This led to Hitler calling for an emergency act to ban the communist party from parliament. On the day of the vote for the enabling act, held in the Kroll opera house, the SA surrounded the building and prevented communist MPs from entering. During the meeting the SA stood outside chanting “We want the bill, or fire and murder.” The act got through by 441 votes to 94 (all social democrats). The act was originally intended to last 4 years, but as now Hitler could publish his own laws this period could be extended indefinitely.
Hitler was now in control of Germany. He used his powers to ban the meeting and formation of all political parties except from the Nazis. Trade unions were banned and replaced with the German Labour Front. All workers were members and employees problems were sorted out by the government – striking was also illegal.
The whole system of government was reorganised so that Nazis held most important posts. State parliaments (Lander) lost their power to Nazi special commissioners. All so-called enemies of the state were removed from public office and law courts were made to agree with Nazi party politics.
One group that could object were the churches, so Hitler tried to control them legally. He signed a concordat (agreement) with the pope Pius XI to leave German Catholicism alone if the Catholics did not interfere in politics. However a catholic youth league was abolished, going directly against the concordat. When the Catholics protested, their schools were closed. As a result the pope sent a letter to be read in all churches condemning Hitler’s policy of euthanasia for mentally ill people. Due to this many nuns and priests were sent to concentration camps.
The protestant church cooperated at first until the government tried to set up a Reich church with Nazis as Reich bishops. Again protests led to concentration camps.
One set of laws enforced an anti-Semitic policy. Hitler blamed the Jews in Germany for all the nation’s problems. As a result he introduced the Nuremberg laws. These meant that Jewish people did not have citizenship and couldn’t marry or have sexual relations with non-Jews. A Jew was classed as anybody with at least one Jewish grand parent.
All these laws however would have been useless if they were not backed up. Hitler reinforced them with the use of terror.
The main organisations which did use terror were the SS and the Gestapo. Anybody that tried to resist Nazi rule would be terrorised into behaving, sent to concentration camps or killed.
The Gestapo were told to use any means necessary, including torture, to extract confessions. They were assisted in this by the SS who dispensed many beatings. It was thought that tolerance meant weakness and ‘enemies of the state’ would destroy the unity of Germany. Therefore they should be prevented from causing damage.
One way of doing this was by detaining ‘undesirables’ in concentration camps such as Dachau near Munich. These camps were filled with intellectuals, dissidents, communists, homosexuals, gypsies, Slavs and Jews. Life in these camps was unbearable as inmates participated in forced labour.
One group that was upset by Hitler was the army. Its leaders felt that Hitler’s SA was too powerful and Ernst Röhm’s plans to merge the SA and army were unacceptable. To win back the army’s support, Hitler had Röhm, a personal friend, murdered along with most of the SA’s leaders on the Night of the Long Knives – 30th June 1934. From then on, the army swore personal allegiance to Hitler with the oath:
“I swear before God to give my unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Reich and of the German people, and I pledge my word as a brave soldier to observe this oath always, even at the peril of my life.”
There were some cases where terror was unsuitable or unnecessary. In these cases, persuasion would be more effective. The aim of this was to indoctrinate the German people with the Nazi point of view. One method was a system of propaganda organised by the Ministry for People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by Dr Joseph Goebbels.
The Ministry had many chambers dealing with different aspects of daily life. The chamber of culture for example, was concerned with archives, the press, theatre, music, art, films and radio. Radio in particular was very important to Goebbels. German people had a larger proportion of radios then even Americans.
Many books (about 4,000), plays and even musical pieces were banned and regular meetings held with journalists being informed of what line to take. It became impossible to express any anti-Nazi message and eventually people began to believe the propaganda.
In schools also, the ministry had influence. The whole purpose of education was to produce Nazis. Textbooks were edited to fit in with Nazi party politics. Biology textbooks proved Nazi ideas of a superior Aryan race and history books showed how great things were only ever achieved by force. Even maths could encourage acceptance for killing mentally ill people as shown by this problem:
“The construction of a lunatic asylum costs 6,000,000 marks. How many houses at 15,000 marks each could have been built at that amount?”
Teachers lived in fear of being reported to the Gestapo by children of convinced Nazis for straying from the party line. The whole
A group called the Hitler youth also tried to persuade young people. From the ages of 6-18 boys were involved in organisations which first took them on hikes and camping trips and then taught them about military matters. Girls joined the League of German Maidens and learnt about a woman’s sole concerns – kinder, kirche, kuche (children, church, children).
The Strength Through Joy movement was used to encourage the workforce to strive towards Hitler’s dream of self-sufficiency. There were a number of after work activities organised and very productive workers could qualify for a cruise.
Despite all these measures there was still resistance to Hitler’s policies. Socialists, intellectuals, the church and some army officers were extremely opposed to the Nazi ideas. There were also sets of alternative youth organisations.
Gangs such as the Navajos, Kittelbach Pirates and most importantly the Edelweiss Pirates all caused the Nazis problems. These gangs would ambush Hitler Youth patrols. They also helped distribute propaganda dropped by Allied aircraft.
In conclusion, it is true to say that although Hitler did have a lot of control over the German people, he didn’t have it all his own way.