The Nazi State 1933-1945

● Propaganda● Economy● Society● Church-state relations● Education● Youth Groups● Anti-Semitism● Cult of the Leader

● Art and Culture● Resistance to the

Nazis● Rohm and the

Brownshirts● Suppression of

opposition● The army● Women in Nazi

Germany

Nazi Youth Groups

Church State Relations

Jews and anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany

Nazi Propaganda

The SA

● Paramilitary militia set up by the Nazis

● The SA were also known as Brownshirts or Stormtroopers

● Involved in intimidation and violence against Jews and Communists and opponents of the Nazis

The SS (Schutzstaffel)

● Formed as protection squad for Hitler

● Later elite Nazi paramilitary group led by Heinrich Himmler

● Fighting units known as Waffen SS fought during World War II

The Gestapo

● Gestapo was the official secret police

● Put under control of Heinrich Himmler in 1934

● Gestapo dealt with political opponents of the Nazi regime and later a section was set up to deal with Jews

Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Street in Berlin (1933)

Ernst Rohm and the SA

● Ernst Rohm was leader of the SA

● He wanted to merge the Brownshirts with the German Army

● Hitler saw him as a rival and didn't want to upset the army who didn't want the SA to be merged with the army

The Night of the Long Knives 1934

● Between June 30 and July 2 1934 SS and Gestapo arrested and killed Ernst Rohm and other SA leaders

● In this way Hitler removed a potential rival and asserted his authority over the SA

● Also avoided a conflict with the army who opposed merging with Sa

19th Century categorisation of racial types

The three great races according to Meyers Konversations-Lexikon of 1885-90. The subtypes of the Mongoloid race are shown in yellow and orange tones, those of the Europid race in light and medium grayish spring green-cyan tones and those of the Negroid race in brown tones. Dravidians and Sinhalese are in olive green and their classification is described as uncertain. The Mongoloid race sees the widest geographic distribution, including all of the Americas, North Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia, the entire inhabited Arctic.

1936 Pictogram showing the 'five

races of man'

Image showing the 'types of the human race'

Racial Theories and the 'Aryan' ideal● Nazis developed theories of race

with a hierarchy with Aryan or Nordic as the Master Race at the top

● Towards the bottom of the hierarchy were Slavs (Russians, Poles, Serbs, etc..) who were seen as Untermenschen (under man or sub-humans)

● Lowest of all in the Nazi racial policy were Gypsies and Jews, who were both eventually deemed to be "Lebensunwertes Leben" ("Life unworthy of life")

German Ubermensch and Europeans

Nazi images of 'inferior' racial types

● Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns.

● Those humans were targeted that they identified as "life unworthy of life" (German: Lebensunwertes Leben), including but not limited to the criminal, degenerate, dissident, feeble-minded, homosexual, idle, insane and the weak, for elimination from the chain of heredity.

● More than 400,000 people were sterilized against their will, while 70,000 were killed under Action T4, a "euthanasia" program.

Eugenics and Euthanasia

Eugenics

●This poster is from the 1930’s, and promotes the Nazi monthly Neues Volk (New People), the organ of the party’s racial office.● The text reads: “This genetically ill person will cost our people’s community 60,000 marks over his lifetime. Citizens, that is your money. Read Neues Volk, the monthly of the racial policy office of the NSDAP.”

The title: "Costs for the genetically ill — social consequences."The left frame notes that an institution that houses 130 feeble-minded costs about 104,000 Reichsmarks a year. The right frame notes that that is enough to build 17 houses for healthy working class families.The text in red at the bottom: "The genetically ill are a burden for the people."

Women in Nazi Germany

● Nazi promoted idea of the woman as mother, wife and homemaker e.g. Frauen-Warte magazine, posters etc...

● Number of women going to attending university more than halved between 1933 and 1938

● Number of girls attending secondary school followed a similar pattern

● Nazi groups for young girls, older girls and women

● These promoted fitness and athleticism

● The Jungmädel ("Young Girls") section of the Hitler Youth for girls from the age 10 to 14.

● The Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, "German Girls' League") for young women from 14 to 18.

● The NS-Frauenschaft, a woman's organization.

Female Nazi Groups

Das Deutsche Madel(The German Girl or Maiden:

magazine for Nazi girls)● August 1941. This was the

first issue to appear after the invasion of the Soviet Union.

● The caption reads: “Weary and ruined faces characterize the neglected children of the Soviet state. Cheerful and healthy on the other hand, the youth of Greater Germany are participating in sports festivals everywhere in the country.”

Nazi Propaganda

Art and Culture● The regime sought to restore traditional values

in German culture. ● The art and culture that came to define the

Weimar Republic years was repressed. ● The visual arts were strictly monitored and

traditional, focusing on exemplifying Germanic themes, racial purity, militarism, heroism, power, strength, and obedience.

● Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was removed from museums and put on special display as "degenerate art", where it was to be ridiculed

The title of this painting by Paul Padua, dated 1939, is “The Führer Speaks.” The family from old to young is gathered round the Volksempfänger, an inexpensive radio receiver, listening to Hitler speak. His picture is on the wall. The religious parallels are rather plain.

"By the Water" - Oil painting byNazi artist, Ernst Liebermann ]

The Nazis staged a massive exhibition of “degenerate art” in Munich in 1937. Rather awkwardly, it drew more visitors than the exhibit of approved art. This poster announces the exhibition.

wikipedia on the degenerate art exhibition

Hitler visits the Degenerate Art Exhibition 1937

Goebbels visits the Degenerate Art Exhibition

Max Ernst: Ubu Imperator (1923)Otto Dix: Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, 1926

Pointsby Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) Year 1920

Music Like degenerate art, examples of degenerate music were displayed in public exhibits in Germany beginning in 1938 in Dusseldorf.

Music by Jewish or Jewish origin or left-wing or avant-garde composers was considered 'degenerate'.(e.g. Kurt Weill, Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoeneberg, Igor Stravinksy,).

The Nazis favoured classical music (especially Richard Wagner and other German composers) over modernist and jazz.

POSTER FOR DEGENERATE MUSIC EXHIBITION

The Swing Kids● There was a teenage youth

movement which became known as the Swing Kids.

● They formed a counter-culture to the Hitler Youth.

● In clubs and private venues they listened and dance to American music.

● In 1941 the SS staged an operation in which 300 were arrested and the leaders sent to concentration camps.

They danced in private quarters, clubs, rented halls, and more notably, Café Heinze. These adolescents dressed a little differently than the others who were opposed to swing. For example, boys added a little British flair to their clothes by homburg hats, growing their hair long, and attaching a Union Jack pin to their jacket. Girls wore short skirts, applied lipstick and fingernail polish, and wore their hair long and down instead of applying braids or German-style rolls. (from Wikipedia)

Swing Kids Wikipedia

Rearmament and expansion of armed forces reduced

unemployment● Expansion of navy, air

force and army reduced unemployment

● Jobs also provided in industries providing ships, submarines, aircraft, tanks, artillery, weapons, uniforms and other materials and supplies for military

Military Parade 1935

The Wermacht (Germany Military) ● From 1934 members of the armed forces had to

swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler as Fuhrer.● Conscription reintroduced March 1935● About 18m served in army between 1933-1945● Many military leaders shared Nazi views on

Versailles Treaty, 'lost' territory, rebuilding the army etc.. and so welcomed the Nazi Regime (but opposed merging of SA with the Wermacht)

● War crimes committed by members of Wermacht during WWII but also some opponents to Nazi regime from ranks of Wermacht

●

Resistance and opposition to the Nazis

● Underground network of banned parties SPD (Social Democrats) and KPD (Communists)

● People involved in Church (e.g. Dietrich Bonhoffer)

● Youth and student groups (Edelweiss Pirates [groups/gangs of youths who attacked Hitler Youth], The White Rose [students/youths who advocated non-violent resistance to the Nazis and spread anti-Nazi ideas through pamphlets)

● Individual Germans

● A resistance network within the German Army, the Foreign Office and the Abwehr, the military intelligence organisation.

Dealing with opponents of the Nazis● Approximately 77,000 German citizens were

killed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts, courts martial, and the civil justice system.

● Many others imprisoned or sent to Concentration Camps.

● Several assasination attempts against Hitler.● Biggest conspiracy was July 20 Plot 1944 with

about 7,000 in Germany army and Abwehr (military intelligence) involved in plan to kill Hitler.

● Claus Von Stauffenberg and other plotters executed after plot failed.

July 20 plotters: Julius Leber and Claus Von Stauffenberg

Sophie Scholl and White Rose

Sophie Scholl Wikipedia

●Members of the White-Rose produced and distributed anti-Nazi pamphlets or leaflets ●Sophie and other members of the group were arrested for distributing the pamphlets at the University of Munich in 1943●She and others were charged with treason and executed

The White Rose Wikipedia

The Economy in Nazi Germany

● In 1933 unemployment officially 6m, some historians estimate real figure may have been as high as 11m

● Self-Sufficiency (or Autarky) central to Nazi economic policy

● From 1933 German embarked on big Public Works program: motorways, railroads, waterways

Autobahn and Public Works

Motorways and Car Industry

● Expansion of road and motorway network made cars more attractive mode of transport

● Volkswagen set up by German Labour Front and began to produce cheap cars

● Motor industry and related industries expanded rapidly

Volkswagen People's Car

State intervention in the German Economy

● Strikes banned and trade unions replaced by German Labour Front

● Limits imposed by government on wages and prices

● Many wages dropped in real terms● Government encouraged 'self-suffiency' ● Government spending on Public Works and

Rearmament helped reduce unemployment

Education in Nazi Germany● Nazi education: biology

and science promoted theory of natural selection to support idea of racial purity.

● Heavy emphasis on geography and Germany's 'historical mission' to unite German speakers in a Greater Germany (Grossdeutschland).

● Military education central to physical education (PE).

● History focussed on 'great men' of German history and the historical mission of Germany.

● Jews forbidden to work as teachers.

● Teachers with 'politically undesirable' views sacked (e.g. socialists, communists).

The Law and Courts in Nazi Germany

● Courts system of Weimar continued but● Nazi Party was the only political party allowed● Various human and civil rights were removed by

Reich Laws● People's Court set up to deal with political

opponents of Nazi regime (about 7,000 death sentences between 1934 and 1945)

● Nazis interefered with cases on occasion

wikipedia on the People's Court

Judge Ronald Freisler of the People's Court