Nazi control and dictatorship 1933-39👱

• the reichstag fire:

  -27 February 1933

  -Nazis blamed Marinus Van der Lubbe a Dutch communist

  -Hindenburg declared emergency decree on 28 Feb

  -Hitler used this to issue Decree for Protection of the People and State which allowed him to imprison political opponents and ban communist newspapers
• Elections on 5 March 1933 resulted in Nazis increasing their share of the vote by 43%
• 81 communists were banned from attending parliament after reichstag fire, so Hitler now had majority support
• enabling act March 1933:


  -After election, Hitler wanted to make his temporary emergency powers permanent so requested enabling act in March 1933

  -this would allow Hitlerto make laws without consent of reichstag

  -he placed SA in reichstag chamber when they were voting to approve it, in attempt to intimidate people

  -on 24 March 1933 act was passed, ending weimar constitution
• removing opposition:

  -Hitler used enabling act powers to ban trade unions and make strikes illegal

  -German Labour Front (DAF) set up to replace unions

  -May 1933, SA closed down newspapers amd collected funds of communist and socialist parties

  -14 July 1933, Law against establishment of parties
• The night of the long knifes:

  -Hitler feared opposition from Ernst Rohm head of SA

  -by 1934 SA numbered 3 million and Hitler feared they were more loyal to Rohm

  -Rohm also distrusted by army generals with army of 100,000

  -30 June 1934 Rohm and 100 other SA leaders were arrested in Bavaria and shot

  -SA now firmly under Hitkers control

  -Used night of long knifes to murder other political opponents like Strasser
• Hitler became Fuhrer:

  -Hindenburg died 2 August 1934

  -Hitler abolished position of president, and merged it's powers with the chancellors, creating a Fuhrer

  -oath of loyalty to be sworn to Hitler

  -plebiscite on 19 August 1934 showd 90% of voters supported Hitler as fuhrer
• role of Gestapo:

  -non uniformed secret police

  -main aim was to identify Nazi opponents through spying, tapping phones and a network of informants

  -30,000 gestapo officers for a population of 80 million

  -relied on people's fear of not knowing who was in the gestapo

  -by 1939 they were arresting 160,000 people a year

  -estimated 80% of them were discovered through informant network rather than officers
• role of SS:

  -personal bodyguards for Hitler

  -blackshirts

  -elite private force of Nazi party

  -240,000 members by end of 1930's

  -as their power grew, it overlapped with other elements of the police state leading to confusion of who was responsible for what
• role of SD:

  -a security force to monitor Nazi opponents

  -uniformed political police

  -kept detailed card index of suspected opponents

  -SD increasingly sidelined when Himmler and Heydrich rivalry grew
• concentration camps:

  -by 1939 150,000 people were under protective arrest for political crimes

  -concentration camps set up to cope with high numbers

  -first camp in Dachau in 1933

  -followed by Sachsenhausen and Moringen camp for women

  -existence publicised to strike fear

  -20,000 people in 6 camps by 1939

  -communist and socialist inmates

  -also included undesirables such as alcoholics, homosexuals, minority groups
• legal system:

  -all judges had to be members of National Socialist League for the Maintenance of the Law

  -if they gave verdicts that displeased Nazis, they could be fired

  -Nazis abolished trial by jury

  -People's Court set up by Hitler for political crimes

  -trials here held secretly with no right of appeal

  -punishments became harsher

  -between 1934 and 1939 534 people executed for political offences

  -compared to 8 between 1930 and 1932

  -death penalty crimes increased from 3 to 46 between 1933 and 1939
• Nazis towards Catholic church:

  -potential threat to Hitler as they owed allegiance to Pope and had their own schools

  -Hitler reached concordat (agreement) with pope in July 1933

  -Hitler would allow Catholic religious freedom and schools if priests avoided discussing politics and swore and oath of allegiance to the state

  -Hitler broke agreement as he closed or changed Catholic schools and banned Catholic youth league

  -Critical Catholic priests sent to concentration camps

  -1937 Pope issued 'with burning anxiety' criticising nazi policies
• Nazis toward protestant church:

  -church divided into Reich church (accepted Nazis over communism) and Pastors Emergency League (PEL who resisted Nazi ideas)

  -Reich church set up in 1936

  -swastikas displayed in churches, Jewish banned from attending, Jewish old testament teachings removed

  -PEL banned by 1937
• Joseph goebbels:

  -in 1933 he was made minister of people's enlightenment and propaganda

  -he was in charge of coordinating the media, sport, culture and the arts

  -he ensured nazi ideas were promoted through propaganda campaigns and alternative veiws were censored
• nazi use of the media:

  -newspapers expected to only provide views promoted by ministry of propaganda or they would be closed down

  -1,600 newspapers closed down in 1935 alone

  -journalists couldn't publish any daily briefings and sometimes given instructions on what to write about

  -all radio stations cake under nazi control and were used for speeches by Hitler and other leaders

  -cheap radio sets mass produced to ensure the species were widespread

  -by 1939 70% of Germans owned their own radio

  -all radios had a limited range so foreign radio couldn't be picked up

  -speakers placed in streets, cafes, factories, and schools
• nazi use of rallies and sport:

  -huge rallies organised by goebbels to promote German unity and show off the new nazi strength

  -an annual meeting was held at a huge open air parade ground in nuremburg and goebbels ensured the 1934 rally was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl in the infamous film 'Triumph of the Will'

  -a statue of a giant eagle with a 100 foot wingspan dominated the nuremburg stadium which had 130 searchlights and space for 200,000

  -sports stadiums were covered in nazi symbols

  -the Olympic stadium built in Berlin to accommodate 110,000 at the 1936 Olympics where Germany won 33 gold medals

  -this was hailed as proving nazis racial purity

  -visiting teams including the England football team in 1938 were expected to show respect to the nazi state by making the nazi salute during the German national anthem
• nazi control of culture and the arts:

  -goebbels set up the Reich chamber of Culture in September 1933

  -it's role was to ensure all areas of the arts were consistent with nazi ideals and any art not falling in line would be branded degenerate and banned
• art control:

  -all painters and sculptors had to be an approved member of the Reich chamber of visual arts

  -42,000 artists were accepted but by 1936 over 12,000 paintings and sculptures had been removed from galleries including the work of Picasso and Van Gogh
• in architecture:

  -the nazis disliked modernist and futurist architecture

  -they built on massive scale to give the impression of power and used classic ideas fron ancient Greece and Rome

  -hitlers favourite architect was Albert Spencer who designed the nuremburg parade grounds and government buildings
• in music:

  -using censorship, the nazis banned jazz for being the work of black people and Medelssohn for being Jewish

  -using propaganda, Beethoven, Bach and traditional German folk music was encouraged
• in literature:

  -writers had to have their work approved by the chamber of culture

  -2,500 writers had their work banned

  -in May 1933, there was a public book burning ceremony in Berlin where students burnt 20,000 books by Jewish, communist and anti-nazi authors
• in film:

  -all film makers needed to have their films approved by goebbels

  -the nazis produced 1,300 of their own films

  -many were purely entertainment but some like 'Hitlerjunge Quex' idealised nazis fighting communists

  -all films had government newsreels proceeding them

  -there was even a propaganda cartoon for children called Hansi the Canary representing Hitler fighting against evil Jewish crows
• support for Nazi Regime:

  -became the largest Party in the Reichstag but they never won an overall majority

  -majority of Germans wither supported or conformed with the regime

  -resistance meant refusing to support or speaking out against Nazi policies

  -opposition was rarer meaning actively working against the regime

  -opposition was hard as alternative parties and trade unions were banned while the Gestapo spied on the German people and they were scared of concentration camps

  -most opposition was found in secret trade union sabotage, youth groups like Edelweiss pirates, secret political opposition like SOPADE, socialist supporters sent into Germany from abroad, Catholic church and Pastors Emergency League, some from army Generals
• church opposition:

  -Pastors Emergency League (PEL) opposed the pro nazi reich church for two reasons;trying to force regional churches into one national state controlled church, nazi attempts to prevent Jewish people being Christians and banning Jewish Old Testament teachings

  -in 1934 the PEL set up the confessing church to rival the Reich church

  -about 6000 pastors eventually joined the confessing church while 2000 remained in the pro nazi reich church

  -800 pastors were sent to concentration camps for criticising nazi policies

  -after thr breakdown of the concordat some Catholic priests also criticised the nazis

  -400 Catholic priests were sent to Dachau

  -criticism by Bishop Galen in 1939 of the T4 programme to murder handicapped children

  -Pastor Martin Niemoller arrested by Gestapo and sent to Sachsenausen camp in 1938
• youth opposition:

  -attendance at Hitler youth meetings compulsory by 1939, not all youngsters liked the increasing restrictions and alternative youth groups emerged

  -Edelweiss Pirates emerged in working class districts by the late 1930's

  -disproportionately more boys who resited the military discipline of Hitler Youth who enjoyed wearing their hair longer, American style clothing and telling anti-nazi jokes

  -swing youth were mainly teenage groups located big Northern cities like Berlin, Hamburg and came from middle class families

  -inspired by banned American music like jazz and swing

  -attendance at illegal dances went up to 6000

  -opposition was cultural rather than political and was limited to anti nazi graffiti and jokes up to 1939

  -numbers were small, there were 2000 estimated Edelweiss Pirates in 1939 compared to 8 million in the Hitler youth