Nazi Germany

Gleichschaltung

Nazification

Completely coordinate German society along Nazi lines

Initially, parallel institutions

followed

Gradual erosion and replacements of non-Nazi bodies

Social, economic, political, cultural, religious, military, Nazification

Bring into line

3

Federal autonomous power, anathema to Nazis

Landtage abolished 1934

Provinces subordinated to centre, to Hitler

Nazi Reich governors answer to centre

Centralising the State

Trade Unions (Labour representation)

Trade unions hostile to Nazism

Great Depression reduced their influence

Nazi declaration:

International Labour Day, 1st May 1933

2nd May 1933:

Occupation of trade union offices by SS + SA

Arrest of labour leaders

DAF (Nazi) to represent interests of labour

Workers controlled not represented

Controlling the workers

Coordination of the powerful, delayed: Risk of alienation

Junkers, big business, industrialists, army, churches

Their support legitimises Hitler’s rule

Lower ranks and SA leaders determined to extend revolution = internal party conflict

Result: 1934 June:

‘Night of the Long Knives’

The Brownhouse, Munich

The Elite

Gleichschaltung:

Nazification of German legal system (Judiciary)

Undermines liberal, formal legal theory

Law to reflect popular feeling of national community

Interpreted by Party

Expressed as ‘The will of the Fuhrer’

Judges: loyal Party members

Legal training includes Nazi doctrine

1941: Gurtner’s death (minister of Justice)

Judiciary under SS control

Bending the law

Social control and indoctrination:

1933, Joseph Goebbels establishes:

Ministry for People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda

MPEP controls: ‘Reich Chamber of Culture’

RCC oversees;

Fine arts, literature, music, press, theatre, radio, films

Nazis: anti-intellectual, anti modernist

Jewish writers, composers: outlawed

Book burning, 2,500 books prohibited

Promotion of propaganda: martial and anti-Semitic themes:

Aryan art, volkish (Wagner) music, rustic (wholesome)

‘The Eternal Jew’. ‘The Poison Mushroom’

‘People without Space’

Architecture: Visible 1000 year Reich

Fuhrer’s involvement: Berlin, Nuremberg

Nazi controlled press:

1933 = 2.5%

1944 = 82%, others closely monitered

Journalists accountable to state

Subsidised radios, X6m sets

Hitler broadcast speeches, 1933 = 50

Anti-Semitism

Education / indoctrination

Subjects most affected:

History: Nordic, Nazi, Aryan, martial

Science: Nazi race theory

Literature: anti-Semitic

Teachers:

Tested for ideological soundness

Promote and defend National Socialism

Membership of Nazi Teachers Association

Emphasis: Ideological conformity

Enforce spirit of National Socialism

Repress free thinking, academic, intellectual pursuit

Abolition of ‘Jewish’ physics:

Leads to decline in research

Loss of atomic race

Oppenheimer (Jewish) Manhattan Project

Nazi appointment of Principals and Rectors

Nazi approved lecturers only

Universities

Adolf Hitler, 1933:

‘When an opponent declares I will not come over to your side, I calmly say, your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’

Elite schools (boys’ schools):

21 Napola’s - National Political Educational Institutions

10 Adolf Hitler schools

Youth Policies

Nazi Youth Movements

Participation: 1933 = 100,000+ 1938 = 9,100,000+

Boys Girls

(10 – 14) ‘Deutsches Jungvolk’ (10 – 14) Jungmadelbund

(14 – 18) ‘Hitler Jugend’ (14 – 18) Bund Deutscher Madel

Emphasis: Emphasis:

Physical, para-military, political Proper roles taught

Extreme racist and nationalist