Hitler targeted a certain age group especially as he knew that the next generation was more important, he completely took control of children. Turning them from the Jewish children and teaching them his ideas, making each and every one like him. Hitler created youth clubs for the teenage boys and girls where they could spend their spare time learning more about the new ways of becoming an independent Germany. This was very popular. Activities to do with the Nazis were introduced along with camping trips and new uniforms. Forcefully the Jewish children were constantly told to stand in front of the whole class receiving verbal abused. This was shown as the right thing to do as it if you where kind to a Jew you were seen as not playing a right role in Germany.
As all of this was going on the Aryan people were happy as their children were privileged where as the Jewish people could not do anything with the behavior as all reports and complaints were cancelled and the SS or SA would take violent action towards them. Hitler knew that the opposition of the Jews would be uncounted for and they would be silenced as usual. Soon non-Aryan children were excluded from school for the reason of being a Jew. The Hitler Youth (HJ) movement began in 1926 and the League of German Maidens (BDM) was started in 1930. These two groups were the youth group options for young adults ages 14-18 to join. Each group had divisions for younger children since Hitler wanted to ensure that all children were directly involved with his efforts to create his superior German race. In order for a child to join these groups they needed to possess much more than a love for their country. Children, like couples who wish to marry, had to undergo extensive medical exams to gain admittance into the groups. In addition, each person needed to prove their true German blood by tracing back their lineage as far as they could
In fact by the end of 1933 if young adults wished to join any youth groups, their only legal option was the Hitler Youth, because all other groups had been banned from existence. The Hitler Youth gave children and young adults plenty of options for leadership and time to socialize.
Despite the apparent equality of the two youth groups, there were many differences between the way the boys' and girls' youth groups were operated. The HJ mainly taught boys to be aggressive. Training included wrestling matches between the boys, as well as field combat tests, in order to prove how "manly" each boy was. They participated in paramilitary drills, went on marches, weekend outings. The aim of these activities was to develop a strong sense of camaraderie within the group. The boys sang songs to promote a sense of national pride and create devotion to Hitler.
The girls on the other hand were taught how to be perfect German mothers. Many girls quickly joined the ranks of the BDM because it allowed them to escape from their oppressive home lives. In fact, many girls joined the youth group as an act of rebellion against their parents. The girls had similar camps to those of the HJ. The girls practiced paramilitary training, went on marches and outings, but the focus of the camp was on how to raise children and become more domestic. Young women learned the basics of domestic life and child rearing skills. We can see from this that Hitler had planned well as took weak minds of the children and turned them into a stronger person. Adolph Hitler viewed women as inferior beings, good only for procreation. His misogynist attitudes became a part of his policies on women once he rose to power. He enforced policies which would return women back to their traditional roles as housewives mothers of future Germany. Women knew not to wear cosmetics or revealing clothing because Hitler believed that a proper German woman should not flaunt her sexuality in front of a man. Hitler's policies encouraged women to lead healthy lives so that they could bear healthy, happy, and Aryan children. The children were also used as spies, Hitler taught them to expose anyone who they knew was going against his sayings even if it were their parents. Having spies everywhere stopped people from opposing to Nazi persecution minorities. Despite having spies around those that did not appreciate what Hitler was doing eventually joined “Gangs” this developed in the late 1930’s, regarding themselves as a single movement they were called “The Edelweiss Pirates”. This group of gang included other groups whose names were “Traveling Dudes” and the “Kittelback Pirates”. Initially these groups were a largely a protest against the way the Nazi’s wanted to control every aspect of young people’s lives. As the war developed the gangs became more and more involved in the organized opposition to the Nazi regime.
Most Pirate groups carried out only small acts of resistance, such as beating up members of the Hitler Youth and writing anti-Nazi slogans on the walls. Some did go further though as collecting up the propaganda leaflets dropped by allied bombers and posting them through people’s doors was occurring. Offering shelter to deserters from the armed forces was another way. In 1944, the Pirates attacked the chief of the Gestapo in Cologne. Pirate members were executed while later on 7th December the Gestapo arrested 407 gang members in total. Other then the Pirates there also existed “The White Rose” group. The members were young students from Munich University but sadly they did not get away with it either as the leaders was captured being tortured and executed after. Sophie Scholl, was a young girl who was a member, she had her leg broken by the Nazi “questioners”. They showed no sympathy towards her making her limp in agony to the scaffold to be hanged.
The Nazis Party had a strong local structure. Every town was divided into small units called blocks which included a large amount of homes. Their local Nazi, “The Block warden” visited them weekly, collecting donations only this was a mask as to the real reason why homes were being checked up so that there would be no one planning a protest against Hitler. In the police state these local leaders had to act as the eyes and the ears of the Party, They were asked to write reports on the “political reliability” of their block residents. These reports could determine whether someone was got a job. The leader was mainly looking for those who told an anti-Hitler joke, refused to support the Party, hosting illegal political meetings or not flying a Nazi flag on celebration days.
His policies even affected women who wished to work outside of the home. Many married women were removed from their jobs so that men could occupy them. With employment opportunities for men at a quiet period, Hitler and the Nazis wanted to ensure that men would have jobs to support their wives and children. The only women allowed to work outside the home were single women because it was understood that they needed to work in order to survive. Women were too weak to fight of Hitler’s orders as the SS or SA would take actions towards them.
Those that served the country were rewarded constantly and were known very well. Hitler took great care of their families. On the uniform of the SA soldier they had many information stored. For example they had two bones crossing and a skull on the helmet representing death to those that do not accept Hitler and his thoughts and dreams.
In 1934 the SS had grown to more than 250,000 serving in a variety of military and administrative functions. Adolph Hitler cleared those who conflicted with him by demonstrating violence. The violence had come from the large army Hitler owned. For the Aryans things were going extremely great for them as they benefited from the situation therefore they did not dare to speak against Hitler. For the Jews it was immensely impossible to plan something against him due to having a large amount of spies as well as the SS and SA army. Hitler’s army contained strong people as the ones that did not listen to them were publicly beaten up and humiliated in front of everyone. The SS was not afraid to go to the extreme as they started taking people and from then they were known as missing, this made a lot of people experience fear towards Hitler and his authority keeping quiet even if they did find some of Hitler’s changes wrong. Hitler’s army was extremely a big part to his success as they controlled the Jews and helped Hitler invade and capture Poland. Himmler was the person who was in charge of the SS and SA army.
Numerous ideas were put across using propaganda as his main technique. Hitler was incredibly successful at gaining support as the use of Propaganda he used was a lot, Hitler used the radio, posters, newspapers and film shows. It captured the imagination of a disillusioned population and gave them fresh hope. An image had been created of a powerful party with strong leadership. A party that would not allow trivialities to prevent progress. Hitler and his National Socialist movement offered something for everyone: and this at a time when German politicians were failing to control the economy or the radical elements of the left was a potent and powerful political image bound to win support. Hitler’s control over media was very smooth especially his speeches. Knowing that his speeches were important he hired a specialized person to write his speeches for him. Hitler wanted to use the correct words to gain everyone’s attention. Humiliation towards the Jews in the streets expanded as violent was used by any ordinary German. Another way that Hitler isolated the Jewish people was when he burnt all their books. Those that did try to take actions against Hitler were very unsuccessful as many things occurred in the group which sadly went wrong or there were not enough of them.
In August 1936, the XI Olympic Games were held in Berlin. Hitler used the Olympic Games as a propaganda showpiece to demonstrate his dreams of the new Germany to the world. But before the Olympics started Hitler had every sign, poster and all the other propaganda about the Jews stopped so that other countries would not find out. While the Olympics were held the Nazi regime was desperate to present a good face, therefore Hitler made a documentary commissioned about the Olympic Games. The film made absolutely no reference to Jews or anti-Semitism. The film was distributed around the world with an English soundtrack.
Jews were an extremely easy target, not only are they an ethnic minority worldwide but in Germany in 1933 only one percent of the German population was the Jews. From this there were 16 percent of them occupied the jobs of lawyers while 10 percent were doctors. Only having the Jews realign to be suspicious of they were extremely jealous of their success.
When Hitler came into power, the lives of the Jews became immensely hard, but as time progressed this could be referred to as an irony as their lives became hardly worth living. After three months of Hitler’s rise in power, the SA was ordered to construct a boycott committee where Aryans would be told to turn away from Jewish shops. Not only were anti-Semitic slurs being tagged but Jewish shop windows too. The treatments of Jews worsen.
Another reason why there was little opposition in Nazi Germany was the re-organization of the protestant church. In 1933, almost all Germans were Christians, and completely abolishing the church would be far too risky and controversial. Instead, Hitler decided to control and 'Nazify' the church by a concordat being signed in the same year. It soon became obvious that Hitler had no intention of sticking to his concordat. The head of the Catholic Church at the time of the Nazi rise to power was Pope Pius XI. Although he stated that the myths of "" and "blood" were contrary to teaching, he neither mentioned nor criticized . Therefore some churches were not helping at all as a deal was made between Hitler and the Church leaders. Hitler paid the church tax. Yet again Hitler made known that if anyone defended the Jews they would be portrayed as betraying their country.
As most people benefited from Hitler they preferred him to carry on ruling Germany. The people profited from Hitler ending the reparations as by ending the reparations Germany became independent again, unemployment no longer existed. This made the German race feel what Hitler had promised to make them feel from the start this was feeling superior then the rest of the people. Hitler continued making Jewish people’s life bad while parades were organized where with marching soldiers and played instruments. The Armies looked grand in their suits. Jews in the ghettos across Eastern Europe had tried to organize resistance against the Germans and to arm themselves with smuggled and homemade weapons. Throughout 1941 to 1943, underground resistance movements were formed in about 100 Jewish groups. This was the most famous attempt by Jews to oppose the Germans in armed fighting, this was occurring in the Warsaw ghetto. On April 19th, 1943 the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after the German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants, in this 750 fighters fought the heavily armed and well trained Germans. As the conditions of the ghettos were extremely bad the Jewish fighters were able to hold out for only a month. Ending on May the 6th, the Germans slowly crushed the struggle. Out of the 56,000 Jews captured, 7,000 were shot remaining the rest to be deported to the killing centers or the concentration camps.
Hitler’s consolidation of power in the years 1933-1939 meant that there was no one to oppose his extreme foreign policies which led to the outbreak of war. It also meant that the people continued their devotion to him almost to the bitter end.
There were no attempts to overthrow the Government, few incidents of public opposition to Nazi policy and little in the way of political pressure groups opposing policies. This suggests that Hitler and the Nazi's had total control of Germany during this period. It is however a slightly misleading image. There was some underground resistance to Nazi measures, some anti government pamphlets were produced and there were certainly instances of members of the public refusing to join the party or make the Nazi salute. There is evidence to show that some people were executed for failing to comply with these regulations. It must also be remembered that the Nazi party employed a very forceful approach to opposition and that the Nazi propaganda machine was such that opposing views would rarely have been visible publicly. This means that the scale of opposition is extremely hard to gauge: it is true though that the majority of people within Hitler's Third Reich were either supportive or sympathetic towards the regime. The most obvious opposition was from the churches, yet this was not on a scale large enough to worry the government and was not pointed enough to have any great impact upon popular beliefs. In general it can be said that the Nazi's, until the first defeats in the east, were very much in control of the people. They didn't pacify all Germans and there were occasions when policy would be grumbled about. The nature of the regime was such tough that complaints were dealt with quickly and effectively through propaganda, the people would see benefits in other aspects of their lives and those who had more hard line views about the Nazi leadership would be removed from public circulation, either through imprisonment or execution.
