Hitler was a flagrant anti-Semitist. He blamed Jews for nearly everything: the state of the economy, the loss of WWI and even the death of Jesus Christ. The Jews were a fairly easy target and they only, at the time, made up 1% of the population so any protests could be easily quashed. Jews were normally very well educated so they tended to hold well-paid jobs – in fact; they made up 16% of all lawyers and 10% of all doctors. In March 1933, the SA were ordered to turn people away from Jewish owned business. In 1935, an important set of laws called the ‘Nuremberg Laws’ were passed that made it illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews, or even to have sexual relationships with each other. All Jews lost their citizenships and the right to vote and to use public facilities. In Judaism, the religion is passed down the female side so you are only Jewish if your mother is. The Nazis disregarded this and instead decided that if you had one Jewish grandparent, then you were Jewish. German children were taught anti-Semitism from a young age and Jewish children were prevented from attending German schools, and were sent to Jewish only schools. There were many instances of humiliation and abuse including when Jewish Lawyer Michael Siegal was forced to wear a placard proclaiming ‘I am a Jew, I will never again complain about the Nazis.’ All he had done was complained about his neighbour’s windows being smashed. On the ninth of November 1938, Kristalnacht occurred – the Night of the Broken Glass. This was when 7500 Jewish businesses were destroyed and 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. Hitler’s anti-Semitism and the terrible treatment of the Jews eliminated opposition by removing the supposed enemy and all sympathisers of the ‘enemy’. This allowed him to have complete control by actually doing something related to his beliefs and showing the German nation that their leader was strong and proactive.
In addition to the terrible treatment Jewish people received, there was also discrimination to other minority groups. Gypsies were already not very popular in Germany, but the Nazis took this small distaste to new levels. Gypsies weren’t Aryans so they were not proper Germans. They were considered strange because they didn’t have normal and didn’t settle so they couldn’t conform to ‘volksgemeinschaft’, which was the idea of self-sacrifice. Dr. Robert Ritter, head of Nazi Institute of Criminal Biology said that ‘…further reproduction of this half-caste population [should be] terminated.’ Along with Jews, Gypsies were subject to the Nuremberg Laws and in October 1939 were sent to concentration camps were 200,000 Gypsies were killed. Vagrants, who were people moving about, looking for work; young people who’d left home or beggars. In 1938, the SS claimed that they had rounded up 10,000 vagrants and sent them to camps to be taught ‘how to work’. Black people, of whom there were very few of in Germany, were also subject to the Nuremberg laws and any babies born to German women by black soldiers in the Rhineland after WW1 were sterilised. In addition to Gypsies, Vagrants and Blacks, the mentally ill were targeted. The Nazis thought that mental illness was hereditary and therefore incurable, so they sterilised all mentally ill people and had done this to 300,000 people by the mid nineteen-forties. Finally, as well as the other minority groups, Homosexuals were targeted by the Nazis because the role of adults was to produce babies, and homosexuals couldn’t carry out this role. The Weimar republic had allowed gays some freedom, but despite some leading Nazis, such as Röhm being homosexuals, the Nazi made Homosexuality illegal. These measures eliminated opposition by disposing of the groups that Nazi policy targeted, and allowed Hitler to have complete control by instilling fear into the German population and making them conform completely to nazi ideals to avoid persecution.
To gather all of the targeted groups into small, remote areas was a function carried out by the concentration camps. The camps were set up as soon as Hitler gained power, and were initially just makeshift prisons. After a while they became purpose centres for the containment and destruction of anyone who the Nazis decided should go there. The camps were run by the SS Death’s Head, who enforced harsh discipline. The food was very limited and prisoners did hours upon hours of gruelling hard labour – many prisoners died of natural causes, but random executions were also carried out among the weak prisoners – the strong ones were more valuable. Anybody who criticised Hitler or the Nazis was sent there, along with Jews, Gypsies, Vagrants, Blacks, Homosexuals, Communists, Trade Unionists, Churchmen and Socialists. This eliminated opposition by taking the un-ideals of society and putting them in a place where they could not cause trouble. This allowed Hitler complete control by, once again, using terror to manipulate the people of Germany.
Adolf Hitler was seen as a near godlike figure. He made the German people, who had no self-esteem, feel good about themselves. He constructed a myth where he claimed that the German people were blond haired and blue-eyed Aryans – descended from the noble Teutonic Knights of days gone by. Hitler himself wasn’t in possession of true Aryan looks, but he said that he didn’t have to be Aryan because he was a hyped up to be a messenger from God who had once been a normal soldier who had risen up the ranks to become the symbol of a nation and the creator of a new, better Germany. He wasn’t married and this was viewed as being his personal sacrifice – giving up happiness in exchange for serving his country. Even his mistress, Eva Braum, was kept hidden from the nation to further backup the ‘Hitler Myth’. The ‘Hitler Myth’ helped him to have complete control by wrapping the German people around his finger and making them feel special and wanted, and mist of all loyal to the führer.
Hitler used many slogans and advertisements to persuade Germany to join him. He used adverts to instil his ideas into the population. For example, an early election campaign poster showed communists stealing, looting and killing true Germans. This actually, if people were shown it enough, made people believe it and be swayed away from the communists. There were also many posters showing strong Aryan men and women living the ideal German life. An important phrase was ‘volksgemeinschaft’, which means ‘national community’. This was an important slogan that made people feel wanted and important by working to make a better Germany. The Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels said ‘The essence of propaganda is to gather complex ideas into a single slogan and then instil this into the people as a whole.’ This quote really fits well with ‘volksgemeinschaft’. The ideas behind it were far more complex than the normal people were led to believe, but they understood the simple slogan and went along with it. There were also groups such as ‘Strength Through Joy’ (KDF) that aimed to create a better Germany by making people happy. It offered cut-price tickets to the theatre and cinema, as well as organised trips and cheap luxury cruises. These slogans allowed Hitler to have complete control buy surreptitiously inserting ideas into people’s minds and making people love him for all of the groups and activities that the Nazis allowed people to do.
Radio and cinema were used widely to get the Nazi message across to the masses. Extremely cheap radios with really short ranges were made so everybody could afford them – in 1939, 70% of German households had a radio. This was called the ‘Volksempfänger’ – ‘People’s Receiver’ and cost 35 RM. All of the material that was to be broadcasted had to go through the ‘Radio Chamber’ so the broadcasts could be controlled and no anti-Nazi ideas were expressed. When Hitler came to power, most art and theatre was banned, but cinema went on. Even today, some of the films from Nazi Germany are regarded as high quality. Leni Riefenstahl is admired even today as a great director. Goebbels realised that film was quickly becoming an important media, and if he was too heavy handed with censorship, then people would be bored and stop going to see the films. Coincidentally, the owner of Germany’s biggest film company ‘UFA’, Alfred Hugenburg was a big Nazi supporter. Anti-Semitism still reigned supreme, as Jews could not be actors or directors. Even though films were not complete Nazi propaganda, they still promoted Nazi views. For example, ‘Hitlerjunge Quex’ was the story of a boy in the Hitler Youth who was attacked by communists and died. Radio and cinema eliminated opposition by stopping anti-Nazis from broadcasting their views and helped Hitler gain complete control by subliminally putting Nazi ideas into people’s heads while they were enjoying themselves.
As well as slogans, radio and cinema, the Nazi image was important in getting Nazi views across. Tying in with the Hitler myth, the image of Hitler was one of a kind, gentle family man. This is evident in the propaganda videos taken of him with his young relatives in remote mountain resorts in Bavaria. There was a huge party rally every year, held at Nuremberg, where the SA could show off (as I mentioned earlier, this was by know their only role) and show the millions of German people who attended them what a wonderful group the Nazi party supposedly was. The image wasn’t just shown to Germany. In 1936, the Olympic Games were held in the huge new stadium purpose built for the event and utilising the latest technology to time the races. Germany won more medals than any other country, and just as a façade, they fielded Black and Jewish athletes. The Nazi image allowed Hitler to have complete control by making the people of Germany think that Hitler was an absolutely wonderful, benevolent leader and made the world think that everything going on in Germany was above the belt – if the world powers had smelled something funky going on, they might have intervened.
Education was important in Nazi Germany. If ideas were to be instilled, then it is more effective to work on the young, more malleable mind. When Hitler came to power, Joseph Goebbels organised a public book burning of all material that disagreed with Nazi views. In addition to the book burnings, the school text books were rewritten to subliminally put across Nazi views. For example, an excerpt from a Nazi maths textbook reads: ‘a pilot on take off carries 12 dozen bombs, each weighing 10 kilos. The plane flies to Warsaw (the capital of Poland and centre for Jews). It bombs the town…’ Children were being moulded into young Nazis in all subjects, not just in Race Studies and Party Beliefs. They were also taught about the ‘poisonous mushroom’ – the Jew, who was the stealer of children and stabber of backs. They were taught how to identify and report Jews by their textbooks, which contained pictures of Jews with dark hair and huge noses. This eliminated opposition by getting very young children to inform on Jews and allowed Hitler to have complete control by indoctrinating young children.
In addition to schooling, all children had to join the Hitler Youth or ‘Hitlerjugend’. Kurt Gruber formed the first group of young members of the Nazi Party in 1926. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, suggested the name of the and later that year handed over the leadership of the movement to Franz von Pfeffer of the SA. The main idea behind the Hitler Youth was to train young men to fit and healthy and to fight against the Jews and left-wing political groups and to train young women in the German Girls' League or ‘Bund Deutscher Mädel’ to be good partners and to be fit and healthy to produce lots of babies to build a greater Germany. In 1938 there were 8,000 full-time leaders of the Hitler Youth. There were also 720,000 part-time Hitler Youth leaders, often schoolteachers, who had been trained in Nazi principles. There were different groups for different ages such as the ‘Jungvolk’ meaning Young Folk for boys aged between 10 and 14 years old. Baldur von Schirach set up the Jungvolk. They had to learn things like semaphore and arms drill and two day long cross-country hikes. They also had to learn Nazi ideals and once they passed the tests they were given a special dagger that said "Blood and Honour". The main objective of the organization was to provide Adolf Hitler with loyal supporters. This allowed Hitler to have complete control by constantly being in the minds of young people not only in school but outside as well.
As people saw Hitler like a god, it was sensible to set up a religion based around the Nazi party. They called this religion Nazism and it was a pagan (non-Christian) faith that stressed the ideas of Aryan and German superiority and used Nordic myths to make people feel proud to be Aryan. The ‘Faith Movement’ or so it was called, was set up because the Nazi party was struggling with the church. In the beginning, both the Protestant and Catholic churches supported Hitler. In 1933, Hitler signed an agreement with the Pope to basically stay out of each other’s business, but soon things got sour. The Catholic Church realised that the Nazis couldn’t be trusted. There was a rival youth group in to the Hitler Youth in Germany called the Catholic Youth, but this was made illegal so all parents had to send their children to the Hitler Youth. Also, the Church ran a number of schools and the children that attended these schools were subjected to less propaganda than children in regular schools. Hitler began to ban religious symbols from the schools and took them out of Church control. Catholic priests were sent to concentration camps and others were simply stopped from preaching. However, the Protestant Church still mainly supported the Nazis, but there were many groups that opposed them, such as the ‘Confessing Church’ which attempted to air anti-Nazi views, but it’s leader Pastor Martin Niemöller was arrested and sent to the camps. The factors of Nazism and anti-Catholicism got rid of opposition by eliminating the bodies which stood in Hitler’s way and allowed him to have complete control by stopping anti-Nazi messages being given to people.
Taking in to account all of the sections of the essay, I believe that Hitler did not have absolutely complete control of Germany. Referring back to the definitions of the words ‘totalitarian’ and ‘dictator’, a totalitarian dictator must have supreme authority in all spheres. I believe that these terms are in a sense virtual – it is nigh on impossible for someone to control all aspects of people’s lives even if nearly all of them are controlled. With this in mind, I conclude that Hitler was to the greater extent a totalitarian dictator, and that it would be a fitting term for him. However, because there were many rival factions and groups that opposed him and were not completely destroyed, he did not have complete and absolute authority in every single sphere and therefore was not a complete totalitarian dictator.
