(a) The Nazi Police State
All dictators risk being overthrown by their opponents. Dictators therefore need large police forces to protect them. For this reason a dictatorship is often called a police state. There was no room in Hitler's Germany for critics of Nazi rule. The job of the police in Nazi Germany was to arrest anyone considered disloyal. This method was simple. All local police units had to draw up lists of people who might be Enemies of the State. They gave these lists to the Gestapo, the Secret Police. The head of the S.S., Himmler, and his formidable deputy Heydrich, presided over a vast network of informers who sent in weekly reports from schools, factories, offices and apartment blocks.
By 1938 the Nazi Party had five million members and over half a million officials. Its organisation allowed it to supervise every citizen. The most important people in that huge organisation were the 400,000 Block Leaders. There was a Block Leader on every street and in every block of flats in every town and city. They snooped on their neighbours and reported suspicious behaviour to their Party bosses. In this way, political opponents and petty criminals could be identified and turned over to the police.
If your name was on the list of Enemies of the State, you might be woken at three in the morning by a violent knock at the door. When you open it, two men in black uniforms tell you that you have three minutes to pack a bag. They then take you to the nearest police station where you are shut up in a cell. Some time later -- it may be days, weeks or months -- you are brought up from the cells and told to sign Form D-11 , an "Order for Protective Custody". By signing it, you are agreeing to go to prison, but you are too scared to refuse to sign it. Without being given a trial you are then taken to a concentration camp where you will stay for as long as the Gestapo pleases.
After 1934 the concentration camps were run by the Deaths Head Units drawn from the most brutal elements of the S.S. They wore skull and crossbones badges on their uniforms. Conditions in the camps were harsh and punishments were savage. The penalty for discussing politics or merely loitering with other inmates was death.
(b) Opposition to the Nazis
The Nazis did not allow any opposition. Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, or anyone else who disagreed with them, were put into concentration camps. Between 1933 and 1945, some three million Germans saw the inside of a concentration camp. But the Nazis could not destroy all their opponents. A small number escaped arrest and did their best to overthrow Hitler. They were most active during the war years. On the left wing, dozens of small resistance groups gave help to the Soviet Union. The Red Orchestra, for example, was a spy network that passed military information to the Soviet army. The biggest left-wing group, led by Anton Saefkow carried out sabotage, organised strikes, and encouraged soldiers to desert from the army. On the right wing was the Kreisau Circle, consisting of officers and aristocrats, academics and professional people. At secret meetings in the town of Kreisau, they worked out a plan for governing Germany by democratic and Christian principles after Hitler had been overthrown. Thousands of young people started to oppose the Nazis during the war years. There were groups such as the Edelweiss Pirates or the Navajos.
The most active young opponents were a group of Munich University students known as the White Rose. Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, this group worked against the Nazis by distributing leaflets, putting up posters and writing graffiti on walls.
Most of Hitler's opponents wanted him dead. Some were prepared to kill him. From 1935 onwards, assassins tried to shoot him or blow him up on at least eleven occasions. Every attempt failed, twice because Hitler did not keep to his expected schedule and once because a bomb failed to explode. Hitler came closest to being killed in July 1944 when a group of army officers planned to take over the government. Their bomb, which exploded under a table at which Hitler was standing, injured but did not kill him. In the confusion that followed, the officers did not carry out their plans quickly enough, allowing the Gestapo to arrest the leaders. Thousands of conspirators were later rounded up and many were executed.
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