Further Developments in the Nazi Control of Germany After 1933

Establishment of the Gestapo

Instituted in 1933, Hermann Goering founded the Gestapo, which won a reputation as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and ruthless secret state police.

Organisation and Control

The Nazis, with the help of Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, understood the power of propaganda. Propaganda was used to sell Nazi ideas to the German people.
Hitler had faith in the ability of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls to inculcate loyalty to the Reich and prepare the next generation for war. They were the Nazi Party’s primary tools for controlling the future evolution of the German state.

Consolidating Power

The Night of the Long Knives in June 1934 displayed the lengths Hitler was willing to go to maintain his grip on Germany. During this event, he coordinated the murder of several key members of the SA, including its leader Ernest Rohm, who posed a potential threat to Hitler’s power.

Nazi Economic Policies

Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler’s Economics Minister, attempted to ready the economy for war - a policy known as autarky.
Mass unemployment was defeated with the launch of massive public works projects, such as the autobahn network, and through conscription.
The policy of Gleichschaltung was realised with every economic organisation and trade union being subsumed under Nazi control.

Persecution of Minority Groups

Jews, homosexuals, Roma, disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others on the fringes of the Reich’s society experienced increasing discrimination and hardship.
With the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, anti-Semitism was institutionalised.
Pogroms, including the notorious Kristallnacht in 1938, were carried out against Jewish communities.

The Impact of War

After the outbreak of war in 1939, Germany’s grip on its European neighbours tightened, creating even harsher conditions for Jews and other minority groups.
The Nazi regime employed terror and propaganda to maintain control and promote their ideologies.
As the war drew to an end, Hitler’s ambition to create a “pure” German society led to the systematic murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust.