Nazi Ideology Flashcards
Key Terms:
- Dictator- a leader who has complete power
- Fascism- a type of government lead by a dictator who
controls with absolute force.
a. Usually emphasizes nationalism and militarism - Totalitarianism- a type of government that attempts to control all aspects of people’s public and private lives
Life in The Third Reich
The Nazis pursued the creation of the totalitarian state by:
● Employing special economic policies
● Mass spectacles
● Building organizations
● Freely using terror
German Book Burning
- Albert Einstein
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Friedrich Engels
- Sigmund Freud
- Ernest Hemingway
- Aldous Huxley
- Franz Kafka
- Vladimir Lenin
- Jack London
- Karl Marx
- H.G. Wells
- Oscar Wilde
Exertion of Power
The SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons), staffed by people who perceived themselves as the “racial elite” of Nazi future.
In the Nazi state, the SS assumed leading responsibility for security, identification of ethnicity, settlement and population policy, and intelligence collection and analysis.
The SS controlled the Nazi police forces and the concentration camp system “Order” based on terror including:
❏ repression and murder
❏ secret police
❏ criminal police
❏ concentration camps
❏ execution camps
❏ death camps
What pressures and motivations might have influenced members of the SS?
Economics
Hitler used public works projects and grants to put people back to work
A massive rearmament program solved the unemployment problem
Went from 5 million unemployed in 1932, to 2.5 million in 1934, and less than 500,000 in 1937
The Hitler Jugend
Hitler Youth offered a feeling of belonging, and even power - children participated with enthusiasm.
Obedience, conformity, and the desire to please parents, teachers, and group leaders influenced young people’s choices.
Our parents taught us to raise our arms and say “Heil Hitler” before we said “Mama.” This type of indoctrination was universal. Children experienced it in kindergarten, at home—everywhere. We grew up believing that Hitler was a super-god, and Germany an anointed nation. . .
Women and Nazi Society
Nazis believed that women were meant to be wives and mothers.
● Encouraged women to pursue jobs as social workers and nurses
● Rewards were given to women who had many children
Fascism emphasizes a role for everyone in society based on traditional societal roles
Women and Nazi Society
The Nazis aimed to encourage women to have Aryan children to increase their population.
1. Loans to encourage women to marry and have children
2. Making divorce and remarriage more easy
3. Reducing opportunities for women in higher education
The Expansion of Antisemitic Policy
The fall out from Kristallnacht continued to develop into the anti-semitic culture of Nazi Germany.
Leads to further drastic steps
○ Jews were barred from all public transportation
○ barred from all public buildings
○ banned from schools
○ banned from hospitals
○ prohibited from owning, managing, or working in a retail store
○ forced to clean up all debris and damage
○ encouraged to “emigrate” from Germany
Jewish Persecution
The Nuremberg laws, 1935 reduced Jewish people to second-class citizens
The Reich Citizenship Law required that all citizens have German “blood.”
Jews were banned from marrying non-Jews and their citizenship was removed, including their right to vote.
All German Jews would have their passports marked with a ‘J’.
All Jewish people were now forced to wear star arm bands to identify them easily in public
The Nuremberg Laws
Though the Nazis believed that identity was biological,this idea had no scientific grounds . Whether someone was German or Jewish could not be determined by medical or scientific tests.
On November 14, 1935, the Nazi government officially defined who was a German and who was a Jew through an additional decree called the Reich Citizenship Law.
Establishment of Ghettos
Segregated Jewish areas throughout Nazi occupied Poland. They were sealed with walls and guards prevented any one from escaping
Sections of cities where Jewish people were forced to live. ● Poor conditions
● Crowded
● Unsanitary
● Not enough food
Factories were built along the ghettos forcing prisoners to work to support the Nazi industry
Deportation Trains
Disguised as resettlement Nazi’s moved all Jews out of the Ghetto’s, people were told to bring all their possessions as they would need them in their new homes in the easy.
People were sealed inside the train cars and were exposed to extreme conditions.
● Deportees usually not given food or water for the journey
● Suffered from overcrowding
● Endured intense heat during the summer and freezing temperatures during the winter
● No sanitary facility except a bucket
● Many of the deportees died before the trains reached their destinations because of lack of
food and water
● Accompanied by armed police guards who had orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape
● People were forced to march when trains were not available and the distances were short
The Final Solution
Concentration camps started to open 1937
Concentration camp: prison camp, conditions were inhuman and prisoners were generally starved or worked to death or killed immediately.
Transport all Jewish people in cattle cars to death camps where most prisoners were…
● Starved to death
● Worked to death
● Gassed
● Shot
● Medical experiments
The Final Solution
The “Final Solution” was a policy of genocide, the deliberate and systematic killing of an entire population.
Camps started as hard labour designed to kill those imprisoned but it was determined that inmates were not dying fast and the camps were overflowing with prisoners
Nazi’s added a third method of killing – murder by poison gas.
