Nazi Germany: A Totalitarian State?

Nazi Germany: A Totalitarian State?

The purpose of this essay is to explain whether Nazi Germany was a

totalitarian state or not. Totalitarian state means when all aspects

of life within a country are under the total control of a person or

group, this is often referred to as a dictator. The aspects of life in

Nazi Germany that I am going to examine are young people, women, the

church, employment, leisure time, propaganda and censorship. After I

have discussed these aspects of life I would finish off my essay with

a conclusion answering the purpose of this essay.

By 1934 Adolf Hitler appeared to have complete control over Germany,

but like most dictators, he constantly feared that he might be ousted

by others who wanted his power. To protect himself from a possible

coup, Hitler used the tactic of divide and rule and encouraged other

leaders such as Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and

Ernst Roehm to compete with each other for senior positions.

One of the consequences of this policy was that these men developed a

dislike for each other. Roehm was particularly hated because as leader

of the Sturm Abteilung (SA) he had tremendous power and had the

potential to remove any one of his competitors. Goering and Himmler

asked Reinhard Heydrich to assemble a dossier on Roehm. Heydrich, who

also feared him, manufactured evidence that suggested that Roehm had

been paid 12 million marks by the French to overthrow Hitler.

Hitler liked Ernst Roehm and initially refused to believe the dossier

provided by Heydrich. Roehm had been one of his first supporters and,

without his ability to obtain army funds in the early days of the

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the lyrics of songs to mock Germanyand when they stopped bands of

Hitler Youth, they taunted and sometimes attacked them. The swing

movement was made up of mainly middle class teenagers. They went to

parties where they listened to English and American music. This group

opposed Hitler by dancing to American dances like 'jitter bug' to

banned jazz music. They accepted Jews at their clubs.

As you can see this was not much effective opposition and did not

affect Hitler much.

The attitudes of Germans began to change in the early 1940's and

Hitler was planned to be assassinated but he survived. There were anti

- Nazi church leaders reappearing, symbols pulled down from buildings

and people stopped wearing the Swastika.

In conclusion I think Hitler had complete control and Germany was a

totalitarian state.