Nazi Germany 1933-39

• Police State

  • Gestapo set up run by Himmler in 1936 - people arrested and imprisoned without trial sent to concentration camps
  • Children spied on their parents Hitler tried to break down the family and make children loyal to him
  • Important - terror powerful method of control - mention people were watching everywhere
  • Nazi "people's court" tried people often in secrete and they were never seen again
  • This was less important because the police state was inefficiently run and there was still substantial opposition. If the police state had worked there would have been no opposition
• Education/Youth Movements

  • Measures were imposed to make sure that schools and youth associations became Nazified - Non Nazi teachers sacked - had to join Socialist teachers league - curriculum re-written to fit Nazi ideology and race and political ideas
  • Mention Hitler youth - preparing them for soldiers and League of German girls _ preparing them for Kinder, Kirche,Kuche - chilldren, church and cooking
  • Important as it brainwashed them to make them avid supporters of Hitler - focus on brainwashing
• Propaganda


  Continually reminding Germans about basic Nazi ideas
• Roles of men and women in Nazi society

  • Separate and quite distinct
• Reinforcement of gender roles


  1. Posters

  2. Films

  3. Radio
• Burning of the books took place

  1934
• Burning of the books


  Nazi students took books by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors out of libraries and burnt them in huge bonfires
• Cheap radios

  Made and Hitler's portrait was in every public place which made people almost worship him as he was portrayed as Germany's savior from disaster
• Goebbels controlled all forms of communication (books etc) - No non-Nazi views were ever heard
• • Women
  • Hitler did not believe in gender equality - women had to stay at home produce more children and look after the family (3 K's)
  • Lots of propaganda about ideal German family
  • Women forced to give up work when they got married
  • Couples received a loan of 1,000 marks on getting married - less and less of this loan had to be paid back the more children you had
  • Women with impurities were sterilized to keep the German race Pure
  • Women's role summarized under the three K's
  • By excluding women from the workplace - more jobs for men - reduced unemployment - making Nazis look successful economically
• Church

  • Hitler hostile to Christianity - but had to much influence many Germans went to church so he didn not attack striaght away.
  • 1933 Hitler signed Concordant agreement with the Pope to protect the Roman Catholic Church in Germany
  • Catholic groups later shut down and priests imprisoned
  • Some Protestant formed 'Reich Church' - part of Nazi party increased control - Mein Kamp next to altar and Swastika given equal exposure as the cross
  • People opposed it
  • Important - he gradually took over different churches and used different methods to do so. Protestant and Catholic
  • Many people spoke out
• Autarky

  Economic self-sufficiency
• 4 year plan

  1. More raw materials produced

  2. Artificial materials such as rubber made
• Jews taken off labor list and prevented from having jobs in the civil service, education and the media
• Women forced to give up job when married
• Men were preferred to women taking them out of the labor market
• Germany did develop in some industries and full employment was reached
• By 1919 more than 1/3 of raw materials were still imported
• Germany decided to take countries over with raw materials it needed
• Amount spent on public works programmes and rearmament costs more than the German government could afford causing inflation
• 6 million unemployed when Hitler came to power
• Number of unemployed reduced to 250,000


  1938
• Reducing unemployment

  1. Benefiting the unemployed

  2. Got jobs in army (took 1 million in conscription)

  3. Got jobs in industry on public works (e.g. Autobahns)

  4. Soldiers needed equipment made factories work
• New organizations like Strength through joy


  • Offered cut priced holidays
  • Offered theater trips
  • Offered concerts
• Government made sure a cheap radio was available for everyone
• Many people unemployed during depression had a better quality of life and this made them support the Nazis
• • Trade unions abolished
  • Strikes illegal
  • No limit to working hours
• Many didn't mind as they had bread and work which was better than unemployment