nazis

Question 1

how did the nazis gain a majority?

Answer 1

• september 1930 - nazis made gains
• april 1932 presidential elections - hindenburg won with 19.4 million votes, hitler had 13.4 million
• refused to make hitler chancellor
• 1932 reichstag elections - nazis had the most seats but hitler was not chancellor (schleicher)
• january 30 1933 - hitler became chancellor

Question 2

when was the reichstag fire and what happpened?

Answer 2

• february 27 1933
• reichstag burned down allegedly by a young dutch communist
• possibly done intentionally by nazis and communists used as scapegoat

Question 3

what were the consequences of the reichstag fire?

Answer 3

• nazis got credit for catching arsonist
• increase in anti communist propaganda
• german industrialists contributed to nazi funds out of fear of communism
• hindenburg declared state of emergency - hitler got control of police and could govern by decree
• decree for protection of the people and state - suspended civil rights of german citizens
• persuaded hindenburg to call election for march 5. nazis got 17.5m votes and 288 seats

Question 4

what was the enabling act and when was it passed?

Answer 4

• march 24 1933
• enabling act passed 444 votes to 84 (all of spd)
• hitler could pass laws without reichstag for 4 years
• got rid of all parties in the reichstag
• july 14 1933 - officially declared one party state

Question 5

how did germany become a one party state?

Answer 5

• communists had been banned since the reichstag fire
• june 22 1933 - social democrats banned and sent to camps
• june - almost all major parties willingly dissolve themselves
• july 5 1933 - catholic centre party dissolve, last party to do so

Question 6

what were the causes of the night of the long knives?

Answer 6

• SA wanted second revolution - more radical and left wing
• Röhm wanted to amalgamate the SA and the army into a people’s militia
• SA had 3m men, fought for Hitler in the Münich Putsch
• army had 100k men but could take away Hitler’s position - close ties with junkers and civil service

Question 7

when was the night of the long knives and what happened?

Answer 7

• 30 june 1934
• rohm and main leaders of the SA were shot by members of the SS
• 200 murdered
• schleicher and strasse included

Question 8

what were the consequences of the night of the long knives?

Answer 8

• some SA members wanted revenge - called rohms avengers
• himmler in charge of hitlers security and eliminated all other threats
• army took oath of allegiance to hitler

Question 9

what were the key features of the nazi rule?

Answer 9

leadership
decision making
administration
one nation
control

Question 10

what were the key features of leadership under the nazis?

Answer 10

• fuhrerprinzip - strict hierarchical order
• people encouraged to work together under a leader and not think for themselves

Question 11

what were the key features of decision making under the nazis?

Answer 11

• trusted individuals made key decisions such as goebbels
• ‘working towards the fuhrer’

Question 12

what were the key features of administration under the nazis?

Answer 12

• ran on the fuhrerprinzip
• civil service led by wilhelm frick
• came into conflict with reich special agencies and nazi party officials
• civil service decisions regularly overruled by nazi party principles

Question 13

what were the key features of the idea of one nation under the nazis?

Answer 13

• one nation - nazis against division of germany into länder
• march 1933 - stripped of powers
• january 30 1934 - law for the reconstruction of the reich - unity that overrode regional differences
• frick was meant to run regional/local governments, never achieved and often came into conflict with gauleiters

Question 14

what were the key features of the idea of control under the nazis?

Answer 14

• gestapo set up by goering 26 april 1933
• taken over by himmler and SS in 1936 but ran as different groups
• gestapo controlled concentration camps

Question 15

what general preparations were made for war?

Answer 15

women urged to take on war work
- anyone who worked for government had to join nazi party or lose their job
- SS numbers rose from 240k in 1939 to over a million in 1944
- 13 military districts formed from german regions

Question 16

when was the new council for defence set up and what did it do?

Answer 16

• 30 august 1939 - ministerial council for defence of the reich
• coordinated domestic affairs to support war effort
• chaired by goering - included frick and other important nazis
• disbanded in november 1939 due to hitlers dislike of group meetings

Question 17

what problems were faced by the growing reich?

Answer 17

• 11 new reichsgau (regional governments) had to allocate land to incoming germans (living space)
• polish leaders shot and southern poland treated as a colony
• used as dumping ground for ‘undesirables’
• other parts absorbed and germanised
• became difficult to govern due to increasing size
• gauleiters became more powerful and given control of local bureaucracy in august 1944

Question 18

how did the government collapse during ww2?

Answer 18

• june 22 1941 - invaded ussr but red army did not collapse as they thought
• war on 2 fronts
• usa joined in december
• 1944 - boys as young as 12 conscripted as army was weak
• tight rationing - TOTAL WAR meant all shops not contributing to war were shut down
• june 1944 - allies landed in normandy and troops moved towards berlin
• hitler and eva braun committed suicide on april 30 1945
• goebbels and family committed suicide the next day

Question 19

what was opposition like in nazi germany?

Answer 19

dangerous
- august 1933 - opposition parties illegal, members of kpd/spd were in camps or left the country

Question 20

what anti nazi campaigns were there?

Answer 20

• early 1930s, kpd spd and trade unions printed pamphlets + anti nazi literature
• 1938 - realised it was easy to trace groups by publications, so kpd and other groups spread work by word of mouth, no organised groups
• june 1941 - communist groups revived after operation barbarossa
• uhrig group - leaflets, posters in factories
• red orchestra - gov employees who passed information to the ussr

Question 21

what was the red shock group?

Answer 21

• 1933 - red shock troop (spd group) published newspapers every 10 days w 3k membership. leaders arrested and sent to camps in december

Question 22

how did workers try to sabotage the nazi regime?

Answer 22

• workers held lightning strikes which lasted a few hours
• 1936 - autobahn workers held a lighting strike
• sabotaged production - worked slowly, damaged machinery etc
• overlooked because workers were in demand during war
• stopped turning a blind eye when groups became too organised or successful
• 1944 - members of the anti fascist workers group arrested
• war - resistance against nazis blew up bridges or railway lines

Question 23

how did young people try to disobey the nazis?

Answer 23

• some young people didn’t join hitler youth
• went to clubs, listened to swing and jazz, dressed in clothes similar to the west, set up bands
• 1940 - clubs declared illegal, went underground
• nazis mostly left them alone, made some arrests
• edelweiss pirates - working class anti nazi, wore their own uniform to distinguish themselves from hitler youth, ran their own activists, painted anti nazi slogans, worked with resistance groups

Question 24

how did others try to disobey the nazis?

Answer 24

• white rose group - secret, spread anti nazi material exposing murder of jews, encouraged nonviolent resistance, were caught and executed
• thousands of people managed to escape through escape lines (one run by protestant church)
• hans von dohnanyi worked for judiciary but worked with dietrich bonhoeffer (protestant) to help escapees - both arrested in 1943

Question 25

what attempted assassinations were there?

Answer 25

• july 1921 - july 1944 - 15 known attempts
• 7 after 1939 were made by army members
• despite oath, army disapproved of the murders of jews and undesirable
• plotters who were caught were executed immediately

Question 26

when was the july plot and what happened?

Answer 26

• 20 july 1944
• von stauffenberg left a bomb in a briefcase where hitler had a meeting
• hitler survived w minor injuries, 4 people killed
• fromme (one of the plotters) arrested the chief plotters to prove loyalty who all were shot or committed suicide
• 200 people executed who were said to have been involved - fromme included

Question 27

what were relations like between the nazis and the church?

Answer 27

july 1933 -hitler set up a concordat with the pope - promised to leave catholic church alone if it did not interfere in german politics
- developed nazi ‘People’s Church’ with a reichsbishop in control
- church members soothed by nazi nationalism, conservatism and anti communist stance
- 1933 - peoples church became less christian and more nazi, displayed nazi banners and demanded removal of old testament from the bible as it was jewish
- may 1934 - pastors emergency league developed into the confessing church which condemned the peoples church for obeying the state, being antisemitic and encouraging atheism, members were arrested and executed

Question 28

what spontaneous anti nazi protests were there?

Answer 28

• october 1934 - 2 bishops imprisoned for speaking out against the nazis, led to public outcry and protests, nazis backed down and released them due to caution of churches
• 1938 - hitler ordered military processions in berlin while considering invasion of cs, but ppl were unenthusiastic, so he was prepared to work with chamberlain at munich conference instead of going to war

Question 29

how did the nazis censor the press?

Answer 29

• 28 february 1933 - goebbels said all radio stations served the gov
• staff had to get rid of jews, half jews, ppl married to jews, and ppl who had belonged to kpd or spd
• press censored, but it was difficult due to large number of daily newspapers
• 4 october 1933 - decree that said contents of newspapers were responsibility of the editor, couldn’t publish anything that could weaken the third reich or harm economy
• end of 1932 - 59 nazi newspapers, 780k readers
• end of 1933 - 86, 3 million
• december 1933 -state owned press agency set up, papers had to pick up stories from there

Question 30

how did the nazis carry out political repression?

Answer 30

• banning of all other political parties
• camps for political prisoners
• 1933-45, 500k non jewish people sent to camps for political crimes
• 1933 - first camp opened at oranienburg in prussia

Question 31

what were courts and policing like under the nazis?

Answer 31

• april 1933 - gestapo set up by goering, independent of legal system, did not wear uniform to make people cautious of what they said
• ss, began as bodyguard with 240 men, ran concentration camp system from 1934
• 1936 - 240k ss members in charge of the gestapo, had their own economic branch to run labour/concentration camps
• 1934 - peoples court set up in berlin, 2 judges and 5 ppl from nazi party ss and army, tens of thousands of people passed through by 1945
• nazi party officials - all assumed to be watching for infringement of rules

Question 32

how did the nazis try to win public support?

Answer 32

• propaganda - slogans ‘one people one reich one fuhrer’, antisemitic, made sure everyone owned a radio (peoples receiver. 1939 - 1/3 owned radio, 1943 - over 70% of radios were PRs, couldn’t pick up foreign stations)
• 1939 - jewish people crowded into ghettos, nazis convinced people they were dirty and subhuman etc
• rewarded conformity, mothers given medals for giving births, 1k mark loan on marriage that was reduced by 250 marks for each child, 1939 - series of medals for women with more than 4 children
• had support from industrialists (banned kpd and trade unions, middle classes (savings had value again), people applied to germanise areas and were given homes and farmland if they were accepted
• support from people who opposed versailles

Question 33

how did people support the nazis during the war?

Answer 33

• initially lukewarm about going to war
• increased once germany army moved through eastern europe
• collected money for charities organised by nazis
• joined special murder squads for jews, poles and slavs

Question 34

how did the nazis attempt economic recovery?

Answer 34

• 1934 - germany failed to pay us debts, trade with usa collapsed
• schacht drew up ‘new plan’ - treaties with eastern europe, eg hungary and yugoslavia, involved exchanging goods instead of paying for imports
• 1 january 1933 - announced first 4 year plan
• aimed to achieve autarky

Question 35

how did the nazis improve employment?

Answer 35

• depression started to naturally recover
• jewish people banned from workforce, women discouraged from working, married women didn’t count in workforce statistics, students taken off of unemployment register
• encouraged businesses to create temporary work for unemployed
• RAD - reich labour service, schemes for unemployed people with labour work, paid less than unemployment pay, basic food and accommodation
• road building schemes, increased car/truck manufacture
• 1934-36 - 126k trucks were built

Question 36

what was agriculture like under the nazis?

Answer 36

• agricultural reforms in first 4 year plan
• hugenburg (minister of agriculture), increased import tariffs on agricultural produce (made german produce cheaper), banned banks repossessing farms from farmers in debt, made margarine manufacturers use german butter
• resigned in may 1933, replaced by darré
• set up RNS (reich food estate) - regulated food production, distribution of farm produce, set prices and farm wages, could fine people RM100k for not conforming
• work creation schemes sent women to farms to work
• 1928 - german farmers provided 68% of farm produce in the country, 80% by 1934

Question 37

how were businesses and workers managed under the nazis?

Answer 37

• big business (iron, steel, ig farben) supported nazis
• 1933 law for the protection of retail trade - stopped building of new stores + banned expansion of existing stores
• department stores made 80% less in 1934 than in 1929
• nazis discouraged use of department stores as big stores didn’t support nazis, but small stores did
• unions, strikes, lockouts
• led to loss of millions of working days - 1 billion in 1926 to 36 billion in 1934
• 1 may 1933 - made socialists workers festival an official holiday
• 6 may 1933 - announced only one union - DAF, voluntary but difficult for nonmembers to get work

Question 38

what happened during the 1935/6 crisis?

Answer 38

• shift of trade to south east europe + exchange of goods led to initial improvements
• 1935 - countries wanted cash, not an exchange of goods (bulgaria wanted cash for oil)
• germany wasn’t full self sufficient, still needed imports
• schacht had to choose between food and raw material imports, increasing exports went against nazi policy
• alternative - cut consumption, higher production, without unpopular rationing

Question 39

what was the second four year plan?

Answer 39

• 1936-42
• focus on autarky, preparing for war, led by goering
• raw materials replaced by synthetic alternatives
• rubber replaced by Buna
• took 6 tonnes of coal to produce 1 tonne of synthetic fuel
• only coal and explosives targets met targets by 1942

Question 40

what was the economy like in 1939?

Answer 40

• nazis had tight control of economy
• importing 17% of agricultural needs
• propaganda to persuade people to eat fish instead of meat, jam with bread instead of sausage
• jam consumption tripled from 1928-38
• shift to command economy made nazis unpopular with big industrialists/manufacturers of consumer goods
• rearmament achieved

Question 41

how were undesirables treated?

Answer 41

• divided between ‘pure germans’ and ‘undesirables’
• august 18 1939 - doctors nurses midwives had to report any children under 3 who showed signs of mental/physical disabilities
• parents given chance to send children to ‘specialist clinics’ where they were killed, programmed expanded to cover children up to age of 17
• october 1936 - july 1940 - asocial families sent off for a year to be re-educated at the Hashude

Question 42

what happened under the t4 programme?

Answer 42

• october 1939 - T4 campaign got rid of disabled children
• january 1940 - T4 expanded to hospitals, institutions for old people, mentally ill, chronically ill
• T4 programme killed 70k people

Question 43

what were living standards like for workers?

Answer 43

• initially improved
• unemployment dropped, real wages increased
• wages regulated so people didn’t have spending money because industry was geared to war production not consumer goods
• real wages only improved if workers worked overtime
• strength through joy - provision of loans, medical care, extra food, vitamins for suitable mothers

Question 44

what was social welfare like under the nazis?

Answer 44

• 1933 - NSV (national socialist peoples welfare) set up - wanted to create healthy nation, not care for welfare
• ran Mother and Child programmes, crèches and kindergartens used as opportunity to influence children
• 1938 - 11k crèches and kindergartens
• 1939 - nsv had 1m volunteers, 500k block wardens responsible for 30-60 households
• 1933 onwards - ran yearly winter aid, distributed food and parcels, rm2 million donated
• hard to refuse to contribute

Question 45

what was the impact of ww2 on economic policies?

Answer 45

• 1939 - had 6 weeks worth of ammunition when war started, instead of 4 months like intended
• still more prepared than britain and france
• office of 4 year plan didn’t manage war production well
• goering was head of air force and 4 year plan, but favoured air force
• 26 february 1940 - fritz todt minister of armaments and munitions, needed centralised control to make industry efficient as possible but other departments didn’t accept this level of control
• 3 december 1941 - memorandum from hitler insisted on rationalising needs, updating factories and equipment for efficiency, keeping army navy and airforce demands as low as possible

Question 46

what was speers system?

Answer 46

• replaced todt after his death in february 1942
• 22 april 1942 - hitler set up central planning board for distribution of raw materials, organisation of factories and transportation, had a variety of committees, only hitler could override the boards decisions
• factory machinery standardised to make construction/repair easier
• production became more mechanised as workers were conscripted and being replaced by less skilled women/foreign workers

Question 47

what happened to the economy 1940 onwards?

Answer 47

• 22 june 1940, france fell and hitler needed U-boats and long range planes for conquest of britain
• air battle from july to september
• britain did not surrender, needed tanks and armoured vehicles for operation barbarossa against USSR in june 1941

Question 48

what production like by the end of the war?

Answer 48

• 1929 - 1.4% of workforce in army, 13% by 1944
• 1942 - monthly production of 200cm searchlights was 20, 80 by end of 1943 and 150 by end of 1944
• production in 1944 was 3x 1940

Question 49

how were women encouraged to be mothers under the nazis?

Answer 49

• NSF - national socialist womanhood, nazi organisation
• german womens enterprise - organised activities for non party members
• eugenics - encouraged pure german couples to breed, passed laws to stop the ‘wrong’ type of breeding
• couples marriage loans - only if they were fit, racially acceptable
• suitable poor families given rm100 for each child
• 1936 - lebensborn programme, ss men would impregnate as many ‘racially pure’ young women as possible to produce healthy aryan children, who were adopted by ‘pure’ couples

Question 50

what was the impact of nazi policies on women?

Answer 50

• large numbers of women lost their jobs
• single women still found work - domestic, shop work, secretaries
• skilled doctors expected to work in ‘suitable’ jobs such as maternity clinics or as GPs
• female teachers could only work at lowest levels of schools
• civil servants had to work in womens sectors of government offices
• racially suitable women had higher level of healthcare/higher status
• mothers of dead soldiers given support, honoured on occasions such as mothers day

Question 51

what was the impact of ww2 on women?

Answer 51

• shift in attitude towards women working
• childcare provided - 31k kindergartens/crèches by end of 1942
• less women went into war work than ww1
• women in the workforce went up by 27% 1933-39, and 2% 1939-1944
• nazi propaganda worked and women were hesitant to work
• gov didn’t use women in all kinds of war work - replaced teachers/worked on land instead
• used foreign labour in conquered lands instead
• october 1940 - women were allowed to join armed forces in womens auxiliary services doing clerical/support jobs to free up men to fight
• 1941 - compulsory military service for women between 18 and 40
• 1944 - shortage of men so severe women were being trained to operate anti aircraft guns

Question 52

what was the nazi education policy?

Answer 52

• emphasised physical fitness
• students had to join Nazi Student Union
• 20 april 1933 - opened 3 National Political Education Institutions (napolas) - free boarding schools to train elite group of boys as gov administrators

Question 53

what was it like for teachers under the nazis?

Answer 53

• april 1929 - national socialist teachers league
• january 1933 - 6k members
• april 1933 - undesirable teachers purged
• 24 september 1935 - decree that nazis controlled appointment of teachers
• nazis anti intellectual, teaching became less popular due to disrespect from gov and students
• 1938 - 2.5k new teachers but 8k vacancies

Question 54

what was the curriculum under nazis?

Answer 54

• taught loyalty to hitler, racial purity and physical fitness
• increase in sport - 15% of curriculum for both sexes
• history emphasised for volksgemeinschaft
• textbooks censored, burned, mutilated etc
• booklets with racial theory

Question 55

what did children do outside of school?

Answer 55

• hitler youth movement
• boys joined pimpfen (6-9), jungvolk (10-13) and hitler jugend (14-18)
• 1937 - schools similar to napolas opened, but physical training wasn’t for future gov administrators
• girls had jungmadel (10-13), bdm (14-16) and glaube und schoneit (17-20)
• taught all nazi policies, expected to report teachers that acted against it

Question 56

what was nazi cultural policy?

Answer 56

gleichschaltung - coordination, wanted tight control over culture

Question 57

how did the nazis censor culture?

Answer 57

• 10 may 1933 - burned 25k books
• jewish authors seen as ‘unsound’
• more book burnings in towns throughout 1933
• art music theatre etc censored, weeded out anything unacceptable or intellectual
• discouraged individualism and encouraged conformity

Question 58

how did the nazis promote acceptable culture?

Answer 58

• 22 september 1933 - rkk (reich chamber of culture) set up by goebbels to control arts
• encouraged nationalist, realistic art
• spent money on large urban buildings but promoted rural life, simple healthy farmers etc
• strength through joy - trips to theatre, opera, galleries etc to educate ppl. 1937 - ‘degenerate art’ exhibition in munich to warn people
• sport encouraged - artists produced works of physically perfect aryans, large sporting displays held. 1936 - held olympics, germany won 89 medals, excluded jewish athletes
• celebrated important dates in nazi history - large parades
• huge building projects - powerful established image, reichssportfeld and olympic village built for 1936 olympics, 100k spectators
• nuremberg rally grounds - yearly rallies in august-sept from 1933-38

Question 59

what were nazi racial policies?

Answer 59

• racially pure aryan germans
• 1 january 1934 - compulsory sterilisation programme, reported those they saw as unfit to breed
• courts set up to decide who to sterilise - hereditary defects, jews, roma and sinti, criminals, black and mixed race people
• june 1935 - extended to abortion of the unfit
• 400k sterilised betweeen 1934 and 1945, 5k died from procedure in clinics

Question 60

how did the nazis try to make germany jew free?

Answer 60

• worked towards final solution in degrees due to lack of power for holocaust in 1933
• propaganda
• legal separations - removed jews from jobs, separated them from non jews in public spaces
• bans/boycotts - increasingly violent, first boycott on 1 april 1933, sa members stood outside shops and urged people not to enter
• april 1933 - laws restricted no. of jewish uni students, banned them from sports, stopped them from sending telegrams
• end of 1933, excluded from working on german newspapers or as financial advisers

Question 61

what were the nuremberg race laws?

Answer 61

• 1935 - anyone with 3 or 4 jewish grandparents was jewish
• regional govs had their own antisemitic laws
• yellow stars on jewish owned shops, encouraged violence
• separation to prevent contamination of public spaces

Question 62

when was kristallnacht and what happened?

Answer 62

• 9 november 1938
• organised attacks on jews across germany
• 260 synagogues burned, shops and homes attacked/looted
• 20k jews arrested and taken to concentration camps

Question 63

how did jews try to leave germany?

Answer 63

• nazis encouraged them to leave, took 30-50% of their wealth as flight tax
• 1933-39 - 450k jews emigrated
• became more difficult - nazis became more reluctant, other countries set quotas’
• 11 march 1938 - german army liberated austria, placed same restrictions on 185k austrian jews as in germany, introduced humiliating tasks, scrubbing streets
• only 60k jews left in austria when ww2 started

Question 64

what was the einsatzgruppen?

Answer 64

• 1939 - einsatzgruppen set up after invasion of poland, rooted out polish political/resistance leaders and killed them
• special ss units
• killed jews by shooting them, or setting synagogues alight
• 1941 - rounded up jews, forced them to dig mass graves, made them strip and shot them
• 2m to 6m jews murdered were einsatzgruppen victimes

Question 65

what were ghettos?

Answer 65

• polish jews were rounded up into ghettos in towns/cities
• october 1939 - first ghetto in piotrkow
• overcrowded, minimal food and supplies, electricity and water limited to a few hours a day
• made jews look dirty and subhuman
• strength through joy - ran bus trips through lodz ghetto to show people jews
• 5k gypsies sent to lodz ghetto, added to 160k jews and 40k more sent from germany

Question 66

what were concentration camps and final solution like?

Answer 66

• had to wear patches to show what their crime was
• sent to dig roads, work on land or in faxtories
• people died from starvation, dysentery or beatings from guards
• camps burned people who died there
• 20 january 1942 - wannsee conference, decided final solution
• death camps set up in eastern europe, people were gassed