The Police State

• Hitler established a dictatorship in Germany
• Hitler established a police state in which he used the police and other forces to control what the people said and did
• Main parts of the Nazi police state

  • SS led by Heinrich Himmler
  • SD led by Reinhardt Heydrich
  • Gestapo or secret police
• SS

  Originally set up in 1925 as Hitler's personal bodyguard, increased massively during the 1930s, fiercely loyal to Hitler and Himmler, carried out the Night of the Long Knives in 1934
• SD

  Formed in 1931 by Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich was in charge, monitored and disrupted activities of other political parties, kept files on everyone suspected of opposing the Nazis
• Gestapo


  Secret police under the command of Heydrich, most feared of all the Nazi police, spied on people, listened to conversations, arrested anyone who criticized the Nazis, used torture to gain confessions, around 160,000 people were arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 alone, used paid and volunteer informants, caused fear and uncertainty among the population
• The main weapon the Nazis used against the population was fear


  Nothing frightened people more than the secretive Gestapo
• Despite there being only around 30,000 Gestapo officers, no one ever knew who they were
• The main weapon the Nazis used against the population was fear
• Nothing frightened people more than the secretive Gestapo
• There were only around 30,000 Gestapo officers
• No one ever knew who the Gestapo officers were
• Concentration camps were not the same as death camps
• Death camps were used by the Nazis from 1942 to mass murder minority groups such as Jewish people
• Concentration camps were prisons for those who opposed the Nazis
• The first concentration camp was opened in Dachau in 1933
• By 1939, 150,000 people were under protective arrest in camps
• Camps were located far from towns and cities to avoid people seeing what was going on in them
• Camp inmates were not fed properly and often died of their wounds or from starvation
• Camp inmates included undesirables such as gay people, some minority groups such as Jews, and political prisoners like Communists and journalists
• Hitler set up to control the courts to prevent people from being released by the courts at their trial
• Hitler passed a law requiring all judges to be members of the Nazi party
• Judges were told that the Nazi party's rules were more important than the law
• Hitler got rid of trial by jury
• The People's Court heard all cases of treason in secret
• Between 1934 and 1939, 534 people were sentenced to death in these trials
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• Hitler used the police state to maintain control through terror


  By instilling fear in the population and controlling the courts