1. The Nazi Police State

2. Hitler’s Concept of Law
Hitler did not believe in ‘the rule of law’ in any way
For Hitler a legitimacy (the right to rule) came from the fuhrerprincip and nowhere else
Hitler’s word was literally law
From the Enabling Act onwards Germans lost their legal rights (e.g. The right to a fair trial, equality before the law, right to free expression)
In Hitler’s Germany people could be arrested, imprisoned, executed without charge or trial

3. Nazi ideas on Criminality
For the Nazis crime was defined by reference to Nazi ideology.
Those outside the ‘Peoples Community’ were by definition criminals
RACIALLY – non Aryans – Slavs, Jews, black people, gypsies
IDELOGICALLY – Marxists, socialists, liberals – placed into camps for ‘re-education’
MORALLY – criminals, homosexuals, alcoholics, mentally ill, dug abusers – seen as a threat to racial purity

4. The Institutions of the Nazi Police State
The SA
The Peoples Court
The SS
The Concentration Camps
The SD
The Gestapo
Informers and block leaders

5. The SA (Sturmabteilung, Storm Troopers)AKA "Brown Shirts,"
Nazi Party militia that helped Adolf Hitler rise to power in Germany, created in 1922
the SA's purpose was to guard Nazi Party meetings, but in actuality, Hitler meant for the group to serve as the Nazi army.
The SA was extremely antisemitic and antidemocratic in its military activities. Its members were mainly lower-middle class Germans who had lost their jobs due to the country's economic problems. The SA gave them something to be part of and proud of.

6. SA continued…
They engaged in street fights with their political enemies
When Hitler rose to national power in 1933 the SA became an official government organization and had around 4 million members
When Leader Ernst Rohm showed signs of wanting to take control of the army and rebel against Hitler in a military coup, the SS massacred him and other SA leaders in the "Night of the Long Knives"- --June 30, 1934.
From then on, the SA was no longer a dominant organization within the Reich, but it continued to exist, its members guarding concentration camps and terrorizing enemies of the Nazi regime.

8. The Peoples Court
The Nazis kept, but nazified, the existing criminal courts and added a new Peoples Court for political offences
Headed by the infamous Roland Freisler there were no juries or defendants in the people’s court, just charges, abuse, humiliation and sentencing
Between communists and socialists were processed by the People’s Court – the usual sentence was execution by axe

9. The police in Nazi Germany
The following Police organisations existed in 1933:
The SS – controlled by Himmler
The SD – an intelligence gathering wing of the SS
The SA – inititially controlled by Rohm – SA maintained police powers throughout
The Gestapo (secret state police) – headed by Goring
Gradually the SS took more and more control. In 1936 Himmler given control of SS, SD and Gestapo and by 1939 Himmler and the SS controlled all state police organisations

10. The SS (Schutzstaffel)
Role
Personal bodyguard for Hitler
Controlled state police organisation in 3rd Reich
Camps – SS controlled the concentration camps
Ideology – SS seen as ideological role model for Germans – racially pure and unquestioningly obedient
Military – Waffen SS (armed) had its own army divisions
Government – SS charged with administering occupied and conquered territories
Economic – SS ran a number of business enterprises based on the slave labour of concentration camp inmates

12. Concentration Camps
The original concentration camps were prison camps not extermination camps (these came after 1942)
A network of camps emerged including; Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Ravensbruck (women only)
The original purpose was for political prisoners to be re-educated. By 1936 political opposition had been largely crushed and the camps started to be used for ‘undesirables’, asocials, homosexuals, gypsies, non Aryans with a view to ‘purifying the race’
This change in purpose saw a marked increase in brutality and murders in the camps

13. SD (Sicherheitsdienst)
The SD was the internal security service in Nazi Germany led by Reinhardt Heydrich
Its role was to investigate claims that the Nazi party itself or its institutions had been infiltrated by enemies
The SD also spent a great deal of time monitoring public opinion and investigating who had voted ‘no’ in the plebiscites
The SD was manned by committed volunteers

14. The Gestapo (State Secret Police)
German people were terrified by the Gestapo believing them to be everywhere – workplace, pub, club, residential block etc.
The reality was rather different – only 20,000 officers for whole of Germany
The Gestapo however had a deserved reputation for brutality
They relied on informers for information – party members were encouraged to spy on their neighbours, Hitler Youth were encouraged to squeal on their parents. Every residential block had a ‘Block leader’ who reported suspicious activity to the Gestapo
In some ways the German people could be seen as practising ‘self surveillance’