How effectively did the Nazis deal with their political opponents?

How effectively did the Nazis deal with their political opponents?

1. THE GESTAPO

   • (Secret state police)
   • Force most feared by ordinary German citizens
   • Reinhard Heydrich (commander.)
     • GAVE HIS AGENTS SWEEPING POWERS
   • Gestapo agent could arrest citizens on suspicion and send them to concentration camps without trial or even explanation
   • Germans thought they were a lot more powerful than they actually were
     • Know this due to modern research
     • As a result many ordinary Germans informed on each other
       • As they thought the Gestapowould find out anyway
   • THE SECRET POLICE

2. THE POLICE AND COURTS

   • POLICE
     • Top of jobs in local police forces were given to high ranking Nazis
       • Reporting directly to Himmler
     • Under strict instructions to ignore crimes committed by Nazi agents
   • COURTS
     • Nazis controlled magistrates, judges and the courts
       • Therefore opponents of Nazism rarely received a fair trial
   • Block leaders
     • Very important in the huge organisation
     • 400,000
       • One in every street and in every block of flats in every town and city
     • Salute on their neighbours
       • Reported suspicious behaviour to party bosses
         • In this manner political opponents and criminals could be identified and turned over to the police with ease

3. CONCENTRATION CAMPS

   • Ultimate sanction against their own people
   • Set up almost as soon as Hitler took power
     • First camps in 1933
       • Simply make shift presence in disused factories and warehouses
       • First Dachau
     • Although soon purpose built
     • 25,000 people taken in the two month purge after the Reichstag fire
   • Usually in isolated Rurel areas
   • Run by SS Death's Head units
   • WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE WITHIN
     • Prisoners are forced to do hard labour
     • Food very limited
     • Prisoners suffered harsh discipline
     • Beatings
     • Random execution
   • WHO ENDED UP THERE
     • Jews
     • Socialists
     • Communist
     • Trade unionist
       • Band by law on 10 May 1933
     • Churchman
     • Anyone else brave enough to criticise the Nazis
   • By late 1930s deaths in camps increasingly common, very few people emerged alive

4. THE SS

   • formed in 1925
     • by fanatics loual to Hitler
   • After virtually destrouing the SA in 1934, it grew into a huge organisation with many different responsibilities
   • Led by Heinrich Himmler.
     • primary responsibility for destroying opposition to Nazism
     • carrying out racial policies of the Nazis
   • All Aryans
     • very highly trained
     • totally loyal to Hitler.
   • Death's Head units
     • Responsible for concentratin campls and the slaughter of the Jews.
   • Waffen - SS
     • special armoured regiments, fought alongside regular army

5. By 1938 the party had 5 million members over half 1 million officials. Its organisation allowed it to supervise every citizen

   • The Nazis wanted to achieve total control over peoples lives
     • More control easier it was to put aims into affect
       • These are the methods of controlling the people

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