the rubble of a home Ministry of Information Photo Division via IWMCivil defense rescue workers dig survivors out of collapsed buildings. Ministry of Information Photo Division via IWM
In all, fifty-five hundred people were killed, sixteen thousand were injured, and more than a million were forced to evacuate due to the V-1 flying bombs.
Have you known anyone who was personally impacted by the V-1 bomb?
Hurricane Harvey pushed ashore Friday, August 25, 2017, the first category four hurricane to hit Texas in many years. Sharing part of its western border with the Gulf of Mexico, Texas has been pummeled by many hurricanes, some especially vicious.
When and where have other devastating hurricanes landed in Texas?
In the 1800’s, Indianola, TX was a thriving seaport on Matagorda Bay, located in the area of present day Victoria, TX. Indianola competed with Galveston for supremacy in shipping and trade. Also, many immigrants to the U.S. disembarked at Indianola, most notably German immigrants making their way to the western lands. In September of 1875, many visitors filled the city to witness an important trial when a hurricane with 100 MPH winds pushed the waters of Matagorda Bay into the city.
The storm lasted two days, left only eight buildings undamaged, and took approximately 270 lives. The city and port recovered but not to the same level of greatness. In August of 1886, another hurricane of equal strength hit the port city, completely destroying it with water and fire. Indianola became a ghost town.
Late on September 8, 1900, a category 4 hurricane, with winds of 130 MPH came ashore south of Galveston and sent storm tides of 8 to 15 feet across Galveston Island. Approximately 8000 people died, although estimates range from 6000 to 12,000 lives lost. No other weather disaster in U.S. history has been as deadly. Property damage was estimated at $30 million. The hurricane went north over the Great Lakes and Canada and emerged in the north Atlantic on September 15th.
Track of Galveston Hurricane of 1900 Public Domain – From National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Courtesy of Wikipedia
Floating Wreckage Along the Waterfront for Miles Public Domain – Courtesy of Wikipedia
In August of 1915, another category 4 hurricane, but with winds of 140 MPH, spun ashore at Galveston, causing 275 deaths and $50 million of damage. The recently built seawall protected many lives.
Flooding in Galveston After the Hurricane of 1915 Public Domain – Courtesy of Wikipedia
The Great Corpus Christi Hurricane of 1919 (Atlantic Gulf Hurricane)
On September 14, 1919, a category 4 hurricane, with winds of 140 MPH, hit the coast south of Corpus Christi, causing a storm surge of 12 feet and swamping the city. Before moving into Mexico, the hurricane left $22 million in damage and 284 deaths. Robert Simpson, a young man who survived the storm, later became the director of the National Hurricane Center and co-founded the Saffir-Simpson Scale. This hurricane is classified as the third most intense to land on the U.S. coast.
On June 27, 1957, Audrey came ashore at Sabine Pass, near the Texas-Louisiana border, as a category 4 hurricane with wind speeds of 145 miles per hour. The storm took 390 lives in Texas and Louisiana. Storm surges of 8 to 12 feet pushed water 25 miles inland in Louisiana.
Early on the morning of September 11, 1961, Carla became a category 5 hurricane, with winds of 175 miles per hour. In the afternoon, her winds dropped to 145 miles per hour, and her eye passed over Port O’Connor and Port Lavaca. Prior to landfall, a mandatory evacuation was issued, and half a million people made their way to safety—the largest evacuation in U.S. history up to that time. Tides of 15 to 17 feet above sea level devastated Port O’Connor, Indianola, Palacios, and Matagorda, and the storm surge continued inland for 10 miles in places. Eighteen tornadoes formed, including an F4 in Galveston. The category 4 storm was responsible for only 46 deaths, but 465 injuries.
Last month, I shared how Hitler came to power and took dictatorial control of Germany in 1933, and I described the state of the Jews in Germany during the interwar period (WWI – WWII). Here’s the link to the post if you missed it: “How Did Evil Men Take Power in Germany?” Today we will examine how Hitler and the Nazis gradually subjugated their opponents and the Jewish people prior to WWII.
In April of 1933, the German government sponsored a two-day boycott of Jewish businesses. Political opponents of the Nazis and all Jews who hadn’t fought in WWI were dismissed from civil service. New laws pushed Jews out of other government jobs, including Jewish doctors who worked in government-financed healthcare programs.
In 1933 . . . 37,000 Jews emigrated from Germany.
In 1934 . . . another 23,000 Jews fled the country.
But during these early years of Nazi control, many Germans, including the Jews, thought that Hitler wouldn’t last long.
Not even everyone in his own movement agreed with his policies.
The three-million-men-strong, brown-shirted, street-fighting SA Stormtroopers, who’d been instrumental in bringing the Nazis to power, now threatened the party’s power and existence. Hitler’s close friend Ernst Röhm headed the SA. He and the other SA leaders were unhappy with Hitler’s slow implementation of the radical policies the Nazis had advocated from the beginning. Also, Röhm wanted Hitler to combine the Reichswehr, the German military, with the SA and replace the officer corps. The German military leaders fought back by threatening to topple the Nazi regime if the too-powerful SA wasn’t eliminated.
Between June 30 and July 2, 1934, and under Hitler’s direction . . . Heinrich Himmler and the SS arrested the SA leaders and shot them to death, including Hitler’s buddy, Ernst Röhm.
This operation became known as the “Night of the Long Knives.”
As a result, the German Army leadership formed an alliance with Hitler and supported him when he declared himself Führer on August 19, 1934, less than three weeks after the death of President Hindenburg. Most of these military leaders remained loyal to Hitler for many years to come.
In September of 1935, Hitler reduced the Jews to the status of second-class citizens and stripped them of their civil rights. Despite this, many thought the worst was over. Indeed, the Jews felt a sense of calm for two years, and . . .
10,000 Jewish emigrants returned to Germany from neighboring countries in 1935.
By 1938, Germany had rebounded from the economic instability created by WWI and the Great Depression. Firmly in control of the country, Hitler and his regime set their sights on territorial expansion, and Jewish policies took a radical turn.
The German Army occupied Austria in March, 1938.
There were 185,000 Jews (3% of the country’s population) living in Austria, and 170,000 of them lived in Vienna (10% of the city’s population). Sixty-two percent of all lawyers in Vienna were Jewish, and a similar percentage held positions in finance and commerce. Almost 50% of all Viennese doctors were Jewish, and Jews dominated trade and were quite visible in cultural enterprises.
Before the occupation, the Nazi Party was very active in Austria, promoting the unification of Germany and Austria and stirring up anti-Semitism. After the annexation, anti-Jewish laws were put in place and enforced immediately. The Jews quickly came under attack and were even assaulted in the streets. Jews lost their businesses and their apartments from the start.
In August of 1938, SS Lieutenant Adolph Eichmann set up an emigration office in Vienna to help speed the exit of Jews from the country, and . . .
150,000 Jews left during the following eighteen months.
The Nazis forced them to give up their property and their wealth before leaving Austria, but the Jews were thankful to be alive.
Violence against the Jews increased in Germany and Jewish businessmen were pressured to sell and leave. Jews who had previously immigrated from Poland were sent back; however, the Polish government didn’t allow them to return and left them to fend for themselves in the frontier zone. An angry young Jewish man in Paris whose Polish parents resided in the frontier zone retaliated by shooting Ernst vom Rath, a German officer stationed at the German Embassy in Paris. The Nazis used this incident to accelerate Jewish persecution in Germany and Austria.
On the nights of November 8-10, 1938, SS and SA men, dressed as ordinary citizens, “set fire to 1000 synagogues, smashed up 7500 Jewish-owned businesses, invaded and ransacked the homes where Jewish people lived, and fatally assaulted over 90 Jewish men. Police herded 30,000 male Jews into concentration camps until they could be ransomed out by their terrified families” (Cesarani).
This event became known as Kristallnacht, or “Night of Broken Glass.”
In addition, the Nazis charged the German Jewish community one billion Reichsmark (approximately 400 million U.S. dollars at that time) for the damage done on Kristallnacht. This spared the German insurance companies from paying.
What were the conditions in Germany which led to another world war only twenty years after the War to End All Wars? How did a “civilized” nation allow its leaders to annihilate so many of its own citizens? And how did such evil leaders gain power in the first place?
Post WWI Turmoil
The Treaty of Versailles – as one of the conditions of surrender, Germany was forced to pay huge reparation payments to the countries she fought during WWI. She also lost territory and was forced to surrender her colonies abroad, further limiting the income needed to pay debts and recover from the War. To help pay its obligations, the German government printed more money, which led to extreme inflation.
Enter ➥ numerous political parties vying to fix Germany’s troubles, parties that opposed the new government (Weimar Republic) and hated democracy. The German Army hired former WWI soldiers to infiltrate and spy on these groups. One of these soldiers, Adolph Hitler, became an undercover agent and joined the German Workers’ Party in 1920. He liked the party’s program, so he dumped his role as spy and soon became the leader, renaming the party the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazis.
Hitler’s Rise to Power
Hitler led the Nazi Party in a failed attempt to take over the Bavarian state government in 1923 and spent a year in prison. After his release, he built support for his party by recruiting from other discontented groups.
1928 elections – the Nazis had 800,000 votes (2.6%) for representatives in the Reichstag (German Parliament).
1929 Wall St. Crash – American banks called in German loans, causing German businesses and banks to fold and unemployment to spin out-of-control.
1930 elections – the Nazis had 6.4 million votes for representatives in the Reichstag. The centrist German government was unable to cure the economic problems and parliament was paralyzed by the two large opposing blocks of Nazis and Communists.
July, 1932 elections – the Nazis received 13.7 million votes (37.3% of the vote) and became the second largest party in the Reichstag. Hitler used his growing power to demand the position of chancellor, but President Hindenburg resisted.
September, 1932 elections – the Nazis received 11.7 million votes (fewer than the previous election), and President Hindenburg offered Hitler the post of chancellor, which he accepted on January 30, 1933. The Nazi celebrations included torchlight parades and the assaulting of their political opponents.
February, 1933 – an arsonist set fire to the Reichstag building, and Hitler convinced President Hindenburg to issue a decree (allowed by the Weimar Constitution), suspending most civil liberties in Germany. These rights (secrecy of the post and telephone; habeas corpus; freedom of the press, of expression, of free association, of public assembly) were not reinstated as long as the Nazis held power. Because the Reichstag arsonist was a communist, Hitler declared that the communists were plotting to take over the government. Many communists were arrested, including those serving in the parliament.
March, 1933 elections – the Nazis received 44% of the vote. By forming an alliance with another party which had received 8% of the vote, the Nazis now had a majority in the Reichstag (52%). In order to pass the Enabling Act, the Nazis either arrested or intimidated representatives of the Social Democratic Party who opposed them. The act passed, giving Hitler the right to rule by decree, and he effectively became the dictator of Germany.
The Nazis immediately embarked on a plan to exclude the Jewish population from German culture, politics, economics, and society.
The State of the Jews in Germany
After WWI, approximately 600,00 Jews lived in Germany (under 1% of the population). One third lived in Berlin (4% of the Berlin population). Seventy percent of Jews lived in large cities while 50% of the non-Jewish population lived in small towns and villages. In 1933, only one in five Jews lived in small towns.
During this period, 75% of all Jews were employed in trade, commerce, the financial sector, and the professions (three times the proportion among the general population). Jews owned 80% of the turnover of all German department stores, 25% of smaller retail outlets, and 30% of clothing stores. They handled 25% of all wholesale agricultural trade, and in some districts, largely controlled cattle dealing and grain marketing.
Only 11% of all doctors and 16% of all lawyers in Germany were Jewish, but they were concentrated in Berlin, giving the appearance of a much higher percentage. Several of the great publishing houses were owned by Jews, and they were highly represented among writers and journalists, in theater and the film industry. However, a significant number were rather poor.
In 1932, during the Great Depression, over 31.5% of Jewish employees in Berlin were out of work, and one in four received charity. Jews from Poland and Russia had immigrated to Germany during the 1880’s to the 1920’s, and by 1933, they made up 20% of all German Jewry. The Eastern Jews were predominately small merchants, itinerant traders, shopkeepers, tailors, artisans, and industrial workers. Many were Orthodox and religiously observant whereas the majority of German Jews belonged to the Reform or Liberal movement. Also, many German Jews were assimilating and marrying outside the faith.
Sources:
Introduction from Into the Arms of Strangers, Stories of the Kindertransport, by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer. (Introduction by David Cesarani)
