Germany - KQ4

• Nazi membership grew from 500,000 in January 1933 to about 3 million strong a week later.
• In late February 1933, The SA and the Stahlhelm were merged and became known as the 'auxiliary police' and orders were issued to the normal police forbidding them from interfering in the cabinet.
• On the 5th of February 1933, a young Nazi shot dead the SPD mayor of a small town in Prussia and a month later a communist was killed in clashes with the SA.
• These killings were ignored by the police and when the SPD newspaper condemned the killings it was banned.
• Thousands of communists, socialists and trade unionists were rounded up and imprisoned in makeshift concentration camps and on the 8th March 1933, the first permanent concentration camp was established at Dachau with accommodation for over 5,000 people.
• By July 1933, 26,789 political prisoners had been arrested by the SA or taken into 'protective custody' as the Nazis called it and imprisoned in some 70 camps.
• By 1934, there were 4.5 million SA members lead by Rohm and many people, including Papen and Hindenburg, were worried that the SA could become too powerful and take control.
• Early June 1934, Heydrich creates a document that states that Rohm is a traitor and Hitler personally leads a team to arrest Rohm at 6:30 am, and he was shot in his cell.
• 17th June 1934, Papen made a speech at Marbury university in which he criticized Nazi excesses.
• Blomberg threatened to declare martial law, Hitler knew he needed to do something.
• 30th June 1934, SS, under Hitler's orders eliminated leadership of the SA and other opponents, at least 84 were executed and another 1000 or so were arrested [including 200 senior officers] and those arrested were either shot or sent to Munich's Stalehelm prison.
• Victims included Rohm and other SA leaders, General Schleicher, Gregor Strasser and Gustav Von Kahr [battered to death with an axe in a forest].
• 13th July 1934, Hitler addressed the Reichstag and accepted full responsibility for these actions.
• In January 1933, 47,000 privately owned newspapers were in Germany and Nazi papers had limited circulation.
• Using powers of The Decree for the Protection of the People and State, socialist and communist newspapers were closed.
• By the end of 1933, the Nazis had acquired 27 daily newspapers with a combined circulation of 2.4 million a day.
• Newspapers became bland and conformist.
• Between 1933-45, over 1000 feature films were produced and cinema attendances increased by a fourfold.
• Of these films, only 14% had an overtly political theme but all themes contained political messages such as the glorification of "blood and soil".
• The Volksempfanger (the people's receiver) was a very cheap radio so everyone could buy one and listen to Hitler's broadcasts.
• In 1933, Hitler made over 50 broadcasts which were played on speakers in town squares and factories and people would stop work to listen to them.
• In 1939, 70% of German households owned a radio (highest proportion in the world).
• 13% of those working in radio were dismissed on racial or political grounds by Goebbels.
• In April 1934, all radio stations were bought under the control of the Reich Rdio company which was controlled by the propaganda ministry.
• There were many Nazi party marches with flag waving, uniforms, torches at night and singing to enhance their theatrically.
• Households were expected to show support by hanging a swastika flag outside of their window, this was monitored by Nazi party block leaders and failure to conform could lead to a person being labelled "politically unreliable" which meant they could lose their job or worse.
• On the 6th May 1933, in Berlin, around 20,000 books written by Jews or Marxists were burnt, and this was followed by 19 other university towns.
• The Hitler Myth presented Hitler as hardworking, responsible for Germany's "national awakening" and as a "man of the people".
• Hitler was actually lazy and surrounded by officials who competed to gain his attention and he wasn’t involved in decision making.
• Propaganda was effective for the young who didn’t have fully formed opinions, aristocrat old conservatives who held Nazi anti-democratic sentiments and the middle class who shared the hostility towards communism and socialism.
• Propaganda that challenged deeply held beliefs such as religion was often uneffective.
• The SPD smuggled pamphlets and newspapers across the border and, along with the KPD, created secret cells of support in factories.
• In the whole of 1937, a total of 250 strikers were recorded, most due to low pay or poor working conditions.
• Although a lot of the opposition agreed with Hitler's long term aim of rebuilding Germany's military strength and expanding the East, they felt he was leading an unprepared Germany into war and General Beck and several senior army figures even planned a military coop to remove Hitler due to his plans to invade Czechoslovakia.
• This never happened as a peaceful takeover was arranged.
• There does appear at times to have been widespread unhappiness about the economic hardships, which was essentially unpolitical but, in a society where the regime demanded total conformity, every moan about the shortage of essential food could lead to unrest and criminal charges.
• The main priority for women after 1933 was to raise the birth rate.
• The Nazis encouraged women to be devoted to the three German k's: kinder, kuche, kirche, which translates to children, kitchen, and church.
• Birth control and abortion were severely restricted in Nazi Germany, leading to an increase in births in 1936 of over 30% compared to 1933.
• Lebensborn, created by Himmler and the SS, provided homes for unmarried mothers but later became a place for young Aryan women to be impregnated by SS soldiers.