The Nazi experiment 1929-1949: Society

Question 1

What was Hitler’s new ideology?

Answer 1

Volksgemeinschaft- wanted to overcome the traditional divisions of class and religion with 1 single German identity

Question 2

When were trade unions shut down and what were they replaced with?

Answer 2

• 1933
• Replaced with German Labour Front (DAF)

Question 3

What service was created in 1935?

Answer 3

German Labour Service (RAD)

Question 4

What did the German Labour Service (RAD) do?

Answer 4

Forced every man aged 18-25 to complete 6 months training in a camp, wear military uniform, undertake physical exercise everyday, accept a basic living allowance

Question 5

What did the German Labour Front do?

Answer 5

• Intended to be a symbol of the nation
• Produced posters promoting idealised Aryan workers
• Those risen from humble beginnings were excluded from praise
• Factory community was heralded as the 1st stage of assimilation into the ‘national community’
• Ran training courses and offered various perks

Question 6

When was Strength Through Joy created and what was it?

Answer 6

• 1933
• Created to organise workers’ leisure time

Question 7

What did Beauty of Work do?

Answer 7

• Ran propaganda campaigns to popularise good working practices and improve facilities
• Competitions, outings and holidays were offered
• Factory sports fields and swimming baths were opened

Question 8

How did Hitler want women to see themselves?

Answer 8

As mothers

Question 9

What measures did Hitler take to encourage motherhood?

Answer 9

1. Birth control centres were closed
2. Abortion was made illegal unless necessary for the eradication of genetic defects
3. Maternity benefits were increased
4. Income tax allowances for dependent children were raised
5. 1939- The Honour Cross of German Motherhood was established to encourage women to ‘bear a child for the Fuhrer’ (‘best’ mothers were awarded medals)

Question 10

What measures did Hitler take to ensure genetic purity?

Answer 10

1. 1935- Couples needed a certificate of fitness to marry before a marriage license could be issued
2. 1938- Unproductive marriages could be ended
3. 1941- Couples found living together after their marriage had been banned could be sent to concentration camps

Question 11

What measures did Hitler take to enforce the female role?

Answer 11

1. 1933- Law for the Reduction of Unemployment offered allowances to women who gave up work
2. 1934- All married women were compelled to leave careers in medicine, law and the civil service
3. Women were declared ineligible for jury service and were discouraged from attending universities

Question 12

When were women encouraged to return to factories?

Answer 12

1936- after a labour shortage began to affect rearmament plans

Question 13

What are the examples of the measures against women being relaxed?

Answer 13

1. 1937- Women no longer had to leave work to qualify for marriage loans + the policy of excluding women from higher information was relaxed
2. 1943- Women aged between 16-45 became eligible for conscription to war

Question 14

What measures did Hitler take to convey the Nazi ideology in education?

Answer 14

1. Jewish theses were banned
2. Biology lessons were used to teach social darwinism and racial difference
3. History emphasised the glories of the German past and military heroism
4. Geography, German, music and art lessons encouraged awareness of German culture and heritage
5. Differentiation between male and female curriculum
6. New subjects offered: genetics, racial theory, military studies

Question 15

What measures did Hitler take to ensure the loyalty of teachers?

Answer 15

1. They were controlled through the Nationalist Socialist Teachers’ League established in 1929 (over 95% of teachers belonged by 1937)
2. Some were dismissed under the 1933 Civil Service Act
3. 1939- All teachers became Reich civil servants
4. Teachers were required to be actively anti semitic

Question 16

When did membership of the Hitler Youth become compulsory?

Answer 16

1936

Question 17

What were the separate divisions for boys and girls in the Hitler Youth?

Answer 17

1. Hitler Youth catered for boys aged between 6-18 years (aimed to train boys for war)
2. League of German Maidens catered for girls aged between 10-21 years (aimed to train girls for motherhood)

Question 18

How hid Hitler ensure social conformity was maintained and was it successful?

Answer 18

1. Propaganda (Nazi days, parades, speeches)
2. 1933 Winterhilfe scheme- Introduced to help victims of the depression through doorstep collections of money, food and clothing, in order to show Germans helping each other (successful- 9 million received payments)
3. Eintopf meal scheme- Encouraged families to only have 1 meal on Sundays in the winter and to donate the money saved (‘The meal of sacrifice for the Reich’- involvement seen as loyalty)- By 1942, due to receding unemployment, families were less inclined to do this, leading to Hitler threatening death to those who kept collections

Question 19

Why did Volksgemeinschaft lead to church allegiances being destroyed?

Answer 19

It demanded the removal of alternative sources of loyalty, the most powerful being churches (Catholics represented 58% of the population and Protestants represented 32%)

Question 20

What did Hitler do to the Protestant Church and was the reaction?

Answer 20

• Protestant Reich Church established in 1933 with Muller as the bishop (Nazi supporter)
• Muller led a branch known as the German Christians (they embraced Nazism by wearing a uniform with a swastika and demanding gospels be purged of Jewish texts)
• A breakaway group of 100 pastors led by Niemoller refused to acknowledge the Reich Church and formed the Confessional Church in 1934 (had 500 clergy and wanted to protect the church from state interference)
• In 1936 hundreds of confessional pastors were sent to concentration camps

Question 21

What was Hitler’s relationship with the Catholic Church?

Answer 21

• By the Concordat of 1933 the Pope accepted the Nazi regime and Catholics were instructed to keep out of politics in return for their own control over their schools and community organisations
• Although many Catholic priests were sent to concentration camps, there was no organised Catholic opposition and most preferred to ‘keep their heads down’

Question 22

What was the German Faith Movement?

Answer 22

• Nazi movement to replace Christianity with a new faith
• In the mid 1930’s a Church Secession campaign encouraged Germans to abandon churches
• Carols and nativities were banned from schools in 1938
• The word Christmas was forbidden and replaced with yuletide in war years
• Had 200,000 supporters
• However, Protestant and Catholic Church attendance remained steady until 1939 and then begun to increase

Question 23

Who were the asocials and what happened to them?

Answer 23

• People who didn’t contribute to Nazi society
• In 1933 around 500,000 of them were rounded up and given a permit which provided them with lodgings in return for compulsory work
• Those that failed to work were sent to concentration camps and forced to wear a black triangle

Question 24

What was the Workshy Reich programme?

Answer 24

• Happened in 1938
• Juvenile delinquents were particularly targeted and sent to a youth concentration camp
• Both old and young people could be forced to be sterilised and seen as social deviants
• 10,000 were incarcerated

Question 25

Who were the main victims of Volksgemeinschaft?

Answer 25

Biological outsiders

Question 26

What could happen to people suffering from hereditary diseases from 1933?

Answer 26

Could be forced to sterilised, meaning they would be forbidden from marrying fertile partners

Question 27

What could happen to disabled people?

Answer 27

• They were seen as burdens on the community
• In 1939 a euthanasia programme was set up (initially targeted children under 3, but later extended to children up to 16)
• By 1945, 5000 children had been murdered by lethal injection or deliberate malnutrition

Question 28

What secret programme was set up by Hitler?

Answer 28

• 14F13 (1941-1943)
• Led to the gassings of 30,000-50,000 people suffering from mental or physical illness

Question 29

What happened to Roma and Sinti people?

Answer 29

1. They were included in the 1935 Nuremberg Law (banned marriage between aryans and non aryans)
2. They were subjected to racial tests to make a distinction between true Roma and Sinti and those with some aryan blood (mischlinge)
3. From 1940 they were deported to Poland to work in camps
4. In 1942, 20,000 were transferred to Auschwitz (11,000 murdered there and 500,000 in Europe)

Question 30

What happened to Jewish people?

Answer 30

1. Portrayed as the most serious racial threat to the German state
2. 1933- 1 day boycott of Jewish shops and businesses
3. 1933 Law for a Restoration of a Professional Civil Service- Jewish civil servants were dismissed
4. 1935- Nuremberg Laws banned marriage between Jewish people and Germans and deprived Jewish people of German citizenship
5. Jewish doctors, dentists and lawyers were forbidden from having aryan clients
6. All Jewish people had to add Israel or Sarah to their name

Question 31

What was ‘the night the national soul boiled over’?

Answer 31

• In 1938 a series of attacks (unofficially encouraged by the police) destroyed synagogues, Jewish businesses, homes and shops
• Hundreds of Jewish people were injured
• 91 Jewish people were murdered
• 20,000 were sent to concentration camps

Question 32

What was life like for Jewish people after 1938?

Answer 32

• They were banned from schools, cinemas, universities, theatres, sports facilities
• They were forbidden to enter areas for aryans only
• In 1939 Hitler threatened the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe through using war
• In 1941 they were forced to wear a yellow star
• 6 million were slaughtered by gassing in Auschwitz