8D Flashcards
(24 cards)
What were Nazi schools like?
All teachers were approved and had been on a training course run by the National Socialist Teachers Alliance. Students would learn about the history of Germany, but only the Nazi views, and the superiority of the Aryan race
What Nazi schools were there?
The National Political Institutes of Education (Napolas), 35 of which were set up by the SS and the German army to train future officers. Adolf Hitler Schools, 12 of which were set up and run by the Hitler Youth and the SS to find future SS leaders. Children were indoctrinated with Nazi ideas instead of taught academic subjects. The Reichschule Feldafing, a single school created and funded by the Nazi Party leaders to prepare the best students for the highest Nazi positions
What organisations for the youth were there?
Boys were in the German Young People (Deutsches Jungvolk) from age 10-14, girls had the League of German Girls. Boys then moved on the Hitler Youth, and girls joined the League of German Maidens. Boys marched in parades, members were physically fit, could read maps, and were comfortable with camping outdoors, they also learnt how to clean rifles. Girls were taught sewing, cooking, and domestic tasks, and how to become a good German mother
What was life like for the women in Nazi Germany?
They were expected to be fit and healthy, marry Aryan men, and raise big families. The SA was used to humiliate women who married Jews and non-Aryan men. The Nazis had very traditional views many Germans agreed with, including women. Married professional women were often forced to give up jobs, discrimination against women applicants for jobs was encouraged.
How did the Nazis reward mothers?
Financial incentives were offered for married couples to have at least four children. Mothers got a ‘Gold Cross’ for having eight children. Posters, radio broadcasts, and newsreels all celebrated the ideas of motherhood and homebuilding. The German Maidens’ League reinforced these ideas, focusing on a combination of good physical health and housekeeping skills, which was also reinforced at school. The birth rate increased from fifteen per thousand in 1933 to twenty per thousand in 1939. There was also an increase inn pregnancies outside marriage. These girls were looked after in state maternity hostels.
How did this change after the war started?
By 1937, the industry was starting to run out of male workers due to conscription and the increasing demands of the rearmament programme. The Nazis abolished their marriage loan and made it compulsory for women to take a ‘duty year’ and work in farms or in industry, however they were still expected to have children. In 1939, women were even allowed to join German armed forces as secretaries, nurses, and camp guards when war broke out
Who were some women who resisted Nazi rule?
Liselotte Hermann opposed the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor, and informed foreign governments about rearmament plans. She was arrested and executed in 1939.
Libertas Schulze-Boysen and Mildred Harnack-Fish were both members of the Kreisler Circle, both were arrested and executed.
20 women from Düsseldorf passed info to foreign governments about concentration camps where their families were sent.
Maria Terwiel spread the sermons of Bishop Galen about the Nazi euthanasia programme, and helped Jews flee abroad
What was Schacht’s New Plan?
Included huge public works projects rebuilding German cities and extending motorways and railways, it was funded by public investment. A compulsory National Labour Service (RAD) was set up for unemployed young men to work on the projects for 6 months. Conscription was reintroduced in 1935, Hitler announced the Luftwaffe (a world-class air force) which made jobs. Schacht’s New Plan reduced unemployment and created work in related industries such as weapons, uniforms, and engineering
What was Goering’s Four Year Plan?
From 1936-1939, Hitler demanded a more rapid rearmament programme to prepare for war. Goering’s aim was to create a war economy and make Germany self-sufficient (autarky). He increased the production of raw materials for rearmament, persuaded industries to switch from making consumer goods to synthetic materials like rubber, and tightened control on prices and wages and used forced labour
How did the Nazis gain support from the workers, and what were some negatives?
Positive:
- they provided a range of benefits to keep workers happy
- schemes like Strength through Joy (KDF) gave workers cheap theatre and cinema tickets
- workers saved 5 marks a week towards a Volkswagen car
- the Beauty of Labour movement improved working conditions in factories, provided washing facilities and cheap meals
Negative:
- workers lost trade unions and had to join the DAF 9General Labour Front)
- they could not strike for better pay and conditions or move to better paying jobs
- wages remained low
How did the Nazis gain support from the farmers, and what were some negatives?
Positive:
- introduced series of measures to help farmers
- Reich Entailed Farm Law meant banks couldn’t seize their land if they couldn’t pay their loans or mortgages
- Reich Food Estate gave their goods fair prices
- part of the Nazi philosophy, ‘Blood and Soil’, was the idea that peasant farmers were the basis of Germany’s master race, and their way of life had to be protected
Negatives:
- not all peasants were happy; efficient, go-ahead farmers were held back by the same processes as less-efficient farmers
- the Reich Entailed Farm Law said only the eldest child can inherit the farm, which led to many children of farmers leaving the land to work for better pay in Germany’s industries, which increased rural dpopulation
How did the Nazis gain support from the big businesses and the middle classes?
- middle-class business owners were grateful for the elimination of the Communist threat and bringing order to Germany
- small engineering firm owners did well from the increase in rearmament spendings, however businesses producing consumer goods and small shops struggled due to large department stores staying open
- big companies didn’t have to worry about strikes and trade unions, many prospered from Nazi policies
What was Volksgemeinschaft?
Being part of a national community
How did WW2 impact Nazi support?
Food and clothing rationing were introduced after the war started. The German diet consisted of bread, potatoes and preserves. From 1939 to 1941, it was easy to keep up civilian morale as the war was going well. Then in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, an increasingly expensive war which lowered the morale of the army, and civilians found their lives increasingly disrupted. They had to cut back on heating, work longer hours, and recycle their rubbish. The Germans started seeing less of Hitler; speeches were still being broadcast, but Hitler himself was tied up in the war effort. From 1942, all economic effort was focused on the armament industries. Postal services were suspended, letter boxes were closed, as well as all places of entertainment except for cinemas, which were used for propaganda films. Women were increasingly drafted into the labour force, and measures were carried out by the SS, which became virtually a state within the German state, with its own armed forces, armament industries, and labour camps. As defeat became more possible, Nazi support weakened; Germans stopped declaring any food they had, they stayed away from Nazi rallies, and refused to give the Heil Hitler salute.
What was the bombing of Dresden?
In 1942, the British began an all-out assault on major German cities, which aimed to destroy the German industry, lower the morale of citizens, and terrorise them into submission. The bombing went on for 3 years, affecting 61 cities and culminating in the killing of between 35,000 and 150,000 people in 2 days during the bombing of Dresden in February 1945.
What was the Swing Movement?
They were mainly middle-class teenagers who listened to English, American, and jazz music, danced American dances like the Jitterbug, and they accepted Jews into their clubs. They talked about and enjoyed sex, and were deliberately ‘slovenly’. The Nazis issued a handbook that helped the authorities identify these ‘degenerate types’
What were the Edelweiss Pirates?
Working class teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17, they weren’t an organised movement but groups in various cities, each taking different names, however the Nazis classified under the single name ‘Edelweiss Pirates’. They sang songs like the Hitler Youth but changed the lyrics to mock Germany and taunted and sometimes attacked bands of Hitler Youth. The Nazis couldn’t execute or put them in concentration camps because they needed future workers and soldiers, so sometimes they arrested them, and sometimes they ignored them. Then, in 1944 in Cologne, their activities escalated. They helped shelter army deserters and escaped prisoners, stole armaments, and took part in an attack on the Gestapo during which its chief was killed. The Nazi response was to round up the ‘ringleaders’, 13 were publicly hanged in November 1944.
What were the Polish ghettos?
After invading Poland in 1939, the Nazis set about ‘Germanising’ western Poland. They transported Poles from their homes and replaced them with German settlers. Around one in five Poles died, either in the fighting pr as a result of racial policies in 1939-1945. Polish Jews were transported to the big cities where they were herded into sealed areas, called ghettos. Able-bodied Jews were used for slave labour but the young, old, and sick were left to die of hunger and disease.
What happened to the Soviet Jews?
In 1941, the Germans invaded the USSR and found themselves in control of 3 million Soviet Jews. German forces had orders to round up and shoot Communist Party activists and their Jewish supporters. The executions were carried out by special SS units called Einsatzgruppen.
What was the Final Solution?
In January 1942, a group of senior Nazis met at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, to discuss the ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’. Himmler, head of the SS and the Gestapo, was put in charge of the systematic killing of all Jewish people within Germany and German-occupied territory. Slave labour and death camps were built at Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Chelmno in Poland. The old, sick, and weak were killed instantly, others were sent to work at labour camps or underwent medical experiments. 6 million Jews, 500,000 European Roma and countless political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay and lesbian people, and Russian and Polish prisoners of war were sent to camps, where they were worked to death, gassed, or shot.
Who was responsible for the Final Solution?
- Hitler
- Civil Service bureaucracy who collected, stored, and supplied information about Jews
- Police forces in Germany and occupied territories: many victims were seized by the police instead of the Gestapo or the SS
- SS: devised a system of transporting Jews to collection points and then to death camps, Death’s Head battalions and Einsatzgruppen carried out many of the killings
- Wehrmacht (German armed forces): army leaders were fully aware of what was happening
- industry: companies like Volkswagen and Mercedes had their own slave labour camps
- German people: antisemitism was widespread, the people turned a blind eye to the mass murder, and many took part in some way
Did the war increase opposition to the Nazi regime?
Organised resistance groups emerged, like the White Rose, which was run by Hans and Sophie Scholl and friends. They published and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets. The Scholls were executed in February 1943.
Church leaders challenged Nazi policies, such as the Catholic Bishop Clemens Galen throughout the 1930s. He led a popular protest against the Nazi policy of killing mentally and physically disabled in 1941, which forced the Nazis to stop temporarily as they feared it was too risky to try to silence him, and they didn’t want social unrest while at war. Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached against the Nazis until the Gestapo stopped him in 1937. He then became involved with members of the army’s intelligence services who secretly opposed Hitler. He helped Jews escape Germany and asked the Allied commanders in 1942 what peace terms they would offer if Hitler was overthrown. He was arrested in October 1942 and hanged in April 1945.
Army leaders: General Von Fritsch and Field Marshall von Blomberg argued against Hitler’s plan to invade Germany’s neighbours. Hitler had them removed - the Nazis ‘found out’ Fritsch’s wife was a prostitute and accused von Blomberg of being gay. The army became increasingly indivisible from Hitler as the war progressed, however there were 5 known attempts to assassinate Hitler between June 1940 and December 1943, they all failed
Low-level resistance increased: SS and Gestapo reports were increasingly concerned about discontent and disillusionment caused by bombing raids, shortages, and heavy casualties. This led to an increasing loss of control, such as civilians hiding food from the authorities.
What was the July Bomb Plot?
The July Bomb Plot in 1944 was the closest to success. Many army officers were sure the war was lost and Hitler was leading Germany to ruin. Count Von Stauffenberg, a colonel in the army, placed a bomb in Hitler’s conference room on the 20th of July. The plan was to kill Hitler, close down the radio stations, round up any other leading Nazis, and take over Germany. However, an attending officer nudged the briefcase containing the bombing out of his way, away from Hitler. As a result, Hitler survived, however Stauffenberg believed Hitler had been killed, and he flew to Berlin to join the other plotters, who were meant to have seized the Supreme Command Headquarters. Rumours of Hitler’s survival caused the conspirators’ failure to act until Stauffenberg landed, 3 hours later. The Nazis took revenge, and 5000 people were killed.
Why was there not more opposition to the Nazis?
Terror: local Gestapo still rounded up and hanged some saboteurs who had blown up a railway track to help the enemy during final days of the war
‘Hitler myth’: Hitler was a charismatic leader, propaganda build him up as a godlike figure who controlled Germany’s destiny; even Germans who disliked the Nazis respected Hitler personally and didn’t blame him for the unpleasant and unfair things the Nazis did
Divided opposition: left-wing groups and the Social Democrats were both banned, however they distrusted each other, were leaderless and divided, as a result they never mounted ant coordinated resistance
Approval: many people were pleased with the Nazis after the failure of Weimar democracy, Hitler had delivered on many promises, restored German pride internationally, and had got the economy moving again; even those who didn’t support all Nazi policies tolerated them for the sake of the stability and prosperity the Nazis had brought
Propaganda and censorship: newspapers and media only spread news of Nazi achievements, and this only increased in wartime. After the obvious public unhappiness with Kristallnacht in 1938, the Nazis kept all future measures against Jews secret and didn’t publicise them like they did in the early 1930s
