The Terror State

Question 1

Instead of introducing a new constitution of legal system after 1933, what did the Nazis do?

Answer 1

Introduced some new laws to deal with political offences and forced the existing justice system to adapt and bend to their will. Also new court and new police organisations to deal with political opponents.

Question 2

What did the new laws the Nazis set in place mean for legal principles?

Answer 2

Legal principles on which German law was based in the Weimar period no longer applied. No longer were all citizens treated as equal before the law. Judges were not permitted to work separate from the government. People can be imprisoned without trial or evidence.

Question 3

What changes did Hitler make to the individual state authorities that controlled the police?

Answer 3

Created a system of party-controlled, political police forces answerable to H, which gradually gained control over the entire police system.

Question 4

The police forces that existed under Hitler:

Answer 4

SS- Controlled by Himmler
SD- Intelligence gathering offshoot of the SS
SA- Controlled by Rohm, also acquired police powers to detain political prisoners.
Gestapo- Secret state police in Prussia

Question 5

Between 1933 and 1936 who was there a competition between for control over the police?

Answer 5

Himmler, Rohm, Goering.

Question 6

Between 1933 and 1936 there was a competition for control over the police, who won and how?

Answer 6

Himmler- power strengthened by the Night of Long Knives where Rohm was eliminated. Himmler exploited the rivalry between Goering and Frick.
1936- SS, SD, Gestapo were placed under Himmler’s control.
1939- Created Reich Security Department Headquarters, placed all party and state organisations under one organisation supervised by SS.

Question 7

After the night of the long knives, what became the main nazi party organisation involved in identification/arresting political prisoners?

Answer 7

SS

Question 8

Under SS control, the entire police system in Germany was an instrument of who?

Answer 8

Fuhrer and Nazi party.

Question 9

Key values for an SS member:

Answer 9

Loyalty and honour, defined strictly in terms od adherence to Nazi ideology.

Question 10

After 1936 what was there an increase in, and how can that be seen?

Answer 10

Repression, as seen by the increase in concentration camp inmates.

Question 11

Examples of how the SS used violence:

Answer 11

Violence and murder were instruments of State power to be employed ruthlessly and without reference to moral standards. SS concentration camp guards were deliberately brutalised to remove any feelings of humanity they might feel towards their prisoners.

Question 12

When was the SD established and what for?

Answer 12

1931, as the internal security service of the Nazi party.

Question 13

Who led the SD?

Answer 13

Reinhard Heydrich

Question 14

After 1933, what was the SD’s role?

Answer 14

Intelligence gathering and monitoring public opinion and report those who voted no in plebiscites to Hitler.

Question 15

How many officers did the SD have by 1939?

Answer 15

50,000

Question 16

Where was the Gestapo originally set up?

Answer 16

Prussia alone, under the Nazi regime its operations were extended to cover the whole country.

Question 17

What was the Gestapo’s reputation?

Answer 17

All-knowing, locals believed they were in every workplace, pub and neighbourhood.

Question 18

How many officers were in the Gestapo in 1939?

Answer 18

20,000 to cover the whole country.

Question 19

If most of the Gestapo members were not of the Nazi Party, what were they?

Answer 19

Professional police officers who saw their role as to serve the state.

Question 20

Who were one of the main sources of information for the Gestapo?

Answer 20

Nazi party activists who were asked to spy on neighbourhoods. Every block of flats and residential street has a ‘block leader’ who would report suspicious activity.

Question 21

Where did a lot of information for the Gestapo come from that had no links to the nazi party?

Answer 21

Voluntary denunciations of workmates and neighbours by ordinary Germans- most motivated by personal grudges.

Question 22

Despite is size, how successful was the Gestapo at instilling fear?

Answer 22

Very, political debate and criticism stifled and people believed there were Gestapo agents and informers everywhere so adjusted their behaviour accordingly.

Question 23

Hitlers moves to coordinate the justice system:

Answer 23

-Merging professional associations of judges and lawyers, it was made clear to them that their career depended on them doing the regime’s bidding.
-Intro of new courts. These courts (people’s court and special courts) were to deal with political crimes and had 3 nazi judges and 2 professionals- defendants had no right to appeal their sentencing.

Question 24

How many people were tried by the people’s court between 1934 and 1939?

Answer 24

3400, mostly former communists and socialists.

Question 25

What form of punishment was increasingly used in the Third Reich?

Answer 25

Death penalty

Question 26

What 2 factors were used to gain a string base of support for the nazi regime?

Answer 26

Gleichschaltung and propaganda

Question 27

What did the terms 'people's court' and 'popular justice' represent?

Answer 27

Repression and persecution as something that reflected the will of the people.

Question 28

Why was the SPD unprepared for a nazi takeover in 1933?

Answer 28

They worked within the law and was not equipped to organise a resistance to a regime that did not respect the law.

Question 29

What was the result of the nazi party gaining power on the SPD?

Answer 29

By the end of 1933, thousands of SPD activists were murdered or placed into preventive custody and leadership fled into exile.

Question 30

What did Ernst Schumacher organise from a base in Prague?

Answer 30

SPD small, secret cells of supporters in factories. There were some city based groups, e.g Berlin Red Patrol. Propaganda pamphlets were smuggled from Czech.

Question 31

What was the SPD's priority after majority were killed and exiled?

Answer 31

Survive and be prepared for when the regime fell.

Question 32

What % of the KPD's membership was killed by Nazis during 1933?

Answer 32

10%

Question 33

What did the KPD set up in German industrial centres, Berlin and Hamburg after 1933?

Answer 33

Underground network in some German industrial centres. Revolutionary unions in Berlin and Hamburg to recruit members and publish newspapers.

Question 34

What happened to the underground KPD networks?

Answer 34

Broken up by Gestapo

Question 35

What party were the largest workers unions linked to and what party did they hate?

Answer 35

Linked to SPD and opposed the Nazis.

Question 36

What caused the union resistance to crumble quickly after 1933?

Answer 36

Trade unions absorbed into the DAF and Nazi propaganda emphasised the importance of national opposed to class solidarity.

Question 37

In September 1935, how many workers strikes took place?

Answer 37

37 strikes in Rhineland-Westphalia, Silesia and Wurttemberg.

Question 38

In the whole of 1937 how many workers strikes were there?

Answer 38

250

Question 39

Why were there so many strikes in 1937?

Answer 39

Poor working conditions or low wages, strikes increased in 1935-36 over food prices.

Question 40

How did the regime view the strikes of 1937?

Answer 40

A challenge.

Question 41

How many were punished for strikes in 1935/6?

Answer 41

Of the 25,00 workers, 4000 spent time in prison. After a 17 minute strike in a car factory in 1936, 7 ringleaders were arrested by Gestapo and imprisoned.

Question 42

Other than strikes, how did workers show their dissatisfaction?

Answer 42

Absenteeism and deliberate damage to machinery.

Question 43

What did the regime do to stop absenteeism and 'sabotage' to machinery?

Answer 43

1938- New regulations laid down severe punishment for 'slackers'- Gestapo arrested 114 workers that year. Regime made 'sabotage' a criminal offence, prosecutions increased in 1938-39.

Question 44

What was the only organisation in Nazi Germany that retained an alternative ideology, independent of the regime?

Answer 44

Christian churches, also retained some organisational autonomy- made them powerful.

Question 45

What church role was as important as that of the Nazi party in manny communities?

Answer 45

Pastors and priests.

Question 46

What did churches know would happen if they were in a sustained conflict with the regime?

Answer 46

They would lose.

Question 47

What did efforts from the regime to coordinate the protestant church into volksgemeinschaft lead to?

Answer 47

Division in the protestant congregation.

Question 48

Developments of what in the protestant church were acts of resistance?

Answer 48

Establishment of Pastors' Emergency League 1933 and its development into the Confessional Church in 1934. This was lead by pastors from academic background.

Question 49

What were the 3 reasons some pastors refused to be a part of a coordinated reich church?

Answer 49

-Protect independence of the protestant church from the regime -Resisting the attempt to impose the Aryan paragraph on the church- involved purging from the church any pastor converted from Judaism -Defend the orthodox Lutheran theology, based purely on the bible.

Question 50

Aryan paragraph:

Answer 50

Under the 1933 law on the reconstruction of the professional civil service, the 3rd paragraph stated that those who were not of Aryan birth had to be dismissed from their jobs,

Question 51

Why was there growing struggle between the Confessional Church and the regime in 1934?

Answer 51

Pastors spoke against 'Nazified Christ' from their pulpits. Many churches refused to hang the swastika. 2 Confessional Church bishops were arrested- mass demonstrations in their support, regime responded with extreme repression. Dissenting pastors had salaries stopped, banned from teaching in schools and were arrested.

Question 52

By the end of 1937 how many pastors were arrested?

Answer 52

Over 700

Question 53

Overall what effect did the regime have on the Confessional Church?

Answer 53

Failed to silence it but the Confessional Church did not form full opposition. Majority of members professed loyalty to Hitler and the regime. Protestant churches became inward-looking. Churches as a whole remained silent.

Question 54

Why was the Catholic Church in some ways in a stronger position to retain its independence?

Answer 54

It was more united, more centralised and had more of a tradition of independence from the State.

Question 55

What happened that made the Catholic Church increasingly at odds with the regime?

Answer 55

Attack of the privileges granted by the Concordat of 1933.

Question 56

In 1937, what did the Pope issue against the pressure on the Catholic Church?

Answer 56

Papal encyclical 'With Burning Grief', it condemned Nazi hatred upon the church. It was smuggled into Germany and secretly spread by messengers.

Question 57

What was the regime's response to the pope speaking against them?

Answer 57

Increase repression. Charges against priests for 'abuse of the pulpit' became regular occurances. There was some resistance- arrest of a priest lead to noisy public demonstrations at his trial.

Question 58

What effect did the intimidation and harassment of priests have?

Answer 58

Desired effect. Reported in 1937 that the clergy were beginning to show cautious restraint.

Question 59

Overall how can catholic resistance to the regime be described?

Answer 59

Did not move beyond a narrow defence of its independence to a wider opposition to Nazism, it was therefore partial, spasmodic and ineffective.