The Nazi Terror State (AQA A Level History: Component 2: Depth study): Revision Note

Summary

• The Nazis took enormous steps to detect and crush any opposition or threats to their rule

• Opponents or 'undesirables' were detected and arrested by both the SS and the Gestapo

  • With their black uniforms, the SS became a highly visible and intimidating symbol of Nazi power

  • Dressed in plain clothes, the Gestapo were highly secretive and invisible to the German people

• The German people no longer had the right to a fair trial or free speech, but the Nazis maintained a legal system of judges and lawyers

  • Anyone who was not a Nazi, however, was not allowed to be either a judge or a lawyer, and fair trials did not happen

• To cope with the large numbers of extra prisoners created by the new Nazi police state and legal system, the Nazis opened a series of camps to house them in

  • The first of the concentration camps was opened soon after the Nazis came to power in 1933

The SS and Gestapo

The SS

• The SS (Schutzstaffel or protection squad) 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

  • After the Night of the Long Knives, its role expanded enormously, and the SS became a highly visible form of Nazi authority

  • The SS would routinely arrest and detain people suspected of being opponents

• Membership of the SS increased from just 240 members in 1925 to over 290,000 by 1939

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 were infamous for wearing plain clothes so they could not be easily identifiable

• 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 (Schutzhaft)

  • 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

• Much like the SS, membership of the Gestapo expanded enormously

  • There were around 6,500 in 1937, which rose to 20,000 by 1939

"It is nearly impossible to describe what happened for the next four and a half hours, from 5:00pm to 9:30pm, in that interrogation room. Every conceivable cruel method of blackmail was used against me to obtain by force – and at all costs – confessions and statements about comrades who had been arrested and about political activities. It began initially with that friendly “good guy” approach, as I had known some of these fellows when they were still members of Severing's Political Police (during the Weimar Republic). Thus, they cajoled me, etc., in order to discover, during the course of this playful banter, something about this or that comrade and other matters of interest to them. But the approach proved unsuccessful. This was followed by brutal attack methods, during whose process four of my teeth were knocked out of my jaw. This proved unsuccessful, too.

Then they held my mouth shut for a while and hit me in the face and whipped me across my chest and back. Having collapsed, I writhed on the floor, always keeping my face down, and no longer replied to any of their questions. I was still given a few kicks here and there, always keeping my face covered, but I was already totally exhausted, and my chest felt so tight that I could no longer hear or see. Also, I was desperately thirsty."

An account of his Gestapo interrogation by Ernst Thälmann, Chairman of the German Communist Party (KPD)

The police and the courts

The police in Nazi Germany

• When the Nazis first came to power, they created a new political police force that existed alongside and overlapped the established police force

  • This created both competition and confusion in the police system

  • However, this gradually ended as all police forces were brought under the control of Heinrich Himmler and the SS

Courts and the justice 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

People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof)

Article 1.
[1] The People’s Court is established for the severe punishment of high treason and treason.
[2] Trials in the People’s Court shall be adjudicated by a panel of five members, or by a panel of three members, including the President. The President and one other member must be professionally qualified as judges. There can be multiple Senates.
[3] Authority to bring complaints is in the High Reich Prosecutor.

Article 2.
Members of the People’s Court and their deputies shall be ap­pointed by the Chancellor for a term of five years upon the recommen­dation of the Minister of Justice.

There is no appeal from the decisions of the People’s Court.

Article 3.

The choice of defence counsel is subject to the approval of the court President. Approval of defence counsel can be withdrawn. 

Extracts from the laws establishing the new People's Court or Volksgerichtshof in 1934

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

The concentration camp system

• Most arrests made by the police services were related to ‘political crimes’, which 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

• Conditions in concentration camps were awful and inmates were forced to do hard labour

How far was Nazi Germany a totalitarian state?

• By any understanding of the term, Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state

  • It had a one-party system of government and any opposition was both illegal and highly dangerous

  • There was an extensive visible and invisible police presence and a hugely expanded prison system to house anyone deemed undesirable

  • Despite the existence of courts, there were no civil rights or legal protections