To what extent was Hitler a totalitarian dictator?

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Antoine Allen 11.E1

To what extent was Hitler a totalitarian dictator?

A totalitarian ruler creates a totalitarian state. One in which the leader, in this cases Adolf Hitler has total control of the government and the people. A totalitarian dictator is a person or organisation who has total control and authority over a nation. This is the basis of totalitarianism. The historian Fredrick definition is ‘totalitarian state must; attempt to control every aspect of people’s lives; be a dictatorship with one party and one leader; have the countries media, economy and education system firmly under control of the state. The totalitarian state may also, tend to be both militaristic and nationalistic.’ This essay will examine the extent to which Hitler achieve achieved this.

Hitler’s dictatorship was based on his ability to manipulate the law and keep himself and the Nazi part within the boundaries of the laws. This makes him a totalitarian because he was able to make his country only one party and one leader. This fits exactly into what Fredrick defines. Hitler may seemingly fit into the category of totalitarianism because of being the only leader and he had in place Nazi officials to control all the states in the towns in the country but arguably he only had control over the economy for 3 years. People believe the economy was recovering due to the end of the depression. Hitler was more of a medieval monarch in the way in, which handled the state and his affairs, because there was a lot of pomp like Nuremburg Rallies. This was due to Hitler being lazy. He despised paper work and party members would have to go to Bavaria and flatter him before proposing their laws. Is this a dictator tuned into pulse of a nation? Also this shows Hitler is less of a totalitarian dictator as he simply signed other peoples laws and paper work.

        The Nazis used propaganda to spread their beliefs. This included films and posters etc. From the regime’s manipulation of all areas of the media, people obtained the belief that the Nazi and Hitler had total control and knowledge of their lives. Therefore people feared and subsequently over exaggerated the insight that the Nazis had into their lives. The Gestapo was proclaimed to have ‘ears and eyes everywhere’. People’s belief in this was so strong that they informed on each over. They believed it would have been found out eventually anyway. The big brother regime described in George Orwell’s famous novel, Nineteen eighty-four is considered to be a quintessential example of the Nazi regime. Except it was fiction and written in 1948 after the regime’s demise. This added to the totalitarian nature of the Nazi regime because people could easily be controlled and resistance would be highlighted rapidly and dealt with. This helped Hitler to stay a totalitarian dictator.

        Hitler’s rise to power began when he was made Chancellor; he called new elections immediately. Before the elections the Riechstag building was burnt down. Hitler blamed this on the Communist party. He used this to get President Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree that abolished the rights of personal liberty, freedom of the press, public meetings and introduced censorship. This strengthened Hitler’s control by giving him the power to control and manipulate the government and judiciary system. In addition the Nazis did not win an overall majority but Hitler had the emergency decree and it enabled him to imprison the Communist Party and subsequently outlaw them. This was one of the key factors that enabled Hitler to become a totalitarian dictator, as he now had no opposition and he could pass the enabling act. This gave Hitler power for X amount of years as a dictator. The Riechstag became a rubber stamp parliament; meaning laws could still be passed with opposition. This brought Hitler into totalitarian status by destroying the democratic government; all other parties either dissolved or were destroyed. This all was induced from the Enabling Act.

        The Enabling Act had 5 points; 1. Government of the Reich could decide laws of the Reich. This gave Hitler the legality to change the constitution and create his totalitarian state. 2. Law decided upon by the Reich may be deviated from the provisions of the constitution. This enabled Hitler's government to ignore the constitution. So they controlled the law, this is what a totalitarian dictator does. 3. Laws are announced by Chancellor [i.e. Hitler], coming into affect the following days. This helped Hitler to consolidate the power of the regime through allowing it ‘s laws to be implemented quickly and those who were braking them would have less time to stop.  4. Contracts of the Reich with foreign states which affect matters of Reich legislation shall not require the approval of the bodies concerned with legislation. The government of the Reich shall issue the prescriptions required for the execution of such contracts. This meant legislations became useless as they could simply be ignored and unions could not use anything to oppose the regime. Finally 5.  Once the current Reich government was succeeded the laws implemented by the previous Reich government become invalid. This did not help Hitler as such but it hindered future governments from obtain his control and left his party safe as no one could do to them as they did to others. This enabled the regime to ban all other parties using the Enabling Act, on July 1933. This cemented Hitler control by disallowing any legal political take over of his party.

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        Hitler dissolved the trade unions. He justified this because he supposedly thought they were a breeding ground for communism. Really they were a threat to his regime because although many people as a group can bring down a leader like Hitler, people by themselves can not make such a difference. The trade union was like a cloud that could potential cause a flood on Hitler regime but as long as they dispersed this cloud to singular raindrops, it was less likely to rain at all. He replaced the trade unions with the Nazi run  ‘Nazi Labour Front’. To please the ...

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