Which of indoctrination and repression proved most effective for consolidating Hitler's power (1933-1939)?

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Which of indoctrination and repression proved most effective for consolidating Hitler's power (1933-1939)?

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Acknowledgements:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Mr Baldwin for his assistance in completing this essay. I would also like to extend my thanks to the library of my high school, for the books of quality that I had the chance to be provided of.


Abstract:

The purpose of this essay was to investigate which was the most effective way to consolidate Hitler’s power from 1933-1939. I referred to consolidation of power in pre-war times to see how effective  indoctrination and repression were on their own that is to say without the influence of war. Through this investigation it can be seen that Hitler successfully used both propaganda and repression to give himself control over the German people. Nevertheless one mean was more successfully used than the other and from the data gathered it seems that it was indoctrination. The control that the Nazis exerted over mass media and culture enabled them to get the support of population without imposing their ideology. With indoctrination the Nazis managed to make their ideology acknowledged and adhered by everybody; allowing them to have a certain control over the German population. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the repression exercised by the Nazis on the population was a success because of the cooperation of the population. Without indoctrination Hitler wouldn’t have been able to use repression to fully consolidate his power.         


Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................................2

Contents.................................................................................................................................................3

Abstract..................................................................................................................................................4

Introduction............................................................................................................................................5

Section 1: Indoctrination........................................................................................................................5

  1. Mass Media
  2. Control of Culture

Section 2: Repression.............................................................................................................................8

  1. Use of law
  1. Reichstag fire
  2. Enabling act
  1. Use of force
  1. Gleichschaltung
  2. The lander
  3. Trade unions
  4. Political parties
  5. The night of the long knives

Section 3: Conclusion............................................................................................................................12

Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................13

                                                                                 


The research question that I will be answering in this essay is “which was more effective in giving the Nazis control over the German people from 1933 to 1939, repression or indoctrination?” This question is worthy of study as it is always referred to when talking about Hitler time in power.  The case of Hitler consolidating his power before going to war, is very interesting as he used both indoctrination and repression to consolidate his power thus by looking at this period of time this question could be answered. My thesis is  that Hitler successfully used both of them but more successfully used indoctrination.

Indoctrination:

An important element in the Nazis will to spread their values and ideas was the propaganda run by Joseph Goebbels. He was appointed as “Reich Minister of popular enlightenment and propaganda” in March 1933.  He was one of the closest person’s to Hitler. Thus he worked in close collaboration with him to strengthen Nazi control of the population through the different forms of mass media; Goebbels was to create a strong commitment to the Nazi regime and unify all the population behind Hitler. From this day on modernism and any worked produced by Jewish artist or other outsiders such as communists and political opponents would be banned[1].

Mass media:

“Two of the most important forms of propaganda were the radio and the press”[2]. Due to the fact that at this time the radio was the mostly used form of entertainment at home, the Nazi wanted to control it. Therefore the first act of Goebbels as “Reich Minister of popular enlightenment and propaganda” was to set up the “Reich Radio Company”, to centralize all the broadcasting in Germany; To accomplish this he fired roughly 13 per cent of the staff by using political or racial origin as a pretext and replaced them with those who were in accordance with the Nazis.                        Unfortunately it wasn’t every household that could afford radios; in fact it was about 25 percent of the German Households (4.5 million) by 1933. Thus the Nazi were forced to make a move so that most of the household could afford it. That’s how mass production of cheap radio rapidly increased.  Progressively most of the households started to acquire radios and by 1939 over 70 percent of them (16 million) possessed (Volksempfänger) “people’s receivers”[3] but that didn’t mean everybody could listen to the radio at home, that’s why sets were placed in factories and cafés, and loudspeakers were installed in streets to ensure that at any time people would be able to listen to the Furher’s speech even if they didn’t want to. Radio wardens were also appointed to inform people of incoming speeches. Hitler made 50 broadcasts in his first year in office. Showing how important it was for Hitler to have the control over mass media.

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The control of the press wasn’t as easy to obtain, however Hitler still managed to have some control on what was published. “There were about 4.500 daily newspaper in Germany”[4]. Which included national newspapers and regional papers in different Länder. The problem with these was that most of them were privately owned and identified themselves with political parties or religious beliefs, which wasn’t good for a government which wanted people to be united under the same ideology.  Thus it was evident  for the Nazis to bring these under their control.                                  Goebbels first move was to ban all the SPD and ...

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