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Adolf Hitler's Consolidation of Power - Coggle Diagram
Adolf Hitler's Consolidation of Power
Propaganda
Radio: in 1933, Goebbels established Reich Radio with the aim of spreading Nazi propaganda - Campaign to provide all Germans w/ radios, by 1937 70% of population
Music/Theater: foreign products such as Jazz was rejected
Sport: propaganda tool (e.g. Berlin Olympics 1936) Hitler attended Olympics every day → Crowd greeted him with outbursts of affection
Newspaper: Editor’s law on October 1933: under this law, editors and journalist had to remain ‘racially pure’ → excluded Jews and those married to Jews; therefore, by 1939, only ⅓ of German newspapers remained and were reluctant to take anti-Nazi line
Transformation of German culture: Promote German nation as supreme form of social/cultural organization
Legal Methods (INPORTANT!!!!)
The Reichstag Fire, February 1933 - blaming on communist
The 'Shooting Decree'
The Reichstag Election, March 1933 - Enabling Bill passed 441 votes to 94 in the Reichstag
Gleichschaltung 1933-34 - keep the only party state by outlawing all other political parties other than the NSDAP
Passing the Enabling Bill
Hitler becomes President, August 1934 - his supreme power recognized when he adopted the title 'Fuhrer'
AJP Taylor: “Hitler was the most popular leader of any European country in modern Europe and it was silly to claim otherwise”*
Piers Brendon: “To consolidate his position as Chancellor, Hitler insisted on holding a democratic election to end democracy”
Crushing opposition: the Night of the Long Knives, June 1934 - Hitler conducted a violent purge, summer 1934 with the aim of eliminating the SA
Social Policies( IMPORTANT)
creation of over 400 antisemetic laws, one of the main laws were the Nuremberg laws
German Labour Front: Largest organization = German Labour Front, began 1933 / Aim = regulate German workforce along military lines → each worker = ‘soldier of the econ’
Kraft Durch Freude (KDF): ‘Strength Through Joy’ movement -> Provided Recreational Needs, ie organizing leisure for masses
Persecution of Other Minorities: Racial inferiors = ‘asocial degenerates’ -> 23% of Roma Gypsies killed in an extermination campaign, 15,000 Homosexuals put in concentration camps, 2000 Jehovah’s Witnesses murdered
Economic Policies (IMPORTANT)
Hjalmar Schatcht: finance minister who planeed the establishment of the 'Organization of Industry' and The New Plan in 1934 -> they both were very successful
Albert Speer: provided the Nazi rearmement programmes
Rearmament and the Four Year Plan under Hermann Goering: autarky was not achieved due to many issues
Economic historians suggest that in the twentieth century autarky was an impossible goal for advanced industrial states like Germany / Modern historians tend to suggest that complete autarky is impossible for an advanced nation
Terror and Violence
Schutzastaffel (SS): It was originally established as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard unit → it became both the elite guard of the Nazi Reich and Hitler’s executive force prepared for security without regard for legal restraints
SA: a paramilitary organization whose methods of violent intimidation played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and it was instrumental in the Nazi’s rise to power
Gestapo: played a crucial role in the internal security of Germany; They used ruthless and cruel tactics throughout Germany to identify and arrest people who had anti-Nazi feelings and refused to obey laws of the Nazi regime
Foreign Policy
Rearmament: Hitler protested that allies had not disarmed after WWI - left disarmament conf. & League of nations in 1933 → intensified secret rearmament
Rhineland (1936): Hitler supported Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, strengthening Italian + German relationship. Italy accepted Ger. influence in Austria + remilitarisation of Rhineland
Spanish Civil War/Alliance with Mussolini (1936): agreement to pursue joint foreign policy - wanted to stop the spread of communism
Anschluss with Austria (1938): Wanted Austria under German control to unit German Speakers -> Nazi party present in Austria + many austrians supported union of both countries.