Control And Opposition Flashcards
What is a police state?
A police state is a country in which the government totally controls its people and their freedom by using the police, especially secret police.
This usually takes place in a TOTALITARIAN state.
Heinrich Himmler and the SS
Purpose: An organisation which controlled all other police units.
❑ Originally set up as elite bodyguards for Hitler to rival the SA.
❑ The SS had intimidating black uniforms from 1932 to ❑ make them stand out against the SA ‘Brownshirts’.
❑ Hitler then increased the responsibility of the SS to ❑ take control of all police organisations in the 1930s.
❑ It was even the SS who arrested members of the SA during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.
In the 1930s, it totalled over 240,000 men. Himmler believed his men could use any methods they wanted to ‘protect the Fuhrer’. Himmler was very strict about who could joint the SS. They had to be totally loyal to the Nazi Party and Hitler.
Himmler only wanted ‘pure Aryan’ men who were expected to marry racially pure women & produce pure Aryan children. Officers had to produce birth certificates and family History before they could join.
Reinhard and the SD.
The SD were set up by Himmler but then given to Heydrich to lead. It kept a well organised card index of anyone suspected of opposing the Nazis. They constantly monitored opponents. They were under the control of the SS.
The gestapo
A non-uniformed secret police .
They Identified anyone who criticised or
openly opposed the Nazi Party.
They spied on people, tapped phones,
opened mail & used networks of informers . They were given permission to use torture to gain confessions.
Their main weapon was fear because Germans could not tell them apart from ordinary Germans.
• Prisoners could be imprisoned without a trial and family members often received letters saying they had died in prison. Many were sent to Concentration Camps .
• Prisoners were sometimes released from camps on purpose to spread the fear of the camps to family & friends.
• There were only 30,000 Gestapo to police about 80 million people but the German public were never aware of this and believed they were everywhere.
• For example, there were only 50 Gestapo officers for one key city Hamburg.
• Even children were encouraged by their teachers and Hitler Youth leaders to inform on their parents – even if they made an anti Hitler Joke.
• In 1939 alone, 160,000 people were arrested
The Nazi people’s courts and Nazi Judges.
• All judges had to be Nazi Party members . If they refused, they would lose their job. Judges were therefore biased in favour of the Nazis.
• The beliefs of the Nazis came first, even if this meant going against some existing laws.
• Hitler abolished juries (members of the public who decided on the verdict). It was the judge alone who decided this and the punishment.
• Hitler set up a People’s Court . Judges were specially selected & trials would take place secretly .
• Hitler sometimes got involved in some cases & decided the punishment himself.
• Citizens had no right to appeal against the verdict of the People’s Court.
• Between 1934-1939, 534 people were given the death sentence
The concentration camps
• Concentration Camps opened in 1933. They were Types of prisoners in the Concentration Camps:
run by the SA and the SS. Even one even for ❑
women. ❑ • One well know camp opened in 1933 was
‘Undesirables ’ such as prostitutes & homosexuals. Political prisoners who were seen as a threat to the Nazis. E.g. teachers, communists, journalists, writers.
Minority groups such as Jews and Poles
Dachau .
• Camps were located in isolated areas , away from
public knowledge.
• By 1939 there were 150,000 people under
‘protective arrest ’. They had not officially committed any crimes but they were locked up for doing or saying things the Nazis did not
❑
Example : Carl Von Ossietzky . A German journalist who was willing to speak up against the Nazis. He was arrested in 1933. The next time he was seen by 1935 he was described as ‘ a trembling, pale creature, one eye swollen, teeth knocked out, dragging a broken body’. He died in prison in 1938.
