The SS was made up of men who were totally loyal to Hitler. They had many different tasks and were led by Heinrich Himmler. They ran the death camps and fought alongside the army. They were formed from SA men in 1925.
The Gestapo were the Nazi secret police and were in charge of rounding up Jews and other opponents of Hitler to be sent to concentration camps, ghettos etc… Normal Germans were very fearful of the Gestapo but actually thought they had more power than they really did.
The leader of the police was Herman Goering who worked with Himmler and the SS
All the Judges were Nazis or believed in Nazi ideals and so Jews, other inferior races and communists etc… rarely received a fair trial. Crimes committed by Nazi were also ignored. The courts were known as they peoples courts.
Persecution
Joseph Goebells was in charge of media. No books were printed that hadn’t received Goebells permission. In 1933 Nazi students burnt books that Goebells didn’t approve of. Newspapers were screened and any newspapers that weren’t Pro-Nazi were closed down. All films had to carry a Nazi message. Nazi radios were produced that could only pick up German radio stations and listening to the BBC was punishable by death. Black Music e.g. Jazz were banned as black were inferior. Goebells was supported by the SS and so effectively enforced censorship.
Hitler and Nazis believed that Aryans, blond hair blue eyed Germans/Austrians, were superior to other races and that Jews, Blacks, Slavs, Homosexuals, Mentally Handicapped and Jehovah’s Witnesses were inferior races. They believed Jews were sub-human.
Jews were regularly attacked in Nazi Germany. Crude and vicious stereotyping of Jews was used in Nazi propaganda. Laws introduced in 1933 banned Jew from all state jobs and also a boycott of Jewish shops was introduced and the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 took away citizenship from Jews and made illegal and marriages between Jews and Germans. In 1939 all Jews had to add the name Sara for women and Israel for men to their names. They also had to wear the Star of David.
In 1941 the “Final Solution” was created and all Jews in Nazi occupied territories were sent to Death Camps in Poland to be killed by the SS in the gas chambers. 11 million Jews were killed. At first the Einsatzgruppen were told to shoot Jews. Jews were sent to the camps by train. At the time Germans never really found out about the horrors of the death camps. Other minorities were also executed in these ways.
Pastor Martin Niemoller formed an alternative protestant church to the official Reich church. He spent 1938-1945 in a concentration camp.
Education and the Young
In German schools Bernard Rust was chosen to take the control of the German Curriculum and adapt it to fit the Nazi ideas. Teachers who were known to be critical of Nazi ideas were dismissed and the remaining teachers were re-educated in Nazi views so that they could teach the Nazi way. Textbooks were withdrawn and new ones written by Nazis so that they could influence the children.
Some of the new textbooks contained questions such as: “The Jews are aliens in Germany. In 1933 there were 66,060,000 inhabitants of the German Reich of whom 499,862 were Jews. What is the percentage of aliens in Germany?”
Hitler realised that the youth of Germany if moulded correctly could be of great benefit. He started the NAZI Youth Group’s that encouraged accepting Hitler as a god. They believed more in Hitler than they did in their parents. It taught children to hate Jews by using huge amounts of propaganda. Goebbels realised that the best use of propaganda is when people did not know that they were witnessing propaganda. This is why the radio was such a good use of propaganda; people did not realise that they were letting the Nazi ideas into their heads. Thus when Hitler educated the Nazi youth they were so inexperienced that they also did not realise that they were being brainwashed. The Hitler Youth sang songs and had traditional values and in 1939 membership was compulsory. Boys were taught how to camp, clean rifles and run long distances.
During the war the popularity of Hitler and the Nazis decreased and two main Anti-Nazi movements were formed.
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The Swing Movement – Members of the Swing Movement were mainly middle class teenagers who enjoyed going to parties and listening to American and English music. They allowed Jews into their clubs and talked openly about sex.
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The Edelweiss Pirates – These were unorganised groups of teenagers who were aged between 14 and 17. Each group had a different name depending were they were from but the Nazis called them all Edelweiss Pirates. They abused and often attacked members of the Hitler Youth. Himmler suggested that they be treated like other minorities and thrown into concentration camps. Hitler realised however that he would need these teenagers in years to come for workers and fighters in the army. In Cologne twelve Pirates were publicly hanged.
Economic and Social Policy
Labour Corps (Public work Schemes) were introduced to build motorways, railways etc… this reduced unemployment.
Dr Hjalmar Schact was the minister of economy and although he was not a Nazi he was a brilliant economist. He planned to:
- Reduce Un-employment
- Build up Armaments
- Make Germany self-sufficient
To reduce un-employment women were forced out of work, as were Jews, these people were not shown on un-employment surveys.
Germany increased its trading with other nations. Industrial outputs double under the Nazis.
Wages were kept low as workers could not strike because they were all part of the German Labour Front which banned taking strike action. Workers were in exchange given cheap theatre tickets and many workers gave £5 a month to buy the Volkswagen Beetle “The Peoples Car” (few actually received the car as production stopped during the war). This is known as “strength through joy”.
Much money was given to the Army, Navy and Air Force for rearmament. Conscription was introduced. Under Hitler the Health Services were also improved.
A concordat was made with the Catholic Church in 1933 but in 1937 the Pope condemned the Nazi regime. Church ministers were often imprisoned and executed for criticising.
Conclusion
Although Hitler did solve un-employment and improve things for Germany, he did this to win the German people over so they could achieve military conquest. People also had to give up their freedom for this and millions of innocent men, women and children. So although Germany did benefit it was clearly not worth it.
Bibliography
Modern World History – Ben Walsh
A History of the World – Mr Speed
