National Socialism Collection 1920-1992 Bulk dates: 1933-1945

This is a constructed collection made from several individual items and smaller collections pulled together over more than two decades. The bulk of the collection stems from 1933-1945, and the materials include clippings, correspondence, government and police records, memoranda, reports, minutes, awards, personal identification papers, transcripts of speeches and a radio broadcast, Jewish stars, songs, poems, photographs, manuscripts, teaching materials, and ephemera. Highlights of the collection include original signatures of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, fabric for Jewish stars, complete issues and clippings from Der Stürmer, and the front page of the Ostasiatischer Zeitung, a National-Socialist newspaper in Shanghai, lamenting the death of Hitler. Also included are published and unpublished essays on National Socialism that have been written after WW II, widely representing Vergangenheitsbewältiging, the coming to terms with this chapter of history.The following individuals are mentioned in this collection: Burrack, Fred; Edschmid, Kasimir; Goebbels, Joseph; Goering, Hermann; Grynszpan, Herschel; Himmler, Heinrich; Hitler, Adolf; Hoover, Herbert; Joseph, Edgar; Loewenstein, Ernst; Riess, Jenny; Samuels, Gertrud; Shirer, William; Spann, Othmar; and Stern, Siegfried.The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), known in English as the Nazi Party, was an extreme right-wing party led by Adolf Hitler from 1919-1945. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. After fire was set to the Reichstag on February 28, 1933, a state of emergency was declared which gave the executive branch the power to bypass the parliament. Over the next few years, the Nazi government took control over major legal, cultural, and educational institutions in the process of Gleichschaltung or "coordination." During this time, the civil rights of Jews and other “non-Aryans” were increasingly limited as they were excluded from intellectual, professional, cultural, and everyday life.The night of November 9, 1938, known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, saw the widespread destruction of synagogues as well as Jewish homes and businesses. With the beginning of World War II Jewish ghettos were created in Poland, and Jews from all parts of the Reich were sent to them. Einsatzgruppen were sent out to commit mass murders of Jews and other groups considered undesirable by the Nazi regime, including persons with disabilities, the Roma people, homosexuals, and communists. The Wannsee Conference was held in January of 1942 to discuss the Final Solution to the “Jewish question” and agree upon plans for the deportation and extermination of the Jews of Europe. Death camps went into operation shortly thereafter and approximately six million Jews were killed.Hitler’s regime collapsed in the spring of 1945. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 during the Battle of Berlin, and German forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies in early May 1945.c. 500 catalogue cards.Processeddigitize