key terms Flashcards
Institutions of the State
A state is an organised political community under one government.
The institutions of the state include the civil service, the armed forces, the police and the judicial system.
Federal State
A state in which a number of small states or provinces keep control over many of their internal affairs, but decisions about national issues are the responsibility of the central government.
Gauleiter
A Nazi party leader at regional or state level. The Nazi political organisation had leaders (leiters) at both national (Reich) and regional (Gau) levels.
Gauleiters were therefore the second ranking Nazi political officials.
Gleichschaltung
Forcing into line.
Plebiscite
A direct vote on an important political or constitutional issue, similar to a referendum.
Third Reich
By using this tern to describe their regime from 1933-1945, the Nazis were asserting that it was the successor to the First Reich (Holy Roman Empire, which existed from the medieval period until 1807) and the Second Reich (1871-1918).
Asocials
Those, according to the Nazis, who did not conform to the norms of Volksgemeinschaft, including beggars, tramps, alcoholics, prostitutes and pacifists, but also the mentally and physically disabled.
Sopade
Reports produced by agents of the banned Social Democratic Party (SPD) to inform the exiled Party leadership about the situation in Germany.
Aryan Paragraph
Under the 1933 Law on the Reconstruction of the Professional Civil Service, the third paragraph stated that those who were not of Aryan birth had to be dismissed from their jobs.
This applied to pastors in the protestant Evangelical Church who had converted to Christianity from Judaism.
Waffen SS (armed SS)
Military wing of the SS. Although originally dependent on the regular army for its weapons and training, the Waffen SS grew and became a rival to the army.
Autarky
Economic independence or self-sufficiency.
Mefo Bill
Scheme where the German government paid by credit notes.
Reactionary
Holding political viewpoints that oppose social change, and support a return to a previous state in society.
Jungvolk
The division of the Hitler Youth for boys in the 10-14 age group.
At 14, they graduated to the Hitler Youth proper.
German Christians
A pressure group of Nazis operating within the German Evangelical Church.
First established in May 1932, by the mid-1930s it had some 600,000 supporters.
Described themselves as the ‘SA of the Church’, German Christian pastors wore SA or SS uniforms and hung swastika flags in their churches.
