How far did the Nazis control everydaylife in Germany after 1933?

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Jennie Bain 9cx

How far did the Nazis control everyday life in Germany after 1933?

In 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, after a long period of re-launching and rebuilding the national German workers party, also known as the Nazis. The minute he came to power he started to make drastic changes. He quickly persuaded the Reichstag to give him the power to make laws without their permission, and soon, he had control of the whole country.

If you want to brainwash a whole country of people, the best place to start is the youth of the nation. They are more naive, and do not have as strong an opinion as some adults may have, and if a person of authority tells them something they tend to accept it. What’s more, in a few years, they will be the adults, and will teach their children what they were taught as children. Hitler realised this from the beginning, and started two youth groups, one for the girls and one for the boys. The male group was simply called, “Hitler Youth”, whilst the female group was called The League Of German Maidens”, or “The Girl’s league”. Hitler Youth was similar to boy scouts, in some ways. They did lots of sport, outdoor adventures, and went camping. However, there were some clear differences. The main focus on the Hitler youth was military training. Boys as young as twelve could use a gun, dig a trench, and recite large sections of Mein Campf from memory. Children were quickly indoctrinated anti-Semitism; the hatred of Jews, and it was unthinkable for any Jewish children to join the Hitler youth movement. At first, Hitler youth was optional, but it soon became mandatory for all children under the age of sixteen to attend, and then they moved straight onto two years conscription in the German army. The girls were not taught about war in the girl’s league, they were educated to believe that their place was in the home, helping their mothers. They were told that when they grew up, they would start families with many children, and look after their brave soldier husbands. This picture was built up for the girls, and they were eager to be taught how to be a good wife and mother. Hitler also changed the education system. Jewish children were humiliated in class by the teachers, and then made to sit at different desks, then different classrooms, and then different schools. Textbooks were re-written, to praise the Nazis and Hitler. The children in school were taught about lebensaun (living space, one of Hitler’s theories), and there was a strong emphasis on how glorious fighting for and serving Germany would be. Even the maths books were war dominated, with questions such as; “A bullet is shot out of a gun, it travels 107 meters in 1.354 seconds before hitting a French soldier, what was the speed of the bullet?” History lessons were full of the wickedness of the treaty of Versailles and how France and Britain were evil. The most important lesson of all though, was how brilliant Germany was, and what an honour it was to be a pure Aryan German. This quote from Mein Kampf says it all; “It must be a greater honour to be a street cleaner and a citizen of this country than a king in a foreign state.” There were teenagers however, who rebelled. They called themselves the edelweiss pirates. They rioted against all the rules Hitler had laid down for young people. They drank, and smoked in public places. The girls wore make up and nail varnish, and styled their hair. They wore short skirts and revealing tops. The boys openly flirted with the girls, and they kissed in public. They listened to jazz music, which was particularly shocking, as the one race Hitler despised almost as much as the Jews were the blacks, and black people invented jazz music. However, this did not last long, the Nazis quickly caught any offenders and sentenced them to anything from curfews, to death.

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The Nazi government used a mixture of force, and rewards to try to win workers support. They banned trade unions in 1933, in case they tried to organise opposition against Hitler. But Hitler also created a lot of jobs. The number of unemployment’s dropped spectacularly from 6 million to 300,000! Some of these jobs were in factories that were making war goods such as planes and bombs, the rest were in the armed forces. There was an organisation called KDF, meaning “strength through joy”. KDF was an establishment designed to make sure German people were busy in their leisure ...

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