Dismantling Democracy

To learn about the many ways the Nazis created a dictatorship in Germany, groups of students will read one of five articles highlighting significant events from 1933 and 1934. The readings vary in length from half a page to two pages, so you might consider in advance how you will group students for this activity. One option is to create heterogeneous groupings of readers so that the stronger readers can assist struggling ones with pacing, vocabulary, and comprehension. Alternatively, you might group students by level and work more closely with struggling readers to target specific literacy skills while allowing the more confident readers to tackle the content independently.

In Lesson 8, the class brainstormed characteristics of democracy. Students will refer to their notes from that discussion in this class. If you collected their ideas about democracy on chart paper, you might hang it in the room before class so it is ready to review in the first activity. As noted in Lesson 9, make sure that the chart paper includes “free and fair elections,” “the rule of law,” “equality before the law,” “free expression,” “free press,” and “freedom of religion,” if they are not already there.

The following are key vocabulary terms used in this lesson:

• dictator: a person who has complete control over how a nation is governed and makes all the rules and decisions without input from anyone else
• dictatorship: a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a single leader (dictator) or small group
• fragility: being delicate or fragile; easily broken
• dissent: disagreement with a person or a group of people
• propaganda: information spread for the purpose of influencing opinions, often for or against a particular idea or group. To persuade an audience, propaganda often uses lies, misleading information, or appeals to emotions rather than reason. 
• civil service: branches of public service that are not legislative, judicial, or military and in which employment is usually based on competitive examination. Civil service employees work under the state, local, and federal government in order to provide a service to a nation’s citizens; examples include postal workers, air-traffic controllers, police officers, and other more specialized careers.
• Adolf Hitler: the Nazi dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945
• President Paul von Hindenburg: President of the Weimar Republic (Germany) from 1925 to 1934. He appointed Hitler to the position of Chancellor of the Reichstag (parliament).

Add these words to your Word Wall, if you are using one for this course, and provide necessary support to help students learn these words as you teach the lesson.

To assess students’ understanding of the factors that led to the destruction of democracy and rise of dictatorship in Germany, assign them to create a pie chart to represent the distribution of responsibility for that transformation between the groups listed below. They can create the chart individually or in pairs, and they should use evidence from the Video: Hitler’s Rise to Power, 1933–1934 and the readings they analyzed in this lesson. Use the following prompt to spark their thinking:

What role did each of the following individuals or groups play in the destruction of democracy in Germany?

• Adolf Hitler
• President Hindenburg
• Members of the Reichstag
• German citizens 
• Other (label who on your pie chart)

Carefully observe the Fishbowl discussion about the fragility of democracy to assess students’ ideas about what the history covered in this lesson suggests about the importance of protecting democracy. You might tell students in advance that they will be assessed on these conversations in order to ensure that everyone contributes.

The video Hitler’s First Victims (11:00) details the Nazis’ response to the Reichstag fire, the opening of Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, and the murders of four Jewish prisoners at the camp. The story of the murders and the responses from investigators, bureaucrats, and Nazi officials sheds light on the relationship between the Nazi program, the law, the government bureaucracy, and public opinion in 1933, and it helps students consider the consequences of the choices made by a variety of individuals and groups at that crucial point in time. 

After watching the video, give each student a copy of the Transcript of Hitler's First Victims. Ask students to review the transcript and highlight words or phrases that stand out to them. You may want to have students work in pairs or groups and use the Say Something teaching strategy to expand on the highlighted text. The handout Say Something Sentence Starters will help students formulate a comment, question, clarification, prediction, or connection to the text they chose to highlight. 

The reading Storm Troopers, Elite Guards, and Secret Police introduces the Gestapo, or Nazi secret police. The resource book Holocaust and Human Behavior includes more information on the Gestapo and its tactics in the reading Spying on Family and Friends and Speaking in Whispers. You might include one or both of these readings in the main activity above, or you can share these readings with students after the main activity and discuss the following questions:

• What is the role of dissent in a democracy? 
• How did the Nazis use fear and suspicion to stifle dissent? 
• Can democracy survive in a society in which neighbors do not trust each other?