In our second episode on the topic of Gleichschaltung or the "coordination" of German civil society, we explore the responsibility individuals had in the process of conforming to Nazi ideology. Simply put, I argue that while the Nazis did use violence and terror to intimidate Germans into obedience, social forces including economic opportunism and the desire to be "left alone" also led people to submit willingly to totalitarianism. In particular, the episodes explores case studies such as Gustav Krupp (of Krupp industries), the history of German soccer and changing cultural practices such as greeting - each of which illustrates a major reason why people chose submission over their own personal freedom. 

Post script: for those interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading Andrew Stuart Bergerson, Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times (2004), which discusses greetings and other cultural ways of normalizing Nazism in greater detail.

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Many revolutions have resulted in the creation of a dictatorship, of the concentration of all political power in the hands of a single individual or party. But part of what makes the Nazi Revolution so terrifying is the way the Nazis simultaneously conquered civil society, nazifying all social and civic institutions in the span of just five months. 

This episode begins to walk readers through the process of Gleichschaltung or "coordination," which forced all institutions in Germany to nazify themselves or face dissolution. From the boy scouts, to the local Church choir, to your favorite soccer team, essentially all elements of public life began to promote Nazi ideals of politics and race, including the notion of complete submission to Hitler.

In the end, the episode shows how the Nazis began to create a totalitarian society, convincing many otherwise hostile or apathetic Germans to adopt Nazi beliefs about submission to Hitler, anti-Semitism, eugenics and more.

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One of the hallmarks of a modern democracy is a belief in the importance of the rule of law. The state may be capable of using tremendous violence against its citizenry, but this power is curtailed by a series of rules and regulations that are both rational (i.e., the ability to arrest criminals) and written down so that people know what is allowed and what isn't. As part of their quest for total power, however, the Nazis tried to dispense with these traditional notions, selling the idea that the unrestricted use of violence was a better path towards creating order.

This episode walks the listener through the ways in which the Nazis went 'beyond the law', setting up a system of violence that many Germans actually found reassuring. It focuses on several examples of this phenomenon, including the merger of state and civil institutions, the construction of the concentration camps and the use of protective custody to jail opponents without trial.

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There is perhaps no better symbol of Nazi barbarism than the concentration camp.  It was here that victims not only lost their political rights (freedom of movement, right to due process, etc.), but where they were often stripped of their very humanity through torture, murder and other sadistic acts.  The camps, one could say, became a sort of hell on earth.

How did this happen?  As the episode reveals, the camps were not initially intended to function this way; indeed, they were supposed to be a temporary solution encountered in building the Nazi dictatorship (a way to terrorize the Nazis' political opponents). But a combination of mission creep and the need for cheap labor drove their exponential growth, starting in the mid-1930s.  With the outbreak of war in 1939 they became even more essential to the German economy, reaching a peak of about 700,000 inmates in Jan. 1945.

This partial patreon preview contains the introduction and the section on Nazi architecture and its relation to camp expansion.  To hear the full story, which includes the initial construction of the camps in 1933, the institutionalization of camp practices under Theodore Eicke in the early 1930s, the role played by Himmler and Heydrich in renewing large scale arrests, the impact of World War II and finally the liberation of the camps from late 1944-mid-1945, check out our Patreon site where you can get full access to this and other episodes for as little as $2/month (patreon.com/historyoffthepage).  

Finally, one piece of errata: around the 15:00 mark it sounds like I refer to "Ravensbrück" concentration camp as "Ravensburg."  Its proper name is of course the former, not the latter.  

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On Jan. 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. While this was certainly an important historical moment, it's worth noting that Hitler was not yet a dictator. He faced a number of legal and practical limitations on his power, and many contemporaries expected him to quickly fail. And yet, just five months later all other political parties - even those closely allied with the Nazis - no longer existed. This episode walks reader through the why and how of the story, discussing events such as the Reichstag Fire and the passage of the Enabling Act. 

At the same time, it also comments on the nature of dictatorship, tragically noting how so many individuals and organizations in German society traded belief in the rule of law for promises of security and a return to normality.  But as Benjamin Franklin once noted, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  As we'll see, many Germans would learn this lesson the hard way.

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On January 30, 1933, German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler as the country's new Chancellor, the third attempt in less than a year to create a stable German government.  The result of course was dictatorship, war and eventually genocide.  

But was Hitler's appointment inevitable?   For as historians such as Henry Ashby Turner have argued, on the immediate eve of his appointment Hitler's Nazi Party was broke and its electoral support was waning.  Could Hindenburg have made other choices?

This episode walks us through the complicated political intrigues of the summer and winter of 1932-33, showing how the actions of ambitious and short-sighted men paved the way for Hitler's rise to power.  At the center of the drama lie the politician Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher - men who viewed the political chaos of the early 1930s as a ladder for their own path to power.  Of course, like many characters from the HBO show Game of Thrones, their misunderstandings would prove fatal.

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In October 1929, the New York stock market crash ushered in the Great Depression.  With their economy closely tied to the supply of cheap American capital, Germans felt the impact of the crash more acutely than most other nations.  Soon the country's economy was in ruins, with millions unemployed.
 
 This episode charts the relationship between German politics and economic between 1929 and 1932, showing how economic suffering led to growing cynicism about the Weimar system.  In 1930 German President Paul von Hindenburg would move away from the parliamentary system, appointing his own man for the position.
 
The episode concludes with a brief discussion of Heinrich Brüning's Chancellorship, pointing out some of the reasons he failed to lift the country out of the Great Depression. 

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In the spring of 1925, a newly free Adolf Hitler ordered his bodyguard/chauffeur Julius Schreck to create a new protection detail. Eventually known as the SS, its membership would fluctuate between 250 and 1000 men over the next four years. And yet, perhaps no institution in Nazi Germany strikes more fear into the hearts of modern listeners. This episode documents how the SS grew from an otherwise unremarkable Nazi formation into a sprawling empire that included effective control over the police, ran the concentration camp system and operated its own military units (known as Waffen SS). 

Among the topics covered are the early history of the formation, the roles of Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, the rivalries that enabled Himmler to become chief of German police by 1936, and the Röhm purge of 1934.

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In the Reichstag elections of May 1928, the Nazi Party took home just 2.6% of the vote. Two years later they would explode onto the German political scene, taking 18.3% of the vote and becoming the second largest party in Germany. This episode uncovers the secrets to the Nazis electoral success, showcasing how new techniques and strategies helped distinguish them from their political rivals on both the left and the right. Topics covered include Joseph Goebbels and the use of violence; Heinrich Himmler and the development of saturation campaigns; the Nazi's use of new technologies like the radio and airplane for electioneering and more. 

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When Adolf Hitler left prison in Dec. 1924, his Nazi Party lay in ruins.  Officially banned by the Bavarian government, he was also prohibited from public speech in many German states.  And yet, eight years later he would become Chancellor of Germany, head of the country's largest political party.  How did this happen?

This episode begins to answer that question by looking at the rebuilding of the Nazi Party between 1925 and 1928.  In addition to discussing some of the key bureaucratic changes that prepared the party for exponential growth after 1928, it also explains how Hitler conquered potential party rivals such as Joseph Goebbels and Gregory Strasser.  In the end, it argues that this establishment of a dictatorship over the party played a key role in paving the way for Hitler's future domination of Germany.

mosaic: Exploring Jewish Issues
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