Nazi Germany

1. Culture

1.1. Culture was integral to the Nazis’ aim to infiltrate and control all areas of life. In 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture was established under the leadership of Joseph Goebbels.

1.2. The Nazis promoted traditional forms of German art and photography, such as landscapes. They despised any art in the modernist style, believing it to be ‘degenerate’ and communist.

1.3. As a primary source of education and enjoyment, literature was a key target for Nazi reform.

1.4. The Reich Music Chamber was established in 1933. The chamber had two main aims

1.5. The case studies above emphasise the Nazis anti-intellectual approach to culture. They focused on promoting simple and traditional aspects of German culture whilst removing any new ideas, or opposition, to the Nazi ideal.

2. Employment

2.1. When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, there was an unemployment crisis with over six million people unemployed.

2.2. On the 2 May 1933, the Nazis banned trade unions and arrested their leaders.

2.3. A new centralised Nazi ‘trade union’ was created. This was called the German Labour Front.

2.4. The Reich Labour Service was an organisation that used unskilled or unemployed workers to complete large-scale government projects.

2.5. The schemes also limited the choice of profession open to workers in Germany. Many were forced to work as laborers or in factories for the war effort.

3. Religion

3.1. Germany, like the rest of Europe, was primarily Christian when the Nazis rose to power

3.2. In 1933 the country had approximately 45 million Protestant Christians, 22 million Catholic Christians, 500,000 Jews and 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses.

3.3. Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses were the major religious minorities in Germany in the 1930s.

3.4. As the majority religion, the Nazis approached the complex ‘problem’ of Christianity differently. Whilst the Nazis believed that Christianity and Nazism were ideologically incompatible.

3.5. In July 1933, the Nazis signed a Concordat with the Vatican. The Concordat agreed that the Nazis would not interfere in the Catholic Church. In return

4. Media

4.1. The media played a vital role in producing and sharing the Nazis propaganda. Under Goebbels’ new Chamber of Culture, all aspects of the media were Nazified and controlled.

4.2. In 1933, prior to the Nazi rise to power, over 4700 newspapers freely operated across Germany.

4.3. The Nazis also focused on using more modern and innovative methods of media. Goebbels in particular was keen to spread propaganda through radio and film.

4.4. By 1939, 70% of all German households possessed a radio, providing the Nazis with an outlet straight into people’s homes.

4.5. Film and cinema were seen by senior Nazis as key to consolidating, and then maintaining, people’s faith in the Nazi vision.

5. Olympics

5.1. In 1936 Germany hosted the Olympic games.

5.2. Germany was awarded the Olympics prior to the Nazi rise to power in 1931. As the Olympics drew closer, several boycott movements appeared across the world in response to the increasing Nazi persecution of the Jews.

5.3. Prior to the event, many international Jewish athletes chose not to compete at the games, and almost all Jewish athletes in Germany were not selected to compete.

5.4. Despite this pressure, when the year came, no action was taken. The games went ahead in Berlin as planned.

5.5. The response to the games was overwhelmingly positive. Visitors found Germany clean, well-run and efficient. They didn’t respond to the antisemitic violence, because signs of it were extremely rare, having been removed by the Nazis from the public eye. Many felt that Germany had recovered its prestige as a world power.

5.6. The Olympics’ helped to give a positive worldwide impression of Germany, as a nation that was strong, welcoming, and committed to peace.

6. Everyday Life

6.1. Hitler and the Nazi Party started to infiltrate almost all aspects of everyday life in Germany.

6.2. The Nazis’ antisemitic beliefs were filtered into all aspects of life in the Third Reich.

6.3. This drawing was created by a young girl, Gerda Nabe, in one of her school textbooks

6.4. The drawing shows the infamous Nuremberg Laws, explaining how to define if a person is a Jew.

6.5. Explains how to define if a person is a Jew.

7. Young People

7.1. The Nazis used children’s leisure organisations to indoctrinate young people in their National Socialist ideology.

7.2. The Hitler Youth took part in a range of activities, focusing on sports and physical ability.

7.3. The Young Girls League focused on similar activities to the Hitler Youth

7.4. In contrast to the Hitler Youth, girls were also instructed in chores such as making beds, in line with the Nazis views on women’s place in society.

7.5. In contrast to the Hitler Youth, girls were also instructed in chores such as making beds, in line with the Nazis views on women’s place in society.

8. Education

8.1. They aimed to de-intellectualise education: they did not want education to provoke people to ask questions or think for themselves.

8.2. The Nazis first focused on changing what students learned. In 1938, sport was taught for about 5 hours every school day.

8.3. Subjects such as religion became less important, and were eventually removed from the curriculum altogether.

8.4. The Nazis also adapted where the students learned from. They introduced new textbooks which were often racist, and promoted ideas such the need for Lebensraum.

8.5. In universities, all Jewish professors were dismissed. This had a large impact, as these professors made up twelve percent of all German professors.

9. Terror

9.1. The threat and use of terror, and the fear that terror spread, was the most defining feature of the Nazi regime.

9.2. On the 22 March 1933, just under two months after Hitler had become chancellor, the first concentration camp was established in Dachau.

9.3. Over the following nine months, between 150,000 to 200,000 people were imprisoned in concentration camps across Germany.

9.4. Whilst initially the SA and later the SS played a large part in the violent terror of the Nazi regime, there was also another instrument of control, the Gestapo.

9.5. Established on the 27 April 1933, the Gestapo were the state’s secret police. By 1934, they fell under the direction of Himmler. Following the enactment of the Enabling Law, the Gestapo could arrest anyone for any or no reason, and imprison them without trial.