Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the control of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), or Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as chancellor and head of state.

In addition to Germany proper, the Reich included areas with ethnic German populations such as Austria, the Sudetenland and the territory of Memel. It also included several regions acquired in the midst of World War II; some had been a part of Imperial Germany prior to the Treaty of Versailles, while other areas, particularly in the case of a few regions in occupied Poland, had not. In addition, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was also part of the Reich and subject to its immediate jurisdiction.

Background and terminology

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Imperial Japan (Yosuke Matsuoka up front) and Nazi Germany toasting to the new Axis Pact in Tokyo, Japan.

Nazi Germany signed the Tripartite Pact with Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy during World War II. The three principal nations in this alliance, collectively referred to as the Axis Powers, fought against the Allies of World War II, which were led at first by the United Kingdom but after 1941, joined by the Soviet Union and the United States.

Third Reich is often used as a near-synonym for Nazi Germany. In German, the regime was and is sometimes referred to as Drittes Reich. Despite the interchangeable status of these terms, "Drittes Reich" is never referred to as the "Third Empire", the rough English translation.

The Nazi Party used the terms Drittes Reich and Tausendjähriges Reich ("Thousand-Year Empire") in order to connect the German empire they wished to forge to the ones of old (the Holy Roman Empire and the Second German Empire) while alluding to envisioned future prosperity and the new nation's alleged destiny. The Holy Roman Empire, deemed the First Empire or First Reich, had lasted almost a thousand years from 843 to 1806. The term Tausendjähriges Reich was used only briefly and dropped from propaganda in 1939, officially to avoid persiflage and possibly to even avoid religious connotations. In speeches, books and articles about the Third Reich after 8 May 1945, the phrase has taken on a new meaning and the early Nazi professions about a "thousand year" empire are often juxtaposed against the twelve years that the Third Reich actually existed.

The official name of Nazi Germany, in use after the 1933 German National Socialist Revolution, varied until 1943. However, the Nazis did not refer to their State as "Nazi Germany" or "National Socialist Germany", and such titles never appeared in official publications. Rather, they intensified the use of the official name of the pre-1945 German state: Deutsches Reich, a term officially used in Imperial Germany until 1919 and afterwards within the Weimar Republic. In 1943, however, the government decreed a change of official state name to the more expansionist name Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire), which remained in official use until the collapse of Nazi Germany in May, 1945.

Ideology

A 1941 map of Nazi Germany and its administrative regions.

Ideologically, the Nazis endorsed the concept of "Großdeutschland", or Greater Germany, and believed that the incorporation of the Germanic peoples into one nation was a vital step towards their national success. While the Nazis proposed the creation of an all-encompassing German ethnic State, others, particularly non-Germans, were in strong opposition to the idea, believing that a very large and powerful Germany would be to the disadvantage of the rest of Europe. Similarly, the "German problem", as it is often referred to in English scholarship, focuses on the issue of administration of Germanic regions within Northern and Central Europe, an important theme throughout German history.^[4] The British traditionally lobbied for at least two "Germanys" and this was one of the reasons Austria was prohibited from uniting with Germany by plebiscite after World War I. Such "logic" also manifested itself in the recreation of a Polish state, with the goal of creating numerous counterweights in order to "balance out Germany's power." However, at the same time, a largely divided Europe was a model best suited for British financial interests. Still, it was the nationalist, Wagnerian love affair with the Volk concept that culminated in World War II and the destruction of much of Germany. It was the issue over administration of the Polish corridor and Danzig that ultimately led to the war and as a further extension of racial policy, the Lebensraum program, adapted in the midst of the war, pertained to similar interests; it was decided that Eastern Europe would be settled with ethnic Germans, and the Slavic population who met the Nazi racial standard would be absorbed into the Reich. Those not fitting the racial standards were to be used as cheap labour force or deported eastward. ^[5]

Racialism was an important aspect of society within the Third Reich. The Nazis also combined anti-Semitism with anti-Communist ideology and regarded the leftist movement - as well as international market capitalism - as the work of conspiratorial Jewry. They referred to this so-called movement as the "Jewish-Bolshevistic revolution of subhumans."[1]. This platform manifested itself in the displacement, internment and later, the systematic extermination of an estimated six million European Jews in the midst of World War II. Other victims of Nazi persecution included Slavic populations in and outside of Slavic countries, Gypsies (viewed as subhuman), political opponents, social outcasts, homosexuals, religious dissidents such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Freemasons, and unyielding Church-affiliated leadership (Confessing Church of German Lutherans and resisting Roman Catholic clergy). One could argue that a war with the Soviet Union was inevitable based on the Third Reich's precepts. However, World War II officially began after Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, which led to France and the United Kingdom both declaring war on Germany. The global conflict that followed left Europe in ruins and led to the deaths of roughly sixty-two million persons.

Chronology of events

Weimar Republic (includes the events leading to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany in 1933)

Hitler's rise to power

Gleichschaltung (for the legal measures taken by the Nazis to establish their dictatorship)

Reoccupation of the Rhineland

Anschluss

World War II (with a focus on military events)

Axis Powers

Pre-War Politics 1933-1939

In the wake of the frustrations imposed through the Versailles Treaty, the worldwide economic depression of the 1930's, the counter-traditionalism of the Weimar period and the threat of Soviet-sponsored communism in Germany, many voters began turning their support towards Adolf Hitler's radical Nazi Party, which made great promises of an economic, cultural, and military renewal. The Dolchstoßlegende figured prominently. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed. Hindenberg was put under pressure by Hitler through his son Oskar von Hindenburg, as well as intrigue from former Chancellor Franz von Papen following his collection of participating financial interests and own ambitions to combat communism. Even though the Nazi Party had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority of their own, and just a slim majority in parliament with their Papen-proposed Nationalist DNVP- NSDAP coalition. This coalition ruled through accepted continuance of un-Constitutional Presidential decree issuance under Article 48, prevalent in all Chancellorships since October 1931.

Consolidation of power

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Recreation of Berlin during the Nazi era

The new government installed a dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (see Gleichschaltung for details). On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag was set on fire, and this was followed immediately by the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and civil liberties.

A further step that turned Germany into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in March 1933 with 444 votes, to the 94 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government (and thus effectively Adolf Hitler) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution. With these powers, Hitler removed the remaining opposition and turned the Weimar Republic into the "Third Reich".

Further consolidation of power was achieved on 30 January 1934, with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (Act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration.

Only the army remained independent from Nazi control. The German army had traditionally been somewhat separate from the government. The Nazi quasi-military SA expected top positions in the new power structure. Wanting to preserve good relations with the army, on the night of 30 June 1934, Hitler initiated the Night of the Long Knives, a purge of the leadership ranks of Röhm's SA as well as other political enemies, carried out by another, more elitist, Nazi organization, the SS.

At the death of president Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler. Until the death of Hindenburg, the army did not follow Hitler. However, with the death of Hindenburg, the entire army swore their obedience to Hitler.

The inception of the Gestapo, police acting outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. Soon, an army estimated to be of about 100,000 spies and infiltrators operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living, remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and some types of socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies, and put in prison camps where they were severely mistreated, and many tortured and killed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of political victims died or disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.

For political opposition during this period, see German resistance movement.

Social policy

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Large military parades, preferably with the Führer himself in attendance, became main social events in the Nazi era.

See also: Racial policy of Nazi Germany

The Nazi regime was characterized by political control of every aspect of society in a quest for racial (Aryan, Nordic), social and cultural purity. Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was thrown out of museums, and put on special display as "Degenerate art", where it was to be ridiculed. In one notable example on 31 March 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of "degenerate art" in Munich, while a concurrent exhibition of 900 works personally approved by Adolf Hitler attracted a tiny, unenthusiastic gathering.

The Nazi Party pursued its aims through persecution and killing of those considered impure, targeted especially against minority groups such as Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.

In the years following the Nazi rise to power, many Jews fled the country and were encouraged to do so. By the Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, which were being taken by unemployed Germans. Notably, the Nazi government attempted to send 17,000 German Jews of Polish descent back to Poland, a decision which led to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German Jew living in France. This provided the pretext for a pogrom the Nazi Party incited against the Jews on 9 November 1938, which specifically targeted Jewish businesses. The event was called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, literally "Crystal Night"); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystals. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind.

The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of their own population, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program, killing tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism.

Recent research by academics such as Götz Aly has emphasized the role of the extensive Nazi welfare programmes that supposedly helped maintain public support for the regime that lasted long into the war. The German community was nationalized and labor and entertainment - from festivals, to vacation trips and traveling cinemas - were all made a part of the "Strength through Joy" program. Also crucial to the building of loyalty and comradeship was the implementation of the National Labor Service and the Hitler Youth Organization, with the former being compulsory and the latter consisting of nearly six million boys and girls. In addition to a number of architectural projects that were undertaken, the construction of the Autobahn made it the first National Motor Highway system in the world. It should be noted that between 1933 and 1936, Germany outpaced the United States in construction, automobile production, unemployment and employment. All in all, the New Reich gave Germans confidence and naturally instilled loyalty.

Economic policy

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The Reichsmark gained significant value during the Third Reich.

When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%. The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted. One of the first actions was to destroy the trade unions and impose strict wage controls.

The government then expanded the money supply through massive deficit spending. However at the same time the government imposed a 4.5% interest rate ceiling, creating a massive shortage in borrowable funds. This was resolved by setting up a series of dummy companies that would pay for goods with bonds. The most famous of these was the MEFO company, and these bonds used as currency became known as mefo bills. While it was promised that these bonds could eventually be exchanged for real money, the repayment was put off until after the collapse of the Reich. These complicated maneuvers also helped conceal armament expenditures that violated the Treaty of Versailles.

According to economic theory, price control combined with a large increase in the money supply should have produced a large black market, but harsh penalties that saw violators sent to concentration camps or even shot prevented this development. Repressive measures also kept volatility low, reducing inflationary pressures. New policies also limited imports of consumer goods and focused on producing exports. International trade was greatly reduced remaining at about a third of 1929 levels throughout the Nazi period. Currency controls were extended, leading to a considerable overvaluation of the Reichsmark. These policies were successful in cutting unemployment dramatically.

Most industry was not nationalized, and businesses were still motivated by pursuing profits. However, industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements to use domestic resources. These regulations were set by administrative committees composed of government and business officials. Competition was limited as major companies were organized into cartels through these administrative committees. Selective nationalization was used against businesses that failed to agree to these arrangements. The banks, which had been nationalized by Weimar, were returned to their owners and each administrative committee had a bank as member to finance the schemes.

While the strict state intervention into the economy and the massive rearmament policy led to full employment during the 1930s, real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938 [2]. Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right to strike[3]. The right to quit also disappeared: Labor books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of the previous employer in order to be hired for another job. [4]

The German economy was transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on 18 October, 1936, the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four-Year Plan. The Nazi economic plan aimed to achieve a number of objectives. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt, a massive public works project, the Reichsarbeitsdienst, was started, rivaling Roosevelt's New Deal in both size and scope. It functioned as a military-like unit, its most notable achievements being the network of Autobahnen and, once the war started, the building of bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe.

Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. In comparison, a military buildup had also been a part of the New Deal (regarding the Navy) and Stalin's First Five Year Plan. The Four-Year Plan was discussed in the controversial Hossbach Memorandum, which provides the "minutes" from one of Hitler's briefings. Some use the Hossbach Memorandum to show that Hitler planned a war in Eastern Europe in the pursuit of Lebensraum, believing that the Western powers of the United Kingdom and France would not intervene, leaving him free to take over the USSR, the "natural enemy" of Germany. However, this intentionalist view is disputed.

Nevertheless, the war came and although the Four-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters by this point in time. In 1942, the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a full war economy under Albert Speer.

World War II

See also: Military history of Germany during World War II

The "Danzig crisis" peaked in the months after Poland rejected Hitler's initial offer regarding both the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor. After a series of ultimatums, the Germans broke from diplomatic relations and shortly thereafter, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. This led to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe when on 3 September 1939, the United Kingdom and France both declared war on Germany. The Phony War followed. The United Kingdom was wary to open a front and carefully planned its next move. Intelligence prevailed for the Germans, and they moved into Denmark, which had been a potential target for British-led Allied operations. This was a strategic victory for Germany. As an alternative, the Allies considered establishing a position in Norway, but they were slow to act, divided over whether they should then use Norway to provide aid in the Russo-Finnish War. Again the Germans beat the Allies there and scored a victory in the subsequent Norwegian Campaign. In May, the Phony War ended when despite the protestations of many of his advisors, Hitler took a gamble and sent German forces into France and the Low Countries. The Battle of France was an overwhelming German victory. Later that year, Germany subjected the United Kingdom to heavy bombing during the Battle of Britain. This may have served two purposes, either as a precursor to Operation Sea Lion or it may have been an effort to dissuade the British populace from continuing to support the war and their government's meddling in European affairs. Already, prior to the war, negative press in the country attempted to turn Britons against Adolf Hitler and in 1940, the government made its position clear with the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 21 June 1941 and on the eve of the invasion, Hitler's former deputy, Rudolf Hess, attempted to negotiate terms of peace with the United Kingdom in an unofficial private meeting after crash-landing in Scotland.

Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on 11 December, 1941, four days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. This allowed German submarines in the Atlantic to fight US convoys that had been supporting the United Kingdom and although Nazi hubris is often cited, Hitler presumably sought the further support of Japan. He was convinced of the United States' aggressive intentions following the leaking of Rainbow Five and hearing of the forboding content of Franklin Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech. Before then, Germany had practiced its own policy of appeasement, taking drastic precautions in order to avoid the United States' entry into the war.

The persecution of minorities and "undesirables" continued both in Germany and the occupied countries. From 1941 onward, Jews were required to wear a yellow badge in public and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee Conference and under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, a plan for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) in Europe was hatched. From then until the end of the war some six million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs and political prisoners, were systematically killed. In addition, more than ten million people were put into forced labor. This genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the Shoah in Hebrew. Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps (Vernichtungslager, sometimes called "death factories") and concentration camps (Konzentrationslager, KZ), some of which were originally detention centers but later converted into literall mass-murder factories, or death camps, for the purpose of killing of their inmates.

Parallel to the Holocaust, the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of conquest and exploitation over the captured Soviet and Polish territories and their Slavic populations as part of their Generalplan Ost. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, three million non-Jewish Poles, and seven million Red Army soldiers died under Nazi maltreatment in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The Nazis' plan was to extend German lebensraum ("living space") eastward, a foreseen consequence of the war in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, said by the Nazis to have been waged in order "to defend Western Civilization against Bolshevism". Due to many of the atrocities suffered under Stalin, the Nazi message was interpreted by many to be legitimate. Many Ukranians, Balts and other disillusioned Soviets fought with the Germans, not to mention other Europeans enlisted in numerous Schutzstaffel divisions.

By February 1943 the Soviets had defeated the Germans at Stalingrad and began the push westward, winning the tank battle at Kursk-Orel in July. The German Army was pushed back to the borders of Poland by February 1944 following the great success of Operation Bagration. The Allies opened a Western Front in June 1944 at Normandy, a year and a half after the Soviets turned the tide on the Eastern Front. Soviet troops moving westward met Allied troops moving eastward at Torgau at the Elbe on April 26 1945 (Cohen).

On April 30 1945, as Berlin was being taken by Soviet forces, Hitler committed suicide. He was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, whose caretaker government sought a separate peace with the Western Allies. On 4 May–8 May 1945 German armed forces surrendered unconditionally. This was the end of World War II in Europe and, with the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 July 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d] supreme authority with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany, US Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1520).

The Post-War Period

See also: Nuremberg Trials, Expulsion of Germans after World War II

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Nürnberg lies in hazy ruins shortly after the Nazi surrender. Like many German cities, it had suffered under years of Allied strategic bombardment.

The Potsdam Conference in August 1945 created arrangements and outline for new government for the postwar Germany as well as war reparations and resettlement. Virtually all Germans in Central Europe were subsequently expulsed to west of the Oder-Neisse line, affecting about seventeen million ethnic Germans. The French, US and British occupation zones later became West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany), while the Soviet zone became the communist East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, excluding sections of Berlin). West Germany recovered economically by the 1960s, being called the economic miracle (German term Wirtschaftswunder), which was kickstarted by the economic aid of the United States of America through the Marshall Plan, and upheld thanks to fiscal policy and intense labor, eventually leading to labor shortages. The East recovered at a slower pace under Communism until 1990, due to reparations paid to the Soviet Union and the effects of the centrally planned economy.

After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by an Allied tribunal at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. A minority were sentenced to death and executed, but a number were jailed and then released by the mid 1950s due to poor health and old age. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, some renewed efforts were made in West Germany to take those who were directly responsible for "crimes against humanity" to court (e.g. Auschwitz trials). However, many of the less prominent leaders continued to live well into the 1980s and 1990s.

In all non-fascist European countries legal purges were established to punish the members of the former Nazi and Fascist parties. Even there, however, some of the former leaders found ways to accommodate themselves under the new circumstances. An uncontrolled punishment hit the children of Nazis and those fathered by German soldiers in occupied countries, including the "Lebensborn" children.

Military structure

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The Nazi war flag and Ensign of the Kriegsmarine

Wehrmacht — Armed Forces

OKW — Armed Forces High Command

Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel

Chief of the Operations Staff - Colonel General Alfred Jodl

Heer — Army

OKH — Army High Command

Army Commanders-in-Chief

Colonel General Werner von Fritsch (1935 to 1938)

Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch (1938 to 1941)

Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler (1941 to 1945)

Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner (1945)

Kriegsmarine — Navy

OKM — Navy High Command

Navy Commanders-in-Chief

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder (1928-1943)

Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1943-1945)

General Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (1945)

Luftwaffe — Airforce

OKL — Airforce High Command

Reichsluftschutzbund (Air Force Auxiliary)

Air Force Commanders-in-Chief

Reich Marshal Hermann Göring (to 1945)

Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim (1945)

Abwehr — Military Intelligence

Rear Admiral Konrad Patzig {1932-1935)

Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1935-1944)

Waffen-SS — Nazi Party military branch

Organization of the Third Reich

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Adolf Hitler was Führer and Reich Chancellor of Nazi Germany.

The leaders of Nazi Germany created a large number of different organizations for the purpose of helping them stay in power. They rearmed and strengthened the military, set up an extensive state security apparatus and created their own personal party army, the Waffen SS.

Through staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi party leaders, known as Gauleiters, who governed Gaue and Reichsgaue.

The organization of the Nazi state, as of 1944, was as follows:

Head of State and Chief Executive

Führer and Reich Chancellor (Adolf Hitler)

Cabinet and national authorities

Office of the Reich Chancellery (Hans Lammers)
Office of the Party Chancellery (Martin Bormann)
Office of the Presidential Chancellery (Otto Meissner)
Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath)
Chancellery of the Führer (Philip Bouhler)

Reich Offices

Office of the Four-Year Plan (Hermann Göring)
Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring)
Office of the Inspector for Highways
Office of the President of the Reich Bank
Reich Youth Office
Reich Treasury Office
General Inspector of the Reich Capital
Office of the Councillor for the Capital of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria)

Reich Ministries

Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop)
Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler)
Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)
Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring)
Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)
Reich Ministry of Justice (Franz Schlegelberger)
Reich Economics Ministry (Walther Funk)
Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (R. Walther Darre)
Reich Labor Ministry (Franz Seldte)
Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction (Bernhard Rust)
Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl)
Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller)
Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge)
Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt, Albert Speer)
Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Frank, Hjalmar Schacht, Arthur Seyss-Inquart)

Occupation authorities

Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Alfred Rosenberg)
General Government of Poland (Hans Frank)
Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Konstantin von Neurath)
- Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Reinhard Heydrich)
Office of the Military Governor of France

Legislative Branch

Reichstag
- Speaker of the Reichstag (Hermann Göring)
Reichsrat (disbanded February 14, 1934)

It has to be considered that there is little use talking about a legislative branch in a totalitarian state, where there is no separation of powers. For example, since 1933 the Reichsregierung (Reich cabinet) was enabled to enact Reichsgesetze (statute law) without respect to the constitution from 1919.

Paramilitary organizations

Sturmabteilung (SA)
Schutzstaffel (SS)
- Allgemeine SS
- Waffen SS
- Germanische SS
Deutscher Volkssturm
Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps (NSKK)
Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (NSFK)

National police

Reich Central Security Office (RSHA — Reichssicherheitshauptamt) Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Order Police (Ordnungspolizei (Orpo))
- Schutzpolizei (Safety Police)
- Gendarmerie (Rural Police)
- Gemeindepolizei (Local Police)
Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo))
- Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo)
- Reichskriminalpolizei (Kripo)
- Sicherheitsdienst (SD)

Political organizations

Nazi Party — National Socialist German Workers Party (abbreviated NSDAP)
Youth organisations
- Hitler-Jugend — Hitler-youth (for boys and young men) Baldur von Schirach
- Bund Deutscher Mädel (for girls and young women)
- Deutsches Jungvolk (for very young boys and girls ages 6-8)

Service organizations

Deutsche Reichsbahn (State Railway)
Reichspost (State Postal Service)
Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross)

Religious organizations

Academic organizations

National Socialist German University Teachers League
National Socialist German Students League

Prominent persons in Nazi Germany

For a listing of Hitler's cabinet see : Hitler's Cabinet, January 1933 - April 1945

Nazi Party and Nazi government leaders and officials

Artur Axmann — Reich Youth Leader (successor of Baldur von Schirach in 1940)
Ernst Wilhelm Bohle — Under-Secretary of State, Head of the NSDAP Foreign Organisation (1933-1945)
Martin Bormann — Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Private Secretary to Adolf Hitler
Karl Brandt — Reich Commissioner of Health and Sanitation
Alois Brunner — SS Lieutenant Colonel and Adolf Eichmann’s most important assistant
Otto Dietrich — Under-Secretary of State, Reich Chief of the Press
Karl Fiehler — Nazi Lord Mayor of Munich and Head of the unity organization for local politics
Hans Frank — Minister, Head of the German Law Academy
Roland Freisler — Under-Secretary of State at the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof
Wilhelm Frick — Minister of the Interior
Hans Fritzsche — senior official of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda
Walter Funk — Minister of Industries
Joseph Goebbels — Minister of Propaganda, became Chancellor of Germany for one day following Hitler's death, was named his immediate successor by Hitler himself.
Hermann Göring — Reichsmarschall and Minister-President of Prussia. Air Minister. Minister of the Interior. Speaker of the Reichstag.
Franz Gürtner — Minister of Justice
Karl Hanke — Under-Secretary of State, Propaganda Ministry
Rudolf Hess — the Führer's Deputy
Reinhard Heydrich — Head of Reich Main Security Office and Protector of Bohemia and Moravia
Konstantin Hierl — Head of the Reich Labour Service
Heinrich Himmler — Reich Leader SS
Adolf Hitler — Führer and Reich Chancellor
Hanns Kerrl — Reich Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs (1933–1941)
Karl Otto Koch — SS Colonel and commandant of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Majdanek
Hans Lammers — Head of the Reich Chancellery
Herbert Lange — SS Major, chief inspector of the Posen State Police Headquarters
Robert Ley — Leader of the German Labour Front
Viktor Lutze — Chief of Staff of the SA (1934–1943)
Otto Meissner — Head of the Reich President’s Office
Alfred Meyer — Under-Secretary of State at the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Konstantin von Neurath — Head of the Secret Cabinet
Hans Nieland — Head of the NSDAP Foreign Organisation (1931-1933) and Lord Mayor of Dresden (1940-1945)
Erich Priebke — SS Captain, participated in the massacres at the Ardeatine caves near Rome
Joachim von Ribbentrop — Foreign Minister (1938–1945)
Ernst Röhm — Chief of Staff of the SA (1931–1934)
Alfred Rosenberg — ideologist of National Socialism, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories
Bernhard Rust — Minister of Education
Carl Schmitt — expert on constitutional law and political philosopher, who affected Nazism with his anti-Semite and antidemocratic theses
Albert Speer — First Architect, Minister for Armament from 1942
Fritz Sauckel — General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labour (1942–1945)
Baldur von Schirach — Leader of the Hitlerjugend (Nazi Youth Organisation), Gauleiter of Vienna
Franz Seldte — Reich Minister of Labor (1933–1945)
Arthur Seyß-Inquart — Reichsstatthalter in Austria, Commissioner for the Occupied Netherlands
Josef Terboven — Reichskommissar for Norway (1940–1945)
Julius Streicher — publisher of the Nazi propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer
Fritz Todt — Inspector General for German Roadways, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions (1940-1942)
Hjalmar Schacht — Minister, Governor of the Central Bank (Reichsbank) (1933-1939)
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink — Reich Leader of Women (1934-1945)
Hans von Tschammer und Osten — Under-Secretary of State and Reich Sports Leader (1933-1943)

SS personnel

See: List of SS Personnel

Military

Karl Dönitz-Commander of the German U-Boat force, later the German Navy. Was named as Hitler's successor as Reich president (not to be confused with Chancellor of Germany).
Gerd von Rundstedt
Erwin Rommel
Wilhelm Keitel
Claus von Stauffenberg
Wilhelm Canaris
Alfred Jodl
Erich Raeder
Robert Ritter von Greim
Albert Kesselring
Erich von Manstein

Other

Noted victims

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Georg Elser
Anne Frank
Janusz Korczak
Erich Mühsam
Carl von Ossietzky
White Rose (Sophie and Hans Scholl and others)
Bruno Schulz
Ernst Thälmann

Noted refugees

Noted survivors

Footnotes

^ Germany — Country Study
^ Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office), Statistisches Jahrbook 2005 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, p. 8
^ Germany was split up between the Allies in occupation zones, with the Soviets taking the Eastern Zone and France, the United Kingdom, and the United States taking the Western Zone. Besides this, some Eastern German territories were given to Poland and the Soviet Union by the victorious powers at the Potsdam Conference.
^ Bischof, Günter, “The Historical Roots of a Special Relationship: Austro-German Relations Between Hegemony and Equality.” In Unequal Partners, ed. Harald von Riekhoff and Hanspeter Neuhold. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993
^ Hitler's Plan, Dac.neu.edu

External links

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[1] Germany — Country Study

[2] Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office), Statistisches Jahrbook 2005 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, p. 8

[3] Germany was split up between the Allies in occupation zones, with the Soviets taking the Eastern Zone and France, the United Kingdom, and the United States taking the Western Zone. Besides this, some Eastern German territories were given to Poland and the Soviet Union by the victorious powers at the Potsdam Conference.

[4] Bischof, Günter, “The Historical Roots of a Special Relationship: Austro-German Relations Between Hegemony and Equality.” In Unequal Partners, ed. Harald von Riekhoff and Hanspeter Neuhold. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993

[5] Hitler's Plan, Dac.neu.edu

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