9C Nazi Control (1933-45) Flashcards
What was the role of the Gestapo in the Nazi police state?
- Led by Reinhard Heydrich (later by Himmler)
- This was the Nazi secret police
- Gestapo agents could arrest citizens and send them to concentration camps without trial
- The Gestapo did not wear uniforms and spied on people they thought might be a threat.
- They tapped telephones, opened mail, and collected information from a huge network of informers
- They then arrested people who acted against or spoke out in a way against Nazi ideas
How did this help Nazis maintain control?
- Prevents oppostion from arising as it creates fear and paranoia amongtst Germans
- Helps Hitler identify even the most discrte oppostion through the informers
What was the role of the SS in the Nazi police state?
- Led by Heinrich Himmler; formed in 1925
- SS men were Aryans, very highly trained, and very loyal to Hitler
- The were responsible for crushing opposition and carrying out Nazi racial policies
- They had the power to arrest and search property
- The SS had 3 units:
1) SD: Investigate disloyalty from within the army / party
2) Death Head’s Unit: responsible for running the concentration camps
3) Waffen SS: armoured regiments that fought alongside the army
How did this help Nazis maintain control?
- The SS turn Germany into a polce state: removes interal and external oppostion
- Promoted Nazi raised ideology (idea that Aryans are superior)
What was the role of the Concentration Camps in the Nazi police state?
- 1.3 million people spent time in concentration camps between 1933 - 1939.
- Anybody who criticised Nazi policy ended up here (as well as Jewish people, socialists, communists, trade unionists)
- Prisoners were forced to do hard labour
- The aim was to ‘correct’ opponents of the regime.
- However, by the late 1930s ‘deaths camps’ were increasingly common and very few people came out alive.
- Dachau (1933) concentration camp was just 15km outside of Munich
How did this help Nazis maintain control?
- Spread fear; very public as they were close to cities and a public displau of intimadtation tactics. Saw consequences as malnoursihed men retured
- Elimiated politcal oppostion either killed or too scared to speak out
What was the role of the police and the courts in the Nazi police state?
- Top police jobs given to high-ranking Nazis, reporting to Himmler
- Instructions given to ignore crimes committed by Nazi agents
- All judges had to be members of the Nazi Party
- Trial by jury was abolished and all verdicts decided by a judge
- The number of crimes that carried the death penalty increased from three to 46
- Top jobs in local police forces were given to high ranking Nazis.
- This allowed the police to add ‘political snooping’ to their role.
How did this help Nazis maintain control?
- Prosecture oppsotion. No chance of a fair trial as there was no jury, only Nazi judges
- Makes Nazis exempt from law. Police officers were aboce the law. Very corrupt. Justice is unattainable.
What forms of propaganda and censorship did Nazis use?
Dr Joseph Goebbels - Minister for Enlightenment and Propaganda. Among his main ‘achievements’ were:
Radio:
- Goebbels made cheap radios available (People’s Receivers, Volksempfanger) - by 1939 70%(widespread) of households owned one and over 10 million were sold.
- These People’s Receivers could only be turned into the Nazi station. Hitler’s speeches and his ideas (e.g. German expansion into Eastern Europe, Jewish inferiority) were repeated (normalise Nazi views) on the radio
- In case people did not have radios, Goebbels placed loudspeakers in the streets.
Books:
- In May 1933, Goebbels organised a high profile book burning. Nazi students publicly (instill fear) burned books that included ideas unacceptable to the Nazis and books by Jewish authors. University students in 34 university towns across Germany burned over 25,000 books.
- No books could be published without Goebbels permission.
- The best-seller in Nazi Germany was Mein Kampf
Entertainment:
- More than 1,000 movies were produced during the Nazi era from 1933-1945. Many of them openly promoted Nazi ideology while others had subtle messages. E.g. in 1940 the ‘Eternal Jew’ was released which was a highly anti-Semitic movie.
- The newsreels before each film in the cinema had clips of Hitler.
- Artists had to produce paintings or sculptures of heroic looking Aryans, military figures, or ideal Aryan families.
- Goebbels organised huge rallies. The best example was the Nuremberg Rally which took place in summer every year. There were bands, marches, flying, displays, and Hitler’s speeches.
- Music - jazz banned because it was ‘black’ music.
Newspapers:
- Editors had to join the Nazi Party or be dismissed.
- Daily briefings were held for editors to tell them what to print and where to place articles in their newspapers.
- German newspapers became dull and as a result circulation fell by 10%.
- Der Sturmer was a Nazi newspaper which was highly anti-semitic.
The Nuremberg Rallies:
- Took place in summer every year
- Bands, marching, flying displays, brilliant speeches by Hitler;
- People liked the colour and excitement, and a sense of belonging to a great movement;
- Demonstrated the power of the state (national pride) ; emphasis on order out of chaos.
Why did Nazi Propagand help Hitler Keep control?
- Widespread availaibly as it was sold a street corners. It was accessivle due to affordavle costs. It also cemented Nazi ideologies to normalise exreme Nazi beliefs.
Why did Nazi censorship help Hitler keep control?
- Suppressed any spark of oppostion through its limiting ans suffocating nature. It normalsied racial views as there was no other option.
How did the Nazi use the 1936 Olympics?
The games sered to restore Geramany’s internationl repiation and showcased their power. It shows Germany was developed, dominant and wealthy:
- Goebbels built a brand new stadium to hold 100,000 people and it was lit by the most modern electric lighting.
- The stadium had the largest stopwatch ever built and the most sophisticated German photo-electric timing device was installed.
- Guests and competitors from 49 countries came into the heart of Nazi Germany.
- The New York Times reported that the Olympic Games put Germany “back in the fold of nations”
The games symoblised the Nazi racial ideology and helped to promote Nazi/Aryan supremecy:
- Germany came out on top of the medal table, way ahead of all other countries.
- Germany declared itself the winner with 101 German medals to 56 for the Americans
- Athletic imagery drew a link between Nazi Germany and ancient Greece.
What was Nazi racial policy?
- Aryan is the master race with blode hair and blue eyes
- Untermensch is sub-human
- Eugenics is eliminated genes such as disablitlteis trhougj slective breeding to create a more desirable race
- Hitler viewed certain groups as undesiravle as they were not socially usefula and couldn’t contribute to Germany’s power
Gay and Lesbian people (threat to Nazi family values (nuclear family)):
- All books by gay aithors were banned
- 5000-10 000 gay people sent to concentration camps of 100 000 arrested. 50 000 sent to prison
- Forced to wear pink triangles
People with physical (colour blindness) or mental disorders (nto considered socially useful as couldn’t work. Challenged the idea of Germans being the master race):
- 1933 - law for the prevention of hereditarily diseas offspring -> led to fored sterilisation (350 000 people were sterilised)
- Ethanasia campaign - began in 1939 - 5000 babies killed by injection - 72 000 patients killed
Roma people (travelled around Europe and Hitler saw them as an inferior race):
- 1935 - Hitler extends the ‘law for the protection of German blood and honour’ to roma people.
- 1938 - Reich central office for combattin Gypsy nuissance
- In 1939 Hitler, esc;ated the persecution of Roma people because they were seen as potential spies who could tell classified information to allies and Hinder Germany’s war efforts.
- Forced to wear brown triangles
Asocials (thought of as socially useless):
- Examples - elderly people, homeless people, alcoholics, prostitutes, beggars.
- They were all rounded up and sent to concentration camps
- Forced to wear brown triangles
What did the persecution of Jewish people look like before WWII?
Early measures against Jewish people:
- Jewish people were banned from civil service
- All Jewish teachers, judges and lawyers were sacked
- Nazi propaganda was highly anti-semetic e.g. der sturmer
- SA and SS led boycotts of Jewish shops by standing outside shops and marked them with yellow stars.
Nurmeberg Laws:
law from the protection of German blood and honour:
- Jewish people could not marry aryans / Germans. Criminalised sexual relations between them.
Reich citizen act:
- No Jewish person could be German - lose rights such as right to vote.
Kristallnacht (9th of November 1938):
- Triggered by a young Jew killing German diplomat in Paris
- SS members given pickaxes and hammers and addresses of Jewish businesses and ordered to smash windows.
- 10 000 business windows were smashed
- Synagogues were burnt down
- 91 are murderd
- 20 000 jews were sent to concentration camps
What did the persecution of Jewish people look like after the beginning of WWII?
Why did Jewish persecution increase after the beginning of WWII?
- Increased number of Jewish people under Nazi control such as Polish Jews
- War brought ‘opportunites’ for people to tale part in persecution e.g. mercedes had forced labour camps
- Could be more fierce as there was no worry of retaliation from other countries.
What did the persecution of Jewish people look like after the beginning of WWII?
- All Jewish people were identified (e.g. Israel and Sara were addded to name) and forced to wear a star of david on their clothes.
1) GHETTOs - Warsaw ghetto - Jewish people were transported from their homes and replaced with Germans and jeiwsh people were confined. The aim was to seperate Jews from society.
2) MASS MURDER - The Einsatzgruppen were killing squads that followed the German army into Russia. 1.2 million Jewidh people were killled by them in 1941
3) THE FINAL SOLUTION - In January 1942 Senior Nazis met at the Wansee conference. It was decided Himmler would be in charge of the systematic killing of Jewish people in Nazi territory.
- concentration camps would either work the to death, gas them with cyclon B or be shot
- 6 million jews, 500 000 roma people, politcal prisoners, Jehovah’s witnesses, homosexuals and millions of Russian and Polish prisoners were sent to slave labour and death camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka and Chelmo in Poland.
Was the Final solution planned from the start and who was to blame?
Was the ‘Final Solution’ planned from the start?
- Some historians (‘intentionalists’) say yes - it was always part of Hitler’s masterplan.
- Other historians (‘structuralists’) say the policy evolved gradually.
Hard to say whether it was planned, because -
- Hitler talked about extermination, but never made written orders.
- The killing programme was kept as secret as possible, so few documents survive.
Who, apart from Hitler, was to blame for the genocide?
- Civil Service bureaucracy - collected and stored information about Jews.
- Police - many Jewish victims were arrested by police rather than Gestapo or SS.
- The SS - Death’s Head Units and Einsatzgruppen carried out many of the killings.
- The German Army (Wehrmacht) - army leaders knew what was going on and didn’t stop it.
- Industry - companies like VW and Mercedes had their own slave labour camps; chemicals companies competed for the contract to produce the Cyclon B gas, used in death camps.
- The German people - many were anti-semitic, even if they didn’t believe in mass murder; many closed their eyes to the reality of what was happening.
Was there any resistance against persecution of the Jews?
- Gad Beck - leader of Jewish resistance in Berlin, captured in 1945, rescued by the Red Army.
- Jewish members of resistance organisations in occupied territories.
- Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1945, lasted 4 weeks.
- Armed uprisings in some concentration camps.
- Many non-Jews helped to hide Jews and smuggle them out of Germany, e.g. the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, and the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg; and lots of ordinary low-profile people.
How effectively did Nazis control the churches?
Catholic church:
- A 1933 Concordat [agreement] with the Pope [head of the Catholic Church] said that the Catholic Church and the Nazis would not interfere with each other.
- Hitler soon broke this agreement. Catholic priests were harassed and arrested, and Catholic youth clubs and schools closed.
- In 1937, the Pope issued his ‘With Burning Anxiety’ statement, read out in Catholic churches across Germany. This said that the Nazis were ‘hostile to Christ and his Church’.
- The Catholic Bishop Galen in Germany also criticised the Nazis. In 1941 he led a protest against Nazi policies of killing mentally ill people.
- Galen was put under house arrest until the end of the war.
How effective was oppostion from the Caltholic Church?
- Initally effective as they publicaly opposed Hitler and were influential enough that Hitler couldn’t simply kill them. Also widespread across all of Germany.
- Ultimatley ineffective as they couldn’t achieve much however they did undermine the Nazis
Protestant Church:
- In September 1933, a state Reich Church under the leadership of a Nazi Bishop was established to unify the different branches of Protestantism.
- The Reich Church replaced the Bible with Mein Kampf. Nazi symbols were displayed in churches, and they used the slogan ‘a swastika on our chests and the Cross in our hearts’.
- HOWEVER, Many protestants opposed the Reich Church, and in 1934 Martin Niemöller established the Confessional Church.
- 800 Pastors of the Confessional Church were arrested and sent to concentration camps. There were still 6,000 Churches in the Confessional Church but only 2,000 in the Reich Church.
- Niemoller was sent to a concentration camp and the Confessional Church was banned.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer - helped Niemöller, stopped by Gestapo from preaching against the Nazis, helped Jews escape from Germany, involved with army intelligence services who secretly opposed Hitler, 1942 contacted Allied commanders to ask about peace terms in the event of Hitler being overthrown. Arrested 1942 and hanged 1945.
How effective was oppostion from the Protestant Church?
Formal -> instiution. The confessional church actes as a foil to the Nazi regime and was one of the first formal establishments of oppositon after Hitler had banned these organisations. However ultimtatley they were forced underground/
How did Women and young people resist the Nazi Regime?
Women:
They resisted as they lsot employment opportunites. Wamted to resits traditonal roles imposed on them. Moral onjection to Nazi policy.
- Women made up 15% of resistance movements
- Communist student Liselotte Herrmann opposed the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor and informed foreign governments about German rearmament. She was arrested and executed - the first mother to face the death penalty in the Nazi regime
- 20 women from Dusseldorf passed information to foreign governments about the concentration camps where their family members had been sent
Young people:
1933-39 - Segregated, Hitler Youth amd German League of Maidens. 1939 onwards - Leadership of Hitler youth is replaced iwth older teenages who were strict and prhobited meeting with friends. Additonaly it became increasly focused on miltary drills instead of leisure such as camping trips. Becomes a competition.
Swing Youth
- Tended to be middle class teenagers and were inspired by British and US music, especially jazz.
- Swing clubs sprang up in various German cities and here young people would listen to banned music.
- They danced American dances such as the ‘jitterbug’ and listened to banned jazz music.
Jewish people were accepted at their clubs.
The Nazis issued a handbook helping the authorities to identify these people.
The Edelweiss Pirates:
- These were working class teenagers and were not one group; groups in different cities took different names (e.g. The Roving Dudes, Kittelbach Pirates, Navajos)
- They sang songs (just like the Hitler Youth) but changed the lyrics to mock Germany
- They taunted and attacked the Hitler Youth
- December 1942: Gestapo broke up 28 groups containing 739 adolecents.
- In the 1940s, they helped shelter army deserters and escaped prisoners.
- They raided army camps to obtain arms and explosives and made attacks on Nazi figures.
- In 1944, 13 members were publicly hanged
The White Rose Group:
- The group was set up at Munich University in 1942 by brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl. The white rose was a symbol of justice, and the group was non-violent.
- They urged Germans to get rid of Hitler by handing out anti-Nazi leaflets, putting up posters and writing graffiti on walls.
- Its leaders, Hans and Sophie Scholl, were arrested and sentenced to the guillotine in 1943.
What politcal and social oppositon was there?
Why was there such little opposition to the Nazis?
- Terror - opponents were killed or imprisoned; others scared into submission.
- Oppostion remained uner ground due to fear and censorhip and propaganda slashing support
- Propaganda - many did not find out about bad things that were happening, or heard about them only with a pro-Nazi slant; propaganda especially good for maintaining a positive image of Hitler (still widely respected as late as 1944).
- Economic fears - fears that workers would lose their jobs if they expressed opposition; possibility of companies losing business and going bankrupt if they didn’t contribute to Nazi Party funds; better to ask no questions and keep your head down.
- The public also feared the perceied omnipresence of the Gestapo.
- Nazi successes - many Germans admired and trusted Hitler for restoring the German economy, reinforcing traditional values, clamping down on Communism, giving Germany something to be proud of in foreign policy, reversing the humiliating Treaty of Versailles.
What evidence is there that political opposition was still around?
- There were sabotages of factories, railways and army stores.
- Gestapo calimed to have broken up 1000 oppostion meeting
- Seized 1.6 million anti-nazi leaflets.
- Eldelwies pirates, Confessional church, ‘with burning anxiety
What evidence is there of social oppostion?
- Widespread apathy towards parades, propaganda, particulary after 1936:
- Local party officials repoted that they had to increaslingly bully people to attend Nazi rallies
- The Nazis had to use ‘radio wardens’ to force peope to listen to Hitler’s speeches
- Gestapo repoted complaing in bars and trains. People told jokes about the Nazis
- Church leaders publically critised the Nazis
- Joseph Fath hung his own flags instead of Nazi ones in his church.
- Pastor Gruber risked his life protecting Jews and helping them to escape the Nazis
Army leaders against Hitler:
- There wrer 5 attempts between June 1940 - December 1943 to assassinate Hitler
- In July 1944, a gropu of army officers tried to assassinate Hitler. A bomb was planted by colonel Stauffenberg at a meeting attended by Hitler. It exploded, but Hitler survived
- In retaliation, Stauffenberg was shot the same day and 5000 people were executed in the crackdown on oppostion that followed.
- The great German general Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was implicated in the plot and was forced to commit suicide as punishment for his involvement.
