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 KDP newspapers. After these were banned the NSDAP’s publishing house “bought up as many of the remaining newspapers they could”[5], that worked pretty well and by 1939 the Nazis owned over 60 percent of all newspapers. The various news agencies were merged to establish the DNB which was under governmental control. This organization gave some liberties to Goebbels as it allowed him to vet and officially approve the news and pictures which were to appear in all newspapers. The third move of Goebbels was to establish a press department which organized daily press conferences in the ministry’s office so that everybody would know about the current editorial policy. To ensure total control over the press the “editor’s law stated that all newspapers’ articles were the responsibilities of their editor, whose function was to ensure that these met the approval of Goebbels’ ministry”[6]. Those who didn’t follow this law would have to face the consequences. Furthermore all the journalists and editors had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Furher. [7] That’s how Goebbels managed to establish a system of censorship preventing anything against the Nazi ideals to be published.
Control of Culture:
Cinema, literature, music and art came under the control of Goebbels. Therefore to make sure the government had control over these, Goebbels established the “Reich Chamber of Culture” (1933). Its role was to assure the development and spread of the Nazi culture. This organization was composed of seven sub-chambers dealing with various aspects of culture. All subversive or degenerate art was to be destroyed that’s how the first books containing Jewish, (left-wing, liberal etc) elements “were taken from libraries and bookshops and burned by Nazi activists.”[8] in Berlin. More than 20,000 books were banned by Nazis. Literature and art were now to be promoting Nazi’s ideals and thus promote their values. Anti-semist values promoting Aryan superiority, nationalism, militarism and cult to the Fürher. To promote even more those values new theatres and libraries were built, and cultural events were more regularly organized. Architects had to change their style and abandon the modernism that characterized the Weimar Germany. Instead they went back to the classical style. Goebbels introduced the mass rallies (Nuremberg annual rallies).
The results of this propaganda varied. Although the sales of books increased, the quality of the artistic production is to be questioned, as the plays that were tolerated by the Nazis were musical and tend to prone the nazi politics, those plays didn’t have much success. Unlike the plays the cinematographic production did have more success, the reason was that Goebbels understood the support that Cinema could provide for the indoctrination of people and left more liberties to the producer so like the movies didn’t seem too obviously pro-Nazi.
Only considering propaganda as what allowed Hitler to stay in power would be analyzing the events incompletely. With a through look on history, it can be seen that when Hitler became chancellor his position was far from secure.
Firstly let’s take a look at how Hitler was appointed chancellor. From the time of the failed Munich putsch in 1923. Hitler’s intentions were to take power legally. He wanted the position of Chancellor because that was the only position where he could make decisions that would affect the whole of Germany, and have them enhanced by the police, the army and the SA.
The right played a big role into the legal access to power of Hitler. What the right (Hindenburg/Von Papen) wanted was to remove the Weimar republic, restore the monarchy and to build back Germany’s military force. The only way to accomplish this was to gain a majority at the Reichstag. The right didn’t have the support of everybody but by adding the Nazi party’s vote then they would gain the major support of the population and thus be able to put in place whatever they wanted to. These were the main thoughts behind the appointment of Hitler. Hindenburg was hesitant about appointing Hitler as Chancellor. He refused twice in 1932 before finally appointing him in January 1933 under Von Papen’s conditions[9]. That’s how the Nazis only had 3 seats out of 11 in the cabinet, apart the chancellor position the 2 other ones were secondary.
Those who thought they knew Hitler as Von Papen did were under estimating the originality of Hitler. Hitler was original in a sense that for him a good revolution was to be executed with the support of the government and not without. He knew the psychological advantage of having the law at his side. Thus what he was planning to do was “to make illegal become legal”[10]. The Reichstag fire played a big role in the consolidation of Hitler‘s power.
Repression:
Use of law
Reichstag fire:
On 27 February 1933, before the Election Day (1 week exactly), the Reichstag building went up in flames. A young Dutch communist called Marinus Van der Lubbe was caught at the place. It made no doubt that he was the responsible for the fire. Goering who was searching for a way to get rid of the communists took this opportunity alongside with Hitler to declare that this fire was to be the start of communist terrorism. The leader of the communist party was therefore arrested, but no link could be made between the pyroman and him thus he was released. Some historians think that the Reichstag fire was in fact something organized by the Nazis themselves. [11] In fact it could have been possible that some SA following the orders of Karl Ernst went into the building through hidden corridors, and put fire to it. Then found Van der Lubbe while he was attempting to set fire to other building (as an act of procrastination against society) and brought him back into the building, allowing him to set his own fire in another of the building. Nevertheless the role of van der Lubbe stays mysterious. Considering the fact that the beneficiaries of this incident were mainly the Nazis, this theory could be true. Hitler made good use of this incident; he managed to make a decree for the “Protection of the People and State”[12] which was signed by Hindenburg. This decree made the KPD an outlaw and allowed the government to take all necessary measures to prevent this type of incident from happening again. This included capital punishment (article 5), life imprisonement with forced labour (concentration camps) for acts of high treason, conspiracy, poisoning, sabotage etc. This decree made the communists powerless in front of Hitler. Therefore the following week thousands of Nazi’s political opponents found themselves arrested at will. Their newspapers were shut down as said before (mass media paragraph) and the SA violence increased exponentially. The Nazis took the opportunity to invade several Länder governments with or without official agreement and usually perpetrated with a lot of violence. Thus allowing the central government to strengthen, and thus allowing Hitler to consolidate his powers.
Enabling act:
One of laws that should be considered when you evaluate how Hitler consolidated his power is the Enabling act. Why the enabling act? Simply because it allowed Hitler to overcome the Weimar constitution, and changed the country like he wanted to. It would allow him to pass laws without needing the approval of the Reichstag.[13] Nevertheless an absolute majority was required (2/3 majority) to pass it. Even though the Nazis were the main party that didn’t mean they had this majority. In order to gain enough seats Hitler needed two things. Firstly he needed to gain support from other centre right parties. To accomplish this, a ceremony was organized by Goebbels on 21st March 1933[14] celebrating the opening of the New Reichstag, which was to be the “Reichstag of the 3rd Reich”[15]. At that ceremony many important figures (conservatives) were there, including the President Von Hindenburg, the son of the deposed Kaiser and some army generals. To get their support Hitler claimed that he had the same values as them. In fact he wanted the same thing as they did, he wanted Germany to have her military force restored, to have strong central government replacing the Weimar Republic. This ceremony was known as the “Day of Potsdam”[16]. And 2 days later the first Reichstag session was held. The second thing he needed was to get rid of the potential opposition which was the communists. Hitler had already arrested most of the communists before the Reichstag session concerning the Enabling act even took place. So to get completely rid of them, some SA and SS troops were circling the Reichstag and acting in a threatening way which probably restrained furthermore the communist deputies from coming.[17] Hitler then convinced the church to vote in favour of enabling act by promising them to respect the rights of the church and not involve ideological demeanours into the religion. That’s how only the SPD remained and enabling act couldn’t be any more contested thus the legislation passed. Hitler now had the full powers.
Use of force:
Gleichschaltung:
The process known as Gleichschaltung or co-ordination followed the enabling act. It was an important step to the consolidation of Nazi power. As it was the process by which all the organizations of the country were to be place under Nazi control, with this process Hitler could assure himself some rest, As it dealt with the ancient Weimar system of Lander, the Trade unions, the political parties and as it dealt with the SA with the night of the Long knives.
The Länder:
The Länder also known as the provinces was one of the last vestiges of the Weimar republic. The provinces had a considerable amount of political autonomy. Which had been done on purpose by the Weimar constitution to restrain the central government from getting too strong. Therefore Hitler needed to put these provinces under his control to ensure his authority on the country. Since SA violence increased due to the passing of the law “Protection of the people and State”, and due to the fact that it wasn’t well-looked by the conservatives, in order to keep their support Hitler took steps. He formalized the Nazi control of the Lander by giving power to the Länder which allowed them to vote laws without having to refer to their provincial parliament. To furthermore ensure the respect of the Nazi policy, Hitler appointed 10 Reich Governors who were to govern the landers and carry out the furher’s policy. Nevertheless the Reich governors became a problem as they created confusion around the question of who had the executive power in the Lander. Simply because they had similar powers to the regional minister presidents. This problem was partially solved in 1934 with the Law of Reconstruction of the Reich[18] which put an end to all the Landtage (provincial parliament), minister presidents and Reich governors by putting them under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. Which was the best solution to ensure that the Landers were clearly sticking to the Nazi policy. Nevertheless some local Reich governors and Nazi parties still took the matter into their own hands(didn’t listen to the guidelines given by the Ministry), which made it seem as if the law on her own wasn’t enough, that’s probably what explains the appointment of the Lord Mayor. Who was a Nazi official, able to dismiss the mayors and counsellors.
Trade unions:
Like I said earlier the consolidation of nazi power was also due to the control Hitler managed to gain over the trade unions by the use of force. The problem with the trade unions was the following; they didn’t fit in the Nazi plan as they maintained strong loyalties to the Church and the KPD therefore those organisations were hostile to the Nazi Party. They were also a problem because they were the last institution giving rights to the worker, and the problem with giving rights to the workers was that by giving them right it was potentially dangerous for the aim of the Nazi party; as it prevented the party from exploiting the workers to their maximum. Which would become problematic in times of war. Therefore Hitler needed to get a hold of these. The trade union leaders didn’t take Hitler’s government seriously and that’s one of the reasons why they were disposed of so fast. In fact they believed that the Nazi government would soon collapse and as a consequence of it they didn’t think it useful to oppose to it. That’s how they even believed that they could potentially collaborate with it and in fact with the “International worker’s day” which were considered as holidays that seemed the case. With this holiday Hitler managed to pull out all the syndicates out of their buildings as they were on holiday and that allowed him with the SA and SS to occupy the buildings/siege, and to get rid of the rebelling trade union leaders by putting them to jail and later concentration camps.[19] Once Hitler got a hold of the trade unions he created the Nazi German labour front which regrouped all the trade unions, under the same institution/authority; with this institution Hitler could finally impose Nazi control over the workers. Therefore reinforcing his authority.
Political Parties:
One of the final steps of consolidation of power was for Hitler to remove all political threats. By that time the KPD did no longer exist as all of its members already had been arrested. During the few weeks that followed the dissolution of the KPD, several other parties were either called to join the NSDAP or to dissolve themselves. That’s the case of the SPD that got dissolved on 22nd of June 1933.[20] To ensure total political power, Hitler imposed a law against the Formation of New Parties, which declared that Germany was a one-party country. This law established the Nazi party as the one and only legal party. Sanctions were to be applied to people engaged in non-nazi political activity. As a result of this to confirm his all mighty power Hitler organised elections which evidently were wined by the Nazis. At this point Germany became a Nazi-dictatorship.
The night of the long knives:
By 1934 the Gleichschaltung had already ensured the supremacy of the nazi dictatorship, nevertheless Hitler’s position was not fully consolidated. The reason why, is that with the Gleichschaltung all the instititutions had been co-ordinated but the not the army. Therefore the army remained a powerful institution with the power to oppose and even overthrown Hitler. Furthermore the problem with the Army was that they wanted to carry out a “second revolution”, which was based on the second ideas of the nazi program (socialist). Ernst Rohm One of Hitler’s earliest collaborators and the leader of the SA wanted to achieve this second revolution by merging the army troops with the SA and create a powerful army under his control. Nazi such as Rohm didn’t like the contact Hitler had with the conservatives[21]. Rohm became a threat for the Nazi plan because what he wanted to do[22] wasn’t going to be well viewed by the Army commanders. Whose support was essential for Hitler if he was to go to war. Thus the actions of Rohm and his troops (SA) were becoming a problem as it could have made the army attack them and the Nazi regime as a whole. Rohm was the most powerful person after Hitler in the party, thus not only Hitler saw him as a threat but also Himmler (Head of the SS) and Goring (Prussian Minister of the Interior) saw him as a rival; Some historians say that this military operation was also encouraged by Von Papen who eventually told Hitler that if no action was to be taken against the SA, it would result in a conservative opposition of the regime. Thus on the 30th June 1934, Hitler’s army the SS was provided weaponry and transport (by the army) and arrested and executed the leaders of the SA(including Rohm). During this night more than 400 people were murdered including Gregor Strasser(another prominent Nazi who wanted a second revolution of the bigger firms), Hitler also took the opportunity of removing the conservatives elite(monarchs) who could have influenced Hindenburg to put the monarchy back in place. That’s how within a night Hitler fully consolidated his powers through the removal of the inner threats of the Nazi party (Ernst Rohm, Gregor Strasser), and the removal of the conservatives elite. Getting rid of the SA made Hitler gain the essential support of the Army, which was shown by the oath of allegiance that the Army took for Hitler (on the 2nd August 1934). Hitler was now the supreme commander of the Army and now that nobody could oppose him, Hitler could finally put in place his foreign policy.
Conclusion:
Hitler was one of the most powerful and influential men of his time. He came to an insecure position (chancellor) and managed to make it the most powerful one. The road wasn’t easy but he did it. Through the use of indoctrination he managed to acquire all the different forms of communication and entertainment under his control. Through the control of mass media and culture Hitler controlled the scope of what people should know and not know, that’s how he managed to keep them under control. Nevertheless it would be unwise to say that his survival in power was only due to indoctrination, because the mind control wasn’t enough on its own to assure Hitler’s position. Other means were essential to assure this. Firstly the use of law, if you are able to pass law that make illegal become legal, then people can’t contest any of your actions; that’s what Hitler use to his benefit, by manipulating law he assured himself that all the action taken by the Nazis would be legal and thus well-viewed. Finally the use of force was essential to ensure the control of the institutions of the country, and thus the control of the population. It is to say that the Gleichschaltung contributed greatly to consolidation of hi powers. It made Hitler the leader of an all powerful party. The co-ordination of the institution allowed him to finally have everything under his own control. Once this process was accomplish Hitler’s position was fully consolidated. Regarding the question of this essay: “Which was the more effective in giving the Nazis control over the German people repression or propaganda?” I would say that to ensure control over the German people Indoctrination played a big role in giving Hitler the control of German people as it naturally made them adhere to the nazi policies, to the opposite of repression (use of law and Gleichschaltung) which imposed the Nazi will over the one of the people. Convincing someone (indoctrination) is harder than forcing him to be convinced (repression) but it is more powerful to ensure that this persons follows your will.
Bibliography of sources:
Bullock, Allan, “Hitler” French version first published (Ed.) Gerard et Cie, first published paris 1966, translated from English by Colson Gerard pp. 189-281
Kershaw, Ian, “Hitler Essai sur le charisme en politique” (Ed.) Galimard first published paris 1995 translated from English by Carnaud Jackeline and Dauzat Pierre-Emmanuel, pp.116-152
Todd, Allan: “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” first published 2002 by Cambridge university press in Edinburgh pp.177-180 and pp.192-196
[1] A.Todd “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” p. 177.
[2] idem
[3] idem
[4] idem
[5] A.Todd “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” p. 178.
[6] idem
[7] idem
[8] Idem
[9] A.Bullock “Hitler“ p. 191-192.
[10] idem
[11] A.Bullock “Hitler” p. 194.
[12] A.Bullock “Hitler” p. 194.
[13] A.Bullock “Hitler” p. 193.
[14] A.Todd “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” p. 193.
[15] A.Bullock “Hitler”
[16] “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” p. 194.
[17] A. Bullock “Hitler” p. 198.
[18] A. Todd “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” p. 195.
[19] A.Bullock “Hitler”
[20] A.Bullock “Hitler” p. 198.
[21] A.Todd “The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini” p. 196.
[22] second revolution