The Creation of a Police State (OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project)): Revision Note

Summary

The creation of a police state was the key tactic of the Nazi Party to prevent any opposition to its rule. Through the SS, the SD, the Gestapo, the police and the law courts, the Nazi regime removed the civil liberties of the German people and left them terrified to speak out.

Fear of being reported, arrested and taken to a concentration camp led most people to obediently follow the Nazi rules.

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 the leader of the SS in 1929

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

• The SS had several roles:

  • Protect Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders

  • Provide security during political meetings

  • Urge people to subscribe to the Nazi Party 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 this, the SS became an independent and increasingly powerful organisation

  • Himmler became more and more powerful

  • In 1936, he was given the title Reichsführer and made the chief of all German police

The Sicherheitsdienst (SD)

• The SD was the Secret Service from 1938

• It gathered information on the political enemies of the Nazi Party leaders

  • It gathered its information by spying on the German people

    • This relied on a large network of volunteers

  • The SD then passed any information it found on to the Gestapo

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

  • This demonstrates their reliance on fear to reduce opposition

The police and law courts under Nazi rule

• When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany had an independent and professional police force

  • The Nazi Party did not abolish them

    • They did remove their independence

  • By 1936, the police were under the control of the SS

    • Their powers had been extended

    • They were able to arrest and question people much more easily

  • They still wore the normal police uniform, but they became part of the Nazi Party's police state

• Control of the legal system allowed the Nazi Party to remove opposition

  • This made people think that the actions were 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

• Trial by jury was removed so that judges could decide the outcome of the case

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

  • Judges radically loyal to the Nazi Party were selected

  • 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

Concentration camps

• 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 terrible and inmates were forced to do hard labour