Nazi Germany

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  • Created by: S
  • Created on: 25-11-12 14:57

The Nazi Revolution in Government

  • Hitler made himself dictator
  • Local Govt was destroyed
  • Hitler took supreme control of the Army
  • A Gauleiter was put in charge of regions and a Blockleiter was in charge of 40-60 households
  • Hitler used specialist for different depts
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Propaganda and Control

  • Josef Goebbels was put in charge of Party Propaganda chief in 1928
  • Culture à 
  • Art – Aryan perfection
  • Drama - Strength through Joy
  • Music - German folklore and Wagner
  • Literature - 20,000 non-Nazi books burned
  • Architecture - Neo-classical style
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Control of Mass Media

  1.  
    • The press à  Nazis took over most publishing houses
    • Radio à  Cheap short wave radios made available to hear Hitler’s speeches
    • Meetings and rallies à Use of atmosphere and symbols etc.
    • Film à  film companies nationalised
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Nazi Youth Groups

  • The Nazis wanted to indoctrinate children for future use
  • Hitler Youth and League of German Maidens set up
  • A Nazi curriculum was introduced to education
  • Special schools set up to teach selected education
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Women and the Family

    • Reduce female employment but didn’t force women out of employment
    • Offered Marriage Loans
    • Increase the birth rate of Aryan families
    • Medals offered to prolific mothers
    • RESULTS à birth rate only rose slowly, sterilisation polices stopped growth and female policies reversed during WWII
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Living Standards

  • Jobs created à
  • Public work schemes
  • Trade unions destroyed
  • Subsidies offered to hire more workers
  • Jews pressured out of work created more jobs
  • 6 million unemployed almost vanished
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The Economy

  1.  
    • Schacht devised the ‘New Plan’ which regulated and reduced imports.
    • Schacht made agreements with other countries for raw materials but failed by..
    • Goering put in charge in 1936 and devised the ‘Four Year Plan’ à make Germany self sufficient (Autarky)
    • War à Albert Speer reorganised economy for TOTAL WAR!
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Agencies

  • The Gestapo – the Secret Police
  • Heinrich Himmler in charge of the Security agency that decided the law
  • Relied on German co-operation
  • Individual freedoms removed
  • Rounded people up to go to Concentration Camps
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Agencies

  • The Schutzstaffel began as Hitler’s bodyguard
  • Allowed to take suspects into ‘Protective Custody’ without trial
  • Full of true Aryans – the elite of Germany
  • Split by 1939 into Waffen ** and the Death Head Units
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The Persecution of the Minorities

  • The Nazis believed in the superiority of the German people
  • Gypsies, the work shy, the mentally ill and Jews were all rounded up and put in Concentration Camps
  • Initially to be re-educated in the Nazi way until the gas chambers were built to exterminate the German unwanted
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The Persecution of the Jews

  1.  
    • 1933 Removal of Jewish Civil servants e.g. teachers, doctors, lawyers etc.
    • 1935 Nuremburg Laws banned relations with Aryans
    • 1937 Jewish businesses were confiscated
    • 1938 Kristallnacht
    • 1939 Emigration promoted
    • 1939-45 Mass genocide!
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Opposition

  • Most opposition was passive – jokes, non-cooperation etc.
  • People afraid of the ** and the Gestapo
  • Unpopular policies dropped
  • Germans unsure what was really going on
  • Other political parties banned
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Open opposition

  1.  
    • Communists – continual enemy
    • Workers – strikes
    • Army – disillusioned by the war
    • Youth Groups – Swing Youth, Edelweiss Pirates and White Rose Group
    • The Church – Martin Neimoller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Cardinal Galen
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Open opposition

  • July Bomb Plot of 1944 – Hitler survived
  • Failure in the war meant many people began to turn against the Nazis
  • So were people better off under the Nazis?
  • Yes and no depending on who you were!
  • But remember – most Germans did not want the Nazis once they had got into power!
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