Social policy and Practice in Nazi Germany

Question 1

What did teachers have to join or be sacked?

Answer 1

Teachers had to join the German Teachers League and teach what the Nazis wanted or be sacked.

Question 2

How did History lessons change in Nazi Germany?

Answer 2

History lessons were concentrated on:
- the Treaty of Versailles
- the rise of the Nazi party
- the weakness of German before the Nazis
- the evils of Communism and the Jews

Question 3

What was taught in biology lessons in Nazi Germany?

Answer 3

• taught abut eugenics and the supposed dangers of mating with other ‘weaker’ races
• it taught how to measure facial features in order to identify racial types

Question 4

What was taught in geography lessons in Nazi Germany

Answer 4

• taught about the land lost under the ToV
• taught about the need to Lebensraum (living space)

Question 5

How did the Nazis use books/textbooks to indoctrinate children with their ideology?

Answer 5

• children were given books explaining how Jewish people were ‘evil’ and and how they were causing all of Germany’s problems
• textbooks would have problems that reinforced Nazi beliefs

Question 6

What were ‘ Napolas’?

Answer 6

Students who were identified as potential future Nazi leaders were sent to special academies known as ‘Napolas’.

Question 7

How did universities change under the Nazis?

Answer 7

• 15% of Nazi lecturers were replaced for racial or political reasons
• the nazis did not regard university education as important and fewer Germans attended university during the Nazi era
• universities had to change their courses to reflect Nazi ideals
• all students had to train as a soldier for a month each year

Question 8

When was the Hitler Youth founded?

Answer 8

1922

Question 9

In what year were all youth groups banned except the Hitler Youth?

Answer 9

1933

Question 10

In what year was membership of the Hitler Youth made compulsory?

Answer 10

1939

Question 11

What did boys do at the Hitler Youth?

Answer 11

• they learned how to march, fight with knives, fire a gun and keep fit
• the Nazis wanted to prepare boys for a military future
  -used to indoctrinate children with Nazi ideology

Question 12

How was girls’ education different under the Nazis?

Answer 12

• had to take subjects seen as feminine eg singing, history of Germany, German geography, German, Race study, domestic science, Nazi Party beliefs
• Hitler wanted to prepare young women to be wives and mothers

Question 13

What was life like for women in the 1920s during the Weimar era?

Answer 13

• German women had many rights and freedoms. eg they could vote and if they worked for the government, there pay was equal to men
• many women attended university and became lawyers and doctors

Question 14

Why were the Nazis worried about the increased freedoms women had?

Answer 14

• as more women worked, the birth rate fell
• in 1900 there had been over 2 million births per year but in 1933 there were under 1 milllion
• the Nazis felt that a low birth rate didn’t fit with their plans to expand Germany’s territory and settle Germans in other areas of Europe

Question 15

What did the Nazis feel women should do?

Answer 15

• stay at home, have lots of children’s and support their husbands
• women should stick to the 3 is: Kinder, Kirche and Küche (children, church and kitchen)

Question 16

What policies did the Nazis have concerning work and women?

Answer 16

• many female doctors.teachers, lawyers and judges were sacked
• working was discouraged as it might hinder producing children

Question 17

How were women expected to behave in N azi Germany?

Answer 17

• in many cities, women were banned from smoking because it was ‘unladylike’
• wearing trousers or high heels was also frowned upon for the same reason
• dieting was also discouraged because it might make it harder to get pregnant

Question 18

What was the ‘Law for Prevention of Diseased Offspring’?

Answer 18

It allowed forcible sterilisation of women with a history of mental illness, hereditary diseases pr antisocial behaviour (like alcoholism)

Question 19

In what ways did the Nazis encourage women to have more children?

Answer 19

• contraception and abortion were banned
• generous loans were given to newly married couples to encourage them to habe children
• mothers with 8 children received the ‘Gold Cross’

Question 20

Why was it important that the Nazis kept the Christians happy?

Answer 20

most Germans were Christians

Question 21

How did Nazi ideas differ from Christian ones??

Answer 21

• Nazis though strength and violence were glorious whereas christianity promoted love and forgiveness
• Nazis hated the weak and vulnerable whereas christians encouraged helping the weak and vulnerable
• the Nazis believed some races were superior to others but christina’s believe all people are equal
• Hitler was a God-like figure for the Nazis but christian’s believe in God and worship him only

Question 22

Why did some Christians support the Nazis?

Answer 22

• the Nazis believed in the importance of marriage, the family and moral values - most christian’s believe in the importance of these too
• Hitler had sworn to destroy communism which appealed to Christina’s as communism was anti-religious
• Hitler promised to respect the church

Question 23

What was the Confessional Church?

Answer 23

• formed by Pastor Martin Niemöller
• Protestant church that openly criticised the Nazis
• the nazi arrested around 800 astors of the Confessional Church
• Niemöller was sent to a concentration camp and the Confessional Church was banned

Question 24

What were the ‘German Christians’?

Answer 24

group of Protestants who admired Hitler and wanted to see their Church under Nazi control

Question 25

How did Hitler’s relationship with the Catholic church breakdown?

Answer 25

• he signed an agreement with the Pope that the Nazis would not interfere with the Catholic Church
• Hitler soon broke this agreement by having Catholic priests harrassed and arrested and Catholic youth clubs and schools closed down
• the Pope issued a statement thats aid that the Nazis were ‘hostile to Christ and his Church’
• the Nazis continues to persecute Catholic priests

Question 26

What happened to Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Nazi era and why?

Answer 26

• they were pacifists who refused to serve in the army
• 1/3 of Germany’s Jehovah’s witnesses were killed in concentration camps

Question 27

What racial groups were persecuted by the Nazis?

Answer 27

• Jews
• Gypsies
• Slavs
• black people
• Indian people

Question 28

What groups of people did the Nazis class as ‘undesirables’?

Answer 28

• people with mental and physical disabilities
• homeless people
• beggars
• alcoholics
• prostitutes
• homosexuals
• ‘problem’ families

Question 29

What early policies were there against Jews?

Answer 29

• all Jewish shops were marked with a yellow Star of David or the word Juden. Soldiers stood outside shops turning people away
• Jewish children were forced out of German state schools and ‘Eugenics’ was introduced in schools
• the Nuremberg Laws banned marriages between Jews and non-Jews. It also removed German citizenship
• all Jewish lawyers, judges, teachers and later doctors were sacked

Question 30

What was Kristallnacht?

Answer 30

• November 1938
• Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses were attacked all over Germany and Austria
• about 100 Jews were killed and 20,000 sent to concentration camps

Question 31

How did persecution of the Jews intensify when war broke out in 1939?

Answer 31

• Jews were rounded up in some of the countries under Nazi occupation and forced to live in ghettos in major cities or sent to work in labour camps
• Execution squads (Einsatzgruppen) went out into the countryside and shot or gassed Jews

Question 32

What was the Wannsee Conference and what was decided at it?

Answer 32

• 1942
• Nazi leaders planned what they called ‘a final solution to the Jewish question’
• they decided on the mass murder of every Jew in Nazi-controlled territory

Question 33

In what ways did some Jews resist the Nazis?

Answer 33

• they formed resistance groups
• attacked German soliders
• blew up railway lines that the German were using
• there was resistance in some ghettos - the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 which lasted 43 days
• there were occasional rebellions in death camps