����ý

Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state, which means that the government sought to control every aspect of life. To understand how Germans experienced this in four areas:

1. The police state
2. The economy
3. Social policy
4. Persecution

The police state

• The Schutzstaffel (SS). This organisation was responsible for ensuring the population remained under control and any potential threats to the Nazis were dealt with. It oversaw the Gestapo (secret police), which spied on ordinary Germans, it ran concentration camps where enemies of the state were sent and it ran the death camps that murdered millions.
• Control of the legal system. All judges had to swear an oath of loyalty to the ��ü������ and all lawyers had to join the Nazi Lawyers’ Association. It was made harder to defend people placed on trial for suspected crimes and the death penalty was used much more widely than before.
• Propaganda and censorship. Joseph Goebbels ran the Ministry of Propaganda, whose job it was to convince the German people to embrace Nazi rule. This was achieved through control of the press, radio and the arts, and through rallies and sporting events.

There was limited resistance to the Nazis, mostly because the police state was so effective at crushing dissent. It is hard to know exactly how much opposition there was to Hitler and his regime, though religious figures, underground members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), communists, and the young did provide some resistance.