7) The Experiences of Germans Under The Nazis (1933 - 1939)

Question 1

Nazi Economic Policies:

How many people were unemployed in Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933

Answer 1

6.1 million

Question 2

Nazi Economic Policies:

What was the National Labour Service? (RAD)

Answer 2

Men between ages 18 and 25 were paid pocket money and a free meal to build things like motorways, hospitals, schools and forests.

Question 3

Nazi Economic Policies:

What was the German Labour Front (DAF)

Answer 3

A Nazi organisation that promised to protect the rights of workers and improve their conditions
They replaced trade unions
Made strikes illegal
Needed government permission to leave a job

Question 4

Nazi Economic Policies:

What were the autobahns?

Answer 4

Motorways

Question 5

Nazi Economic Policies:

What was conscription?

Answer 5

From 1935, all men between ages 18 and 25 were forced to join the army, navy or air force for at least 2 years

Question 6

Nazi Economic Policies:

What was rearmament?

Answer 6

New tanks, battleships, fighter planes and guns were built creating millions of jobs to do it

Question 7

Nazi Economic Policies:

What was ‘invisible unemployment’?

Answer 7

When many women and Jews lost their jobs and were replaced by unemployed men.

Question 8

Nazi Economic Policies:

What was Strength through Joy (KdF)?

Answer 8

An organisation that controlled people’s leisure time so they had less time to complain about the government
Rewards included Skiing holidays, Cinema trips and Luxury cruises
People had to save 5 marks per week up to 750 marks for a Voltswagen car they never received as the money was spent on weapons.

Question 9

Nazi Policies Towards Women:

How did the lives of women change under the Nazis?

Answer 9

Women who were in jobs such as Doctors, Lawyers and Teachers were sacked and forced to become stay at home mothers
Girls were trained for work at home and discouraged from going on to higher education

Question 10

Nazi Policies Towards Women:

What were the 3 Ks?

Answer 10

Kinder - Children
Kirche - Church
Kuche - Cooking

Question 11

Nazi Policies Towards Women:

How did the Nazis try too encourage woman to have more children?

Answer 11

Motherhood medals were introduced:
Bronze - 4 children
Silver - 6 children
Gold - 8 children

Contraception and abortion were banned

Loans were given to newly married couples to encourage them to have children

Question 12

Nazi Policies Towards Youth:

How did education in schools change under the Nazis?

Answer 12

Nazi beliefs were worked in to all walks of education
Text books were rewritten
PE was key for boys
Home economics was key for girls.

Question 13

Nazi Policies Towards Youth:

What was the Hitler Youth?

Answer 13

Hitler wanted to train up a ‘new type’ of disciplined and healthy human beings.
They met after school to talk about Nazi beliefs and ideas.
Hitler Youth was legally just as important as a child’s school and home life.

Question 14

Nazi Policies Towards Youth:

What was the League of German Maidens (BDM)?

Answer 14

It was for girls from the ages of 14 to 17.

They learnt how to keep fit, cook good meal and look after babies, to prepare for motherhood.

Question 15

Nazi Policies Towards Youth:

Who were the ‘Swing’ Youth group?

Answer 15

The youngsters who refused to join the Hitler Youth went to parties, listened to American Jazz music and had Jewish friends

Question 16

Nazi Policies Towards Youth:

Who was the Edelweiss Pirates?

Answer 16

Beat up Nazi Officials and helped army deserters

Question 17

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What was the Nazi view on Christianity?

Answer 17

They opposed Christianity
It protected the weak and the low
The Christian idea of mercy was a dangerous idea and ‘UN-German’
The Christian idea of equality protected the racially inferior, the ill, the weak and the crippled

Question 18

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What was the Reich Church?

Answer 18

It was a protestant Church who believed in the Nazi ideology.
The Christian cross was replaced by the Swastika and the Bible became ‘Mein Kampf’ which was placed on the alter along with a sword.

Question 19

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

Who was Clemens von Galen?

Answer 19

A Catholic Arch-Bishop who openly criticised the Nazis.
He was put under house arrest until the end of the war.

Question 20

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

Who was Martin Niemöller?

Answer 20

He was a protestant Pastor who formed the Confessional Church which was opposed to the Nazis.
He was sent to a concentration camp for seven years where he was kept in solitary confinement.

Question 21

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

Who was Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

Answer 21

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and key founding member of the Confessing Church.
His ties to the July 20, 1944, conspiracy to overthrow the Nazi regime led to his execution in 1945.

Question 22

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What were the Nuremburg laws? When were they created?

Answer 22

They were passed in September 1935.
This meant Jews lost their citizenship and any relation between a German and a Jew was banned.
Jews couldn’t have good jobs, lost their shop, couldn’t go to school and finally were introduced to a curfew.

Question 23

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What was Kristallnacht? When did it happen?

Answer 23

The Night of Broken Glass was the destruction of numerous Jewish homes, attacks on 10,000 Jewish shops and businesses, the burning of 200 synagogues, 100 deaths and the deportation of 20,000 to concentration camps.
It happened on the 9th - 10th November 1938 because a Jew apparently assassinated a Nazi diplomat in Paris on November 7th.

Question 24

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What were ghettos?

Answer 24

An area where members of a particular racial group are forced to live

Question 25

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What was the Wansee Conference?

Answer 25

It was a meeting of Nazi leaders in early January 1942 that resulted in one of the most shocking plans ever devised.

Question 26

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What was the Final Solution?

Answer 26

They decided to exterminate the entire Jewish population using poison gas

Question 27

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What is a concentration camp?

Answer 27

A place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labour or to await mass execution

Question 28

Nazi Policies Towards Religion:

What was the name of the largest Nazi concentration and death camp?

Answer 28

Auschwitz

Question 29

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

How did the Nazis control the media in Germany?

Answer 29

Through censorship
They had control over:
- Newspapers
- Rallies
- Books
- Radio
- Films

Question 30

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

Who were the Gestapo?

Answer 30

The Secret Police, their job was to crush anyone against Hitler
They could arrest, imprison without trial and torture anyone
Encouraged children to report parents or teachers

Question 31

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

Who was in charge of the Gestapo?

Answer 31

Herman Goring

then, Heinrich Himmler

Question 32

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

Who were the SS?

Answer 32

Were originally Hitler’s private body guards but were gradually built up to be the most important armed group in Germany.
It had three main sections:
One section looked after security
The Waffen SS provided elite units in the army
The Death’s Head Units ran the concentration and death camps

Question 33

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

Who was the commander of the SS?

Answer 33

Heinrich Himmler

Question 34

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

Who were the White Rose group?

Answer 34

Led by siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl
Urged Germans to get rid of Hitler
Handed out anti-Nazi leaflets
Put up posters and graffiti

Question 35

Nazi Methods of Control and Resistance:

What was the July Bomb plot?

Answer 35

A plan to assassinate Hitler by placing a bomb in a briefcase under his desk during a meeting in 1944
Claus Von Stauffenberg