After Hitler had eliminated the opposition, he put all of his time into continuing the effort he had begun in 1933 to turn the German people, through mandatory organizations, into his blind and loyal followers. He called the process “co-ordination.” The idea was that Nazi leadership and the principles of the party should impregnate the political life of the entire country; every aspect of living was brought under the control of huge organizations, and there was a monotony that weighed down on it. The Hitler Youth or Hitler-Jugend, became a mandatory organization, for both young men and women. After graduating from the Hitler Youth, the young men were required to join the National Labour Service to serve with the Armed Forces. These organizations taught nothing but obedience to the F?hrer and the Reich, therefore the young were often much more fanatical about the rules of Nazism than were the older generation, their parents. All trade unions were also dissolved, and replaced with the German Labour Front, and recreational organizations such as Strength through Joy. These were nothing like trade unions, though that is what the Nazis portrayed them as. There were also mandatory organizations for the women to join that spread across the whole country: the National Socialist League for Public Welfare, and the National Socialist Women’s League. The party therefore effectively controlled everything – even intellectual and cultural life.
On November 15, 1933, Goebbels had become president of the new Reich Cultural Chamber. The goal of this chamber was to censor every artistic and intellectual material, and any information that German citizens could be exposed to. The chamber was to create a “centralized system for information and the formation of public opinion, to the point of making the very concept of public opinion debatable.” The first result of this policy was to cause the emigration of thousands of intellectuals and scientists, who would otherwise be forced to either keep quiet, or become the mouthpiece of the regime.
Art and culture was not the only non-political aspect of society that Hitler attacked – he also went after the churches. He felt they were a threat to his supreme authority; he wanted to be the only one being worshipped in Germany, and in his viewpoint, this could not happen if people were still worshipping God. Hitler’s attitude towards the Church surprised many; while he was campaigning for power, he had declared that he would “firmly protect Christianity, which is our moral basis,” and at the end of an early speech, declared “May Almighty God show mercy on our work, guide our will, bless our understanding, and favour us with the confidence of our people.”
The first major task of the Nazis concerning the Church was to align the Protestant Church with Nazi ideas and policy; this might have worked, had there not been the stipulation that the Church must approve of the persecution of Jews. A large enough group of Protestant clergy staunchly opposed the Nazis, forcing the party to look elsewhere for a religious-political tool. On July 20, 1933, the Nazi party entered into a concordat with the vice-Chancellor of the Catholic Church von Papen and Cardinal Pacelli. These two members of the Church only entered into it in the hope of protecting the Catholic Church from interference by the regime. In return, the Vatican had to forbid all the Catholic political organizations. However, in reality, the Catholic Church could not maintain control over all of the Catholic associations and schools, which continued to function. In retaliation, in 1935 Hitler created a Reich Ministry for Religious Affairs, and immediately followed it with an anti-Church campaign, where members of the clergy who opposed the Nazis were arrested and imprisoned.
Hitler finally gained absolute control of Germany when he appointed himself Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces in January 1938.
So why, if this regime was so oppressive and terror-ridden, did the people still support it? For many did – there were a good many people who had silently turned against the regime, but a surprising number still had faith in it.
Despite the fact that Hitler was an oppressive and cruel dictator, the German people could not find complete fault with him. He had, after all, drastically improved their economy. A population that, before Hitler came to power, had six million unemployed, was now booming economically. His series of bloodless victories won him widespread domestic support. If the German people did have doubts about the regime, they were dispelled by the way Hitler was treated by the outside world: outside countries were obliging to Hitler, and even though he consistently made breaches of faith, they still made treaties with him. It was taken as a sign that the Nazi State and its achievements were recognized abroad, and even admired. He had prevented Communism from overrunning the country, and people appreciated this; most people felt that the sacrifice of their freedom was less dear than the sacrifice of their private property would be. Lastly, Hitler’s victories in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France convinced the German citizens that they were being ruled by a military genius, prompting them to put their utmost trust in him.
The phenomenon of Hitler’s rise to power was by no means an ordinary one. It is mind-boggling that one man could have caused such profound and disastrous effects on, not only one country, but on the entire world. He won power, though legally, through deceit; once in power, he brutally eliminated any opposition; he ran his regime on the basis of terror and mind control; and yet he managed to earn the support of almost the whole country – there were many men willing to die for him and his ideals on the battlefield. So, though we eagerly admit that Hitler was an evil and bitter man on a quest for ultimate power, it is impossible to deny that he was a brilliant political strategist. In the span of just a few years he transformed a struggling nation into one of a quality that was superior to most of the world. His oratorical skills and his exceptional propaganda were the key to his success; they were the cornerstones of his rise to power. It was the combination of all of these factors that, against all odds, managed to keep Hitler in power.
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