On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg. Hitler realized that two forces within Germany represented potential challengers to his power, the army and the S.A. Hitler decided that the military support was more crucial and had the S.S. execute the leaders of the S.A. including Rohm who posed a tremendous threat towards Hitler.
The death of President Hindenburg offered Hitler an opportunity to consolidate the powers of the Chancellor and the President. Hitler was now head of state, commander of the armed forces and the political head of the government.
In Hitler's Germany there were many characteristics of a Totalitarian state. The Government ran and censored the media. All forms of communication were liable to interference from above and could, and were, heavily censored. This removes freedom of speech, therefore enabling the government to influence popular opinion via propaganda and false news messages.
Propaganda within Nazi Germany was highly effective. The Nazi's realised the importance of the Radio and newspapers as a means to communicate with the masses. they were also highly aware of the force that these media's had and the level of influence that they had over the population. carefully planned radio broadcasts, rallies and films were used to convince the public that Hitler and the party had the overwhelming support of the masses. the news was engineered to show successes brought about by the parties policies and techniques such as subliminal messaging were used to 'brainwash' the masses into a state of belief and hysteria. In effect all news, rumour and opinion within the state was produced or influenced by the Government, a classic sign of a totalitarian leader exerting his control.
Clearly not everyone is susceptible to propaganda. You cannot force somebody to listen to the radio, read newspapers or watch film shows. To combat the potential threat to the utopia that was created by Hitler by these people alternative methods of ensuring control were necessary. The secret police was publicised, it's role was to find enemies of the state. These people would quite often be publicly humiliated or even tortured. Such actions making people think twice before questioning the state. Likewise the police and Gestapo had the authority to remove people from their homes and send them, often without trial, to concentration camps. Once again this acted as a deterrent but it also ensured that the more determined opponent of the state was removed from the public domain.
Hitler was Anti-Semitism which was the hatred of Jews and blamed the war on them. He believed that the Jews had the best jobs and also that they controlled Germany. He also blamed the Jews for the unemployment in Germany. He tried to get rid of the Jews so that he doesn’t have any problems in taking over Germany. This was done by forcing them in to Ghettos.
Once Hitler had total control of Germany he set up aims. He wanted to setup the master race and to make more space for the German people as well as torturing the Jews. Also Hitler wanted to rearmament his army.
The Nazi party and Hitler were concerned about how young people were educated because he realised that the best way to keep in control was to change the way people are educated, which would stop any opposition to the party. This meant that when children left school they believed in the Nazi party. Hitler developed an education system and made sure that the next generation had the political and military training that they needed to become soldiers and politicians. He did this by introducing a ‘Hitler Youth,’ which allowed youngsters from the age of 14 – 18 have military training. However, while boys were practising their military skills the girls were to join the ‘Young Maidens’. This was where the girls were taught how to prepare for motherhood at the age of 14. Hitler was also interested in how young people spent their spare time. Hitler set up the ‘Youth Movement’ for boys and girls. This movement taught young people to be loyal to Hitler and the Nazi party; this movement also trained them up for military service and skills required for this. In total there were five organisations for children to join.
Nazi attitudes towards women were not very good. For the Nazi, the main function of women was to bear as many children as possible. The Nazi believed that their job was to stay at home, cooking, looking after the children and go to the church. Even though women stayed at home they were not allowed to do as they liked. They weren’t allowed to wear make-up and wearing trousers was frowned upon. Their hair was to be put in bun or in plaits, but not dyed or permed. They weren’t to be slim because that was not good for childbearing; they were only allowed to have children. Hitler tried to encourage young couples to have children by saying that the government would give all newly married couples a loan of 1000 marks, which was equivalent of nine months wages. The women who were in good jobs were dismissed and only a few were left. They only had a few women left because the rest of them were conceiving or giving birth. The Nazis controlled those women in the home by not allowing them to do what they wanted. When Hitler said that he wished women to stick to the 30’s he meant all they could do was look after children, go to the church and cook.
The Christian church was very important to Hitler and his party. The changes that he bought to the church were that he tried to set up a Reich to replace the protestant churches. He ordered that a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’ and a sword to be placed on the altar, and that only official Nazi speakers to be allowed to preach. The Nazi also set up pagan-style alternative to Christianity called German faith movement. The sale of bibles in Germany was stooped. The church people that spoke out against Hitler were beaten up and put into concentration camps, but there was not much effective opposition in Germany. The sale of bibles was stopped because it taught people to be compassionate and forgive people. The bible did not agree with the Nazi ideas. In Germany people were almost making Hitler God.
In essence Germany under Hitler was a very good example of what a totalitarian state is/ was. People did not question decisions, no matter how absurd they appeared to be. It was evident that working against the party, or even being perceived as a potential threat would lead to prison or worse (the Night of the Long Knives for example). Through careful coercion, manipulation and misleading information the authorities could, and did, do as they pleased as the people either knew nothing about actions being taken or were too afraid to speak out about them.