Sanford- Germany was under a totalitarian government...and liked it

All facts come from Belk lectures, and video notes.

Hitler used several methods of totalitarian methods while in office to maintain his power, and to further the goals of the Nazi party.

The most well known totalitarian method the Nazi’s used were the concentration camps across the nation. To preserve his dictatorship, Hitler had to make sure that there were no great support gained against him. To do this, all those that he found to be political enemies were put in concentration camps. The harsh labor camp prisons were a way not only to confine, but to punish those who went against Nazi rule. These camps were not only effective as containment for those who did not agree with the Nazi’s but because of the fear of going to one of the camps, they also worked as a deterrent for those who would have otherwise tried to undermine the government. These harsh camps also became a place to send Jewish people when they were found in the country during the enactment of the “Final Solution” which called for the extermination of all those of Jewish descent.

The use of government run propaganda also shows a government trying to control the views of its people. The man in charge of propaganda in Germany was Goebbels. Nazis created a strong negative image of the Jewish people in Germany, relating Judaism to Bolshevism, which was strongly frowned upon in German culture. They also built the image that the Jewish people were responsible for the loss of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles. This propaganda gave the government a scapegoat, a place for the angry German people to direct their anger. Along with this and other propaganda, there was also a censorship of the press and literature in Germany. This censorship allowed the government to feed the public only the news and ideals that it wanted, which furthered their solidity in power.

Finally, the government used a government ran education of its youth. Children are the easiest to manipulate in their views, and by educating the youth of Germany in the ideals of Nazism, the government was adding its security in the next generation of Germany. Along with programs like the Hitler Youth, this education was a way to guarantee a stable base for the government to continue to grow on.

There is only one true example of the Nazi’s not requiring totalitarian methods, but even this was followed by the use of concentration camps. An example of the public powering the government more than the government ruling harshly over the people are the files that have been found of denouncements. People with problems with their neighbors, or who thought that people were working against the nation’s goals of restoration from the hardships the Weimar Government had placed them under, gave these files to the police. These files show that the public had no desire to hide from the government; on the contrary, they wanted the government to know everything it could. The Gestapo, or Nazi police, were in charge of finding people within Germany that were against Hitler and the Nazi’s, and any persons who were not of the “Aryan” race. In many cases, the Gestapo were given these denunciations against people, which they would then find, and either investigate or take straight to concentration camps. Unlike the USSR, where the Cheka were hidden throughout cities, and no one knew when they were being listened to, Germany would only have 28 Gestapo officers in a city of one million people. Without a willing public, the Nazi regime could never have been so effective at finding “enemies of the state” as they were. This shows that totalitarian methods were not always needed, because a small government police force was only given such effectiveness by the people who assisted them.

The use of concentration camps, propaganda and censorship, and education directed by the government show that Germany was ruled by a totalitarian style government under the Nazi party, but also that the government was given even greater power by a willing public.