Nazis Control of Germany

• The main question in the text is: How did the Nazis maintain control of the German people?
• The information and tasks in this booklet should correlate with your lessons.
• Utilize the notes provided, engage actively in lessons through asking and answering questions, highlight crucial information, and complete assigned tasks rather than simply copying information from presentations.

Key Words

• Aryan people (Germanic) believed to be superior to other races.
• Hitler thought the Aryan race was superior due to their ability to work hard, with many of Germany’s past issues thought to be from a weakened Aryan race.
• Hitler wanted to create a racially pure Germany.
• A Totalitarian state exists where the government controls all aspects of life.
• A Police State is controlled by the police force, which monitors its citizens to prevent dissent.
• Hitler's rule was totalitarian, having control over all facets of people's lives.

The Police State

• Making people frightened was central to the Nazi control system by instilling a climate of fear and terror to oppose the Nazis.
• The Nazi ‘Police State’ achieved this.
• The police force watches people to ensure they do not oppose the government.

The SS (Schutzstaffel)

• The SS were the personal bodyguards of Adolf Hitler, originally referred to as the 'Blackshirts'.
• Set up in 1925, controlled all of Germany's police and security forces and were led by Heinrich Himmler.
• SS members had to be pure Germans (Aryan), whom swore obedience to Hitler and Himmler.
• The SS saw themselves as protectors of the Nazi ideology.
• By 1939, the SS had grown from 50,000 to 240,000 personnel.
• SS could arrest w/o trial, search, confiscate property and were responsible for all security and police in Germany, commanding over the Gestapo and the running of concentration camps like Dachau.
• They specialized in terror and control.
• Played a key role in the Night of the Long Knives (1934) to remove the SA leaders.
• By 1934, the SS had different sections, some which fought alongside the army, other Death's Head Units were responsible for the death camps.

The Gestapo

• Nazi secret police.
• Established in 1933 by Goering.
• By 1936 It came under SS and Himmler control and was led by Reinhard Heydrich
• Along with the SS, became one of the most feared organisations in Nazi Germany.
• It was the Gestapo's job to spy on anyone who they suspected of being an anti-Nazi.
• Wore plain clothes and tapped phones, intercepted mail and conducted spying operations
• Could arrest and imprison anyone suspected of opposing the State
• Used torture and surprise to extract confessions from suspects
• By 1942, the Gestapo had around 30,000 officers
• The newspapers reported the success of the Gestapo arresting enemies of the state.
• Relied on informers who reported on people that were believed to be anti-Nazi, they helped arrest many 'anti- Nazis'.

Informers

• Towns were divided into local units called 'Blocks'.
• Block warden visited each block to collect donations, snooped on their neighbours and reported to their party bosses.
• Block leaders wrote reports on residents, which determined employment options.
• Residents were reported for every activity, e.g. telling anti-Nazi jokes, holding illegal meetings or not flying the Nazi flag on celebration days
• The Organisation Book of the NSDAP described what a Block Leader was expected to find people spreading damaging rumours and to report them to the local leader so they may be reported to the state authorities.’

Concentration Camps

• As the Nazi police state grew, so did the number of arrests, leading to new prisons called Concentration Camps opening
• These were run by the SS
• At first, they held political opponents like socialists, communists, trade unionists and eventually ‘undesirables’ like homosexuals, gypsies and Jews
• By 1939 there were over 150,000 Germans under arrest for political offences
• The first camp to open was Dachau in 1933
• Dachau was followed by women’s camp at Moringen. Followed by Buchenwald, Sachsenhauen
• Used for hard labour and re education
• Beatings and murder were commonplace in the ‘re-education’ of inmates
• At first work in the camps was hard and pointless, like breaking stones but gradually prisoners were used as forced workers in quarried, coal mines and armament factories
• If an inmate died, the family would receive a note the victim had died of some disease or had been shot trying to escape
• Prisoners were classified into different categories, each denoted by a different colored triangle to be worn.

Controlling the legal system

• Top jobs in local police were given to high-ranking Nazis reporting to Himmler
• The police became part of the network of informers collecting information on everyone.
• The ordinary police forces continued as before.
• Hitler also took control of the legal system, such as the courts to ensure they followed Nazi wishes
• Meant that Nazi views were upheld in the courts
• It was judges like Roland Friesler decided the fate of the accused often in secret trials with no jury!
• He set up new People's Courts to hear all cases of Treason, which were held in secret. The Judges were handpicked and had no right to appeal against the verdict of the People's Court .
• Set up the National Socialist League for the Maintenance of Law, where Nazis instructed to put interests of Nazi Party above the law, which denied membership.
• 46 crimes became punishable by death in Nazi Germany

Impact of the 'Police State

• By 1934, Hitler controlled the Reichstag, army, legal system and fear and terror had sunk into society
• Impossible to escape Nazi control.
• Between 1933-1945 800,000 'Enemies of the State' were arrested
• 500,000 were executed by being shot in the neck. Gleichshaltung meant to coordinate and ensure people have an identical way of thinking. Historians call it Nazification

Propaganda and Censorship:

• The Nazis sought to control, influence the attitudes of Germans by creating a climate of fear which made people too afraid to oppose the Nazis.
• Censorship involved banning information or ideas. Sometimes involves banning the vehicles for delivering ideas e.g., newspapers, pictures, radio, film, and controls attitudes by forbidding certain information or opinions.
• Propaganda involves control over attitudes by creating them. Propaganda uses vehicles for pushing certain ideas from newspapers, posters, radio and films to put new ideas into people's minds and shape their attitudes.
• The Nazis sought to indoctrinate Germans to convert them into unconditionally believing Nazi beliefs and ideas, also called brainwashing.

Role of Goebbels

• In 1933 Goebbels became the head of the new Reich Ministry of Popular Enlightenment.
• As a result, all aspects of the media, sport, art, and culture came under his control.
• Goebbels claimed that 'The finest kind of propaganda does not reveal itself. The best propaganda is that which works invisibly, penetrating every cell of life in such a way that the public has no idea.'
• Propaganda focused on the greatness of Germany and the Fuhrer cult, the Aryan Race and Germany's enemy's (Communism and Jews).

Newspapers

• The Nazis knew that many people gained their news from newspapers.
• They quickly took control of them. This meant that the news people read always had a pro-Nazi message.
• Non-Nazi newspaper and magazines were closed.
• The Reich Press Law was passed in October 1933 to remove the Jewish and left-wing journalists
• Journalists were told by the Ministry of Propaganda what they could and could not publish.
• Foreign news had to come from the Nazi controlled German Press Agency.
• Any reporters article or article had to be published with an anti-Nazi message, they could be barred or executed.

Radios

• Radio was becoming increasingly popular across Europe by the early 1930s, with the Nazis controlling all radio broadcasting via the Reich Radio Company.
• The Nazis ensured that the Nazi Party controlled the output. No anti-Nazi messages were ever broadcast.
• Radios spread their message into every household via cheap radios called; 'The People's Receiver'.
• Only one station that did not pick up any broadcasts from foreign countries.
• By 1939 70% of households owned one radio.
• The people's receiver's output was mainly light entertainment (with a pro-Nazi message) and Hitler's speeches were regularly broadcast too.
• In 1935 estimated at 56 million (out of a population of 70 million) listened to Hitler's speeches and if you didnt have a radio wardens reported you not stopping to list.

Rallies

• One of the most effective ways of gaining support was through mass rallies, with uniforms, mass movements, stirring music, flags.
• The propaganda minister Goebbels, described how rallies changed someone from, 'a little worm into part of a large dragon.’
• Clearly most of those people who attended rallies were already Nazi supporters.
• The rallies were carefully organised.
• Nazi architect Albert Speer specialised in designing the visual displays, using the light to create an effect similar to that of the pop concert today
• An annual mass rally was held at Nuremberg to advertise the power of the Nazi state and one million people attended after the Nazis came to power.

Film

• Goebbels also realised the importance of the popularity with over 100 films made each year.
• All film plots were shown to Goebbels before going into production.
• He realised that many Germans were bored by overtly political films, instead love stories and thrillers were given pro-Nazi slants.
• All film performances were accompanied by a 45-minute official newsreel.

Posters

• Propaganda in Nazi Germany was developed in order to get messages across, particularly the younger generation.
• Posters were used to develop the 'Führer cult' which, Hitler was presented as both superman and man of the people. Also presented as a WW1 veteran, a generous worker and fond of children.
• They were to be seen everywhere and the messages they contained were simple and direct.

Culture

• The Nazis opposed the culture popular in the Weimar Republic and wanted to change it.
• The Reich Chamber of Culture (under Goebbels) controlled Art, Theatre, Music, Architecture and Literature.
• 42,000 artists had to be members of the Chamber of Visual Arts.
• Hitler hated modern art (Weimar Republic's art) which he believed was backward, unpatriotic and Jewish. Such art was called 'degenerate'.

Art

• Nazis banned degenerate modern art and in its place, he encouraged art which highlighted Germany's past greatness and the strength and power of the Third Reich
• Wanted art to reject the weak and ugly and to glorify healthy, strong heroes
• Artists were expected to portray workers, peasants and women as glorious and noble creatures.
• After 1934 all new sculptures on public buildings demonstrated Nazi ideals

Literature

• All books, plays and poem were carefully censored and controlled to put across the Nazi message.
• Goebbels encouraged students in Berlin to burn 20,000 books by Jews, Communists and anti-Nazi university professors and similar book burnings spread Germany across.

Music

• Nazis controlled performance and composition.
• They prefered Brahms, Beethoven and Wagner, whilst Jazz, was banned.

1936 Berlin Olympics

• The Berlin Olympics of 1936 gave Hitler an opportunity to show how strong Germany, and its Master Race had become.
• Show the world that Germany was a modern, well organised society and that Aryans were superior with the media of 49 countries.
• The stadium was largest in world and every detail was managed.
• However, Jesse Owens became the star of the game and Hitler was furious at this success.

Summary

• Propaganda made terror more effective and People thought that the Gestapo had agents on every street.
• Terror also made propaganda more effective.
• An incident report reported in the Rhineland in July 1938, A 64-year-old woman remarked ,Mussolini has more political sense than Hitler, and was arrested by Gestapo five minutes later .
• Hitler often used the Gestapo, the secret police, to control what people said or did.
• SS leader Heinrich Himmler led the Gestapo and the role was to identify people who opposed Nazis.
• Gestapo spies enabled Hitler and the Nazi Party to control people's lives as people were too fearful to anything critical of them due to fear.
• Concentration camps were used by the Nazis as a method of control from 1934 in Germany, when the first concentration camp started.
• This helped enable Hitler to maintain control.