Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Nazi terror created a totalitarian state between 1933-39’. Assess the…
Nazi terror created a totalitarian state between 1933-39’. Assess the validity of this view.
SS
Controlled all concentration camps
Camp guards immune from prosecution
Formed the Einsatzgruppen
Death squads following the army killing racial minorities
Heinrich Himmler controlled all German Police after the night of the long knives in 1934 and 1936
Secured loyalty of aristrocratic elite by offering them gifts and honoury SS positions
Used cabinet positions to put police forces under the control of the party
Counter argument
Internal rivalries hindered the efficiency of the Nazi Terror State
Between 1933-1936 Himmler, Goering and Rohm competed for control over the police
Gestapo and SD responsibilites often overlapped which led to confusion
Himmler exploited a rivalry between Goering and Wilhelm Frick
SD
For
Over 50,000 officers
Reveiwed pole results to analyse Hitler's public appeal
SD sections overseen by Heydrich
SD-Inland became Amt (department) III (internal intelligence – within Germany) under Otto Ohlendorf
the Gestapo became Amt IV under Heinrich Müller
the Kripo became Amt V under Arthur Nebe
SD-Ausland became Amt VI (foreign intelligence – outside Germany) under Walter Schellenberg
Oversaw alot of the apparatus of the Terror state under the Reich Security main office
Gestapo
Counter argument
o Only had 20,000 officers in 1939 for the whole country
Gained most information from informants
Reputation
Was infamous and gained a reputation for being all-knowing
Was feared by the German population
Most Germans believed they had agents in every neighbourhood, pub and workplace.
1936 the Kripo (Criminal Police) was merged into the Gestapo
Courts and the Justice System
Points
Special courts were set up to prosecute political crimes
Consisted of three Nazi judges with two professional ones
No juries and defendants had no rights of appeal against their sentences
Between 1934 and 1939 3,400 people were tried by the new People's court (Volkscourt)
Most former communists and socialists
Most were given the death penalty, which was increasingly used
Judges had to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler and were exected to act in the interests of the Nazi state
All lawyers had to join the Nazi Lawyer's association
Protective custody was introduced for those who might comitt a crime
Counter points
Courts failed to prosecute communists for starting the reichstag fire
SA
Lead by WW1 captain Ernst Rohm
Committed violence agains tpolitical enemies in the streets
Counter argument
Was purged during the knight of the long knives
Nazi subordinates may have been too ambitious
Propaganda
This may have been more effective than the terror state
"The Carrot"
Goebbels propaganda manipulated the minds of the German people
Convinced Germans to be more submissive and loyal
Subtle Nazi messages were mixed into Nazi radio and film
Nazi Rallies showed off the power of Nazi Germany
Created the fuhrer myth (cult)