Social Policy

Question 1

Volksgemeinschaft

Answer 1

• transforming German society
• ‘peoples community’ - overcome old German divisions of class
• new national identity - working together for good of germany
• if you didn’t work hard - classed as a-social

Question 2

Race

Answer 2

• racially pure - Aryan

- ‘survival of the fittest’ - social darwinism

Question 3

Traditional German Values

Answer 3

• blood and soil

- had to work the land

Question 4

Industrial Workers

Answer 4

• working class made up largest section of society
• couldn’t assume Volksgemeinschaft would win them over
• they were essential to Hitler with rearmament to help with economy
• German Labour Front replaced T.Unions
• Strength through joy movement - work hard, be rewarded
• working hours increased

Question 5

Peasants and Small Farmers

Answer 5

• they liked the Nazis as they offered something for them
• during the economic crisis, their big loans were wiped
• rural prices rose which helped them
• Farm Law: can’t split land, making it more efficient as they wanted to be self-sufficient during the war

Question 6

Landowners

Answer 6

• low interest rates

- cheap land available during the war in attempt to make Germany self-sufficient

Question 7

Mittelstand

Answer 7

• introduced law to protect retail 1933 - stopped new dept stores opening (most were jewish)
• important class but had focussed on the upper and peasants

Question 8

Ideological Opponents

Answer 8

• communists - many sent to camps in 1933

- anyone who didn’t accept the regime e.g Pastor Niemaller, General Staffenburg

Question 9

Biologically Inferior

Answer 9

• all races to the Nazis seen as inferior (Jews, Gypsies, Slavs)
• mentally and physically disabled
• 1933; ‘Law for the prevention of hereditary diseased offspring’ , allowed for the compulsory sterilisation of those with hereditary conditions
• 1939; euthanasia for children with severe disabilities - Operation T4, 70,000 gassed 1940-41

Question 10

Asocials

Answer 10

• behaviour not viewed as acceptable
• social outcasts - alcoholics, prostitutes, workshy
• the orderly were rounded up or organised in Labour Front
• the disorderly imprisoned or sterilised
• homosexuals - couldn’t have children, 15,000 were imprisoned

Question 11

Youth

Answer 11

• Hiter Youth- get ready for army, always surrounded by the Nazi ideology. It was a form of indoctrination, the child should go, all building towards the 1000Yr Reich
• Education - people would get ready for their roles in life. Education had a Nazi twist, emphasis on P.E for war, History and Biology. Teachers had to be loyal to the regime, which made it become a less appealing profession

Question 12

Women

Answer 12

• 3k’s
• lebensborn, rewards for having children and a grant/loans for having children, all lead to the birth rate between 1933-39 birth rate rose but then slowly declined
• the number of marriages increased, but so did divorce. This is because divorce became easier, making it easier to have more children.

Question 13

Shop Boycotts

Answer 13

• 1st April 1933
• only lasted a day, as not everyone hated the Jews, and as Hitler wasn’t in a strong position due to A.48, he couldn’t use power to enforce the law.
• It was optional for public, and was therefore abandoned

Question 14

Nuremburg Laws

Answer 14

• Sept/Oct/Nov 1935 (series of laws)
• banned sexual relations between Germans and Jews
• took away Jewish citizenship
• it was a law, therefore, had to be followed

Question 15

Kristallnacht

Answer 15

• 9th November 1938
• destruction of Jewish homes, businesses and shops
• burnt 200 synagogues
• first violence against the Jews, and was government sponsored

Question 16

Forced Immigration

Answer 16

• 1939
• if you had the funds, it was a safe passage out of Germany, but most couldn’t afford it
• But not many wanted too take in German Jews at time of the war
• When stating they wanted to leave, they put themselves on the Nazi radar for being a Jew

Question 17

Religion, 3 stage approach

Answer 17

• Control, weaken and remove

Question 18

Controlling Religion

Answer 18

• Catholics - Concordat July 1933

- Protestants - Reich Church

Question 19

Reich Church

Answer 19

• umbrella organisation

- designed to control protestants, but them under one church, and some didn’t like that, the Confessional

Question 20

Confessional Church

Answer 20

• broke away from Reich church 1934
• 5,000 clergy, was popular
• didn’t want state intervention, nothing against Nazis, just wanted to continue as normal

Question 21

German Christians

Answer 21

• New racially blended Christianity - wanted to continue as normal

Question 22

German Faith Movement

Answer 22

• Hitler wanted to replace all of religion with it

- ‘SA of the church’

Question 23

Remove

Answer 23

• never actually removed religion
• was doing very well until the war
• perhaps if Germany had either avoided, or won the war, religion may have been removed