Why did the Nazi regime survive between 1933-45? Flashcards

1
Q

What are the 4 factors which helped ensure the survival of the Nazi state until 1945

A
  • The establishment of a terror state
  • The Nazi propganda machine
  • General support for the Nazi regime
  • Favourable social, economc & foreign policies
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What are the 4 predominant groups support came from

A
  • Wealthy Industrialists
  • The Mittelstand
  • Agricultural workers
  • Nazi Sympathisers
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Describe the Nazi Support from Wealthy Industrialists

A
  • Benefitted from the banning the KPD and trade unions
  • & expanding the war economy (arms production & chemical industries)
  • German stock exchange value increased by 250% between 1932 and 1940
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Describe the Nazi Support from the Mittelstand
-Anti-semitism

A
  • The government used the money available from the confiscation of Jewish businesses to offer low interest rate loans, making them more susceptible to anti-Semitic messages
  • Law for the Protection of Retail Trade 1933: Banned the opening of new department stores and taxed existing ones, which increased the market for smaller businesses
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Describe the Nazi Support from the Mittelstand
-small businesses

A
  • Law for the Protection of Retail Trade 1933:
  • Banned the opening of new department stores and taxed existing ones,
  • which increased the market for smaller businesses.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Who were the Mittelstand

A
  • The lower-middle class of small businessmen, tradesmen and craftsmen, who were long threatened by industrialisation, a decline in trade and competition from big businesses
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Describe the Nazi Support from agricultural workers
-financial gains

A
  • Increased tariffs on food imports –> increased the demand for German food products (autarky)
  • Farmers’ income increased by 41%.
  • By 1937, wages for famers recovered to their 1929 level.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Describe the Nazi Support from agricultural workers
-benefitting their quality of life

A
  • The Nazi regime idealised peasants and farmers as the embodiment of traditional German values and racial purity.
  • The Reich Food Estate (est. in 1933) regulated food production and distribution, as well as food prices and wages.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Describe the Nazi Support from Nazi Sympathisers

A
  • The Nazis were popular with people whose prejudices they shared, welcoming these groups victimised
  • German people, resultantly, became informants, ran Hitler Youth groups or acted as officials of the DAF.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What are the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies

A
  • Repression 1933-34
  • Revival of the Economy
  • Unemployment
  • Concentration Camps
  • Diplomatic success
  • Social opportunities & rewards
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Successful social, economic and foreign policies contributed to…

A

the German people’s acceptance/support, or at least tolerance, of the regime

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Describe the factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-Repression 1933-34

A
  • Intimidation used extensively 1933-34
  • e.g 200,000 supporters of left wing parties were detained
  • The Knight of the Long Knives - use of terror and led to the purge of the SA
  • First concentration camp for political prisoners, Dachau in 1933 although most prisoners were released in May 1933
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-revival of the economy - standards of living

A
  • Unemployment did fell considerably by 7.4% by 1936
  • Standards of living improved for many people across Germany
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-revival of the economy - wages

A
  • Wages rose (by around 1% a year) for industrial workers.
  • BUT real wages actually fell
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-revival of the economy - schemes

A
  • e.g Strength through Joy encouraged people to buy volkswaggens
  • but not many bought into this scheme
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-Concentration camps - how many were established

A
  • 1933-1945: Established approximately 20,000 camps
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-Concentration camps - how many non-Jewsih people were sent to them

A
  • 1933-1945: over 500,000 non-Jewish people were sent to camps for political crimes.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-Concentration camps - how many people were sent to them in 1939 to 1945

A
  • Sep 1939: 25,000
  • to Jan 1945: 714,211
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Simple definition of a concentration camps

A
  • Prisons where opponents of the regime were questioned and subjected to torture, hard labour and re-education in Nazi ideals
  • Here, prisoners could be held indefinitely without trial
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

In terms of diplomatic success, where did support come from

A
  • Germans who saw the Nazis as reversing the losses of the Treaty of Versailles and asserting the power of Germany in Europe
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-diplomatic success - 1935

A
  • Militarisation:
  • A peacetime army of 550,000 was introduced
  • Germany signed a naval agreement with Britain which allowed Germany to have a navy 35% of the strength of the British fleet.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-diplomatic success - March 1936

A
  • Hitler ordered his troops to reoccupy the demilitarised Rhineland (ToV and Locarno Pact were overturned) which was German territory.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-diplomatic success - 1938

A
  • Anschluss: Austria was incorporated into German territory,
  • this had been outlawed by the ToV
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-social opportunities & rewards - mothers

A
  • Mother’s Cross
  • 1,000 mark loan on marriage reduced by 250 marks for each child
  • greater welfare systems
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

Describe the main factors contibuting to favourable social, economic & foreign policies
-social opportunities & rewards - workers

A
  • Workers were rewarded with free trips with the Strength Through Joy programme (set up by the DAF)
  • Favourable holiday rates which were subsidised by the government
26
Q

What was the purpose of Nazis inplementing so many extra benficial policies for workers

A

These were opportunities to push Nazi propaganda messages,
although they reinforced the image of the government as caring for workers

27
Q

The Nazis ran their own ……. alongside …….

A
  • security system
  • the existing police & judicial system
28
Q

What were the 3 factors which enabled the Nazi Regime to be a terror state

A
  • Himmler & the SS
  • The Courts
  • The Gestapo
29
Q

Who was Himmler

A

Himmler was Reichsfuhrer and Chief of all German Police

30
Q

Describe the main which enabled the Nazi Regime to be a terror state
-Himmler & the SS - how did the SS’ role evole

A
  • 1925 - Hitler’s bodyguard of 240 men.
  • 1934 - Carried out Night of the Long Knives
  • After the event, the SS ran the concentration camp system.
  • 1936, 240,000 SS were in charge of the Gestapo.
31
Q

Describe the main which enabled the Nazi Regime to be a terror state
-Himmler & the SS - what were the main functions of the SS

A
  • Intelligence gathering
  • Policing - carried out by the Gestapo
  • Military action - by 1944, its power rivalled that of the German Army
  • Responsible for creating “New Order” in occupied territories outside of Germany, resettling ethnic Germans in these territories and eliminating non-Aryans
32
Q

What does the SS stand for

A

Schutzstaffel - political police

33
Q

Describe the 3 factors which enabled the Nazi Regime to be a terror state
-The courts

A
  • Peoples’ Courts established in 1934:
  • Tried people accused of being traitors to the Third Reich.
  • Judges had to study Nazi beliefs, and the judiciary was made from Nazi Party, the SS and the armed forces.
  • Trials were not public, & appeals against verdicts were banned.
  • Thousands passed through the court by 1945
34
Q

Describe the 3 factors which enabled the Nazi Regime to be a terror state
Who set up the Gestspo?

A

Secret state police, set up by Hermann Goering.

35
Q

Describe the 3 factors which enabled the Nazi Regime to be a terror state
What was the role of the Gestapo

A
  • To find opponents of the Nazis and arrest them
  • Relied on informers and blockwardens for info
  • Upheld the regime using surveillance and repression
  • Small organisation, with 20,000 to 40,000 agents
  • It had a reputation for brutality
  • It could arrest and detain someone without trial
36
Q

What were the 4 factors which created the Nazi Propaganda Machine

A
  • Radio
  • Newspapers
  • The Fuhrer myth
  • Censorship in the war
37
Q

What were the aims of the Nazi Propaganda Machine

A
  • To glorify the regime
  • To spread Nazi ideology and values (and censor the unacceptable)
  • To win over the people, uniting the nation under a Volksgemeinschaft, to establish German nationalism
38
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-radio - how was it controlled

A
  • 1933 - Goebbels, informed German radio that stations that they served the government & had to follow guidelines and express Nazi ideology.
  • The Reich Radio Company was established, censored by 13% of staff members were purged on racial and political grounds.
39
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-radio - accessibility to listen to the propaganda

A
  • By 1939, 70% of German homes had a radio, which became a medium of mass communication controlled by the regime.
  • Loud speakers were installed in public places, making them venues for collective listening.
40
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-Newspapers - 1933 legislations to censor this

A
  • The Decree for the Protection of the People and the State allowed the Nazi Party to ban publications
  • The Editor’s Law was issued which made it a crime for the Editor of a newspaper publsih anything harmful to the German economy, culture or people
41
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-Newspapers - what did the Nazis implement to futher spread Nazi ideaology

A
  • The Reich Association was established to compile a list of “accredited” journalists
  • 1932 - 59 Nazi newspapers with over 780,000 readers
  • 1933 - 86 Nazi newspapers with over 3 million readers
42
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-The Fuhrer Myth

A
  • Glorified Hitler as an effective leader, or saviour, of the German nation
43
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-Censorship of WW2

A
  • All forms of mass communication and culture were subject to Nazi control:
  • 1942 all film companies became state owned
  • Papers never mentioned the Final Solution
  • 1939 listening to foreign radio stations was ciminalised
44
Q

Describe how the Nazis created a Propaganda Machine
-Censorship of WW2 - weaknesses?

A
  • Goebbels censorship policies were unable to stop rumours of defeat
45
Q

Explain why the establishment of a terror state helped to ensure the survival of the Nazi state 1933-45

A
  • eliminated opposition, which intimidated people into showing any furtehr defiance
46
Q

Explain why Nazi Propganda helped to ensure the survival of the Nazi state 1933-45

A
  • This helped to indoctrinate the population
  • & boosted morale
47
Q

Explain why General support for the Nazi regime helped to ensure the survival of the Nazi state 1933-45

A
  • people would not oppose a regime they liked
48
Q

Explain why favourable policies helped to ensure the survival of the Nazi state 1933-45

A
  • people are more likely to support if they benefit
49
Q

Did all factors have the same impact on different groups of people

Middle Class

A
  • Nazis appealed to middle class as new opportunities were created for them and many economic policies benefited them
  • They liked the fact the KPD was banned
50
Q

Did all factors have the same impact on different groups of people

Working Class

A
  • There was less support amongst these people as many still saw living standards fall
  • Beer consumption amongst the working class in 1937 was less than half of what it had been in 1927
  • There were 400 illegal strikes organised by workers between 1933 and 1935
51
Q

Did all factors have the same impact on different groups of people

Peasants & Farmers

A
  • Support was higher in rural areas than urban areas (in July 1932 support in rural areas was 28% higher than in cities
  • Quest for autarky meant German farmers were happier and incomes remained stable
52
Q

Did all factors have the same impact on different groups of people

Evidence of support:
1933 - …% of the population agreed the government should pull out of the League of nations

A

95%

53
Q

Did all factors have the same impact on different groups of people

Evidence of support:
1936 - …% of the population agreed with remilitarisation of the Rhineland.

A

99%

54
Q

Did all factors have the same impact on different groups of people

Evidence of support:
Party membership also rose from 849,000 in 1933 to …. million in 1940.

A

5

55
Q

Did all factors have the same impact across the entire time period?

Propaganda was used ………………. to help Hitler gain support and consolidate control

A

consistently

56
Q

Did all factors have the same impact across the entire time period?

Propaganda and censorship - morale sustained throughout war?

A
  • Goebbels continued to try to maintain morale during WW2, for example by calling upon the crowd to support total war at the Sportpalast in Berlin in February 1943.
  • Films such as The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Kolberg tried to encourage patriotic feeling, yet morale continued to fall.
57
Q

Did all factors have the same impact across the entire time period?

Propaganda and censorship - war lowering morale

A
  • Defeat at Stalingrad in 1943 worried the Germans as they feared Russia invasion.
  • Difficult working conditions.
  • Food shortages and allied bombing all served to lower morale showing that propaganda was perhaps not working.
58
Q

Did all factors have the same impact across the entire time period?

Propaganda and censorship - Positive outlook on war

A
  • However, many Germans continued to do their duty and contributed to the war effort and the use of film footage showing Vl and V2 bombs over Britain was used to inspire Germans to support the war.
59
Q

Did all factors have the same impact across the entire time period?

Favourable Social and economic policies - By WW2, what was a widely agreed view on Nazi polcies

A
  • By WW2 many groups of people who had previously supported the Nazis were no longer benefiting from their policies
  • Wages were reduced and bonuses were banned in 1939 which led to absenteeism from work so wages had to be restored
60
Q

Did all factors have the same impact across the entire time period?

Favourable Social and economic policies - How did the war strain simultaneously domestic & working occupations

A
  • By 1944, holidays for workers were banned and the working week was increased to 60 hours
  • Women also suffered in the war as they were left at home to look after children
  • Those that went out to work suffered longer hours as well as juggling childcare