1933: The Nazification of Germany

1933: The Nazification of Germany. Holocaust Monument. , Adolph Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt came into office during a world-wide depression that threatened democracy in both nations. In his inaugural address, President Roosevelt told the American people "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". In Germany, Chancellor Hitler used 'fear itself' to justify the burning of the Reichstag and to make himself dictator. Within weeks he legislated all civil rights out of existence and issued edicts to establish his police state. Dissenters were taken to Dachau and Oranienburg concentration camps. The barbaric 'scapegoating' of German Jews had begun. , Jews whose families had lived in Germany for over a thousand years were assaulted in the streets, forced from civil service and schools, and had their businesses boycotted. Before 1933 ended, Hitler renounced the Versailles Treaty, started secret rearmament, quit the League of Nations and signed a concordat with the Vatican. As America strengthened its democracy, Hitler intensified his terrorist tactics. Nazi students stormed university libraries and bookstores, casting into bonfires books authored by defenders of democracy and believers of free ideas. , A century earlier the German poet, Heinrich Heine, prophesised: "Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people". , It only took eight years.