Lesson video

Hello, welcome to History here at Oak National Academy.

My name's Mr. Newton, and I will be your teacher today, guiding you through the entire lesson.

Right, let's get started.

Imagine living in a world where your neighbours could secretly report you for telling a joke, where speaking your mind, even in private might lead to a knock on the door in the middle of the night, where the law didn't protect you but hunted you.

What kind of government needs fear to stay in power? What happens to a society when silence becomes safer than truth? Today we'll explore how Adolf Hitler transformed Germany into a dictatorship by creating a powerful police state, one that used fear, surveillance and violence to maintain total control.

By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to explain how Hitler created a police state in Nazi Germany.

Before we begin, there are a few key words that we need to understand.

A police state is a country where the government uses the police and security forces to control every part of people's lives through fear, surveillance and arrest.

A concentration camp is a place where large numbers of people are kept as prisoners in extremely bad conditions, especially for political reasons.

And in the context of today's lesson, intelligence means information collected by a government or security organisation to identify threats and control opposition, often using spying or surveillance.

The secret police are a police force that works in secret to spy on, arrest and punish people who are seen as enemies of the government, often using illegal methods.

And denunciations are the public accusations made by ordinary citizens to Nazi authorities, reporting others for disloyalty to the regime.

These reports, often driven by personal motives, helped fuel widespread fear and paranoia.

Today's lesson is called Nazi Control of The Police and The Legal System.

The lesson is split into three parts.

In the first part, we'll look at what a police state is and explore the role of the SS, Hitler's elite force who became essential to enforcing Nazi rule.

In the second part, we'll examine how the Gestapo and SD created an atmosphere of fear and surveillance, encouraging people to inform on each other and crushing any form of opposition.

And in the final parts, we'll explore how the Nazis took control of the legal system, turning the courts into tools of dictatorship and making sure there was no legal way to challenge the regime.

Right, let's start the lesson with the police state and the SS.

When Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in January, 1933, he wasted no time in transforming Germany into a police state.

In the heart of Berlin and across the nation, behind closed doors and high windows, a quiet terror was taking route.

The chiming of church bells and the shuffle of footsteps on cobble stones were soon joined by another sound, the silence that follows when people are too afraid to speak.

From 1933 to 1939, behind the parades and swastikas, a police state was flourishing, engineered to instil fear, enforce surveillance, and demand absolute loyalty to the Führer.

Though pockets of opposition remained, especially from communists who circulated legal leaflets and held secret meetings, the Nazi regime moved swiftly to stamp them out.

To do so, Hitler built a vast and terrifying state apparatus using four interlocking tools of terror.

The SS, the Gestapo, the SD and the concentration camps.

Let's take a look at this diagram.

It shows the main parts of the Nazi police state.

At the centre of it all is the SS, Hitler's elite force, marked here with the skull symbol.

They oversaw much of the terror across Germany.

On the right side, we have the Gestapo, the Secret Police.

Their job was to track down political enemies and deal with anyone who spoke out against the regime.

They used fear and public informants to make people feel like they were secretly everywhere.

Over on the left, we have the SD, the Nazi Intelligence Service.

They spied on people, collected information and helped identify so-called enemies of the state before they could act.

And finally, at the bottom we see the concentration camps.

These were used to imprison anyone considered a threat.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is complete this sentence with the correct missing word.

The Nazis created a blank state to control every part of people's lives through fear and surveillance, silencing opposition and enforcing loyalty to Hitler.

Pause the video, fill in the blank, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done if you knew the correct sentence should have read, the Nazis created a police state to control every part of people's lives through fear and surveillance, silencing opposition and enforcing loyalty to Hitler.

Okay, let's continue.

So I've already briefly described the different authorities that maintained the police state.

At first, these institutions operated separately, but by 1939, Himmler had unified the SS, Gestapo, SD and concentration camps into a single system of terror.

Let's look at this updated version of the diagram.

At the top, we see the SS.

The SS were the core of the police state, and they were led by Heinrich Himmler, who you can see in the photo on the diagram.

Under Himmler's leadership, they didn't just enforce Nazi laws, they controlled the entire state.

What this diagram shows us is how Himmler turned these separate organisations into a single unified system of repression.

Each part worked together to watch, punish and silence the German people and ensure total loyalty to Hitler.

Each arm had its role.

The SD gathered intelligence, the Gestapo enforced political control, and the SS oversaw the entire machinery of terror, including the growing network of camps.

Together, they gave the Nazis the power to control the population and crush all forms of resistance.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

By 1939, how did the Nazi regime organise its key terror institutions to increase control over the population? A, by combining them under the SS and Himmler into one unified system of repression.

B, by dissolving the SD and concentrating power in local police units.

C, by giving the Gestapo full independence from the SS and the SD.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer is A, by combining them under the SS and Himmler into one unified system of repression.

Okay, let's continue.

At the core of Hitler's police state stood the SS or Schutzstaffel, recognisable by their stark black uniforms. The SS were at the core of the police state.

Their influenced stretched across policing, intelligence, racial policy and concentration camps.

Originally formed in 1925 as a small, highly trained paramilitary unit, the SS began as Hitler's personal bodyguard.

After the night of the long knives in 1934, when they eliminated their rivals in the SA, they emerged as the new enforcers of Nazi power.

Their loyalty to Hitler was absolute.

To them, he was not merely a political leader, but a saviour like ruler whose vision had to be defended at any cost.

Under the command of Heinrich Himmler, a man whose calm demeanour concealed a fanatical mind, the SS expanded rapidly into a vast empire.

No longer simply bodyguards, they became judges, jailers and executioners.

Their influence stretched across all areas of German life.

The SS's primary responsibility was to remove all opposition.

Their targets were clear.

The Nazis, former political enemies, the Communists and Social Democrats had once commanded millions of votes.

Now their parties were banned, their leaders jailed or exiled, but pockets of resistance endured.

Trade unionists, journalists, clergy and activists, anyone who dared to speak out could vanish without a trace.

Few dared ask where they had gone, fewer still ever returned.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

Which of the following described the role and actions of the SS in Nazi Germany? Select three correct answers.

A, they focused only on Germany's foreign enemies, not internal descent.

B, they had influence over policing, intelligence racial policy and concentration camps.

C, they targeted political opponents like communists and social Democrats.

D, they were completely loyal to Hitler and viewed him as a saviour like leader.

Pause the video, select your three correct answers, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew the correct answers were that B, the SS had influence over policing, intelligence, racial policy, and concentration camps.

C, they targeted political opponents like communists and social Democrats and D, they were completely loyal to Hitler and viewed him as a saviour like leader.

Okay, great, let's move on to task A.

And I've got a statement here for you.

The SS were the most important reason why Hitler was able to create a police state in Germany between 1933 and 1939.

And what I want you to do is discuss how far this statement can be seen as accurate.

And of course anytime you see that how far phrase, it usually means that you can agree to something to a certain extent, but you might also disagree with it.

Therefore, in your discussions, you should discuss reasons for and against the statements.

So in other words, you need to discuss why the SS were seen as the most important reason for Hitler being able to create a police state.

But there'll also be other reasons for how Hitler created the police state.

Pause the video, have a discussion, then come right back.

Okay, great, welcome back.

So there's many points that you may have raised during your discussion.

So let's have a look at some discussion points which support the statements.

So you might have said that the SS were the core of the police state.

They were at the centre, they were leading the whole of the police state.

And that after the night of the Long Knives, the SS replaced the SA and they grew in power within the Nazi regime.

And that under him leadership, they controlled policing, intelligence, racial policy and concentration camps.

So they clearly had leadership over many arms of the police state and that they were important because they oversaw a system which removed opposition, including communists, trade unionists and journalists.

And they were powerful because people who posed a Nazis vanished without a trace, showing that SS's role in instilling fear and eliminating resistance.

And finally, their loyalty to Hitler was total, making them an ideal tool of repression.

And you may have discussed the following points that actually challenged the statement.

So you could have said Hitler's police state was built using four tools of terror.

The SS was one of them, but there was also the Gestapo, SD and concentration camps.

So the SS were just one part of the whole police state.

And you could have added detail to that by saying that the SD gathered intelligence, the Gestapo enforced political control and that it was actually the unification of all these organisations under the SS control by 1939, which meant that the combined system, not just the SS alone, made the police state effective.

And you could have backed that up by saying that at first, these institutions operated separately, suggesting the SS alone didn't create the police state from the start.

Great, now that we've looked at how the SS helped Hitler build a police state, we're going to move into the second part of today's lesson.

And in this section we'll focus on three powerful tools of control.

The Gestapo, the SD, and the concentration camps.

Working hand in hand with the SS was the Gestapo, the dreaded secret police.

Now take a look at this photo.

These are Gestapo officers, but notice how they're dressed.

No uniforms or no obvious badges of authority, just long coats and hats, blending in with everyone else.

Of course, I'm pointing them out to you here, but ordinary members of the public wouldn't have known who they were.

And that was the point.

This made people paranoid, suspecting that anyone around them could be watching, listening or ready to report them.

The Gestapo were originally established by Hermann Göring in 1933, but it was soon taken over by Reinhard Heydrich, a cold and calculating former naval officer, known to some as the Hangman.

Under his control, the Gestapo became a roofless weapon of terror, operating entirely outside the boundaries of law.

They could arrest anyone at any time without a trial.

A whispered complaint from a neighbour, careless joke in a beer hall, a letter with the wrong phrasing.

Any of these could bring the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night.

Those arrested were often placed under so-called protective custody, a grim code word for endless imprisonment without trial.

Many were never seen again, disappearing into the expanding concentration camp system.

The Gestapo ruled not by numbers, but by fear.

With only a small force, they relied on public annunciations.

So in truth, the Gestapo's reach was surprisingly small really.

For example, Berlin, a city of millions, had fewer than 100 Gustavo officers, but the illusion of being everywhere at once was their most effective weapon.

They appeared to be omnipresent.

This illusion relied heavily on public denunciations.

The Gestapo encouraged ordinary citizens, neighbours, coworkers, even family members to report suspected disloyalty.

Many of these accusations stemmed not from political conviction, but from jealousy, spite or personal grudges, the unpredictability of who might report who created a climate of widespread paranoia.

Have a look at the photo on the slide.

Here we see a mugshot of Stefanie Engler, a woman arrested by the Gestapo for helping the Communist Party, her crime, not violence, not sabotage, but political opposition.

For that she was sentenced to death in 1943 by the Nazis people's court for preparing for high treason.

stories like Stefanie's show how dangerous it was to oppose the Nazis, but also how easily someone could become a target.

Once the Gestapo had you, a fair trial was unlikely.

The system was designed to punish, not to protect.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

Which of the following best defines the secret police? A, a military group that invades other countries in secret, but with government permission.

B, an undetected neighbourhood watch group who reports to local authorities.

C, a police force that works in secret to spy on, arrest and punish people who are seen as enemies of the state.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew the correct answer was that the secret police were C, a police force that works in secret to spy on, arrest and punish people who are seen as enemies of the state.

Which of the following explained why the Gestapo was so effective in controlling the German population? Select three correct answers.

A, they could arrest people without trial at any time.

B, they created fear by encouraging citizens to denounce each other.

C, they had a large, highly visible police presence in every city.

D, they used protective custody to imprison people indefinitely without charges.

Pause the video, select your three correct answers, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you knew the correct answers where A, they could arrest people without trial at any time.

And B, they created fear by encouraging citizens to announce each other.

And finally, D, they use protective custody to imprison people indefinitely without charges.

Okay, now let's look at another arm of the police state.

The SD or security service became the intelligence arm of the SS.

Their task was to uncover enemies of the state before they had a chance to act.

By the mid 1930s, organised resistance had largely been crushed, but the Nazi regime remained obsessed with hunting out potential threats.

This is where the SD entered the scene.

In German, they were called Sicherheitsdienst, and this is why we call them the SD.

The SD was founded by Reinhard Heydrich, who we can see in the photo on the left sitting at his desk.

And whilst they became the intelligence arm of the SS, they also worked closely with the Gestapo.

So the question is then, what do we mean by intelligence? What did they actually do? So the SD operated as the regime's eyes and ears.

They obsessively gathered information, monitoring conversations, tracking rumours and recording even the faintest murmur of dissent.

Files stacked with gossip, reports from informants and intercepted correspondence poured into their archives.

In the Nazi worldview, knowledge was power and paranoia was policy.

Together the SD's obsessive spying and the gestapo's unchecked power to arrest created a society where whispered complaints could lead to imprisonment.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding, what was the main role of the SD or Sicherheitsdienst in Nazi Germany? A, to carry out the secret executions of Nazi political enemies.

B, to gather intelligence and identify potential threats before they acted.

C, to run Nazi propaganda campaigns and control newspapers.

Pause the video, have a think, and then come right back.

Okay, great, welcome back.

Well done if you knew the correct answer was B, the SD gathered intelligence and identify potential threats before they acted.

Okay, let's continue.

For those who opposed the Nazis or were simply labelled undesirable, there was another destination, the concentration camps.

The concentration camps were run by the SS.

Now these were not yet the industrial death camps of later years, but they were brutal and inescapable nonetheless.

Located in remote places like Dachau and Buchenwald, the camps held the Nazis' political opponents along with others the regime deemed threats to its racial or social order.

For example, men accused of being homosexual, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma and Sinti, people with disabilities and so-called asocials, such as beggars, alcoholics and criminals.

Eventually Jews too were imprisoned in growing numbers.

Under the watchful eyes of the SS guards, prisoners endured forced labour, routine humiliation and all too often death.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

What I want you to do here is complete this sentence with the correct missing words.

Blank camps run by the blank were not yet the Industrial death camps of later years, but they were brutal places where political opponents and so-called undesirables endured forced blank, routine humiliation, and far too often death.

Pause the video, fill in the blanks, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the correct sentence should have read, Concentration camps run by the SS were not yet the Industrial death camps of later years, but they were brutal places where political opponents and so-called undesirables endured forced labour, routine humiliation, and far too often death.

Okay, great, let's move on to task B.

And what I want you to do here is complete this mind map of the Nazi police state using your knowledge from the lesson so far.

So you can see that I've given you a start on the mind map.

We've got the Nazi police state in the middle with four branches coming off it being the SS, the Gestapo, the SD and concentration camps.

So what I want you to do is add some further branches to those four, giving any additional details or factual knowledge you've gained from today's lesson.

Pause the video, have a go at the task, and then come right back.

Okay, great, welcome back and well done for having a go at that task.

So obviously your mind map might look slightly different, but compare your mind map with the one I have here.

So if we start with the SS, you could have mentioned that this was an elite unit within the Nazis and that they had central control over policing.

They were the leaders of the police state in some sense, and that their main role was essentially to remove political opposition to the Nazis.

You could have also said that they were led by Himmler and that they started off as being Hitler's personal bodyguards and that they wore black uniforms. Okay, let's move on to the Gestapo.

So hopefully you put that they were the secret police for the Nazi regime and that they had powers of arresting people without trial, and that they relied on fear and public denunciations to appear omnipresent so that their numbers weren't actually vast.

But because nobody knew who the Gestapo was, there was this paranoia that they were everywhere.

Let's move on to the SD, and you could have put that they were the intelligence branch, that they were gathering information, they would track conversations, record letters and correspondence, holding files on persons of interests, that they gathered information on possible enemies and that they work with the Gestapo.

Let's move on to the concentration camps.

These held opponents and so-called undesirables, they're run by the SS and prisoners faced forced labour.

So they weren't yet the industrial death camps of what came later, but nonetheless, they were still brutal places to be put.

And often those that ended up there were never seen again.

Right, let's move on to the final part of today's lesson, controlling the legal system.

None of the Nazi's machinery of terror could function without the law's cooperation.

Therefore, the Nazi government controlled the legal system.

And we can see from the diagram how the legal system underpinned the Nazi police state.

The legal system which was once independent, was now reshaped to serve the Nazi regime.

Judges were required to join the National Socialist League for the maintenance of the law, and this binded the judges to Nazi ideology.

Any judges who refused to join were dismissed.

And this quickly led to a kind of self-regulation.

In other words, judges understood what was expected of them and acted accordingly.

Judges once trained in fairness and legality now delivered politically driven rulings, biassed rulings favouring the Nazi regime regime.

Many judges believed they were defending the moral order of the national community, the idea that the law should reflect popular feeling rather than justice became widespread.

So in other words, the judges didn't follow the letter of the law.

They passed judgments based on what they thought was the popular feeling in Nazi Germany at the time.

Nazi justice no longer protected citizens.

It aimed to purge society.

Anyone labelled undesirable or degenerate was seen not as an individual, but as a threat to be removed.

Knowing that a fair trial might let enemies walk free, Hitler created the people's court, or in German, Volksgerichtshof.

This was a special court designed to deal with political offences such as treason, sabotage or even vague charges of opposing the government.

It was a courtroom not for justice, but for punishment.

Trials were brief, often closed to the public with predetermined verdicts and no juries.

Judges were handpicked by the Nazis, and death sentences increased.

Together, the SS, Gestapo, SD, concentration camps and a corrupted legal system formed a web of control so tight it squeezed freedom from everyday life.

And yet in the eyes of many Germans at the time, this iron grip was not entirely unwelcome.

The chaos of the Weimar years, hyperinflation, political assassination, street violence was still fresh in memory.

For some, the order imposed by the Nazis brought a sense of security, even pride.

So long as the knock on the door came for someone else, they looked the other way.

But for those caught in the jaws of the police state, there was no forgetting.

The walls had ears, the streets had eyes, and the law had no mercy.

Between 1933 and 39, Hitler's dictatorship was not simply announced, it was built brick by brick through terror, silence and the systematic destruction of dissent.

In that silence, the foundations were laid for the even more terrible events that would follow.

Okay, let's have a check for understanding.

How did the Nazis reshape the legal system to support their regime? A, by allowing judges to remain fully independent of Nazi ideology.

B, by making trials longer and more thorough to ensure fairness.

C, by removing all judges and replacing them of Gestapo officers, D, by requiring judges to follow Nazi beliefs in creating courts focused on punishment.

Pause the video, have a think and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you think the correct answer was D, by requiring judges to follow Nazi beliefs and creating courts focused on punishment.

Complete this sentence with the correct missing word.

Hitler created the blank court in 1934 to punish political enemies through brief trials without juries, closed hearings and predetermined verdicts.

Pause the video, fill in the blank, and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back and well done if you knew the correct answer was Hitler that created the People's Court in 1934 to punish political enemies through brief trials without juries, closed hearings and predetermined verdicts.

Okay, great, let's move on to task C.

What I want you to do here is explain why the Nazi regime was able to maintain control over the German people between 1933 and 1939.

And I want you to write one paragraph on each of the following.

So one paragraph on the Nazi police state and then another paragraph on the legal system.

So use all the knowledge you've gained from today's lesson to write some detailed paragraphs explaining why the Nazi regime was able to maintain control over the German people.

Pause the video, have a go at the task and then come right back.

Okay, welcome back, and well done for having a go at that task.

So there's many ways that you could have answered that question, but compare your answer with the one I have here.

So for the first paragraph on the Nazi police state, you could have put something like The Nazi police state was a key reason why the regime maintained control between 1933 and 1939.

Hitler used a network of organisations, the SS, Gestapo, SD, and concentration camps to eliminate opposition and create fear.

The SS evolved from Hitler's elite bodyguard unit into a vast organisation that controlled policing, racial policy and the camps.

The Gestapo were a secret police, which could arrest citizens without trial, creating widespread fear through their unpredictability and reliance on public denunciations.

ESD gathered intelligence by monitoring conversations beating into a system that made ordinary Germans feel constantly watched, concentration camps punished political enemies and anyone labelled undesirable.

Together, these organisations silenced resistance and spread paranoia.

And for your paragraph on the legal system, you could have put something like The Nazi regime also used the legal system to consolidate its control.

Judges were forced to join the National Socialist League for the maintenance of the law, and those who refused were removed.

This meant legal rulings increasingly reflected Nazi values rather than justice.

The idea that law should follow popular feeling replaced objective legal principles.

In 1934, Hitler created the people's courts designed not for fair trials, but for punishing opponents.

Verdicts were often predetermined and judges were handpicked Nazis.

Opponents of the Nazis had no protection of a fair legal system, and the fear of harsh punishment, further reduced resistance.

The corrupted legal system helped give the Nazis legitimacy while ensuring total control.

Okay, great, let's summarise today's lesson, Nazi control of the police and the legal system.

Hitler created a police state to maintain control over Germany.

Thess became the most powerful organisation controlling the concentration camps and removing opposition.

The secret police or Gestapo could arrest people without trial and relied on public denunciations to uncover disloyalty.

Even casual remarks could lead to imprisonment, creating widespread fear.

The SD gathered intelligence, monitoring conversations to identify potential threats.

These groups work together to silence, dissent and create a climate of terror.

The legal system also supported Nazi control with unfair trials and predetermined judgments.

Well done everyone, and hopefully you have a better understanding now of what a police state is and how it was used in Nazi Germany.

See you in the next lesson.