In 1936 Gestapo Law meant that the activities of the Gestapo did not have to have any review by courts of law. This meant that the Gestapo became a law to themselves. This non-uniformed branch were just as feared as the black uniformed SS men were. Himmler had a view on the SS and in 1943 he said:
“ We have always selected the highest and abandoned the lowest. As long as we maintain this principle, the Order (the SS) will remain healthy. After the war, we shall really build up our Order …. It will provide Germany with an elite. This elite will provide leaders to industry, agriculture and policies and the activities of the mind”
Education and Youth
Within the Education System in Germany boys were more important than girls. Hitler’s policies made it difficult for girls to have any chance of a career outside the home. In 1940 the number of girls at grammar schools had reduced from 255,000 in 1931 to 188,000.
Teachers were often in Nazi organisations and they were sent to camps to ensure that they were thinking “correctly”. Teachers had to be under fifty and had to do compulsory P.E.
P.E. was very important as this was to produce fit young soldiers. History was studied, Germany post 1918, Biology and German language and literature. All the subjects were Nazified and racist.
Religious Education was reduced and prayer was optional. In 1937 Priests were not allowed to take classes. The Teachers Association and HJ had both tried to have religious education lessons stopped.
Boys were encouraged to be violent and aggressive. They had to train hard and were taught to be forceful. They often got poor school reports as they were too tired to concentrate on their lessons.
Educational standards dropped during Hitler’s rules as teachers left to go to better paid jobs and the number of children entering schools grew due to the 1933-35 baby boom.
In 1936 it became compulsory to be a member of the Hitler Youth. All other groups were banned. There was one exception the Catholic Youth Organisation which carried on until 1939.
Within the Hitler Youth children were encourage to think of the team and Germany and not themselves. It had been hoped that children from rich and poor backgrounds would join together, but it didn’t work.
To join the DJ “Deutsches Jungvolk” (German Young People) a ten year old had to take a number of tests before they could be accepted some of these were
- Remember Nazi ideas
- Nazi songs
- Map reading
- War Games
- Collecting waste paper
They also learnt other skills during the four years they spent in the DJ
When they were 14 boys would join the HJ and would have to pass athletics tests including:
- Running 60 metre in 12 seconds
- Long jumping 2.75 metres
- 36 hour cross country march.
The girls would join the BDM (league of German Girls) they had to practise Nazi ideas but unlike the boys who would be doing military style activities, the girls were only allowed to practise domestic skills. Once they got to seventeen, girls were expected to concentrate on their health and looks to prepare them for being good wives and mothers. The boys would be using machine guns with live ammunition for their military training and to give them good discipline. By 1939 there were eight million young Germans who were part of the Hitler Youth Movement.
Hitler made sure that the young people of Germany would be loyal to him. He did this by:
- Having textbooks re-written to make sure that Nazis were shown in a good light
- Sending teachers on compulsory training courses to make sure that the Nazi ideas were included in their lessons
German school children therefore did not really receive an education, but it was called an indoctrination which means making people believe in a set of ideas.
CENSORSHIP AND THE MEDIA
Doctor Joseph Goebbels was the Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda. He had one of the most important jobs in the Nazi Government.
Propaganda is a type of advertising which is used to make a large number of people believe a certain thing even if it is not true. It uses the media to print stories that have been designed to get people to think in a certain way.
Goebbels had the job of making German people believe all the Nazi ideas that Hitler wanted and to stay loyal to Hitler. It was his intention to make all people believe in the ideas so that they would do exactly what they were told because they had complete faith in Hitler.
He did this in a number of different ways:
- He used the newspapers and made them print stories that favoured the government. The editors would be told what to print and what the headlines should be. Any newspaper that did not print what he wanted was closed down.
- Radio stations were also under his control and people were encouraged to listen to the radio by being offered cheap sets that they could afford by the Government. If they were not at home Goebbels had loudspeaker pillars built in the streets and all cafes were ordered that they must have their radios on.
- He held a mass rally. The annual Nuremburg rallies were the most famous and were in August each year. The rally lasted for a week and they took place in areas that had been specifically built just outside the town. Some arenas could hold as many as 400,000 people. During these rallies they would watch army parades and gymnastic displays, listen to speeches and watched air force fly pasts and firework displays.
- He used the Olympic Games in 1936 as another propaganda success.
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When Hitler was made Chancellor in 1933 and his 50th birthday in April 1939, big celebrations were held which were really well organised and impressive.
Goebbels was really good at organising the propaganda but he was not prepared to trust just this to make sure that all the people were on the Nazis side. He also used his powers of censorship to make sure that any information or ideas that would be harmful or bad for the government were banned. He was making sure that only one side of the story was told .
He made sure that everything was censored:
- Jazz Music was not allowed at dances due to its origin from the black people of America
- Films were censored for many different reasons, e.g. a drunk sailor or people wearing too few clothes.
- The works of over 2,500 writers were officially banned
- Music was carefully looked at and Mendelssohn was removed from the list of composers that were allowed to be played because he was partly Jewish.
- Books that were written by Jews or Communists were burnt. In 1933 in Berlin students were encouraged to burn 20,000 books outside a the University of Berlin.
- Art was censored with some artists having work seized.
- They interfered with the research of Universities, sometimes showing that they did not understand at all about the importance of this research. Some physicists left Germany during the 1930s including Albert Einstien.
- Complaining about the Government in your own home was outlawed
- Anti-Nazi jokes were completely banned
- Anti-Hitler jokes carried the death penalty
NAZIS AND RELIGION
It was Hitler’s long-term aim to destroy Christianity. He did not like the churches because their message was the total opposite of Nazism. The churches did not approve of Hitler. Although some church leaders looked at Hitler as their defender against godless communism, some continued to praise him. However, it was about three years until most of the churches realised that Hitler was completely evil and totally anti-Christian.
With the Roman Catholic religion, Hitler did have a respect for the power and the way the Roman Catholic Church was organised. A treaty with Pope was signed in July 1933 and then the Catholic Church was promised that it could have free religious freedom. The church schools and religious order were all given these promises. To get this freedom the Bishops had to swear that they would be loyal to the state and they had to agree to stay out of politics. It was not long before Hitler was breaking the treaty and putting obstacles in the Church’s path such as the ending of religious teaching in schools.
The church was not happy and the Bishops made a protest, as a result of this the Nazis began attacking the clergy. In 1935 priests were arrested on charges of smuggling. Propaganda was used in papers and magazines accusing members of religious orders of sexually immoral behaviour. Relations became increasingly worse and then Pope Pius XI wrote a letter which was to be read out in all German Catholic churches on 3 March 1937 attacking Nazi policies. Archbishop Clemens von Galen of Munster became a preacher against Nazi policies and because he became so well known and famous he managed to avoid getting arrested.
Hitler thought the Protestant churches were an easier target and planned to capture them and join them together under a Nazi bishop. He did seem to have succeeded by 1933 when Ludwig Muller was elected as the bishop of German Christians.
Martin Niemoller did not want this to happen. He support 75% of Germany’s 8000 pastors. Together they formed the Confessional Church as a rival to the Nazis German Christians. Hans Kerrl was made Minister of Church Affairs and was ordered to end the division, but he failed. Hitler then made the Confessional Church illegal and Niemoller and hundreds of other pastors were arrested and sent to prison. Kerrl had control of the buildings and the funds but he was not able to control their minds. It was the Confessional Church who were the only ones to protest against the Nazi treatment of the Jews.
Jehovah’s Witnesses were also treated really badly if their teachings contradicted Nazi ideas.
