Trade unions still held a threat against Hitler so he abolished all trade unions and made strikes illegal.
Independent countries that joined the new Germany became states, which were run by elected governors who opposed Hitler’s rules so Hitler replaced them with Nazis who were all appointed by Hitler himself. This now gave Hitler more power by him getting rid off all his opposition at present and so he could rule his own way with no rebellion, he was successful and he now placed Germany under Dictatorship. Hitler had set up two organizations called the SA and the SS.
The SA was the public face of the Nazis and basically done a lot the required dirty work such as Demonstrations and taking out communists their leader was Ernst Rohm.
The SS were hired as Hitler’s personal bodyguards and were effectively members of SA but their leader Heirnrich Himmler wanted them to go out on there own.
On the 28th of June 1934 Himmler told Hitler of Rohms plans to cease the power that Hitler had. Hitler had his reasons to believe Himmler as the leader of the SA was demanding control of the army and that they they should become the focus of national socialist Germany.
And so came an incident named “The Night Of The Long Knives” On the 30th of June Hitler along with armed SS members stormed into a hotel in the Bavarian resort of Bad Wiessee. He arrested Rohm and the other SA leaders who were then taken to the country’s capital and shot.
Hitler was extremely ruthless in his tactics but he did not want any hint of opposition in his path so he coped with it in the only way he knew how, mass murder. He was continuing to rise and sending messages to everyone in Germany and the message was clear, join us or die.
This helped gain control as inflicted fear upon the nation and his enemies who followed not through choice but through emotion but to Hitler power was power whatever way he got it.
Germany was known as the police state as it was run by the SS and the SA (until they were killed). These groups enforced harsh punishment to anyone who rose up aginst Hitlers causes. After the demolition of the SA the SS split into three major groups:
- The SD who searched and destroyed any Nazi enemy
- The SS who fought alongside the army
- The deaths head unit who took control of the concentration camps.
So the SS were the police of Germany or so it appered, there was indeed anoter group who were known as the “GESTAPO” this group were the secret police and had the same objectives as the SD but to do it silently.
One difference was that the Gestapo had the power to send anyone to concentration camps without a trial. The Gestapo were set up by Goring in 1933 and by 1939 162 000 Germans hadf been sent to jail withot a trial.
In 1936 Himmler employed his deputy to take control of the Gestapo which meant they were now under SS control.
Again through the Gestapo Hitler was able to persue in the public eye as Germanys only possible leader as all the others were either dead or beign hunted.
Another way Hitler made people fear him was the threat of the concentration camps these were meant to be for correcting the people who opposed the Nazis but many suggested they were places of torture. This was backed up by evidence that most people sent to a camp were never seen again. Many died at these camps as they were poorly treated and malnourished.
These camps were full of offenders to the Nazi regime but they did not full wrath of Hitlers new germany, however the Jews did.
Jewish people in Germany only made up a small figure of Germanys population but had greater percentages in high profile jobs such as doctors and lawyers. Hitler gave the SA a job in 1933 and it was to wreck the jewish trade. The SA turned away customers from jewish shops and smashed the windows and destroyed their goods.
Things got a whole lot worse for the Jews as the Nuremberg laws were passed in 1935.
These laws made it illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews or to indulge in sexual intercourse with each other.
Jewish doctors were told to only to traet Jewish patiences and lawyers must only defend Jews. The Jewish people were banned from using public facilities such as swimming pools and restaurants. In school children were taught to hate Jews and fed lies that included them being blamed for many of germany’s social problems like increased violence (mostly caused by the SD). Due to the Germans view of the Jews 30 per cent of Jews immigrated from Germany between 1933 and 1938.
Hitler was now taking his power to the next level by killing of all he saw as a burden to his new germany and by doing so gained mass respect from many white Germans increasing his popularity and power in Germany.
His pregadice attacks didn’t stop with the Jews and he began assaults on all minority groups. One group were gypsies. Gypsies were already unpopular before Hitlers takeover but once again Hitler took the hatred to another level. In 1939 all of the gypsies nicknamed aliens were sent to nazi concentration camps situated in Poland, over 2500 gypsies were deported. This wasn’t enough and in 1942 all gypsies were sent to Auchwitz-birkenau. In 1944 the Russian army were advancing towards the camp so the SS shot dead all the gypsies before packing up and leaving, in total it is thought that over 200 000 gypsies were shot across Europe all killed by nazis. The jews and the gypsies were seen as asocial this meant they never setteled in one place or held down regular jobs and it wasn’t long before vagrants were labelled with the same tag.
A varant tooki many forms: Homeless, beggars, unemployed, the young who had left home to find work and many others. Many of these people were normal everyday germans who followed Hitler so instead of the usal shooting the nazis decided they would put these people to work. In 1938 the SS reported that they had gathers 10 000 vagrants at concentration camps where they were educated in how to work. Black people were no exeptions and they sufferd from the Nuremburg laws aswell as jews and gypsies. Altough the roaring twenties saw blavk music become populkar even in Germany Hitler banned all Germans from marrying black people and all babies born to a black soldier in the german army were cleaned and sterilised. Also the mentally ill and homosexuals were discriminated against by Hitler. At first the mentally ill did not suffer the death penalty but when the war began Hitler decided that the mentally ill were no use to him so he hired the public ambulance service and had them all killed. By august 1943 it had killed 70 000 mentally ill people.
Homosexuals did have some freedom due to the facts that one of hitlers close allies before he had him murderd was a homosexual (Rohm leader of the SA).
But the nazis saw the role of mankind was to reproduce and homosexuals were not doing that so they made it illegal, and anyone in hitlers forces found to be a homosexual would be killed as order ay Himmler.
Hitler was seen to be cleaning up Germany and millions loved him for it and those who didn’t want to know had no choice as the nazi way of life was now dominating schools, radio and every conversation topic you heard.
This was another way Hitler became powerful, through the use of Propaganda and persuasion. Through all his actions Hitler had created a myth of himself known today as the Hitler myth.
This was that Hitler himself was a god like figure and that he could not make any wrong desiscions. Many germans backed this up with things like the way he created more jobs for Germanys unemployment numbers and he increased the numbers of the army. Many loved him for this as they saw Hitler as the only man caple of lifting the strain of the treaty of versaille imposed on them by rival countries eg. Britain. Also people played on the fact that Hitler was not married and decided that he must be a great man to sacrifice his personal happiness to see germany rise again.
The nazi ways were forced upon the people from the start of hitlers campaqing, ever since he was elected chancellor. In 1929 Hitler employed Hugenberg who was the owner of a local newspaper and helped Hitler spread his message and with the devolpments of microphones and speakers he was able to address more people at once.
Once he became chancellor he also appointed a guy named Goebbles who he placed in charge of entertainment and the use of propaganda. This enabled Goebbles to control the arts, films, radio, newspapers and books. Perhaps the greatest sucsses was the radio which gave Hitler acces to people at home. One problem was that not everyone could afford them so german industry’s began to produce cheap ones so everybody could afford it. Keep in mind that Hitler had complete control of the airwaves and all opposing views in books films or whatever were all banned. Hitler made over 50 broadcasts over the radio because by 1939 70 pe cent of households had a radio.
