Police States, 1933-39 - Nazi Germany

What were the 3 ways the Nazis were able to create a police state?

* policing
* legal reconstruction
* punishments

What were the names of the 3 new policing forces created by the Nazis to control and maintain the police state?

* SS (protection squad)
* Gestapo (secret police)
* SD (security service)

Gestapo: Who set them up, when, did they wear uniforms, what was their main purpose?

* Hermann Goering
* 1933
* no uniforms
* spied on the general public and prosecuted anyone who said anything critical of the Nazi party - intercepted letters and phone calls

SS: Who led them, when were they set up, did they wear uniforms, what was their main purpose?

* Heinrich Himmler
* 1925
* black uniforms
* group of 240 men who acted as Hitlers personal bodyguards -expanded to 240,000 men in the 1930s

SD: Who set them up, when, did they wear uniforms, what was their main purpose?

* Heinrich Himmler
* 1931
* brown uniforms
* originally formed as a security force, collected information about anyone who was an opponent or critic of the Nazi party

What were the 2 ways the Nazis legally reconstructed the state?

* controlling law courts
* controlling judges

Hitler set up a ‘peoples court’. What was this?

* abolished trial by jury
* heard all cases of treason against the state
* judges were hand picked and trials were held in secret

How did Hitler control the judges in the police state?

created the National Socialist League for the maintenance of the law

What 2 rules did the National Socialist League insist?

1. all judges must be members - if any judges displeased the Nazis they were denied membership
2. in any conflicts between the interests of the Nazi party and the law, the Nazi party took priority

Why were concentration camps created?

to cope with the number of people who were arrested for doing things the Nazi party disproved of

When and where was the first concentration camp opened?

1933, in Dachau, Germany

Where were concentration camps located?

away from cities away from the public gaze, typically in isolated countryside

What type of people were prosecuted and taken to concentration camps?

* “undesirables” → prostitutes or homosexuals
* minority groups → Jews, muslims
* political prisoners → communists, political writers, intellectuals, etc.