The racial state: Nazi society 1933-9 (Opposition and consent: the popularity of the Nazi regime) Flashcards
What problem do historians face when trying to assess public opinion on the popularity of the regime?
‘We cannot quantify Hitler’s popularity at any given time during the Third Reich’ - Ian Kershaw
What two important sources have been used to understand the nature of public opinion in Nazi Germany?
Records of the Gestapo and the SD
Records of SOPADE (SPD in exile)
Why do the sources of records of the Gestapo and SD and SOPADE need careful evaluation?
They are subjective
What are the key factors that support many held support and sympathy for the regime?
Economic recovery - strong or weak, rep. gains for many workers. Ind. workers hated longer hours + low wages, benefited from restoration of full employment by 1939
Diplomatic success of 1935-9 (followed by military victories of 1939-41) - real achievements in foreign policy, nation that lost WW1 + experienced failure of Weimar, Hitler seen as effective leader
Restoration of political and economic stability - received well by many esp. middle class who feared threat of comms.
Many youngsters enjoyed social & phys. aspects of Hitler Youth
Social benefits intro. from welfare orgs. e.g. Kdf SdA - made people feel they recognised their problems and anxieties
Trad. Family values - at expense of women’s rights - were not unpopular esp. in rural areas
What was the response in the opinion poll ‘Everything that was built up between 1933 and 1939 was destroyed by the war. Would you say that without the war Hitler would have been one of the greatest statesmen?’
18% in favour
36% against
Remainder ‘Don’t knows’
In the years before the war the propaganda machine was successful in the sense that …
3 bullet points
Cultivated Hitler myth of him as an effective leader - messianic qualities which glorified him as a ‘saviour’
Volksgemeinshaft model as a stabilising force which promised harmony and security after the civil strife and conflicts of the Weimar years
Played on frustrated German nationalism
The 3rd Reich developed a regime built on what? 3 things
Terror, intimidation and (backed by)
surveillance
…. were lost and the courts were increasingly made to …….. which upheld the regime
Civil rights and freedoms were lost and the courts were increasingly made to deliver judgements and sentences which upheld the regime.
What happened to any ‘outsiders’?
Sent to camps or held in prison
Active resistance to undermine the Nazi state could only have come from who?
The elites
When did the disillusioned elements act together?
Late 1930s
After the war, historians tended to simply focus on those who ‘actively’ resisted the regime.
Marxist historians in …. Germany concentrated on the role of ….
Others in …. Germany tended to highlight those ……. who …….
Marxist historians in East Germany concentrated on the role of Communist opposition.
Others in West Germany tended to highlight those famous individuals who valiantly fought for freedom and liberalism.
A new generation of historians from the 1970s and their adopted research techniques broadened the study of opposition to include who?
Anyone who did not conform to Nazi expectations
What are critics beliefs of the 1970 historians view on opposition?
See it as trying to play down active resistance and to exaggerate importance of mere passive behaviour, which had little real effect on the regime
What were the dangers in drawing defined boundary-lines (passive + active resistance)?
Any individual’s behaviour was rarely clear cut
Most people exhibited a broad mixture of attituded, variously shaped by rel. fin. moral or personal influences
