How Did the Nazis Deal with Opposition? (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE History)

The Aspects of the Nazi Police State - Summary

 Role of the SS

• The SS was created in 1925 to act as personal bodyguards to Hitler

• Members had to be both ‘racially pure’ and radically loyal to the NSDAP

• Heinrich Himmler became leader of the SS from 1929

• The SS wore black uniforms to be easily identifiable from the SA

• The SS had several roles:

  • Protect Hitler and other Nazi leaders

  • Provide security during political meetings

  • Urge people to subscribe to the Nazi newspaper, Der Völkischer Beobachter

  • Marry ‘racially pure’ wives to create ‘racially pure’ children

  • Manage and control other police forces, including the SD and Gestapo

• The SS were responsible for carrying out the arrests and murders of SA members during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934

Role of the SD

• The SD was created in 1931 by Heinrich Himmler

  • Reinhard Heydrich was placed in charge

• They gathered intelligence on anyone they suspected or knew opposed the Nazi Party, which included:

  • Existing and new Nazi Party members

  • Leaders and activities within other political parties

  • Minority groups such as Jewish people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Freemasons

  • Government officials 

• Heydrich and the SD compiled a list of SA members during the Night of the Long Knives

• The SD became the only police agency to collect and manage intelligence from 1934

  • They continued this work during the war

Role of the Gestapo

• Hermann Goering initially created the Gestapo to “investigate and combat all attempts to threaten the state”

• By 1934, Reinhard Heydrich led the Gestapo

• They wore plain clothes so they could not be easily identified

• The Gestapo had several roles:

  • Tapping phones and spying on opponents

  • Arresting, questioning and torturing suspects

    • Around 160,000 people were arrested in 1939 for political crimes

  • Sending people directly to concentration camps using protective custody

  • Releasing information about concentration camp conditions to spread fear

• They relied on denunciations from the public to target suspects:

  • Only around 10% of political crimes committed were discovered by the Gestapo, compared to 80% reported by ordinary citizens

• Towns such as Hamburg and Frankfurt only had 40-50 Gestapo agents, which demonstrates the reliance on fear to reduce opposition

The Development of Concentration Camps

• Most arrests were for ‘political crimes’

  • Political crimes involved speaking out against the Nazi Party

• Dachau was opened in 1933 and became the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany

• Concentration camps were created to imprison many groups:

  • Minority groups such as Jewish people and Jehovah’s Witnesses

  • ‘Undesirables’ such as homosexuals, prostitutes and Romani

  • Political opponents, including journalists, writers, intellectuals and Communists

• Concentration camps had poor living conditions and inmates had to do hard labour

• During the Second World War, the Nazi strategy changed

  • Concentration camps did not reduce the number of ‘undesirables’ in Germany

  • Germany’s progression into Eastern Europe increased the number of ‘undesirables’ under Nazi occupation

• Hitler and the Nazis developed the ‘Final Solution’ in 1942

  • This led to the development of six extermination camps

    • The most notorious camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau

Controlling the Legal System

• Control of the legal system allowed the Nazi Party to remove opposition under the illusion that it was fair and just

  • However, cases were often pre-determined and biased in favour of a conviction

Judges and Lawyers  

• Judges and lawyers were required to prioritise the interests of the Nazi Party above all else:

  • Judges joined the National Socialist League for the Maintenance of the Law

    • Judges were dismissed if they did not join

  • Lawyers joined the German Lawyers Front

• Judges had to wear the swastika from 1936

• Judges decided the outcome of cases, not the jury

Law Courts 

• The Nazis removed trial by jury so that judges could decide the outcome of the case

• The People’s Court was introduced to hear cases of treason

  • The Nazis selected judges radically loyal to them

  • Trials were held in secret

  • The right to appeal was removed

• Control of the legal system led to a rapid rise in the number of political opponents executed:

  • Between 1930 and 1932, only eight people were executed

  • Between 1934 and 1939, this increased to 534 people

Controlling Religion

The Concordat With the Catholic Church

• Germany had high levels of Christianity

  • Most of the country was either Protestant or Catholic

• Christianity was a threat to Hitler and the Nazi Party because the Christian Church held different beliefs from the Nazi Party:

• However, Hitler was not sure what to do about the churches:

Should Hitler Destroy or Keep Christianity?

• Hitler initially wanted the Christian churches to work with the Nazi government

• The Catholic and Protestant churches reacted differently to Nazi interference

• Catholics represented several challenges for Hitler:

  • They were loyal to the Pope

  • They supported the Catholic Centre Party before the Enabling Act

  • They had their own Catholic schools, which taught different beliefs to Nazi schools

• Hitler signed an agreement known as a Concordat with the Pope in July 1933 on behalf of the Catholic Church:

  • It allowed Catholics to worship freely and to continue with Catholic schools

  • In return, Catholic priests would not interfere in politics and would swear loyalty to the Nazi regime

• Persecution of Catholics continued throughout the 1930s:

  • Around 400 priests were sent to the Dachau concentration camp

  • Catholic schools were controlled or closed

    • This broke the Concordat

  • Youth groups like the Catholic Youth League were banned

  • Monasteries were closed down

• By 1937, the Concordat had failed:

  • The Pope released a statement known as ‘With Burning Anxiety’, which criticised the Nazi regime

    • The Pope called Hitler a “mad prophet”

The Protestant Reich Church

• Many Protestants supported the Nazi Party by 1933 as the party had promised protection from Communists, who were anti-Christian

• Ludwig Müller became Reich Bishop of a unified Protestant Church called the Reich Church:

  • Around 2,000 individual churches joined

  • The swastika was displayed in some churches

  • Jewish people were not allowed to be baptised in the Reich Church

• Pastor Martin Niemöller resisted Nazi intervention and set up the Pastors’ Emergency League (PEL)

  • The Confessing Church was created in 1934 and 6,000 churches joined