Social Developments + Tensions

Question 1

Volksgemeinschaft

Answer 1

. Hitler wanted a national people’s community
. Centre of Nazi ideology
. “One People! One Reich! One Fuhrer!”
. Community before individual
. Linked to Hitler’s racial theories: united by blood
. Volksgenossen - “national comrades”

Question 2

Workers

Answer 2

. DAF: May 1933 under Ley
. Nov 1933: ‘Strength Through Joy’ (KdF) to organise worker’s leisure time
- subdivision ‘beauty of work’
. Offered outings and holidays, factory sports fields + swimming baths opened, saving schemes arranged

Question 3

Reich Labour Service Act

Answer 3

. Passed July 1935, forced every man aged 18-25 to:

• complete 6 months training in a camp
• wear military uniform + undertake military or physical exercise every day
• accept a basic living allowance only

Question 4

RAD

Answer 4

. Developed from voluntary scheme under Weimar
. Most trainees employed in agr or public works where respect for manual labour was encouraged
. Farming community gained v little from Nazi social change
. Hitler’s idealism of them clashed w need for modernisation + industrial strength for war

Question 5

Workers - successful?

Answer 5

. On the whole accepted the schemes
. Most embraced idea of ‘national community’
. Nazis failed to destroy class loyalties + other loyalties eg to churches

Question 6

Women

Answer 6

. Were to see themselves as mothers first

. Taught that this role was equally as important as men’s role

Question 7

Measures to encourage motherhood

Answer 7

. Birth control centres + abortion only allowed for genetic defects
. Maternity benefits raised + income tax allowances for dependent children raised
. May ‘39: ‘The Honour Cross of German Motherhood’ encouraged women to ‘bear a child for the Fuhrer’
- ‘prolific’ mothers given medals + large fams given concessions on expenses eg railway fares

Question 8

Measures to ensure genetic purity

Answer 8

. 1935: couples need certificate of ‘fitness to marry’ before marriage license could be issued
. 1938: ‘unproductive’ marriages ended
. 1941: couples found cohabiting after marriage banned could be sent to concentration camps

Question 9

Measures to enforce the female role

Answer 9

. June 1933: ‘Law for the Reduction of Unemployment’ £ to women who gave up work. Marriage loans of 6 months’ pay reduced on birth of a child. After 4 kids they owe nothing
. 1934: married w give up work in med, law + civil service
. illegible for jury service, banned from senior jobs in Nazi party + Reichstag, discouraged from uni which only took 10% women until late 1930s

Question 10

Further measures regarding women

Answer 10

. 1936: women told to return to factories to work
. 1937: women didn’t have to leave work to get a marriage loan + some allowed in higher ed
. Compulsory agr lab service for under 25s in 1939
. Jan 1943: 16-45s eligible for conscription to the war effort

Question 11

Young People

Answer 11

. Social policy to prepare youth for role in Nazi society

. Reich Education Ministry under Bernhard Rust

Question 12

Conveying Nazi ideology in the humanities

Answer 12

. History emphasised glories of German past and military heroism
. Geography, German, music + arts lessons encouraged consciousness of culture + heritage
. RE no longer required from 1935

Question 13

Conveying Nazi ideology in the sciences/maths

Answer 13

. In science, ‘Jewish’ theses banned + biology used to teach Social Darwinism
. In maths, problems posed in ideological language
. Female curriculum emphasised home economics

Question 14

New subjects

Answer 14

. Offered in colleges and unis

• genetics
• racial theory
• folklore
• military studies

Question 15

Ensuring loyalty of teachers

Answer 15

. Some dismissed under 1933 Civil Service Act
. The Fuhrer decree (1935) allowed political vetting of all civil service appointments including teachers
. 1939: all teachers became Reich civil servants
. Teaching profession had to be actively anti-Semitic

Question 16

National Socialist Teacher’s League

Answer 16

. Controlled teachers
. 1929: 95%+ belonged to it 1937
. NSLB + National Socialist Lecturers’ League organised special camps to reinforce values

Question 17

Baldur von Schirach

Answer 17

. July 1933 appointed as ‘youth leader of the German Reich’
. Took control of all youth organisations except for Catholic ones
. Membership of Hitler Youth compulsory in 1936

Question 18

Youth Groups

Answer 18

. Catholic groups closed down in March 1939
. Separate boys + girls (League of German Maidens) divisions: train boys for war, girls for motherhood
. Encouraged children to report friends + family
. Tough on academic or physically sensitive children

Question 19

Winterhilfe

Answer 19

. 1933: scheme to help victims of the Depression
. Doorstep collections of money, food + clothes for distressed fams + showed Germans helping each other
. 9mil received payments in 1938 but collectors sometimes had to resort to intimidation

Question 20

Eintopfmeal Scheme

Answer 20

. Encouraged families to have 1 dish for Sunday lunch in winter + donate the money saved
. Described as ‘the meal of sacrifice for the Reich’, proof of loyalty
. As unemployment receded, families less charitable
. By Dec 1942, after defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler threatened death to those who kept materials intended for collections

Question 21

Protestant Reich Church

Answer 21

. May 1933, Ludwig Muller as Reich Bishop
. Umbrella organisation coordinating branches of the Protestant Church
. Muller led branch called German Christians: wore swastika + demanded gospels be purged of Jewish texts

Question 22

Confessional Church

Answer 22

. 100 pastors headed by Martin Niemoller who refused to acknowledge Reich Church, Oct 1934
. Around 5000 clergy
. Set up to protect Church from state interference
. 1936: 100s of pastors sent to camps

Question 23

Catholic Church

Answer 23

. Pope accepted Nazi regime through Concordat
. New Pope Pius XII in 1939 never openly condemned Nazism
. No organised Catholic opposition but some priests were sent to camps

Question 24

Bishop Galen

Answer 24

. most outspoken Catholic critic

. his three sermons against euthanasia in 1941 earned him title ‘lion of Munster’

Question 25

The German Faith Movement

Answer 25

. Nazi movement to replace Christianity w new pagan faith
. Mid ’30s, ‘Church Secession’ campaign encouraged Germans to abandon churches
. Carols + nativity plays banned in schools in 1938
. word ‘Christmas’ forbidden, replaced by ‘Yuletide’
. Fringe movement, 200,000 supporters

Question 26

Church support

Answer 26

. Priests largely retained loyalty of congregation
. Church attendance steady til 1939, inc after
. Volksgemeinschaft couldn’t be complete while alternative institutions flourished but churches prepared to compromise to survive

Question 27

Criminals

Answer 27

. Sep 1933: half a mil ‘work shy’ given a permit + lodgings in return for compulsory work
. Those that failed to work were sent to camps
. ‘Workshy Reich’ programme 1938
. Juvenile delinquents targeted from 1939 + sent to youth camps in Moringen near Hannover
. Old + young could be sterilised as ‘social deviants’
. Few of the 10,000 workshy incarcerated survived

Question 28

Disabled people

Answer 28

. Hereditary disease sterilised from July 1933
. ‘burdens on the community’
. Summer of 1939: euthanasia programme set up
- initially targeted children under 3, later up to 16
- by 1945 5000 children murdered by this

Question 29

Euthanasia

Answer 29

. Practiced on 72,000 adults in 6 mental hospitals in Germany
. Stopped in 1941 following Bishop Galen’s protests
. Secret programme 14F13 (1941-43) led to gassings of 30,000-50,000 suffering from mental illness or physical disability in extermination camps

Question 30

Roma and Sinti

Answer 30

. 30,000 in Germany, included in Nuremburg Laws 1935: banned marriage between them + Aryans
. Subjected to racial ‘tests’
. From 1940 deported to Poland to work in camps
. Dec 1942: 20,000 transferred to Auschwitz
. 11,000 murdered there + around half a mil in occupied Europe

Question 31

Jewish people

Answer 31

. Less than 1% of German population
. March 1933: one day boycott of Jewish shops + businesses
. April: ‘Law for Restoration of Civil Service’
. Sep 1935: Nuremburg laws banned marriage between Jews + non Jews + deprived citizenship
. April-Oct ‘38 registration of Jewish property; doctors, dentists + lawyers forbidden from having Aryan clients; identity cards stamped w a ‘J’

Question 32

Reichskristallnacht

Answer 32

. 9-10 Nov 1938
. A series of attacks, unofficially encouraged by police, destroyed synagogues + Jewish businesses, homes + shops
. 100s of Jews injured, 91 murdered + 20,000 sent to concentration camps

Question 33

German Jews after 1938

Answer 33

. Banned from economic life, schools, cinemas, unis, theatres + sports facilities
. Forbidden to enter ‘for Aryans only’ places
. Jan 1939: Hitler threatened ‘the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe’
. Some emigrated up to 1940

Question 34

Jews in Wartime

Answer 34

. Ghettos across Eastern Europe
. In Germany:
- curfews, confiscation of Jews' radios
- 1941: wear yellow star
- further emigration banned
. 6mil slaughtered by gassing in extermination camps