characteristics of the Nazi state
Totalitarianism is a political system in which there is only one party and that party controls everything. Hitler established such a state in Germany from 1933 with himself and other leading Nazi figures at the helm. As the state sought to regulate every aspect of German life, German society in the Nazi state had certain hallmarks.
At the core of the Nazi State was the concept of German superiority. The Herrenvolk was the idea which claimed that the Germans were members of a superior race and were destined to rule over lesser Easter European peoples. Anti- Semitism was a fundamental part of Nazism and the Jews, which accounted for less than 1 percent of the German people, were subjected to a focused programme of ostracization. Legislation was passed from 1933 which denied German Jews their basic civil rights and banished them from German public life. In April 1933 there was an official boycott of Jewish Shops, Jews were driven out of the civil service, the judiciary and the teaching profession. The Nuremberg Laws 1935 forbade mixed marriages between Aryans and Jews which might result in ‘Mischlinge’, children of mixed race unions. This had its basis in Nazi belief that there was a Jewish Conspiracy to spoil the purity of the Aryan race. The high point of Jewish oppression in Germany came on the 9th November 1938, Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) when some 20,000 Jews were imprisoned and approximately 100 killed in an exercise of organised attacks and violence throughout Germany. Half a million Jews lived in Germany in 1933, but by 1939 more than 360,000 had fled.
Hitler went to great lengths to instil national pride in the peoples of Germany. One of the tools used for this purpose was the Nuremberg Rallies or ‘parteitage’ which became a Nazi yearly custom from 1926-1938 held every September to coincide with the annual Nazi Party Congress. The 1934 Rally celebrated the rise of the Nazis to power and became the subject of director Leni Riefenstahl’s
At the core of the Nazi State was the concept of German superiority. The Herrenvolk was the idea which claimed that the Germans were members of a superior race and were destined to rule over lesser Easter European peoples. Anti- Semitism was a fundamental part of Nazism and the Jews, which accounted for less than 1 percent of the German people, were subjected to a focused programme of ostracization. Legislation was passed from 1933 which denied German Jews their basic civil rights and banished them from German public life. In April 1933 there was an official boycott of Jewish Shops, Jews were driven out of the civil service, the judiciary and the teaching profession. The Nuremberg Laws 1935 forbade mixed marriages between Aryans and Jews which might result in ‘Mischlinge’, children of mixed race unions. This had its basis in Nazi belief that there was a Jewish Conspiracy to spoil the purity of the Aryan race. The high point of Jewish oppression in Germany came on the 9th November 1938, Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) when some 20,000 Jews were imprisoned and approximately 100 killed in an exercise of organised attacks and violence throughout Germany. Half a million Jews lived in Germany in 1933, but by 1939 more than 360,000 had fled.
Hitler went to great lengths to instil national pride in the peoples of Germany. One of the tools used for this purpose was the Nuremberg Rallies or ‘parteitage’ which became a Nazi yearly custom from 1926-1938 held every September to coincide with the annual Nazi Party Congress. The 1934 Rally celebrated the rise of the Nazis to power and became the subject of director Leni Riefenstahl’s