This quote and the facts and figures shown above shows that the Nazis were ruthless and brutal and did create terror as a basis of control.
The opposite of this view is the revisionist view. In their opinion the Gestapo were overworked, inefficient and bogged down in the bureaucratic system of Germany and therefore did not control the public by terror. Evidence of them being overworked is the fact that at the height of its power the Gestapo only had 30,000 officers and that was just under 36,000 people to every officer. So you can see how their force was stretched. Gestapo officials were increasingly overloaded with paperwork. Most of the Gestapo were ordinary police with only 3,000 from the S.S making terror the basis of fundamental control unlikely. There were also too many voluntary denunciations and many of these were trivial. Over 80% of these denunciations were voluntary and often used as a way of getting rid of an unwanted husband or an unpleasant neighbour. This shows that the fundamental basis of control was not terror.
The synthesis of these two arguments is that the Gestapo may be overstretched but the brutality and terror that they did use was sufficient to keep the public under control. However, despite the apparent weakness of the Gestapo, the image of power served to intimidate potential opposition and more importantly to gain co-operation from the public.
There were other ways the Nazis controlled the public. One of these fundamental basis of control why bother with propaganda. The idea of propaganda was to indoctrinate the people without them knowing but to spell out the core ideas and beliefs. A quote from Goebbel’s states:
“The propaganda must always be in a position to speak to people in language that they understand. These capacities are the essential preconditions for success.”
This statement shows that they believe propaganda to be pat of the fundamental basis of control. Therefore terror can not be the sole basis of control.
Policies were a basis of control because some policies were popular and successful people were willing to go along with their other ideas because they were improving Germany in some ways. Economic recovery policies and foreign policy successes made the public to go along with them. People were generally pleased by anti-Semitism, nationalism, euthanasia, harsh on criminals, foreign policy and self sufficiency policies were popular in the general public. More so popular by the middle class and upper class.
The last basis of control the Nazis had was the Hitler myth. The Hitler myth was a carefully cultivated image that portrayed him as a hero, the saviour of the economy, the rebuilder of German strengths and personification of the nation. This gained popularity through the effect of the powerful propaganda machine. The myth contributed to Hitler’s great personal popularity and only a few rejected him and his myth. This made people prepared to go along with the Nazi regime because they believed in him so much and trapped into the need for a strong leader like Bismarck and Willhelm II. It is quoted:
“Hitler’s huge platform of popularity made his own power position ever more unassailable, providing the foundation for the selective radicalization process.”
This quote shows that Hitler’s personal popularity enabled him to control the public sufficiently to go along with his and the parties views. This is a major part in the fundamental basis of control.
To conclude it has been shown that terror is not the fundamental basis of control. The fundamental basis of control is in fact a combination of terror provided by the Gestapo, propaganda provided by Goebbel’s and his ministry of public enlightenment and propaganda, the policy succeses of the government and finally the huge personal popularity of Hitler as the leader of the Nazis. This combination is what the Nazis used to control the public in which terror plays a small part and not the fundamental basis of control. To answer the question to no extent was terror the fundamental basis of control.
