How did the Nazis control the German people between 1933-1939?

     Concentration camps were another way Hitler used to try to control the people and they were a very useful place to put anyone who opposed him.  The first people to be sent to these camps along with the Socialists and the Communists were the Jews.  Hitler blamed the Jews for many things that had happened, including the Treaty of Versailles.  People were willing to agree with this as even before Hitler there was a lot resentment felt by the German people towards the Jews.

     The Treaty of Versailles was another thing which Hitler focused on to try and gain him support from the people.  This was something that many people were not very happy about and felt that Germany had not been treated fairly.  Hitler agreed with this and was furious with the people who had agreed with the Treaty in the first place.  He promised to abolish this treaty and this gained him a lot of support from the people.  Britain and France actually helped him accomplish this, and in turn win the support of the Germans by trying to appease Hitler and giving into him as he one by one broke the rules laid down by the treaty.

     Hitler also realised the importance of the workers when trying to rebuild Germany as a major European force.  One way in which Hitler kept the workers in their place was by fear, he was a brutal man and was not afraid to quickly crush anyone who tried to stand up against him.  He did not only control them by fear as he knew that this would not get the best out of them but also insured that they had good conditions, reasonable wages and had to work less hours a week.

     One of the major problems in Germany at that time was large-scale unemployment and Hitler was very clever in the way he reduced this.  First by cutting down the amount of hours that a man had to work he not only kept them happy but also created more job opportunities as the same amount of work still had to be done.  He also stopped women from working as much as this created more jobs available to men and a woman who did not have a job did not count as being unemployed this looked good on the unemployment tables.

     Possibly the main way in which the Nazi Party tried to control the German people was through Propaganda.  The man who was in charge of this was Dr Josef Goebbels.  His job was to ensure that the German people were only told about the good things in the regime and only heard praise for it.  There were many ways in which these messages were spread such as posters, newspapers, pamphlets, books, film and the radio.  The theory was that if you said something loud and often enough then people would begin to think that it was true.