Nazi Control of Germany:The One-Party State

By: You Zhen

The Legal Revolution• Appointing only judges that were considered loyal to the Nazis;

• Ensuring that all future judges are to be trained in the “ideological foundations” of Nazism;

• Ensured that the theory of the legal system should be kept in the best interests of the “national community”, which are ironically solely decided by the Führer and the Nazis;

• Many of the existing judiciary were national-conservative and never liked the democratic ideology introduced by the Weimar Republic;

• A parallel Nazi legal system was also created;

• All lawyers had to become members of the Nazi Lawyers’ Association and the role of defence lawyers were massively reduced;

• From 1941, the SS took more and more control of the entire German legal system.

Institutional

Terror

The SS

The Beginning

• The SS was a black-uniformed elite corps created in 1925 as a special personal bodyguard for Hitler;

• The SS acted as a counter-balance to the SA;

• Grew from 300 members to 50,000 under Heinrich Himmler from 1929 to 1933 when the Nazis came into power;

• Himmler only allowed physically “perfect” and racially “pure” applicants into the SS, though all the members derived from different classes of the German society;

• SS members typically feel superior over the SA as they wore fancier uniform, which were sleek black.

A typical SS uniform.

After The Night of the Long Knives• After The Night of the Long Knives between 1934-1936, Himmler together with

Heydrich combined German police forces to form an extremely large and complicated SS, culminating at 250,000 members at 1939;

• Two main sectors were also created, the Allgemine-SS (General SS) and the Waffen-SS (Armed SS).

• Indoctrinated to hate certain races and grow apathetic to suffering;

• Chief virtue was absolute obedience and loyalty to the Führer;

• Executed political opponents, Jews, gypsies, Communists, partisans, Russian POWs and Polish leaders.

Allgemine-SS (General SS) Waffen-SS (Armed SS)

• Dealt with police and racial matters;• Reich Security Central Office:

• Orpo (Order Police),• Sipo (Security Police),• Kripo (Criminal Police),• SD (Security Service),• Gestapo.

• Leibstandarte (Hitler’s Bodyguard);• Death’s-Head Battalions

(administered death camps);• Disposition Troops (elite combat force

during WWII).

Heinrich HimmlerLeader of the SS

Reinhard HeydrichChief Adjutant of SS

The Gestapo

The Gestapo• Acted as a political police;

• Eliminated Nazi political oppositions within Germany and its occupied territories as well as the roundup of Jews to concentration camps;

• Hermann Göring set up the Gestapo by separating the political and espionage sectors of the Prussian police force and recruited many Nazi members. The Gestapo came under his personal command in April 26, 1933;

• Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, took over the Gestapo in April 1934;

• He was then made the Reichsführer (Chief of Police, answerable only to Hitler) on June 17, 1936. The Gestapo then became part of the SS in April 1934;

• By 1945, the Gestapo had over 40,000 members.

Hermann GöringLeader of the Gestapo

Fear Suppressio

n

• Operated without any civil restraints, can make “preventive arrests” – none of their actions were subjected to judicial appeal;

• Thousands of leftists, intellectuals, Jews, trade unionists, political clergies and homosexuals were sent to concentration camps by the Gestapo;

• Political sector could have prisoners tortured, murdered or released;

• Managed “inferior races” (i.e.: Jews & Gypsies); Suppressed partisan activities by carrying out reprisals against its civilians;

• Acted as death squads when the regular army invaded other countries – goes through said country exterminating Jews and other “undesirables”;

• Had total power to arrest and detain;

• Oppositions were almost entirely subdued and suppressed through intimidation and fear by the Gestapo;

• Blockleiters supervises neighbourhoods and report to their superiors if they find anyone with less than completely loyalty to Hitler and the Nazi Party;

• Thousands of ordinary Germans were willing to also denounce family members, neighbours and colleagues to the Nazi Party should they have any rebellious thoughts;

• Through intimidation and fear, the Nazi Party managed to cause people to fear partaking in active opposition against the Nazis because of the consequences that follow.

A typical Gestapo uniform.

Fun Fact!(Well… more fun than a normal

fact anyways…)

Source 1: The remains of an overflow Nazi concentration camp for sick and dying inmates taken in 12 April 1945.

Source 2: The SS Untersturmfuhrer Alfred Berger of the Kama/Handzar/Batschka Nazi SS

Divisions.

Source 3: A German girl held her nose as she walked by the 800 exhumed bodies of forced laborers murdered by SS men, near Namering,

Germany, 17 May 1945

Source 4: German SS women remove bodies of their victims from trucks in the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, on April 28, 1945. British

soldiers are also present holding rifles in the background.

Source 5: German SS troops load victims of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp into trucks for burial, in Belsen, Germany, on April

17, 1945. British soldiers carrying rifles can also be seen.

Source 6: German boys are examined by the SS to see whether they are fit to be part of the Aryan race or not, seeing if there are any physical or

racial impurities.

Source 7: Burned bodies of political prisoners of the Germans lie strewn about the entrance to a barn at Gardelegen, Germany on April 16, 1945

Source 8: Gestapo executing Russian peasants.

Source 9: Russian partisans hung by Germans in Russia.

Source 10: Danes who had helped the Gestapo during the occupation are driven through the streets on open vans for public humiliation after

being arrested by the resistance.

Information Sources

1. “Gestapo.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232117/Gestapo>.

2. “SS.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/562059/SS>.

3. Todd, Allan. "9. Consolidating and Maintaining the Nazi Dictatorship, 1933-39." The European Dictatorships: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 198+. Print.