The face of the Nazi dictatorship

The first point to be made about the Nazi dictatorship is that it was much worse in human terms than can ever be expressed in words. One can merely try to analyse some of its more salient structural and developmental features. The second point is that the attitudes and experiences of those Germans who lived through the Third Reich differed widely and depended to a considerable extent on a person's sodoeconomic position. Just as it is untenable to say that ‘the Germans’ brought Hitler to power, sociological accuracy also helps us to understand who fared well and who fared badly after 1933 and hence to illuminate the basic character of the regime.

As to the proclaimed enemies of the new regime, the Nazis had never made a secret of their uncompromising and fundamental hostility to Communism and Social Democracy. Both had been built up into a major threat to law and order and the NSDAP had always promised to those frightened Germans who had voted for the Party that this ‘threat’ would be dealt with as soon as power had been achieved. Having taken control of both the Reich Ministry of the Interior and the Prussian Interior Ministry in January 1933 – a move which in itself demonstrated a shrewd appreciation of which posts were important and more important than possessing an overall majority of Cabinet seats – known left-wingers of the Weimar days were among the first to be rounded up.