Topic 4 - The Nazi terror state

The Nazi policing system

Hence, what change was made in 1936? In 1936, the SS, SD and Gestapo came under the control of Himmler

What was the role of the SS up to 1936? They were the main organisation in Hitlers state. They ran the concentration camps, it was also their role to remove political opponents from society and treat them with violence and brutality.

Why did this large amount of organisations pose a problem? The large amount of different organisations meant that there was confusion between roles and led to competition between leaders of the different organisations

What was the role of the SS after 1936? Following the removal of the Communist and social democrat political opponents, the SS role changed to rounding up asocial and undesirables and putting them in concentration camps

what organisations made up the Nazi police state? SS, Opro, Sipo, SD, Gestapo

Who were the SD? SD was an offshoot from the SS but were not trained, just very passionate Nazis

What was the role of the SD? To monitor public opinion of the regime and report this to Hitler by producing SD reports - for example it was the SD who reported the results of the August 19th plebiscite as 10% not accepting Hitler as Fuhrer.

Hopw large was the Gestapo? Gestapo was small - 32,000 personell by the end of 1944

How large did the German population think the Gestapo were? They believed that the Gestapo were everywhere in every pub, restaurant, street etc - hence they were afraid to publicly shame the regime - hence opposition could not be spread. This fear and therefore obedience really helped the Nazi party

What was the role of the Gestapo? The role of the Gestapo was the secret state police and hence to find the non conformers from within society and remove them so ha their opposition did not grow

How did the Gestapo work? The Gestapo worked by their being a "block leader" in every street who acted as an informer of any opposition

Why did the Gestapo arrest so many people? There were so many denunciations from informers due to personal grudges that the Gestapo couldn't nor tried to differentiate between the guilty and non guilty, so arrested them all just to be on the safe side

The Judicial system - or the lack of it

Why did hey need to control the courts? What the Nazis were doing such as night of the Long Knives were illegal and they were aware it was teh lawyers and judges role to implement the law

Hence the judicial system were a potential threat to the Nazi regime

Nazis determined not to be ruled by law

So what did Hitler do? In April 1933, Hitler created the League of National Socialist Lawyers in which all members career prospects depended on them obiding national socialism

He also set up the Peoples Courts and Special Courts which had two official judges and three Nazis. Hence, the Nazis could exploit the skills of the trained lawyers, but they had no power to resist the regime

Dualism that allowed repression of opponents (mainly political opponents between 1933-1936) and racial opponents 1936 onwards

Enabling Act meant people could be imprisoned without trial and even if people were put on trail in the peoples court, they were unfair and could be swung the way the Nazis wanted it

Propaganda

Hitler stated that the government would embark on a systematic campaign to restore the nations moral and material health and the whole education system, theatre, film, press and broadcasting will be used as a means to an end

Who was in charge of Nazi propaganda? Josephs Goebbels

What can be used as evidence of the aims of Nazi propaganda? Joseph Goebbels speech in March 1933 "It is not enough to reconcile people with our regime, or make them, neutral towards us, we want rather to work on people until they have become addicted to us"

What did Goebbels do to newspapers? 1933 The Editors Law was passed, meaning that the editor had sole responsibility for the works so if they didn't meet Nazi standards, then they would face the consequences, yet another example of how the Nazis used fear to coerce people into obedience

What were the aims of Nazi propaganda? The aim was not only to make people neutral towards the regime, but to make people ferevently in support and addicted to the regime

What was the name of the Nazis official newspaper? Volkisher Beobachter

By 1939, how much of the German press did the Nazis have control over? 2/3

How did Goebbels coordinate radio? Goebells set up the Reich Radio Company, from which all radio broadcast from Germany was made from

How did the Nazis make radios accessible for all? They set up the Peoples receiver which was a cheap radio people could afford and radio broadcast were made in public places, so that even those without a radio could not escape indoctrination

How many people owned a radio by 1939 compared to 1932? 1932 = 27% 1939 = 70%. This was the highest figure in the world

Why was the Hitler salute set up? So to strengthen peoples identification with the regime

What was Nazi culture coordinated by? Nazi culture was coordinated by the Reich Chamber of Culture - a Nazi organisation

What was the impact of the Reich Chamber of Culture? It meant that every individual was responsible for their creativity, hence meaning like with the Editors law also of 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture forced artists, authors and musicians to conform. No alternative ideas could be spread

What composers did Hitler allow and what did he ban? Hitler encouraged traditional artists who were anti Semitic such as Beethoven and banned Jewish composers such as Mendelssohn

What type of music was banned and why? Jazz music because it was seen as Western and degenerate

Why were anti Nazi ideas not spread by Literature? Over 2500 of the Wiemar authors such as Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht left Germany upon the rise of Hitler, so the literates were replaced with those who were sympathetic towards the regime

What groups of society did propaganda have the most effect on? Indoctrination most effective on the young who had little preconceieved ideas

What group of society did propaganda have the least affect on? Those with stronghold beliefs such as religion. Hence religious supporters remained throughout the regime

Opposition that formed despite the propaganda and terror

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How much of a threat were the left? Contrary to Hitlers beliefs, the left posed very little threat because the KPD refused to form an unified left so possessed very little power

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Apart from portraying anti semetist and ideologies such as blood and soil, what else did propaganda do? Show people what would happened if they didn't conform - e.g: Goebbels used the Knight of the Long Knives June 30th 1934 as propaganda

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