Control in Nazi Germany

Question 1

what were the four sections of the police state within nazi germany?

Answer 1

1. Regular Police and Law Courts
2. The Gestapo
3. The SS
4. Concentration Camps

Question 2

Regular Police and Law Courts (4)

Answer 2

• ordinary police offers continued their work but ignored any crimes committed by nazis
• the top jobs in the police were given to nazis
• judges and law courts were completely controlled by the nazis
• new laws meant that the death penalty could be given for things like telling an anti-hitler joke, having sex with a Jew, listening to a foreign radio station etc.

Question 3

The Gestapo (5)

Answer 3

• tapped into phone calls and opened mail
• set up a network of ‘informers’ who would report back to them with anyone who had criticised the nazis or hitler in any way
• they even encouraged children to report their parents or teachers
• had the power to arrest anyone they wanted
• by 1939, around 160,000 people were imprisoned for political crimes

Question 4

The SS (5)

Answer 4

• set up in 1925
• originally hitler’s personal bodyguards but over time were divided into three sections

1. The SD
   - looked after ‘security’ ; had the power to arrest anyone they wanted without reason, search homes, and seize property
2. The Waffen SS
   - elite unit in the army
3. Death’s Head Units
   - people that ran the concentration camps and later, the death camps

Question 5

Concentration Camps (2)

Answer 5

• where ‘enemies of the state’ were held
• inmates were either tortured or worked to death