Nazi Germany 1933-39 Flashcards
How did the Nazis use the Reichstag Fire event?
On the night of the 27th of February 1933, the Reichstag Fire occurred with police finding a Dutch communist, Marius van der Lubbe.
Hitler used the fire as evidence that the communists were plotting against the government. He persuaded the President to pass an emergency decree-The Reichstag Fire Decree-it allowed the police to search houses, ban meetings, ban the Communist Party, close newspapers, confiscate property and detain people without trial. It got rid of personal liberties. Furthermore, any election meetings had to be notified to the police within 48 hours of them taking place. Hermann Goering was Minister of the Interior (In charge of the Prussian police.)
The communists won 81 seats, but weren’t permitted to have them.
How did Hitler get the Enabling act past with only 44% of the seats in the Reichstag?
- The conservative elites were willing to work with Hitler. They were supported by big business, the army generals and the National Party, who wanted to use the Nazis to destroy the democracy.
- The SPD and communists hated each other too much to see the threat of the NSDAP and work together to check them.
- The Centre Party were willing to accommodate Hitler in a coalition government and were willing to vote for the Enabling Act in return for promises of protection for Catholics and the Church.
Why was the Enabling Act important?
This Act gave Hitler the right to make laws without the Reichstag’s approval for the next four years. Arguably this was the most critical event during this period. It gave Hitler absolute power to make laws, which enabled him to destroy all opposition to his rule.
How did Hitler use the Enabling Act?
- Hitler closed down the state parliaments and reorganised them so that the Nazis had a majority in each. Furthermore, he appointed state governors who were all Nazis. They could dismiss and appoint state officials and make state law. (Abolished completely Jan 1934)
- Hitler destroyed the trade unions. Nazis broke into thousands of trade union buildings and arrested thousands of officials. Then the trade unions were merged into a ‘German Labour Front’
- Lastly Hitler destroyed his enemies in politics. In May, Nazis occupied the offices of the SPD and destroyed its newspapers and confiscated its funds. They also confiscated the property and funds of the KPD. By July 1933, Germany was a one party state.
Why did Hitler purge the Sturmabteilung?
- Röhm wanted the SA to control the army
- Röhm believed in socialist policies, along with two million members of the SA. Hitler didn’t want to upset the industrialists.
- Hitler didn’t need the SA anymore.
- Hitler was encouraged to remove Röhm.
Outline the events of the Night of the Long Knives.
30th June 1934, Hitler arrived at a hotel in Bavaria together with Rohm and other high ranks in the Sturmabteilung. Using the SS, Hitler arrested Röhm and the other leaders and took them to Munich, where they were shot. Over the next few days, other leading SA and politicians were shot, such as Gregor Strasser and Kurt von Schleicher.
What happened when Hindenburg died in August 1934?
Hitler declared himself not only Chancellor, but Head of State and Commander of the Army. His new title was Fuhrer. On the same day (2 August) every soldier swore an oath of obedience to Hitler.
How did the Nazis create a police state?
The SS played a role in Hitler’s police state:
• The Death’s Head unit (Totenkopfverbande Reichsfuhrers SS) staffed the concentration camps.
• The SD or Sicherheitsdienst were responsible for state security. In other words, they had to search out and deal with enemies of the Nazis.
A secret police, called the Gestapo, were also created in 1933:
• The Gestapo was led by Reinhard Heydrich and its job was to search out opponents of the Nazi government. It used informers.
The courts fell in line with Hitler’s regime as well:
•Judges were replaced with Nazi supporters.
•In 1934 the People’s Court was set up. By 1939 500 people had been sentenced to death and others had been sent to concentration camps.
How did the Nazis, more precisely Goebbels, use propaganda in their police state?
In 1933 the Ministry of People’s Enlightenment was established under the control of Josef Goebbels. The ministry was responsible for the organisation of propaganda. The Chamber of Culture controlled art, music and theatre.
Goebbels used a variety of methods to put across Nazi messages:
- Cheap radio sets were available in Germany and the programmes were a mixture of light entertainment and indirect propaganda. Films contained a similar mixture. Furthermore, journalists now worked for the German News Bureau. Of course, the newspaper was highly censored for Germans and was by no means the work of free speech and opinion.
- Celebrations were used in an attempt to create a sense of national community. A famous example of which would be the Nuremberg Rallies.
- Culture was used to put across their ideas, especially of race. Artists and writers were told what to write or draw, a demonstration of censorship. Goebbels placed a ban on books allowed in or into the country. In May 1933, thousands of books by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors were burned in a huge bonfire in Berlin.
- Films were used to put across racial values and ideas and stir up hatred against Jewish people and communists.
- Films were used to showcase the brilliance and success of the Nazi regime-for example, the film Triumph of the Will was a propaganda film.
- Paintings were also used as propaganda tools. Hitler hated the modern art that had flourished in the Weimar Republic and blamed Jewish people for it. Art was changed to show Nazi values such as: simple and pleasant life in the country, hard work and heroics, the perfect Aryan and women as housewives and mothers.
Why did the Nazis persecute the Catholic Church?
In 1933 Hitler made an agreement with the Pope in which he promised not to interfere with the religious activities of the Church, and the Pope promised that Catholics would stay out of politics. He broke this promise and Catholic civil servants were dismissed, Catholic youth organisations were banned, the Catholic press was restricted and Catholic schools were virtually driven out of existence.
At first, most Catholic leaders supported Hitler, but people like Bernhard Lichtenberg, a priest, prayed openly for the Jews after Kristallnacht and was eventually sent to Dachau in 1943, but he died whilst travelling there. On Palm Sunday 1937 a letter from the Pope was read out from many pulpits urging Catholics to resist the pressure from the Nazis. Further resistance came from something called the ‘Confessional Church’. Their leader was Martin Niemöller, a submarine commander in World War 1. They criticised the Nazi state, pointing out things such as the removal of ministers with Jewish ancestry or concentration camps. In 1937 Niemöller himself was arrested and spent the next eight years in a concentration camp. The persecution of Niemöller was embarrassing for the Nazis as he was a war hero, something that was praised in the Nazi state.
The Nazi Party disliked the idea of Germans having loyalties to the Pope and their Catholic Church. They wanted full obedience to the Nazi Party. Hitler described it as ‘the Jewish Christ-creed with its effeminate pity-ethics.’
Who were the ‘German Christians’
Hitler, although being born a Catholic, liked the Protestant Church as he believed he would likely gain more support from them. The Protestant Church was a national church, not an international one like the Catholic Church.
A group of Protestants calling themselves the ‘German Christians’ wanted the Protestant Church to play a key role in the Nazi state. They were led by theologian Ludwig Müller, who was given the title ‘Reich Bishop.’ Many Protestant clergymen didn’t accept Müller’s leadership, however, and established their own organisation.
Bernard Rust, Nazi Minister of Education, once said ‘The whole purpose of education is to create Nazis.’ Explain Nazi education and their policies.
- Everyone in Germany had to attend school up to the age of 14. Afterwards, schooling was optional. Boys and girls went to separate schools.
- Teachers had to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler and they had to join the Nazi Teachers League.
- Textbooks were rewritten to fit Nazi views
- PE classes were increased and RE abandoned
- Biology lessons taught that Germans were the superior race.
- The education of girls was concerned with turning them into perfect mothers and housewives.
- Boys were taught military skills.
How did the Nazis control the life of young people outside school??
The Hitler Youth.
- In 1936 membership was made compulsory. Other youth organisations were banned.
- Membership rose from two million in 1933 to over seven million in 1939.
- Boys went camping and hiking, and also doing military drills etc. This was to create fit young people who would be good soldiers one day.
- Girls joined the League of German Girls. They also camped and hiked, but aimed to make girls fit for motherhood.
- The League, attempting to make young girls into mothers and housewives sometimes had the opposite effect. It allowed girls to partake in activities that had previously been only for boys.
How were women treated in the Third Reich?
Under the Weimar governments, women were given the vote and were encouraged to pursue careers. This changed rapidly when the Nazis came to power.
Nazi views were that ‘the mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world.’ -Josef Goebbels. They had very traditional views about women:
• Women were inferior to men
• They were meant to be housewives and mothers
• Working women were taking jobs from men.
How did the Nazis encourage women to stay at home and young couples to have children?
- In 1933 they introduced the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage.
- It aimed to increase the falling birth rate in Germany by providing loans to help young couples to marry, provided that the women left their job of course. Couples were allowed to keep a quarter of the loan for each child born, up to four children.
- Medals were awarded to women with large families.
- Women who were considered ‘unfit’ to bear children, due to physical or mental disabilities were sterilised.
- A new organisation called the German Women’s Enterprise organised classes or radio talks on household topics and the skills of motherhood.
- Women were told to stick to the ‘thee Ks’: Kinder, Kirche und Küche. Schoolgirls were trained for work at home and were discouraged from going on to higher education.
- Women were told to have their hair in a bun or plaits. They were discouraged from wearing trousers or make-up, dyeing or styling their hair or slimming.
