My essay is about how the Nazis changed and controlled normal peoples lives in Germany after 1933 to the start of World War two. The National Socialist German Workers Party also known as the Nazis took power on the 30 January 1933 when their leader Adolf Hitler became Chancellor.
Although Hitler was Chancellor he had limited power, as the Nazis did not have a majority in the Reichstag. When Hitler finally got his illusive majority in the Reichstag he started bringing Germany in to line.On 2 August 1934 President Hindenburg died and Hitler gave himself Hindenburgs job. Hitler now had supreme unchallenged power in Germany.
He was known as the Fuhrer. The Nazis were very racist and wanted a pure Germany with only German speaking Aryans who were blonde haired and blue eyed. Hitler also hated communism and wanted it stamped out of Germany and Hitler believed German people needed more living space and he would solve this problem by taking land of other countries and building a greater Germany.> Main partThe Nazis controlled and changed children’s lives by introducing the Hitler youth movement and radically changing schools.
The Hitler youth movement was set up in 1936 when a law was passed merging all youth groups in to the Hitler youth. Two further laws were passed in 1939 and made membership compulsory. There were four different sections for the Hitler youth there was a group for boys aged 10-14, a group for boys aged 14-18, a group for girls aged 10-14 and a group for girls aged 14-18.This movement was radical for both children and their parents.
For children it was compulsory for you to attend and this would have affected some young peoples lives but most children loved it as it provided them with a uniform and a free holiday. It also taught them a lot of new skills. For parents many of them thought it was a good idea but some could see through the group and see it was to get the children ready for war, the Nazis were doing this in a very subtle way, they were controlling young peoples lives but the young people thought the group was a fun place to make new friends and have fun.After the Nazis came to power the control of schools was given to the Ministry of Education in Berlin.
Many changes followed including the sacking of all Jewish teachers and all other teachers took an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Textbooks were re-written to include Nazi ideas. German history, politics and racial hygiene were introduced and R.E.
was scrapped. The number of P.E classes was doubled. All Jewish children had to sit in a different part of the classroom to the German children.
The Nazis had now changed children’s lives a lot, they weren’t allowed to play or be friendly with the Jewish people in their class and their whole education now revolved around the Nazis and their ideas.Adults also got treated badly by the Nazis if any one spoke out of line about the Nazi party or Hitler himself, they could be beaten, put in jail or even killed and that was pure German people, it seemed that even basic human rights of free speech had been taken away. The SS and SA were brutal in their way of dealing with opposition to the Nazi party, they were feared because they killed and hurt people so when people saw what they were like they didn’t want to be hurt or killed so they didn’t say bad things about the Nazis or opposed them so Hitler basically controlled peoples lives by fear.Propaganda was a big thing in the Nazi party they used it to help them get to power and used it to drum up support for things.
The Propaganda was everywhere, newspapers, radio, in the street and they also held huge rallies to gain support. It seemed that people’s opinions and beliefs were solely controlled by propaganda.In 1933 the Nazis said that they would not interfere with the Catholic Church but some 4 years later the Catholic Youth League was shut down and many Monasteries were closed down. Many priests were put in concentration camps.
In 1933 the 28 Protestant church groups were merged in to one to form the “Reich Church”. Many Protestants hated this church and a group of pastors broke away to form the Confessional Church, more than 6,000 pastors joined it leaving just 2,000 in the Reich Church.This was a threat to Hitler and more than 800 pastors of the Confessional Church were put in concentration camps. The Nazis now had control of people’s religious lives; they could join the Reich church thus supporting the Nazis or break away and risk being put in concentration campsHitler introduced work schemes to lower unemployment, which was better for the economy, and more people were getting money and becoming self-sufficient.
In 1935 Hitler introduced the four year plan which would make Germany self sufficient in food and raw materials. This would in turn save money by cutting the costs of bringing in food and materials from abroad.Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals were discriminated against very badly; Hitler believed they were dirty and not pure Germans so he wanted to get rid of them. By using propaganda many normal German people were persuaded to hate the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals.
Jews were probably affected the worst as they had the largest number of people. They were banned from public places, sacked from their jobs, weren’t allowed to own businesses and many were sent to ghettos.Jewish shops had the Star of David painted on the window and the SS beat anyone who tried to enter. All Jews had to wear armbands with the Star of David on them.
Laws were passed that stripped Jews of their most basic rights. In 1942 Nazi leaders met at Wannsee for a conference about the Jews they came up with the final solution which stated that every single Jew, Gypsy and homosexual would be killed either by working to death or by execution. The Nazis controlled these people’s lives; the people basically had no life. The change on their life was drastic, one day they are just living their life and next thing they are hated and are going to be killed.
; ConclusionThe Nazis controlled and changed people’s lives drastically after 1933. They used many methods from the simple some might call harmless propaganda to the ultimate price, death. People weren’t safe when the Nazis were in power; people lived their lives in fear and over 6 million people died because they didn’t fit in. All this happened because one man wanted a pure Germany.
