Snider-Hitler's Totalitarian State

With the help of the weak decisions of the Weimar Government and the needs of the people, Hitler had the chance to rise to power so he took that chance. Sure enough, he soon became the leader of the German people. To make sure he maintained his reign, Hitler used the idea of totalitarianism were very well hidden and spread through the masses of Germany subconsciously. This is like a dictatorship in which there is a single ruler, which would be Hitler in this case.
Hitler used many different tactics to try to get the German people’s support. He used propaganda, speeches, and many other forms of media that the people would be able to see or hear. Hitler was a strong speaker and knew how to reel people in to believe him and trust him. He told the people that he would bring about change in the economy in Germany without saying exactly what he would do. All that Hitler said is that he did not want to make unkept promises like the Weimar Government had done. This is exactly what the people wanted so they began following Hitler and listening to him believing that he would be the change they wanted.
One of Hitler’s ways he used totalitarianism is through propaganda. He used the control of many different Medias to get the peoples support. He used things such as the radio, newspaper, films, and many different types of media to get the people of Germany to agree and follow him and his ideas for the country. Hitler decided to use media as a major source to get the people listening because he thought more people would be able to listen or watch him and also that the people would not be able to question him about anything he said or about his ideas. This idea seemed to work for Hitler but it could have also been bad and not worked out the way he planned. It may have been where people did not get the chance to question him so they would not support him. If people were like this, Hitler’s use of propaganda would not have worked. With so much propaganda in Germany, many people were slowly becoming brainwashed by all his ideas that they decided to support him which left the number of opposers slim to none.
For the people of Germany who did oppose Hitler and his ideas were soon to be in trouble. Adolf Hitler created the secret police to be his enforcers and punishers. These Nazi police went and found out anyone who did not agree with Hitler or who spoke against Hitler. If they found someone they were beaten, tortured, or even killed. Hitler had his secret police do this to get his point across that everyone should be in support of him and that no one should oppose him or that would be what would happen to them. It was like a wakeup call to the people who opposed Hitler and that Hitler was a very serious man.
Hitler was also known for having concentration camps where he tortured many people. The German public was unaware of these camps because Hitler kept them secret and hidden so German’s would not have to know about them and what Hitler was really doing.
Under Hitler’s rule, he had full control of Germany. He did many horrible things that people did not really know about because he kept them hidden like the concentration camps. He also said if there were any babies that were born disabled that doctors should decide whether the baby should be killed or not. Doctors took votes to say whether a baby should or should not be. For them to kill a baby there needed to be three X’s where three doctors agreed to kill them. Later, not only were disabled babies likely to die, but also disabled children. If children were disabled, they were thought of as a nuisance so they were over dosed with drugs such as morphine that killed them. Hitler thought that in a Nazi world everything should be “perfect” and that if it was not then it should not be there or be alive. In addition, people could be denounced for many reasons. One woman was denounced because she did not “fit in”. Her neighbor thought she had a Jewish friend, she did not go outside much, and she was thought to be a lesbian. These things made her not normal so Gastavelle denounced her.
If Hitler had not used any of these methods to keep his reign, his rule probably would not have lasted as long as it did. He was very good at what he did. He was able to get his voice out there so people would hear him and his ideas about what he thought. His speeches were very political but also honest. He did not make false promises to the people like the Weimar Government. He basically used all of these tactics to get the people’s support so he could become ruler of Germany. Once he was indeed the ruler, he took advantage of his power and began to use things such as the secret police, concentration camps, killing disabled babies and children, being able to denounce whom he wanted and many other things. If the people had known this before they gave Hitler their support I think they would have thought twice about what they were doing and if they could even trust him. I think that once the people found out what he was doing, they felt betrayed and very ashamed of themselves as well as Hitler. They would not be able to believe that they let themselves trust him as a ruler of their country. Because of Hitler’s actions, some people could have possibly wanted the Weimar Government to come back into power even though it was not good and the economy was bad. It would have been better than what Hitler was doing to thousands of innocent people.
This piece of evidence is important to my claim because all of these tactics show how affective he used his totalitarian rule, which one could say, makes him one of the most powerful and smartest dictators in all of history.
*video notes and packet notes*