Keep control force

• How did Hitler keep control through terror


  • Nazi controlled police
  • Courts
  • Radio
  • Newspaper
  • Education
  • Films
  • The Arts
  • Trade unions
  • Churches
  • Working conditions
• There were rewards for 'good Nazis': women who had a large number of babies were given medals
• Heinrich Himmler


  • Failed poultry farmer
  • Joined Nazi party 1923 taking part in Munich Putsch
  • Believed Hitler was the Messiah
  • Hitler decided he should be head of the SS (Jan 1929)
  • 1936-made head of all police forces in Germany including Gestapo
  • Dec 1940 - Himmler established Waffen SS, this army grew rapidly within a few months to over 150,000 men
  • 1941 he was head of the SS units that ran slave labour camps & carried out the mass murder of Jews
• SS (Schutzstaffel)


  • Means 'protection squad'
  • Wore black uniform
  • Were the principal instrument of internal rule in Germany
  • By 1934 it had 240,000 members
  • All recruits had to be vetted by Himmler
  • Had to be Aryan - blond, blue-eyed & physically fit
  • Were trained to be ruthless and loyal to Hitler
  • Allowed to arrest people without trial / search homes without warrant
• Concentration camps


  • Set up in rural areas to imprison political opponents
  • Inmates first held for short periods, questioning, torture, hard labour
  • Late 1930s concentration camps were run by a section of the SS = Death's head unit
  • 1944-3 main concentration camps
  • Inmates were used as cheap labour to increase war-production
  • Between 1933-1945 a total 1,600,000 were sent to concentration work camps
• Gestapo


  • The state secret police
  • Collecting info on people who were thought to be 'anti-Nazi'
  • Tapped telephones & opened mail
  • Would arrest people without trial, torture them then send them off to concentration camps
• Local wardens


  • Town was split up into small units, each unit had its own warden
  • Every house was visited by the warden collecting donations
  • Warden had to write a report on each person in their block, this report could affect employment
  • Independent thinking was reported, for example if the Nazi flag wasn't flying on celebration days