WW2

• • Morale was decreased through the Germany lose at Stalingrad, and and the subsequent retreat of the German army. 
  • Bombing of Germany by the British and US started in 1940, with military targets. By 1943 Civilian area were being targeted. 2 million people were made homeless and 350,000 people killed
  • Rationing was immediately introduced. Many Germans lived off a diet of potatoes, bread and vegetables as meat was scarce, fish, eggs, cheese and milk were hard to come by. 
  • Labour Shortage led to women having to work again
• Women

  Received medal for having children (4= bronze; 6-7 = silver; 8+= Gold)
• CCC (Church, Children and Cooking)


  • Promoted
• Women

  • Discouraged from wearing makeup and being independent
• Textbooks

  • Rewritten to reflect Nazi ideas (History focused on military success and blaming WW1 on Jews)
• Adolf Hitler Schools


  • For the elite of the Hitler Youth, military style
• Nazi brainwashing in all lessons

  • Anti-Jew, military success, Pro Aryans
• Boys Activities

  • To include ruthlessness and comradeship training for the army and map reading
• Girls Activities


  • Emphasis on being good mother and living domestic lives. Taught to cook, iron and sew
• All Sports groups

  • Taken over by the Nazis, Hitler Youth made compulsory in 1936
• Jewish people banned from state jobs e.g. teaching, journalism, law


  1934
• Nuremberg Laws - Jewish people lost citizenship and the vote


  1935
• Kristallnacht - mass violence against Jewish businesses and synagogues. 30,000 Jews sent to concentration camps


  1938
• Final solution implemented. 6 Death Camps, including Auschwitz. 6 million Jews murdered in total


  1942
• Compulsory sterilisation of the ill, alcoholic, or deformed. By 1945 350,000 people had been forcibly sterilised


  1933
• Between 1934 and 1936 more than 300 homosexuals were imprisoned


  1935
• NSDAP


  Nazi Party
• Roma communities were forced to live in special camps


  1936
• Churches under Nazi control

  • Protestant (1 pro Nazi, 1 anti-Nazi - Conffessional church)
  • Catholic (signed Concordat agreeing not interfere with each other, Hitler broke promise and arrest catholic priests, 400 Catholic priests sent to Concentration Camps after Pope made anti Nazi speech)
• T4: Programme: Babies born with severe mental or physical disabilities were not allowed to live. More than 5000 were killed


  1939
• Gestapo


  • Secret Police of 32,000, spied on Germans, tapped phones/ mail and could jail anyone, relied on network of informers
• The SS


  • Loyal police/security force of 240,000, had unlimited power and were responsible for all security, police and concentration camps
• Concentration Camps


  • Dachau set up 1933, used to hold political opponents/enemies/homosexuals, used beatings and hard work to re-educate the 150,000 prisoners
• Nazi propaganda methods


  • Film (100 films a year, pro Nazi, 250 million watch films in 1933)
  • Newspapers (5000 shut down, remainder all under Nazi control who decided what was written, 'Der Sturmer' a Nazi paper)
  • Radio (Hitler's speeches popular, Nazis made cheap 'peoples radio' 70% had them, loudspeakers were put up in public to broadcast Nazi speeches)
  • Rallies/Events (Nuremberg rallies (200,000 attend), 1936 Olympics)
• Forms of resistance


  • Very small numbers of youth set up anti Nazi groups, most joined Hitler Youth and just kept quiet
  • Swing Youth: listened to Jazz, drank and wore US clothes, groups of 600 went to parties
  • Edelweiss Pirates, 2000 anti Nazis who beat up Hitler Youth, anti Nazi graffiti