Question

In what ways did the Nazi state seek to establish total control over its people?

Answer 1

• As per arguments of Nazi, the weak should perish and strongest race should survive.
• As per Nazis, Aryan race had to dominate the world, become stronger, and retain its purity.
• Hitlers another ideology was the concept of living space or Lebensraum, a geopolitical concept.
• To concentrate all Germans geographically in one place, Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards.
• When parts of Russia and Poland were occupied by Germans, the captured civilians were forced to work as slave labourers. Due to starvation and hard work many people died.
• Jews were segregated, pauperised and terrorised by Nazis from 1933 to 1938.
• Eventually Jews were killed in gas chambers in Poland by concentrating them in certain areas, from 1939 to 1945.
• Media and language was used with great effect and care by the Nazi regime.
• Their various practices were described using highly deceptive terms.
• In the official communication of Nazis, they never used words like ‘murder’ or ‘kill’.
• Disinfections, selection, euthanasia (for the disabled), final solution (for the jews), were the terms used to denote mass killings.
• Men and women are radically different was the idea repeatedly told to children in Nazi Germany.
• They were told the fight for equal rights of women and men would destroy the society.
• Girls were told to rear pure-blooded Aryan children and become good mothers, boys were taught to be steel hearted, masculine and aggressive.
• Women had to be the bearers of Aryan race and culture.
• Women had to teach their children values of Nazi, take care of their homes, women were told to keep distance from Jews, and maintain the purity of their race.
• All mothers were not treated equally in Nazi Germany.
• Women who bore racially desirable children were awarded, they were entitled to concessions on railway fares, theatre tickets, concessions in shops, and received favoured treatment in hospitals.
• Honour Crosses were awarded to women to encourage them to produce many children.
• A gold cross was given to women having eight or more children, silver for six children and bronze cross for four children.
• Those women who bore racially undesirable children were punished.
• Deviating from the prescribed code of conduct invited punishment for all ‘Aryan’ women who were severely punished and publicly condemned.
• Aryan women who had contact with Russians, Poles and Jews were paraded around the town with placards hanging around their necks, blackened faces and shaved heads. The placards would have the message written that they have sullied the nation.