The Nazi State Handout

The Nazi State Handout

Dualism Between State and Party

- State Institutions

Reich Chancellery Coordinated the government Led by Lammers Drew up government legislation Executive organization for the government	Government Ministries Controlled certain aspects of society Included Transport, Education, and Economics These state institutions felt extreme Nazi influence
Judiciary Judiciary was pro-right wing, so the courts remained mostly free of Nazi influence That being said, in 1933 Special Courts were created for political offenses (without a jury) Additionally, the People’s Court was created in 1934 to try high treason with a jury of Nazi Party members	Regional State Governments Under Gleichschaltung, the regional governments were destroyed, subservient at best to Gauleiters

- Party Institutions

Party Structure There was a national structure of the party, with Hitler at the top, followed by  30 Gauleiters (Regional Leaders) and 760 Kreisleiters (District Leaders) ·         This structure was designed for building power, and once the Nazis took control the party was splintered, dominated by Fuhrerprinzip and the Gauleiters’ desire to please Hitler and keep their own power	Specialized Party Organizations Hitler Youth German Labor Front (DAF) Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts) and Schutzstaffel NSLB, NSF, NSDB, NSRB
Hess and Bormann These two men saw issues with the Party bureaucracy (disorganization, lack of control) Mandated civil service employees to be Nazis Department for Internal Party Affairs, Department for Affairs of State

• Ultimate ‘battle’ for control between party and state was never won
• Party never able to fully control existing state institutions
• Internal strife within the party

The Debate on the Functioning of the Third Reich

	Intentionalist Interpretation	Functionalist Interpretation
1. Hitler's role	Strong dictator; can implement his will	Weak dictator; depends on competing organizations
2. Structure of the state	Obedience to the dictator “Divide and Rule”	Rivalry of offices in spite of the dictator Four competing and relatively independent power blocks: economy, army, Nazi party/SS, state administration
3. Implementation of     policies	Hitler's will Long-term planning Realization of long-term goals Primacy of ideology	Spontaneous initiatives of organizations, improvisation, primacy of opportunism
4. Critique	Too personalistic, too much centered on Hitler, too rational, too apologetic of Germans in general	Ignores deliberate policies and the popularity of Hitler, overestimates independence of single organizations and apparatuses, too much focused on anonymous structures

Was Hitler an effective dictator?

• Hitler was nationally loved and had his goals, but gave no true direction for following
• Hitler relied on the initiatives of the organizations around him, and the SS to clean up and execute the rules
• Implemented his will whenever he chose to

Himmler and the SS

- Heinrich Himmler

• Born in 1900 in Bavaria and was an early member of the NSDAP
• 1929 - Appointed leader of the SS
• 1934 - Organized the Night of the Long Knives
• 1936 - Became the Reichsführer SS and Chief of all German Police
• 1943 - Appointed Minister of the Interior
• 1944 - Commander-in-Chief of the Volksstrum (Home Army)

- Structure of the SS

• Began as a section of the SA in 1925 (served as bodyguards for Hitler and the Nazi  Party)

  Allgemeine SS included the security forces of the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst dealt with local police matters and ‘racial’ matters; also provided security	Waffen SS military wing of the SS established in 1940 and grew from 3 divisions to over 35 by the end of WWII rivalled the actual German army (Wehrmacht) in power and size
  Totenkopfverbände SS (Death’s Head Units) managed the concentration camps and administered the “Final Solution” Closely interrelated with the Waffen SS - Totenkopfverbände acted as reserves for Waffen SS	RSHA coordinated all policing and security intelligence-gathering, criminal investigation, overseeing foreigners, monitoring public opinion and Nazi indoctrination

The Police State

The Gestapo was able to: access documents that listed names of German people who were suspected of being “enemies of the state” have those arrested sign an “order for protective custody” that basically equated to an agreement to a prison sentence utilize the Gestapo Law that made all activities of the Secret Police free from review by a court of law	Heydrich and Himmler: ran their branches with notable “ruthlessness” feared by many weakness in the group was that they left some regions of Germany underrepresented such as Frankfurt
Consequences of arrest: torture interrogation concentration camps execution	Political “threats” or scapegoats formed by the Nazi Party: increased nationalistic views of the German people gave “evidence” for proof of a superior race Hitler’s version of Social Darwinism prevailed created a common enemy