Chapter 16: Social policies (Sec 4)

Question 1

How did the Nazis place control over teachers?

Answer 1

1) Under the Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service, a number of teachers were dismissed because they were jewish or politically unreliable .
2) Teachers were pressurised into joining the National Socialist Teachers’ League.
3) Vetting of textbooks was undertaken by local Nazi committees after 1933. From 1935, central directives were issued by the Ministry of Education covering what would be taught and by 1938, these rules covered every school year and most subjects.

Question 2

How did the Nazis control the curriculum?

Answer 2

1) They aimed to promote ‘racial health’, which led to an increasing emphasis on physical education.
2) In German lessons, the aim was to instill a ‘consciousness of being German’.
3) In Biology, there was a stress on race and heredity. Also a strong emphasis on evolution and survival of the fittest.
4) Geography was used to develop awareness of the concepts of Lebensraum, ‘blood and soil’ and German racial superiority.

Question 3

What were the chances of going to university under the regime?

Answer 3

1) Nazis downgraded the importance of academic education and the number of students attending universities between 1933-39 decreased.
2) Access to higher education strictly rationed.
3) Women restricted to 10% of available university places and Jews restricted to 1.5%.

Question 4

How did the Nazis coordinate universities?

Answer 4

1) Under the Law for the Establishment of a Professional Civil Service, about 1200 university staff were dismissed on racial or political grounds.
2) In Nov 1933, all universities were made to sign a ‘declaration in support of Hitler and the National Socialist State’
3) Students hd to join the German Students League.
4) Students were also forced to do four months labour service and 2 months in an SA camp.

Question 5

When was the Hitler Youth created?
What did it do?

Answer 5

1) Created in 1926, but unsuccessful until the Nazis came to power in Jan 1933.
2) When the Nazis came to power, all other youth organisations except those linked to the catholic church were either banned or taken over by the HJ.

Question 6

What law was passed in 1936 which gave the HJ the status of an official education movement?

Answer 6

1) The Law for the Incorporation of the German Youth.
2) Catholic youth organisations were banned and HJ became the only officially permitted youth organisation.

Question 7

When was HJ membership made compulsory?

Answer 7

1) 1939.

Question 8

What were the teachings of the Hitler Youth?

Answer 8

1) Constant diet of political indoctrination and physical activity. Boys from the age of 10 were taught the motto ‘live faithfully, fight bravely and die laughing’.
2) Emphasis on youth activities was on competition, struggle, heroism and leadership as boys were prepared for their future role as warriors.
3) HJ members had to swear a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler.

Question 9

What attracted young boys to the HJ?

Answer 9

1) The opportunity to participate in sports and camping trips away from hone made the organisation attractive.

Question 10

What was the female equivalent to the HJ?

Answer 10

1) The BDM (League of German Girls).

Question 11

1) When did BDM membership become compulsory?
2) What were the teachings of the BDM?

Answer 11

1) Became compulsory in 1939.
2) - Girls were taught that they had a duty to be healthy since their bodies belonged to the nation.
- They needed to be fit for their future role as child bearers.
- They were also instructed in matters of hygiene, cleanliness and healthy eating.
- Annual summer camps were highly structured, every minute being taken up with sports, physical activity and route marches.
- Racial awareness was an important aspect.

Question 12

What were the attitudes of girls towards the BDM like?

Answer 12

1) Many girls found their experience in the BDM liberating, they were doing things their mothers had been allowed to do and they could escape from the constraints of the home.
2) They developed a sense of comradeship.
3) Girls from the cities were not fans of having to do a years work on the land or in domestic service after 1934.

Question 13

What was the degree of success of Nazi youth policies?

Answer 13

1) Successful in bringing schools and universities under their control.
2) HJ by 1939 had become the only youth movement allowed in Germany.
3) Membership of HJ and BDM had grown.
4) But, by 1939, levels of enthusiasm was beginning to wane.

Question 14

1) What was the main priority for the Nazis regarding women?
2) How did they go about this?

Answer 14

1) Nazis main priority was to raise the birth rate, closely linked to attempt to restrict the employment of married women outside the family house,
2) They went about this through:
- marriage loans were introduced for women who left work and married an Aryan man. For each child born, the amount of the loan that had to be repaid was reduced by a quater.
- awarded medals to women for ‘donating a baby to the fuhrer’
- birth control was discouraged and abortion was severely restricted.
- women encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle, with plenty of exercise, no smoking or drinking.

Question 15

What women’s organisations did the Nazis set up to promote their values?

Answer 15

1) The Germans Women’s League (DFW) setup in 1933 go coordinate all women’s groups under Nazi control. By 1939, DFW had over 6mil members,
2) National Socialist Women’s Organisation. Elite organisation to promote the nations ‘lovelife, marriage, the family, blood and race’. Primarily an organisation for propaganda and indoctrination.
3) The Reich Mother’s Service (RMD) was a branch of the DFW for training ‘physically and mentally able mothers’. By March 1939, almost 2 million had attended motherhood training services.

Question 16

What was the degree of success of Nazi policies towards women?

Answer 16

1) Nazi campaign to raise birth rate had some success.
2) Number of women in the workforce increased from 1933-39, so the Nazis failed in that department.

Question 17

1) When was the German Labour Front (DAF) established?
2) What did it do?
3) What were its two main aims?

Answer 17

1) DAF was established on May 6th 1933 to coordinate workers into the National Socialist regime.
2) The DAF took over the assets of the banned trade unions and became the largest organisation in the Third Reich. In 1936, it started to provide vocational training courses to improve workers’ skills.
3) Two main aims were:
- to win workers over to the Volk
- encourage workers to increase production

Question 18

How many paid employees did the DAF have by 1939?

Answer 18

1) 44,500.

Question 19

What was the KdF? What were its aims?

Answer 19

1) Set up by the DAF to organise workers leisure time.
2) It aimed to:
- submerge the individual in the mass and encourage workers to see themselves as part of the volk. There would no time for workers to develop private lives.
- encourage a spirit of social equality. All Kdf activities were organised on a one class basis with no distinction between rich and poor.
- bring Germans from different regions of the country together and to break down regional and religious differences.
- encourage participation in sport to improve the physical and mental health of the nation.
- encourage competition and ambition.

Question 20

What was mass tourism through the KdF?

Answer 20

1) One of their most successful activities.
2) Cruises to foreign destinations opened up new opportunities for many Germans. Cruises took ordinary Germans to Madeira, Libya, Finland, Norway, Bulgaria etc.
3) KdF ships were built on a one class basis to emphasise unity and cleanliness of the Volk.
4) Facilities on board included gyms, theatres and swimming pools.
5) Passengers were instructed ton dress modestly, avoid excessive drinking and to not have holiday affairs with other passengers.
6) Gestapo and SS agents travelled on the cruises to spy on them.

Question 21

What was the issue with mass tourism through the KdF?

Answer 21

1) Tickets were too expensive for ordinary citizens and passengers were drawn mainly from the middle class.
2) Little mixing of classes on the ships and there were reports of fights between passengers from different regions of Germany.

Question 22

What was the degree of success of Nazi policies towards workers?

Answer 22

1) Evidence from Sopade and Gestapo reports shows that workers’ reactions to Nazi schemes to win their support were mixed.
2) Strength Through Joy was popular not because people shared its Nazi ideological aims, but because it offered workers a means of escaping the boredom and pressure of their working lives.

Question 23

What were Nazi attitudes towards the Protestant Regime?

Answer 23

1) Nazis saw the German Evangelical Church as a potential nucleus for a single national church, since evangelicals were politically very conservative and staunch nationalists. Many of them were anti-semitic as well.
2) In 1933, the Nazis turned the 450th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther into a major national celebration.

Question 24

What was the Reich Church?
Who won the Church elections in July 1933?
Who was appointed Reich Bishop?

Answer 24

1) In the spring and summer of 1933, the regime began to coordinate the Evangelical Church into a single, centralised Reich Church under Nazi control.
2) The German Christians, with the help of Goebbels Propaganda Ministry won the church elections in July 1933, and were now in a position to Nazify the Church.
3) Ludwig Muller, a Nazi nominee, was appointed as Reich Bishop and took over the administrative headquarters of the Evangelical Church

Question 25

What was the Reich Church forced to adopt?

Answer 25

1) Forced to adopt an ‘Aryan paragraph’, where non-aryans and people who had not declared allegiance to the regime would be dismissed.

Question 26

How did the Confessional Church form?

Answer 26

1) Not all protestant pastors were willing to support developments within the church.
2) In Sep 1933, Bonhoeffer and others established a Pastors Emergency League, which evolved into a breakaway church known as the Confessional church.

Question 27

What was created in 1935 regarding Church Affairs?
What did the regime do about the Confessional Church?

Answer 27

1) A new ministry for church affairs was created and Reich Bishop Muller was marginalised.
2) Regime switched to a policy of trying to weaken the confessional church through repression.

Question 28

How did the Church secession campaign have some success?

Answer 28

1) By 1939, 5% of the population were listed as ‘god believers’.
2) Party members were not allowed to hold any office in the protestant or catholic churches.
3) Stormtroopers forbidden to wear uniform at church services.
4) Priests and pastors forbidden from playing any part in the Nazi party.

Question 29

Why was the Roman Catholic Church a bigger obstacle than other churches to the regime?

Answer 29

1) Catholics in Germany were part of an international Church and took their lead in religious matters from the pope.
2) Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church was much less susceptible to Nazi ideology than the wholly German Evangelical Church.

Question 30

What was the Nazis issue with the Catholic Church?

Answer 30

1) The fact that the Catholic Church demanded obedience to pope from German Catholics was undermining Germany’s unity as a nation.
2) In the early 1930’s, Catholic voters were among the least likely people to vote for the Nazi Party.

Question 31

What was the Catholic concordat?

Answer 31

1) After Hitler came to power, the Catholic Church opted for cooperation and compromise with the new regime in the belief that this would preserve its autonomy.
2) In July 1933, the regime and the Vatican reached an agreement called a concordat under which:
- The Vatican recognised the regime and promised that the church would not interfere in politics.
- the regime promised it would not interfere in the Catholic Church and that the Church would not keep control of its schools and youth organisations.

Question 32

How did the Nazis begin breaking the terms of the concordat?

Answer 32

1) In the summer of 1933, the Nazis began to seize the property of Catholic organisations and forced them to close.
2) Gestapo and SS put Catholic priests under surveillance.
3) In the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934, a number of leading Catholics were executed by the SS.

Question 33

How did the regime increase pressure on the catholic church?

Answer 33

1) Permission to hold public meetings severely restricted.
2) Catholic newspapers and magazines censored.
3) Goebbels launched a propaganda programme against financial corruption in catholic lay organisations.
4) Membership of the HJ made compulsory. Catholic youth groups experienced difficulty in holding onto their members.

Question 34

What did Pope Pius release in 1937?
How did the regime react to this?

Answer 34

1) Pope Pius XI issues an encyclical entitled ‘With Burning Grief’.
2) As a result, the regime increased pressure:
- Gestapo and SS agents placed inside Catholic Church organisations.
- Tightening of restrictions on the catholic press.
- Many monasteries closed down and assets were seized.
- Crucifixes removed from Catholic schools.
- By 1939, all Church schools had been converted into community schools

Question 35

What was the degree of success of Nazi policy towards the churches?

Answer 35

1) Regimes religious policy was confused and inconsistent as leading Nazis differed in their attitudes towards christianity.
2) Nazis had failed to establish a single, unifying protestant church based on the German Christian Movement.
3) By 1939, the concordat was dead, yet Hitler held back from formally renouncing the agreement.