Nazi Germany Revision. This article is divided into two sections. One will deal with Nazi Methods of Control and the other with Life in Nazi Germany.

effectiveness of the Gestapo has probably been exaggerated.   ii)                  Persecution In addition to active political enemies of the state, certain minority groups were singled out for persecution for racially ideological reasons.  The most significant group were the Jews whom Hitler considered to be inferior.  Initially Jews were sacked from important jobs in the civil service, the law, universities, schools, medicine, broadcasting and newspapers.  Their shops and businesses were attacked and children were taught of their inferiority in schools. In 1935, Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws which deprived Jews of their German citizenship, forbade them to marry non-Jews and ruled that even a person with only one Jewish grandparent must be classed as a Jew. In 1938, a Jew shot a Nazi official dead in Paris and Hitler retaliated with the Night of Broken Glass (or Crystal Night).  Nearly 10,000 Jewish shopkeepers had their shop windows smashed and the contents looted.  Jewish homes and synagogues went up in flames.  91 Jews were killed and 20,000 were arrested.  Of course the worst was yet to come.  With the onset of war, Hitler decided on mass extermination.  The Holocaust, the systematic murder of millions of Jews, was the worst crime committed by the Nazi regime and one which is very difficult to comprehend. iii)                Propaganda and Censorship As Minister of National Enlightenment and Propaganda, Dr. Josef Goebbels believed it was his job to win people over to Nazi ideas and make them totally loyal to Hitler.  To do this he controlled the media.  No book could be published without his permission.  Newspapers were told what to print – any that did not comply were closed down.  All Germany’s radio stations were controlled and were used to hammer home the Nazi message.  Goebbels even made cheap radio sets available and put up loudspeaker systems in the street.  The mass rallies at Nuremberg were possibly the single most impressive displays of Nazi propaganda and the staging of the 1936 Olympics was also used to promote the regime in a similar way. Music and the cinema were also closely controlled.  Jazz was banned because it was the music of black Americans and all films – factual or fictional, thrillers or comedies – had to carry a pro-Nazi message.  Newsreels in the cinema were designed to trumpet the achievements of the regime.  The control of young people by means of education and youth movements was also important and is part of the next section.  However, exactly how effective propaganda and censorship were cannot be accurately measured. iv)                Opposition The combination of secret police, fear, mistrust, persecution and propaganda – together with economic and foreign policy successes – seems to have rendered the German population fairly obedient and docile.  There were certainly few opportunities for opposition. Hitler signed a Concordat with the Pope in 1933 to keep the Catholic Church out of politics, but individual churchmen did resist and these were dealt with harshly.  Many Protestant clergy were also sent to concentration camps.  Hitler set up his own Reich Church but this did not catch on. As the war progressed more and more young people became disillusioned with the regime and the Nazis identified two groups – the Swing Movement (middle class teenagers who embraced American culture) and the Edelweiss Pirates an umbrella title for groups of working class teenagers who opposed the regime.  A dozen ‘ringleaders’ of this movement were hanged in Cologne in November 1944. However, such opposition as existed remained isolated and confined to grumblings about material conditions.  By far the most serious threat was the attempt to remove Hitler by the July Bomb Plot of 1944.  A group of leading army officers tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Hitler.  As a result over 5,000 were killed in retaliation. v)                  Conclusion Overall Nazi control was pretty effective.  However, it must be remembered that nearly half the electorate had voted Hitler in – i.e. he was in fact a popular leader.  In addition, his success in solving Germany’s economic problems and his remarkable achievements in foreign policy must have meant that by 1940 his approval rating was probably sky high.  Moreover, with the onset of war any opposition to the regime could justifiably be portrayed as unpatriotic and treasonous.  In fact the Nazis remained pretty much in control  until the collapse of the regime in May 1945.   LIFE IN NAZI GERMANY i)                    The Economy There is no doubt that Hitler was able to solve the problem of unemployment: UNEMPLOYMENTJanuary 19336,014,000                 1934    3,773,000                 1935    2,974,000                 1936    2,520,000                 1937    1,853,000                 1938    1,052,000                 1939       302,000 How was he able to do this? ∙        Clearly the removal of Jews, women and other (undesirables) from the workforce was a factor.∙        From 1935, Hitler introduced compulsory military service so that the army grew from a theoretical 100,000 to nearly 1½ million by 1939.∙        Rearmament gave a great boost to manufacturing; 46 billion marks were put into this.∙        Public Works – Hitler set up the National Labour Front (Reicharbeitdienst or RAD) to give men jobs in public works schemes – planting forests, building schools and hospitals and, above all, building a motorway (autobahn) network.∙        In place of unions, Hitler created the German Labour Front which tended to get the most out of workers. As part of the campaign to win over ordinary people the Nazis created the Strength through Joy movement (Kraft durch Freude – KDF) which was designed to offer cut-price holidays and subsidised plays and concerts.  In addition the KDF was involved in the development of the people’s car or Volkswagen which was designed by both Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche.  It was a symbol of the prosperous new Germany and was designed to provide the ordinary German with cheap transportation.  In truth, however, the KDF only really catered for the party faithful and the beetle’s production was interrupted by the war. Moreover, if you look at the production figures below it is clear that Germany’s economic recovery was slow, only achieving Weimar levels by 1936.  However, the importance of full employment cannot be underestimated and the fall in prices meant that the German people now felt prosperous and optimistic for the first time in a long time. YEARINDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIONWAGESCOST OF LIVING1928100102.2   151.71929100103.61541930  87  99.2   148.11931  70  95.1   146.11932  58  88.5   120.61933  66  92.51181934  83  96.7   121.11935  96  97.61231936107100   124.51937117103   125.11938125 107.5   125.61939132 111.1   126.2 ii)                  Youth Hitler was very much concerned to win over young people to the Nazi movement as they were the generation of tomorrow and the future of the regime. In schools textbooks were rewritten to take account of Nazi racial ideology and teachers were required to join the German Teachers’ League, to ensure that the pupils were indoctrinated rather than educated. Outside school, young people had to join youth movements which also reinforced Nazi ideology and trained young boys in military skill (and young women to accept their subordinate role).The youth groups were organized as follows:   THE HITLER YOUTH MOVEMENT AGEBOYSGIRLS6-10Pimpfen (Little Fellows) 10-14Deutsches Jungvolk (Young People)Jungmädel (Young Girls)14-18Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth)Bund Deutscher Mädel (German Girls League) MEMBERSHIP NUMBERSYEARHJDJBDMJMTOTAL(Total 10-18 pop.)193255,36528,69119,2444,656107,9561933568,2881,130,21243,750349,4822,292,041(7,529,000)1934786,0001,457,304471,944862,3173,577,565(7,682,000)1935829,3611,498,209569,5991,046,1343,943,303(8,172,000)19361,168,7341,785,424873,1271,610,3165,437,601(8,656,000)19371,237,0781,884,8831,035,8041,722,1905,879,9559,060,00019381,663,3052,604,5381,448,2641,855,1197,031,226(9,109,000)19391,723,8862,137,5941,502,5711,923,4197,287,470(8,870,000) iii)                Women and the Family Hitler had a very traditional view of the role of the German woman as wife and mother – summed by the phrase, the three ks – kinder, kirche and küche, children, church and cooking. Alarmed at the falling birth rate, the Nazis passed The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage (1933) which offered tempting financial incentives for married couples to have at least four children (1,000 marks, equivalent to nine months’ wages).  Every 12th August, the birthday of Hitler’s mother, the Motherhood Cross was awarded to the women who had the most children (a gold for 8, silver for 7, bronze for 6).   Hitler himself said:The woman belongs to thesmaller world…her husband, herfamily, her children, and her home…women has her battlefield too;with each child she brings intothe world for the nation she isfighting her fight on behalf ofthe nation.  Hitler was clearly thinking of the soldiers of tomorrow.  Women, then, were encouraged to stay at home, give up their jobs and be plain in appearance.  Make-up and trousers were discouraged.  However, despite this policy the labour shortage towards the end of the 1930s meant that women workers were needed and numbers did in fact increase.  Women did not, however, serve in the armed forces. iv)                Conclusion To sum up:  for many, life in Nazi Germany was not too bad (up to about 1941/2).  The economy recovered, there was full employment and there was a growing feeling of optimism.  The youth policy did seem to have some success, producing a generation of young people devoted to Hitler; and the number of live births increased from 971,174 in 1933 to 1,413,320 in 1939 which suggests that the marriage policy was working (though ironically more women were working in 1939 – 12.7 million- than in 1933 – 11.5). Because we know that this was an evil regime and because we know what followed – war and genocide – it is often difficult to appreciate that Hitler was popular and that life for the majority was probably not unpleasant – until 1941/2 at any rate.  As one commentator has put it: With all the success Hitler had,Germany was actually awonderful place to be alive,unless you were Jewish,  youhad strong politicalconvictions either as a socialistor a communist, or you believedin individuality and the freedomof the individual; but that isnever the majority of thepeople.