Censorship, repression and propaganda

Question 1

What did Goebbels inform to controllers of German radio?

Answer 1

That radio stations served the government and therefore had to follow Nazi guidelines and express Nazi ideology.

Question 2

What was the company for radios called?

Answer 2

The Reich Radio Company - controlled the content of radio

Question 3

What was the result of the introduction of the People’s Receiver (a cheap radio set)?

Answer 3

By 1939, 70% of homes had a radio, in contrast to just 25% in 1932.

Question 4

What did the radio become in Nazi Germany?

Answer 4

A medium of mass communication controlled by the regime.

Question 5

What were installed in public places?

Answer 5

Loud speakers - venues for collective listening

Question 6

What myth glorified Hitler as the saviour of the German nation?

Answer 6

The Führer / Hitler Myth

Question 7

When did all film companies become state own?

Answer 7

1942

Question 8

What are 2 examples of the news being censored during the war?

Answer 8

• News of the German defeat at Stalingrad was suppressed as 1,500 papers were shut down.
• Papers never mentioned the Final Solution.

Question 9

When was listening to foreign radio stations criminalised?

Answer 9

September 1939

Question 10

What were Goebbels’ censorship policies unable to stop?

Answer 10

Rumours of defeat

Question 11

What were the aims of propaganda and censorship?

Answer 11

• To glorify the regime
• Spread Nazi ideology and values
• Win over the people and unite the nation under Volksgemeinschaft

Question 12

What decree allowed the Nazis to ban publications?

Answer 12

The Decree for the Protection of the People and the State (1933)

Question 13

What did the Editor’s Law (1933) do?

Answer 13

It made it a crime for the Editor of a newspaper to publish anything which might weaken the Third Reich.

Question 14

What was the Reich Association established to do?

Answer 14

To compile a list of “accredited” journalists.

Question 15

How many Nazi newspapers and readers were there in 1932 in comparison with 1933?

Answer 15

1932 = 59 Nazi newspapers and 780,000 readers
1933 = 86 Nazi newspapers and over 3 million readers.

Question 16

What was the Nazi Publishing House called?

Answer 16

Eher Verlag

Question 17

What proportion of the German press did Eher Verlag control by 1939?

Answer 17

2/3

Question 18

Who were the SS?

Answer 18

The political police.

Question 19

Who controlled the SS?

Answer 19

Heinrich Himmler

Question 20

How many members of the SS were there in 1933 in comparison with 1939?

Answer 20

1933 = 52,000
1939 = 250,000

Question 21

What purge did the SS carry out?

Answer 21

The purge of the SA during the Night of the Long Knives (1934)

Question 22

What did the SS run?

Answer 22

The concentration camp system

Question 23

What were the 3 main functions of the SS?

Answer 23

• Intelligence gathering
• Policing (carried out by Gestapo)
• Military action

Question 24

What were the SS responsible for creating in newly occupied territories?

Answer 24

“New Order” - resettling ethnic Germans in these areas and eliminating non-Aryans.

Question 25

When were the People’s Courts established?

Answer 25

1934

Question 26

Who did the People’s Courts try?

Answer 26

Anyone accused of being traitors to the Third Reich.

Question 27

How were the trials in the People’s Courts different to that of a normal court?

Answer 27

The trials were not public and appeals against verdicts were banned.

Question 28

What did judges have to study?

Answer 28

Nazi beliefs

Question 29

Who were the Gestapo?

Answer 29

The secret state police

Question 30

Who set up the Gestapo?

Answer 30

Hermann Goering

Question 31

What was the role of the Gestapo?

Answer 31

To find opponents of the Nazis and arrest them - using surveillance and repression.

Question 32

Who did the Gestapo rely on for information?

Answer 32

Informers and Blockwarts (those who ran individual apartment blocks).

Question 33

How many agents did the Gestapo have?

Answer 33

20 to 40,000 - relatively small organisation.

Question 34

What was the reputation of the Gestapo?

Answer 34

They had a reputation for brutality - they could arrest and detain without trial.

Question 35

What were concentration camps?

Answer 35

Prisons were opponents of the regime were questioned and subjected to torture, hard labour and re-education in Nazi ideals. Prisoners could be held indefinitely without trial.

Question 36

How many camps were established between 1933-35?

Answer 36

20,000

Question 37

How many Jewish people were sent to camps for political crimes during the Nazi regime?

Answer 37

500,000

Question 38

How many people were help in camps in 1939, 1942 and 1945?

Answer 38

1939 = 25,000 1942 = 88,000 1945 = 714,000

Question 39

How many supporters of left wing parties were detained during the first 2 years of the Nazi regime?

Answer 39

Between 150-200,000

Question 40

What is an example of the extensive use of terror during the early years of the Nazi regime?

Answer 40

The Knight of the Long Knives (1934)

Question 41

When and where was the first concentration camp for political prisoners set up?

Answer 41

1933 in Dachau

Question 42

What did Germans see Hitler as reversing?

Answer 42

The losses of the Treaty of Versailles.

Question 43

What are examples of militarisation which took place in 1935?

Answer 43

- The existence of the Luftwaffe was announced and a peacetime army of 550,000 was introduced - Germany signed a naval agreement with Britain allowing Germany to have a navy 35% the strength of the British fleet.

Question 44

What are examples of militarisation in 1936 and again in 1938?

Answer 44

March 1936: Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland (which overturned the ToV and Locarno Pact) 1938: Anschluss with Austria, which was incorporated into German territory.

Question 45

Why did wealthy industrialists support the Nazis?

Answer 45

They benefitted from the banning of the KPD and trade unions (except DAF), as well as through the expansion of the war economy (arms production and chemical industries).

Question 46

How did the value of the German stock exchange change between 1932 and 1940?

Answer 46

It increased by 250%

Question 47

What were the lower-middle class called?

Answer 47

The mittelstand

Question 48

How did the government please the mittelstand?

Answer 48

- They used the money available from the confiscation of Jewish businesses to offer low-interest rate loans. This made them more susceptible to anti-Semitic messages. - The Law for the Protection of Retail Trade (1933) banned the opening of new department stores and taxed existing ones, which increased the market for smaller businesses.

Question 49

Who did the Nazi regime idealise?

Answer 49

Peasants and farmers as the embodiment of traditional German values and racial purity.

Question 50

How did the Nazis assist the agricultural sector?

Answer 50

Increased tariffs on foreign imports which increased the demand for German food products.

Question 51

What did the Reich Food Estate (1933) do?

Answer 51

Regulated food production and distribution as well as food prices and wages.