The Union gave work or protection to “Contrabands,” enslaved people who fled to the Union lines. A Union military officer in charge determined the freedom of the escapees. Not all enslaved escapees gained freedom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisted the takeover of the German Christian Church by imposing Aryan ideas. He served in the Abwehr as a double agent and died for it.

Arvid Harnack of the Reich Ministry of Economics and his wife, Mildred, along with Harro Schulze-Boysen of the Reich Aviation Ministry, and his wife, Libertas, started what became the Red Orchestra Resistance. By 1940–41, seven distinct Berlin circles existed. Each circle included around 150 made up of students, artists, journalists, civil servants, and many women. The groups had Communists, Social Democrats, religious dissenters, and liberals. They distributed leaflets, post

German troops crossed into Austria without resistance on the evening of March 11 after Hitler demanded that Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg resign. On March 12, German forces entered Vienna to cheering crowds, with Austrians greeting Hitler enthusiastically. They annexed Austria on the 13th.

From 1935 through the end of 1936, Hitler intensified control of the population, militarization, and persecution.

A massive effort to consolidate Nazi power occurred in 1934 under the guise of being lawful. By August 1934, Germany was a one-party state, and Hitler became both the Führer and Reich Chancellor.

Hitler’s blitzkrieg of political moves held Germany in a stranglehold by the end of 1933. By the end of July, the Nazi Party was the only party. The Weimar Republic was no more.

Hitler and the Nazi Party didn’t need a coup to attain power. He gained it by outsmarting Germany’s Weimar ruling class and the new business class known as the Conservative Elite. Their greed, combined with their ignorance, contributed to Hitler’s rise to power and the Third Reich. 

Hitler changed German education to instill Nazi ideology in youth. He taught them to relish hatred rather than think. The so-called reforms began in the early 1930s and grew after Hitler came to power in 1933.

Adolf Hitler began spying on political groups in Munich as a hired Weimar Army informant in mid-1919. A small nationalist group called the German Workers’ Party (DAP) caught his fancy. So much so that he became member #55, and soon became the party’s most dynamic speaker, shaping its pro-nationalist agenda by demonizing Jews, Marxists, and Democracy.

After World War I, Germany owed 132 billion gold Marks in reparations ($2.84 trillion USD). Germany began printing more paper money without gold reserves, which led to hyperinflation. The U.S. 1924 Dawes Plan allowed Germany to restructure reparations and attracted foreign loans. A cultural renaissance, known as the Weimar Renaissance or the Golden Twenties, laid the groundwork for Hitler’s rise and the establishment of the Third Reich.

Adolf Hitler’s life from 1907 to 1920 shaped his future political career and the rise of the Nazi Party.