Nazi Control Flashcards
All 20 cards in this deck
What was the Gestapo and what powers did it have?
The Nazi secret state police; they could search without warrants and detain, torture and imprison suspects without trial.
What was the SS and who led it?
Hitler's elite blackshirt force, led by Heinrich Himmler; it ran the concentration camps and could arrest and imprison people without trial.
What were the concentration camps used for in 1933–39?
SS-run camps, such as Dachau (opened 1933), where political opponents and 'undesirables' were held without trial and forced to do hard labour.
True or false? The Gestapo was a huge force with agents watching every German.
False. It was fairly small and relied heavily on ordinary Germans and block wardens informing on their neighbours.
What was the People's Court, set up in 1934?
A court that tried cases of treason in secret; only limited evidence was needed to bring a case and almost all defendants were found guilty.
Who was Joseph Goebbels and what post did he hold?
One of Hitler's most trusted associates, Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933; he censored and controlled what Germans read, heard and saw.
What was the People's Receiver (Volksempfänger)?
A cheap, heavily subsidised radio; by 1939 most German families owned one, and speeches were also broadcast over loudspeakers in streets and workplaces.
What were the Nuremberg Rallies?
Huge annual Nazi rallies that highlighted Nazi ideals and showed the strength and unity of the regime; they were filmed for cinema newsreels.
What did the Nazis do to impress the world at the 1936 Berlin Olympics?
Built a huge new 100,000-seat stadium, ran the Games on an extravagant scale and made a film about them; Germany won the most medals.
What kinds of art and architecture did the Nazis approve of?
Art showing heroic Aryans, family life and the countryside, and huge buildings in a classical Greek or Roman style; modern art was condemned as 'degenerate'.
How were films controlled in Nazi Germany?
All scripts had to be approved by Goebbels, and every showing began with a Nazi newsreel.
Give two ways ordinary Germans showed they did not conform to Nazi rule.
Refusing the 'Heil Hitler' greeting and salute, telling jokes about the Führer, listening to foreign radio stations, or complaining about the regime.
Who was Pastor Martin Niemöller?
A Protestant pastor who led the Pastors' Emergency League and the Confessional Church against the Reich Church; he was arrested in 1937 and sent to a concentration camp.
Who were the Edelweiss Pirates?
Groups of mainly working-class young people who wore an edelweiss badge, went hiking and camping, sang anti-Nazi songs and taunted or attacked Hitler Youth patrols.
Who were the Swing Youth?
Mostly middle-class young people who listened and danced to banned American and British jazz and swing music, grew their hair long and mixed with Jewish students.
What was the Reich Chamber of Culture (1933)?
A body overseen by Goebbels that controlled the arts. Writers, artists, musicians and film-makers had to belong to it in order to work, so anyone whose work clashed with Nazi ideas could be shut out.
What was the book burning of May 1933?
Nazi students and stormtroopers publicly burned books by Jewish, communist and other 'un-German' writers, to stamp out ideas the Nazis disapproved of.
Who were the White Rose group?
Students at Munich University, led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, who wrote and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets from 1942; they were arrested and executed in 1943.
What was the July 1944 bomb plot?
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg left a bomb at Hitler's Rastenburg headquarters on 20 July 1944; Hitler survived and thousands of suspected plotters were executed.
Who was Clemens von Galen?
The Catholic Bishop of Münster, who in August 1941 preached publicly against the Nazi murder of disabled people; the regime did not dare arrest him, fearing a backlash from Catholics.