Government

• Hitler had a bad sleeping pattern and was absent from Berlin for long periods
• Hitler played limited role in day-to-day runnings
• no embracing constitution in third reich meaning law was chaotic
• no individual could control all areas of goverment
• 'working towards the Fuhrer' with other making decisions; Hitler employed system of Darwinism creating competition and the best would rise
• cabinet met 72 times in 1933 but only 4 times in 1936. last formal meeting in 1938
• Hitler was charismatic and dynamic: created image of himself 'god-like'
• State institutions never destroyed and party divisions remained
• bureaucracy was effective and important decisions made by state officials
• ministries, run by civil servants, often conservative and never clarifed judiciary relationship's with Nazi's creating conflict and 'dualism'
• the Reich chancellory responsible for co-ordinating government, leader Hans Heinrich Lemmer controlled link of Hitler to other organisations however use declined in 1934
• Rufolf Hess sais civil servants had tp be party members, Bormann created department for internal party affairs to discipline structure
• the justice minister in 1941, Franz Gurtner, was not a Nazi
• 1933 special court and 1934 people's court: tried to ease cases of high treason (7,000/16,000 cases sentenced to death)
• by 1939 any Judge had to be Nazi
• Nazi Reich governers used saying 'execute the will of the supreme leader of the Reich'
• party structure based on Fuhrerprinzip: hierarchy
• Hans Mommsen says Hitler developed Nazi dictatorship on propaganda rather than decisions
• the independence of Gauleiters was one of main obstacles to control