Life in Nazi Germany Revision Notes– 1933 to 1945

Hitler’s Aims To right the wrongs of Versailles & the Weimar period & make Germany strong again. To create a racially pure
(Aryan) Germany by persecuting those who were responsible for past failures (Jews, etc). To establish the Volk
(people’s community) in Germany; individual freedoms would be less valued than loyalty to the nation.
Economically, unemployment would have to be lowered & then the nation would work towards self-sufficiency.
The Nazis The Nazis used terror to control Germany. Concentration camps were set up to take opposition politicians, trade
and unionists, enemies of the state, gypsies, Jews and homosexuals. The camps were run by the SS, elite Nazis with
methods of blond hair and blue eyes, who would later run the death camps. They had the power to arrest people without
control evidence and search homes. The police came under the control of the SS while judges took oaths of loyalty to
Hitler. The Gestapo, a secret police organisation, were in charge of exposing enemies from within Germany. They
created a climate of fear and relied upon informers to report suspicions.
Nazi Josef Goebbels used propaganda to spread Nazi beliefs. Anti-Nazi newspapers were shut down, degenerate
propaganda books (including those by Jewish authors) burned and all films that were made had to be approved (The Eternal
& Jew, 1940). Germans were provided with cheap radios & loudspeakers were installed in factories & public places
censorship so all could hear the Fuhrer. Listening to foreign stations & Jazz was banned. Germanic culture was promoted
(Bach, Beethoven). Mass rallies (in Nuremberg) were designed to invoke awe with their parades of military kit.
The Nazis The Church could prove to be powerful opposition to the Nazis if provoked (Cardinal Galen ended the T4
and Religion programme in 1941) but Hitler tried to weaken their hold when possible. In 1933 Hitler signed a Concordat with
the Catholic Church in which he agreed not to interfere with the Church if it stayed out of politics. Protestant
Churches (which had no established centralised control) were united under the Nazi approved Reich Church &
preachers who refused to join were arrested (such as Martin Niemoller). The Nazis approved of the pagan
German Faith Movement which attracted 200,000 members as an alternative religion. The Nazis also shut down
church schools in 1939, because the Nazis could not influence what was taught in them, breaking the concordat.
The Nazis Children were indoctrinated at school by teachers who were forced to join the Nazi Teachers’ Association. The
and the curriculum looked at Eugenics (the study of race and selective breeding) and emphasised P.E. Boys were prepared
Young for military service, girls for motherhood & all subjects took on a Nazi slant (unusual Maths questions, biased
History, the Geography of Lebensraum, Religious Studies downgraded in importance, etc). Outside school, boys
joined the Hitler Youth and Girls the League of German Maidens. They had similar goals as the school curriculum
and became compulsory. They offered activities such as camping and shooting. Other youth groups were made
illegal but the Swing Movement and Edelweiss Pirates welcomed discontented youths. In 1945, with Germany
close to defeat, members of the Hitler Youth as young as twelve were used to defend Berlin from the Red Army.
The Nazis Women were encouraged to leave their jobs & produce children between 1933 & 1937. Their role was defined as
and Women ‘kinder, kirche, kuche’ (children, church, kitchen) & state employed women lost their jobs. Women were
expected to conform to Nazi ideal which frowned on diets, smoking and inappropriate fashion like trousers.
Newly married couples were offered 1,000RM loans if wives gave up their jobs; the loan was written off if they
produced 4 children. Mothers received gold crosses if they had eight kids. Single women wishing to contribute
were impregnated by SS men in special maternity homes. Although birth rates increased a shortage of workers
from 1937 saw the Nazis end the marriage loan scheme and new female workers had to perform a ‘duty year’ of
unpaid work often on farms in rural areas. War meant women were needed to work in admin & transportation.
In 1943 the Nazis wanted 3 million women, aged 17-45, to work in factories to aid the war effort but only 1
million took the jobs. Although by 1944 more women (15million) were in work than in 1933 the expectation that
women should work and perform the roles of mothers had largely failed.
The Nazis The Nazis aimed to reduce unemployment, rearm Germany & become self sufficient in food and raw materials.
and the Dr Schacht’s New Plan limited imports, increased Government spending on industries and set up public works
Economy schemes (building roads, hospitals, etc) which were run by the German Labour Front, reducing unemployment at
the same time. Individual trade agreements were struck with foreign countries to swap raw materials to make up
for what Germany lacked. Labour Service was introduced in which all 18-25 year old men had to work six months
for pocket money further reducing unemployment (as did military conscription from 1935 & the removal of
women & Jews from certain professions). Workers benefitted from slightly better pay and secure employment
(unemployment fell from 6million in 1936 to 300,000 in 1939), but hours were longer & trade unions were
abolished. The Strength through Joy scheme provided free holidays, sports events & organised trips to theatres
and cinemas in an effort to reward state workers, build community spirit & control free time. Schacht was fired
for Goering for wanting to slow down spending on rearmament. Goering set up a Four Year Plan in 1936 to
prepare Germany for war. Investment in industry increased (the Hermann Goering Industrial Works were built),
forced labour by prisoners was introduced, wages and prices were kept low & synthetic materials were created
for some raw materials like oil and rubber. By 1939 Germany still relied on imports for a third of its raw materials
& and quality of life had fallen as the Government chose between Guns or Butter (Industrial products or
consumer goods). Farmers remained discontented because of state targets & many agricultural workers left for
 work in the cities. Once war began, the German economy became almost entirely devoted to the war effort (3/4
of Government expenditure). Government debt increased 48 billion marks to 380 billion. The working week was
extended to 7 days with each individual expected to do 72 hours. Women & prisoners of war were used to
replace German men in factories. Occupied territories, like France, were taxed 20 million marks a day & their
industrial resources like iron & chemicals from Poland were plundered for Germany’s benefit.
The Nazis Burdens to society such as the disabled were sterilised on racial, medical and economic grounds between 1933 &
and 1939 (approx. 300,000). In 1939 six secret ‘euthanasia’ centres were set up under the T-4 programme run by the
Persecution SS. 72,000 were murdered using starvation, gassing and lethal injections but the project was shut down due to
public outcry in 1941 when attention was drawn to the situation by Cardinal Galen. Many of the same doctors
and SS members were later involved with the larger scale murders of the Holocaust.
Anti-Semitism before the war– A one day boycott of Jewish businesses (April 1933) ended due to international
outcry. Propaganda vilified Jews as unclean, inferior, untrustworthy, etc throughout the 1930’s although there
was a reduction during the 1936 Olympics because international attention was focused on Germany. Laws in the
1930’s separated the Jews from the rest of German society by preventing them from holding certain jobs (vets,
doctors, teachers) or visiting certain places (cinemas, theatres). The Nuremberg Laws (1935) banned marriage
between Jews & ethnic Germans to prevent the pollution of German blood. Jews were also stripped of their
German citizenship. Economically many Jews lost their jobs, their businesses were shut down and their property
was confiscated. In 1938 Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) destroyed synagogues & businesses during two
nights of violence in which around 100 Jews were killed & 20,000 were sent to concentration camps. The excuse
for this night of violence was the assassination of a German official in Paris by a Jew. From 1939 the Nazis
encouraged Jewish emigration although their possessions were confiscated before they left.
Anti-Semitism during the war and the Holocaust
Emigration came to an end with the start of the Second World War & the 200,000 Jews still in Germany had to
wear the Star of David, obey a night time curfew and hand over their radios & telephones. They were given less
food rations than Aryan Germans. Some Polish Jews were massacred during the German invasion but not on
specific orders. Polish Jews were forced to do compulsory labour in factories, also had to wear the Star of David
and began to be concentrated in ghettoes in cities like Warsaw. Ghetto conditions were unsanitary; disease
spread quickly & food was scarce, although Jews tended to be safe from the Germans who rarely entered. In June
1941 Germany invaded the USSR (Operation Barbarossa) and 2 million Russian Jews were shot by the SS &
Einsatzgruppen although some were gassed in vans. In Jan 1942, at the Wansee Conference, it was decided the
Final Solution to the Jewish problem was to murder all Jews in purpose built death camps like Auschwitz. Jews
from across Europe were transported in trains from their Ghettoes to the gas chambers where 3 million died.
Some were used as slave labour. In late 1944 the death camps were demolished & the surviving slave labourers
marched back to Germany in freezing conditions by the Nazis before the Red Army could liberate them. They
were abandoned in concentration camps as the war ended with many succumbing to disease and starvation.
Opposition Before the war the Nazis faced little opposition. People were afraid & no official opposition existed after 1933.
to the Resistance amounted to nothing more than private grumbling (anti-Hitler jokes) and non-cooperation with the
Nazis? regime in some situations (avoiding the Hail Hitler salute). Many Germans had voted for the Nazis & approved of
their policies while others were too afraid of the SS and Gestapo to speak out. Censorship meant many were not
aware of the Nazis’ worst crimes. Once war began, more opponents did emerge; the Catholic Church successfully
opposed and exposed the T-4 programme in 1941 forcing the Nazis to officially end the scheme (although
murders continued behind closed doors). Some Edelweiss Pirates in Cologne hid army deserters & concentration
camp escapees but 13 were eventually exposed & hanged. A group of Munich University students called the
White Rose wrote & distributed six anti-Nazis leaflets before being caught and executed. As the war took a turn
for the worse Colonel von Stauffenberg and other army officers plotted Operation Valkyrie to blow up Hitler. The
assassination failed and 5,000 suspected conspirators were executed including the Kreisau Circle; German
aristocrats who had secretly discussed forming a new government but were not directly involved in Valkyrie.
Opposition failed because their numbers were too few, they lacked resources, operated independently of each
other, were disorganised and failed to avoid detection by the well organised Nazis security forces.
The Effect of Food rationing was introduced early on and by 1941 clothing became scarce. From 1942 German cities instead of
the war on military targets were bombed by the RAF (1,000 bomber raids) killing 600,000 civilians. The raid on Dresden in
Germany February 1945 killed about 25,000 people alone. Water, electricity and telephone cables were routinely cut off
and homelessness increased. Women were forced to work & teenagers to fight and die as the war became more
desperate. Propaganda increased, emphasising that the war was now a fight for survival & that victory was still
possible through sacrifice. Civilians were eventually forced to scavenge for food as the rationing & transport
systems broke down leading to the cannibalism of dead bodies. When the USSR invaded in 1945, millions of
German refugees fled west and an estimated 2million German women were raped by the advancing Red Army.