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Core Study: Power and Authority in the Modern World 1919-1946
Quick questions on The Nazi state 1933-1939: HSC Modern History Core Study
13short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is polycratic structure?Show answer
The Nazi state was not a single chain of command. Hans Mommsen and Ian Kershaw describe it as polycratic: competing agencies (the Party Chancellery under Bormann, the Reich Chancellery under Lammers, the SS under Himmler, the Four-Year Plan under Goering, the Foreign Ministry under Ribbentrop) jostled for influence by anticipating Hitler's wishes. Kershaw's phrase "working towards the Fuhrer" captures how subordinates radicalised policy on their own initiative, often without direct orders.
What is terror?Show answer
The SS under Heinrich Himmler (Reichsfuhrer-SS from 1929) absorbed every police function in Germany between 1933 and 1936. Reinhard Heydrich ran the SD (security service) and after 1936 the combined Security Police (SiPo, comprising Gestapo and Kripo). The first concentration camp at Dachau opened on 22 March 1933 under Theodor Eicke. By 1939 the SS-Totenkopfverbande administered Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Ravensbruck, and Mauthausen.
What is propaganda?Show answer
Joseph Goebbels became Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on 13 March 1933. The Reich Chamber of Culture (September 1933) controlled film, theatre, music, press, radio, and literature. The Volksempfanger cheap radio reached 70 per cent of households by 1939. Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935) immortalised the Nuremberg Rallies; her Olympia (1938) glamorised the Berlin Games.
What is economic recovery and rearmament?Show answer
Hjalmar Schacht (Minister of Economics 1934-1937, President of the Reichsbank) used MEFO bills (off-balance-sheet credit) to fund rearmament without immediate inflation. Public works projects (autobahns, the Volkswagen) absorbed unemployment, which fell from 6 million (1932) to under 1 million (1937).
What is society?Show answer
Women. The regime promoted Kinder, Kuche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church). The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage (1933) offered marriage loans. The Mother's Cross (1938) rewarded large families. Women were pushed out of the professions but, by 1939, the labour shortage drew many back into work.
What is historiography?Show answer
Intentionalists (Lucy Dawidowicz, Eberhard Jackel) stress the coherence of Hitler's ideological programme as set out in Mein Kampf and the Second Book.
What is women?Show answer
The regime promoted Kinder, Kuche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church). The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage (1933) offered marriage loans. The Mother's Cross (1938) rewarded large families.
What is youth?Show answer
The Hitler Youth (HJ) and the League of German Girls (BDM) became compulsory in 1936 and 1939. By 1939 membership exceeded 8 million. Schools were nazified through the National Socialist Teachers League.
What is churches?Show answer
The Reich Concordat with the Vatican (July 1933) was repeatedly violated. The Protestant "German Christians" allied with the regime; the Confessing Church (Niemoller, Bonhoeffer) opposed it. By 1937 Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge ("With burning concern") attacking Nazi racial policy.
What is describing terror without consent?Show answer
Gellately's denunciation research is now standard scholarship. Acknowledge both.
What is treating the polycratic state as chaos?Show answer
It produced radicalisation, not paralysis. Use Kershaw's "working towards the Fuhrer" precisely.
What is forgetting Schacht and the economy?Show answer
Section I source questions often draw on economic graphs and unemployment data. Have the 6 million to under 1 million figures ready.
What is misdating the Four-Year Plan?Show answer
October 1936, under Goering, not Schacht.