The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi State (selected parts of 4865 word essay)

Under Hitler, the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) came to control every aspect of Germany society. The establishment of the Nazi totalitarian state by legislation and legality, in concert with an excessive campaign of terror, coercion and irrational violence, fostered by an extreme sense of nationalism, caused the systematic and comprehensive takeover of the Weimar Republic. Furthermore the Third Reich was dominated by totalitarianism, irrational violence, and nationalism which became progressive dogmatic themes. Initially, prior 1933 they were merely political entrenchment; however they succeeded into mass coercion and the suppression and persecution of monitories. After 1933 the excesses of such emerged in an intensified and escalated comportment and fundamentally, completely lay at the basis of the Third Reich.

On the 20th January 1933, with the backdrop of messy political affairs, Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the head of government of the state. This was a key event, which started the consolidation of his newfound power to implement Nazi ideology and thus to establish a totalitarian state. It was the start of the rise to power of the Nazi Party. Only when the Nazis controlled the Reichstag with a clear majority could they establish a dictatorship by law. The Reichstag fire on the 27th February was a decisive and pivotal providential event, which happened weeks before the coming March general election. By exploiting the fear of communist aggression and rebellion, it enabled Hitler to pass a key legislative bill, the emergency Presidential ‘Decree for the Protection of the People and State’. This entailed the repeal of basic civil liberties and rights, from the right to assembly, speech and habeas corpus. It also lead to over 25 000 arrests in Prussia alone (Boxer 2003), with 9000 executions and more arrests throughout Germany. Even with the outcomes and effects the Decree had, the Nazi Party and its coalition of right wing parties only managed to receive 43.9 percent of the votes, a bare majority in the Reichstag. This was enough for the control of general everyday governing; however was not enough to pass fundamentally changing legislation. Therefore, it was the jumping point for Hitler’s dictatorial powers. Hitler necessitated the passing of an enabling act which would moreover position him in unrestricted power. With the Communist Party being driven underground, and the Social Democrat Party standing firm, Hitler needed further support, which came in the form of the Catholic Centre Party. The act rested on their decision. It was passed. This act was quickly followed by the quick succession of laws defining, and basically, total authority. This following period was known as Gleichschaltung. Gleichschaltung, the process of coordination, was a key period and development from 1933 onwards. It completely coordinated all aspects of the totalitarian state and the establishment of it.

The Third Reich was a highly organised and ruthlessly efficient police state with the “systematic use of terror that was highly effective in silencing resistance” (www.historyhome.co.uk). Terror was an essential and principal instrument in controlling the state. Coercion and violence were key in retaining order, and the suppression and persecution of minorities was also evidently present. “Having won power the Nazis had no clear idea of what to do with it, apart from attacking the Jews, the left, and other ‘enemies of the state’” (Gelletely 2002). “Terrorism was the chief instrument for securing the cohesion of the people” (Robert Howghwourt Jackson, www.loc.gov). And these terror tactics were implemented the Nazi paramilitary organisations. The SS, an elite organisation that became separate from the SA after the purge, numbered 240 000 in 1939 (Mason 2003). It was a key Nazi organisation that employed coercion and terror to control the German people. Along with the Gestapo, which was created in 1933, and the SD the security intelligence service of the SS in 1931, the Nazis had sufficient forces for terrorism and control. “The SS and its associated agencies became a state within the state, responsible only to Hitler and operating totally independently of the Law of any other restraint” (Mason 2003). The SA raged numerous street battles against political opponents. “He who rules the street rules the rules the state” Goebbels stated once (Mason 2003). The brown shirted storm troopers were very brutal and aggressive. Fought Communists frequently time, in particular the communist party’s counterpart to the SA, the Red Fighting League. They exchanged many fights and clashes. Hitler himself relied on force and political coercion to entrench his ideal firmly, which is clearly evident in one of his statements: “The first conditions of power lies in the constant and uniform application of force” (Mason 2003). In June 1932, there were 400 street battles, with 82 deaths. The SA practised violent interference with political affairs and radical employments of violence. It was the organised use of coercion in the political process, with the Nazis employing every weapon and instrument.

The inception of the Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police, the Gestapo, in 1933 highlighted the intention to use powerful coercion methods to control society. Various numbers of the SA and SS were absolved into the Police as so called auxiliaries and deputies, and therefore could carry out many acts of violence for political means. The Nazi Prussian Minister of the Interior Herman Goring stated “It is not my business to do justice, it is my business to annihilate and exterminate – that’s all”. This reflects general Nazi feeling. Goring even ordered the General Police to support the SS and SA regardless of their actions. In one of his orders from the 17th February 1933, it describes the SA and SS as “patriotic associates” and as the “most important constructive forces of the State”. This was followed with, in reference to enemies of the Nazis, “The activities of subversive organisations are on the contrary to be combated with the most drastic methods” and that any actions by the police are to be supported “regardless of the effects” (Mason 2003). By stating so, Goring essentially encouraged the police to participate with the Nazi violence as it was for the good of the nation. This is further corroborated by an account of another Nazi violent event.

“Walking along the pavement ahead of me were 3 SA men. They carried Nazi banners on their shoulders, the banner staves had sharp metal points shaped into arrowheads. All at once the 3 SA men came face to face with a youth of 17 or 28 hurrying along in the opposite direction… I head once of the Nazis shout ‘that’s him’ and immediately all 3 flung themselves upon the young man. In a moment they jostled him into the shadow of a house entrance and were standing over him kicking and stabbing him with the sharp metal points of their banners… Another passerby and myself were the first to reach the doorway where the young man was lying. I got a sickening glimpse of his face – his left eye was poked half out and blood poured from the wound… 20 yards away stood a group of heavily armed police... They magnificently disregarded the whole affair.” (Christopher Ishewood – Goodbye to Berlin; Mason 2003)
This account further corroborates the irrationality of Nazi violence, and clearly shows how the Nazis coerced the German people, without intervention to unlawful acts by the law enforcement service. The suppression of political opposition by force was also present. “There is no longer any police protection against the aggressive actions of the SA and SS at my meetings” Serim Menker, a Socialist Democrat stated on the 24th February 1933, commenting on Nazi political entrenchment, and the police lack to do anything. “… A member of the SA had taken away the 45 year old welfare worker Maria Janovska of Kopenick to a National Socialist barracks, stripped her completely, bound her to a table and flogged her body with leather whips” stated Wilhelm Hoegner a Socialist Democrat in 1933. This event further displays how brutally irrational the Nazis were. Therefore it is further evident that the Nazis were prepared to resort to any means, without repentance or deliberation and furthermore general irrationality of and carelessness of Nazi nature. Thusly it evidently shows that the nature of the Nazis was extremely violent, as they officially authorised force and coercion as political tools. Within days of Hitler’s appointment to Chancellor, Concentration Camps were established under the command of the Party and SA leadership, made to imprison political opposition and any others deemed as an enemy of the or threat to the security of the of the Reich.

“The technique of conduction a successful system of terror is to terrorise the maximum number of people with the minimum amount of effort. It is impossible to listen in to every telephone call or to overhear every conversation, but the art lies in the use of the spot check thereby letting people know when they were not being monitored. This itself was unnerving… One closed the door carefully and conducted conversations in a whisper. One looked over one’s shoulder in a public place before speaking. One did not trust the mail. One chose with great care the rendezvous where one met one’s friend. No one who has not experienced it can image the frighteningly oppressive atmosphere of a totalitarian regime.” (Wheeler – Benett, 1974, Knaves, Fools and Heroes in Europe between the wars; Mason 2003)
This source shows how the suppressive and coercive Nazi state operated. It evidently shows that Germany was authoritarian police state. There were also police informants every apartment block who reported on local neighbourhood activities. From 1993 onwards the general police became more invasive and arbitrarily murderous. Werner Best, the Chief of the SD stated,

“To discover the enemies of the state, to watch them and render them harmless is the preventive police duty of the political police. In order to fulfil this duty the political police must be free to use every means suited to achieve the required end. It is correct to say that in the National Socialist Fuhrer State, the institutions called upon to protect the state possess an authority which is derived solely from the new conception of the state and one which requires no special legal legitimisations.”

Also, the establishment of concentration camps came about to help suppresses political enemies and then progressively social and cultural enemies of the Nazis. Initially the camps were commanded by the SA, but after the purge, the SS created a new unit especially for the administration and control of the concentrations camps; the Totenkoptuerbande, the Death’s Head units. From the Regulations at Dachau Concentration Camp by the Commandant Theodor Eicke from November 1933 stated as a punishment that if any prisoner broke any rules “will be shot on the spot or subsequently hanged” (Mason 2003). From 1934 to 1939 over 200 000 (Mason 2003) people were persecuted and imprisoned in concentration camps. In October 1937 at Buchenwald Concentration Camp 10 prisoners were drowned in a cesspool full of excrement (Boxer 2003). “Under the guise of law, the Nazis suspended regular jurisprudence and substituted arbitrary arrest and imprisonment” (Gelletely 2002). The SS and Gestapo could arrest anyone and hold them indefinitely. “Secret arrests and indefinite detention, without charges, without evidence, without counsel” (Robert Howghwourt Jackson, www.loc.gov) and the method of inflicting inhumane punishment on any whom the Nazis or disliked were regular happenings in the totalitarian state. Helpless victims were carried off and “were beaten temporary prisons and private torture chambers” (Gelletely 2002). Georg Glaser, a communist, stated that as soon as Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, “…dead bodies were found in the surrounding forests… People disappeared without a sound” (Gelletely 2002). This clearly portrays the Nazis as extremely violent, with numerous acts of terror happening. Terror, coercion and arbitrary irrational violence were very evident in the Third Reich. They became progressive dogmas, from prior and up to 1933 political entrenchment and then post 1933 they emerged publically as official decrees implemented by Nazi organisations. The dogmas progressed from political to general population complete control.

The suppression and persecution of minorities was a main part of the Third Reich, with Hitler’s and Nazi ideology forcing it. Coercion and terror was focused against specific individuals and political, social, cultural and religious groups. So called asocials and social undesirables included Jews, the mentally disabled, the feeble minded, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, beggars, vagrants, the homeless, alcoholics, habitual criminals and prostitutes, along with Communists, Socialists, trade unionists any other political opponents and religious dissenters were all targeted by the Nazis. They were imprisoned, shot, beaten, abused, staved and worked to death. Ruthless, brutal inhumane events were happening day to day. However the Jewish people were in particularly persecuted more so, due to the anti-Semitism the Nazi Party were conveying. Anti-Semitism was a central consistent theme of Nazism. “The most savage and numerous crimes planned and committed by the Nazis were those against the Jews” (Robert Howghwourt Jackson, www.loc.gov). The Nazis were fanatically committed to annihilate all Jewish people, and to suppress all others deemed undesirable.

“The defeat in 1918 did not depress me as greatly as the present state of affairs. It is shocking how day after day naked acts of violence, breaches of law, barbaric opinions appear quite undisguised as official decree. The Socialist papers are permanently banned… I can no longer get rid of the feeling of disgust and shame…”
Victor Klemperer stated on the 17th March 1933 (Walsh 1996).

“We would watch it (persecution of the Jews) grow, from month to month, from year to year, more mindless and inhumane. It weighed on an American correspondent in Berlin more than any other aspect of Hitler’s primitive rule, provoking in me a constant depression of the spirits and often sickness of the heart”

Stated William Shire, an American journalist in Berlin during the 1930s (Swinton 1995). These 2 sources both corroborate the extreme persecution the Jews and other minorities and how the suppression and persecution was progressive. In 1939 5 out of 6 gypsies were killed. Also the mentally ill were sterilised, and killed by poisonous injections, gas and starvation. In Germany in the 1930s, 500 00 Jewish Germans made up the population, accounting for 1% in total. However a very significant percentage of Jews were in important jobs, from commercial businesses and finances to the medical and legal careers.

The suppression of the Jews started as early as 1933. With the April ‘Law Against the Overcrowding of German Schools’, entailing the end of Jewish children enrolment into schools. In April 1933 there was also an official Nazi approved boycott of al Jewish business. The SA vandalised shops with slogans and paintings. In general it was apathetic. In a directorate from Nazi Party Leadership, published in the 30th March 1933 issue of the Volkischer Beobachter, the Nazi newspaper, it stated “…Basic theme ‘Germans don’t buy any longer from Jews’” (Swinton 1995). In 1935 the Nuremburg Laws were passed. The ‘Reich Citizenship Law’ and the’ Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour’ entailed the deprivation of German citizenship for Jews and also the prohibition of marriage between Jews and non Jews correspondingly. 13 decrees thereafter followed, all aimed at the Jews. Jews were expelled from professions, had their property and assets expropriated and were prohibited from cultural life and general society. Jews were prevented from theatres and cinemas, restaurants, public parks, holiday resorts, schools and there were even pet restrictions. Jews were fundamentally excluded from life. After a lull in the anti-Semitism campaign, due to the Olympics in Berlin, “the persecution resumed in 1937 with an even greater ferocity and brutality” (Walsh 1996). In 1937 new economical laws were introduced for Jews and it was the start of the “aryanisation of economic life” as Goring stated (Koch 1985), with regulations on Jewish business. There was special identity papers for Jews and Jewish passports marked with a red J. The anti-Semitism campaign intensified in 1938 after a German legation councillor was murdered by a young Jewish man. In April 1938 11 000 Jews were arrested. The anti-Semitism emerged in extreme violence, known as the Kristallnacht, crystal night, or the Night of the Broken Glass, on the night of the 9th and 10th November it was the systematic attack on Jewish people and their property. SS troops were turned loose, with the authorised destruction Jewish property. Violent anti-Semitism and Pogroms were organised and promoted by Nazi leadership. The SA and SS smashed and burnt Jewish homes and business. 1000 Jewish shops and businesses were destroyed and looted, and furthermore 191 Synagogues were burnt. It was a riot, and severe damage was done. 91 Jews were killed, with 20 000 being imprisoned in concentration camps. Additionally the Jewish community was forced to pay 30 million reichmarks, German currency for the cost of the damage, as well as a further 1 billion reichmarks as forfeiture. At first the anti-Semitism commenced with non violent measures, such as segregation, disfranchisement and discrimination and harassment, but it moved rapidly to organised mass violence of brutal beatings, physical and forced isolation, deportations, imprisonment, forced labour, mass starvation, and extermination and genocide. By 1939 the German Jews and many other minorities were outcasts, deprived of their basic rights and freedoms. Many were in concentration camps; all of them had their lives utterly destroyed.