The Police State

Question 1

What is a Police State?

Answer 1

When a government uses the police (often the secret police) to control what people do and say. people who did and said anything to harm the state or the Nazi party were punished.

Question 2

Why did Hitler set up his own policing forces in 1933?

Answer 2

Because he realized that not all existing German Police supported him. They were controlled by the central government but run by local authorities in German states and towns, which meant that in January 1933 his control of them was still weak. These forces were run by the Nazi Party, not by the Government. Their main weapon was fear.

Question 3

What were the main organisations used by Hitler to control this Nazi Police State?

Answer 3

The SS and SD and the Gestapo. At first, these were separate Nazi organizations but gradually they were organized into a structure.

Question 4

What was the SS?

Answer 4

SS (Protection Squad)

• Set up by Hitler and Himmler in 1925.
• They were led by Himmler.
• They wore black uniforms.
• They controlled all german policing and security forces.
• They acted outside the Law.
• members had to Marry ‘Racially pure’ wives and produce ‘racially pure’ Germans for the futrue.
• They ran the concentration camps.

Question 5

What was the SD?

Answer 5

SD (Security Service)

• Set up by Heinrich Himmler in 1931.
• They were led by Reynhard Heydrich.
• They wore uniforms.
• They spied on all opponents of the nazi party, both home and abroad.
• Kept a card index of everyone it suspected of opposing the Nazi party or the German government.

Question 6

What was Gestapo?

Answer 6

Gestapo (Secret State Police)

• Set up by Herman Goering in 1933.
• They were led by Reynhard Heydrich.
• They wore plain clothing.
• They spied on people.
• Prosecuted people for speaking out against the Nazis.
• Sent people to concentration camps and used torture.
• The main Weapon of the Gestapo was fear because they could not tell them apart from any other members of the public, and when rumors about the conditions of the concentration camp leaked, fear of the Gestapo grew.

Question 7

How many people were arrested in 1939 alone, for political offence?

Answer 7

160,000 people.

Question 8

What did it mean to be under ‘protective arrest’ in prisons? and How many people were under this kind of arrest by 1933?

Answer 8

150,000 people.
it meant that you hadn’t committed criminal acts such as stealing but instead you were locked up for doing things Nazid disapproved of, such as voicing views to oppose Hitler and the Nazis.

Question 9

What cope with the growing number of people under ‘Protective arrest” what new prisons were built?

Answer 9

Concentration camps.

Question 10

Where and when was the first Nazi concentration camp built?

Answer 10

At Dachau in 1933 to house the growing number of people being arrested.

Question 11

What sort of places were camps built in?

Answer 11

Isolated areas so that nobody could see what was going on inside them.

Question 12

WHo were the inmates of concentration camps?

Answer 12

• those considered by the Nazis as ‘undesirable’ such as homosexuals or prostitutes.
• Minority groups such a jews, of whom the Nazis disapproved.
• Political Prisoners, people whom the Nazis feared would undermine their control of Germany, including intellectuals, communists, or political writers.

Question 13

How many concentration camps were there by 1939, and how many people did they hold?

Answer 13

six, and they heald over 20,000 people.

Question 14

What were death camps?

Answer 14

Camps used to mass murder minority groups such as Jews.

Question 15

When and where was the first camp opened for women.

Answer 15

1939, in Moringen.

Question 16

What was the Nationalist Socialist League for the Maintenance of the Law?

Answer 16

A League that all judges had to be members and if any judges displeased the nazis, they were denied membership.

• All judges had to favor the Nazi Party in any decisions, even in the conflict between the interests of the Nazi party and the law.
• This way Hitler could ensure that all judges would support the nazi ideas.

Question 17

What did Hitler do to control the law courts?

Answer 17

• He abolished trial by jury. Judges decided innocence, guilt, and punishments.
• He set up people’s courts to hear all treason cases. Trials were held in secret and judges were hand-picked.
• There was no right to appeal against the verdict of the People’s Court.

Question 18

How many people were sentenced to death between 1934 and 1939 for political offences?

Answer 18

534 people.

Question 19

Which Nazi and Christian beliefs conflicted?

Answer 19

Nazis: Hitler was the all-powerful leader.
Christian church: God was the ultimate authority.
Nazis: Aryan Racial superiority.
Christian Chruch: Everyone was equal in the eyes of God.
Nazis: War, military discipline, and violence were important.
Christian Church: Peace is what everyone should strive for.
Nazis: Dominance of the strong over the weak.
Christian Church: The strong should look after the weak.

Question 20

What were the obvious sources of friction between the Nazis and the Catholics?

Answer 20

• On social issues, Catholics owed their first allegiance to the Pope, rather than Hitler.
• Catholics had their own schools which taught different values from Nazi state schools.
• They usually supported the Catholic Centre party.

Question 21

What was the Concordat (agreement between Hitler and the Pope), and when was it agreed?

Answer 21

In July 1933, Hitler agreed with the pope that Catholics had freedom of Worship, and they could continue to run their own schools in return for staying out of politics.

Question 22

How did Hitler break the concordat, and how did the Pope react?

Answer 22

-Priests opposing Nazis were harassed and/or sent to concentration camps.
-Catholic schools were brought in line with state schools and had to remove Christian symbols, and were eventually closed.
-Catholic youth activities, such as the Catholic Youth League, were banned.
In 1937 Pope Pius XI realised that the concordat was worthless and spoke out against Hitler in a statement known as “with burning anxiety”, which criticized Nazi politics.

Question 23

Why did some protestants work with the nazis at first?

Answer 23

Because they were so grateful that he had protected them from the anti-Christian communists.

Question 24

What was the Reich Church? When was it founded? Who was it’s leader?

Answer 24

A combination of the Protestant Churches working in favor of the Nazis Party formed in 1936 and became a single protestant church known as the Reich church.

• Its leader was Ludwig Muller.
• It was made up of about 2000 protestant churches.
• It supported the Nazis.
• It had some germans that wore Nazi uniforms and called themselves German Christians.
• The Nazis insisted that No Jew was baptized into the church and that no Jewish teachings such as the Old-testament should be excluded from Christian teachings.

Question 25

Who was Pastor Martin Niemoller, and what did he do?

Answer 25

He was the founder of the Confessional Church in 1934,
it opposed the Nazis.
-It was made up of 6000 protestant churches.
-it was repressed by the nazis
-He also set up the PEL (Protestant Emergency League) in 1933, to campaign against Nazi actions.
-Niemoller was sent to a concertration camp in 1937, and PEL was bannned.