Society and Legacy

• Volksgemeinschaft - he aimed to replace class division with a single national consciousness. Community before individuals, and was pushed through constant propaganda.
• Volksgenossen - people's community was united by blood (Aryans), and all had to be healthy and benefit the state.
• Trade unions were banned and replaces with the DAF. It ran training courses, Strength Through Joy and Beauty of Work.
• 1935 Reich Labour service: all 18-25 men undertook 6 months training camp and had to accept a basic wage.
• Measures to confirm women's roles included: birth control and abortion clinics closed, maternity benefits increased, marriage loan repayments reduced with each child and ended after 4, compelled to leave careers in law, medicine and civil service, and banned from Reichstag membership.
• From 1936, labour shortages affected rearmament so women were encouraged to return to work and they relaxed restrictions on higher education. Compulsory agricultural labour service for women under 25 in 1939.
• Education system focussed on the glory of the nation: Jewish theses banned, history was purely German, girls taught home economics.
• Teachers had to be anti-semitic, part of the NSLB and organised camps to enforce German values.
• Membership of Hitler youth was compulsory and Catholic youth groups closed down in March 1939.
• Most youths were receptive to the national community, few wanted to be outsiders.
• Propaganda was enforced through loud speakers, radio broadcasts were controlled and there was celebration of important Nazi days, parades, speeches, posters, flags.
• Winter Help aided 9 million and were doorstop collections to help victims of depression. One pot was to only have on dish for Sunday lunch and donate the rest. During the war, people were less charitable so Hitler had to threaten death.
• Churches were generally right-wing, so wanted to harness, not destroy them.
• The Protestant Reich Church embraced Nazism, but a breakaway Confessional church wanted to protect Protestants from Nazis - hundreds sent to concentration camps.
• Catholics instructed to keep out of politics in return for control of schools and youth groups. Some were critical of Nazis, however there was no organised opposition.
• German Faith Movement aimed to replace Christianity. Nativities and the word Christmas was banned. However membership never really exceeded 200,000.
• Asocials were provided with some board and lodgings in return for compulsory work, failure to comply meant concentration camp.
• Those suffering from hereditary defects were sterilised, 5,000 disabled children had lethal injections by 1945 and 30,000-50,000 mentally ill or physically incapable were gassed by 1945.
• Anti-Semitism measures included: a boycott of Jewish business in 1933, Jewish civil servants were dismissed, 1938, they were banned from unis and public places. In 1938, there was a series of attacks encouraged by the police destroyed their homes and shops, 91 were murdered. 6 million were gassed in camps.
• All entertainment became propaganda. Censorship and book burnings of the un-German. Works of Jews and Jazz were banned. Arno Brecker produced huge sculptures of the ideal Aryan.
• In Western zones, questionnaires put in place and they reeducated accordingly.
• Persil Trials held to prove innocence. They investigated ex-Nazi members: 90% were exonerated in British zone but only a third in USA zone. Many alleged they only followed nazism to keep their jobs.
• There was more thorough cleansing in east but many professionals could keep their jobs. They overhauled the education system but many teachers with nazi links could keep their jobs.
• Denazification was seen as a failure as it increased resentment to the occupying powers.