How much did the Nazis change German lives?

To a remarkable extent, the Nazi Party altered the lives of the German people. Through the use of the military resulting to terror as well as social reforms, a new education system including the Hitler Youth and the economy, the Nazi Party was able to make considerable changes to the German society.

The Nazi Party used the military forces alarmingly which caused terror and repression in the German society. The use of the SS, who were an armed unit containing death squads, eliminated opposition very violently and publicly. The SS did not conceal their brutal harshness to the public to show the German society the consequences of the opposition to the regime causing terror and fear towards the Nazis within the German community. Concentrations camps placed and were also runned by the SS who often gave death penalties, torture and worked their prisoners to death. Germans were fearful to be threw into concentration camps due to the cruel conditions. Later, the Gestapo was introduced, allowing the SS and police to arrest and imprison people who spoke out against the regime without a trial, which encouraged people to report each other causing Germans paranoia to oppose against Nazis. Through these new features, people lived in fear and terror with no resistance towards the regime due to the harsh consequences, placed by the Nazi party.

With the tool of propaganda, the Nazi party significantly changed the nature of German society through social reforms. Propaganda was used to create an image that Hitler was the leader of German as well as impose Nazi ideology into citizens. Nazi propaganda was used through out art, movies, TV, books and heavily censored and controlled the media to manipulate German’s way of thinking. Anti-Semitism was introduced creating a culture towards hatred against jews. Jews were defined as enemies and the average German people accepted brutal treatments against the jews and often even helped. This was a big alteration as jews had great acceptance in German society before the Nazi’s came to power. They played an important role to the finance, intellectually, culture and education and were still fairly accepted during WWI as they fought in the war by Germans and still had equal rights during the Weimar Republic. The policy Aryanisation into Germany forcing jews out the economy by not giving them jobs and discouraging German people to purchase from jews stores. Jews were not allowed to use public facilities including the bathroom and restaurants. It was illegal for jews and germans to get married and jews lost their citizenship. Volksgemeinschaft installed to shape and change the German society. It was the ideology to unite Germany with the racially pure and to achieve national revival of a new sense of purpose. The idea of being fully loyal to Germany’s leader and the nation was implanted into German people. Another social reform included the encouragement for women to go back to their original roles. The slogan KKK was used translated to “Kitchen, Children and Church”. This modified the workplace of Germany as a compact of women left the workforce to go back to their original roles of being house wives.

The economy was considerably adjusted to change the lives of German people. The economic change were limited consequently from the hyperinflation. However, the nazi’s were able to create a rapid decline in unemployment from 6 million to 1 million within 4 years which improves the standard of living in Germany.This can be a result due to the removal of jews and women from the workforce giving more availability for germans, but due to the abolishment of trade unions in 1933, worker had less rights. Wages decreased by 25% but all workers were handed out Volkswagen car ownership. The nazi party encouraged couples to have children through rewards of moderate money. The amount of money rewarded enabled people to pay off their loans.

A nazified education system was implanted changing German people’s lives (especially the younger generations) astonishingly. School became compulsory, even the poor families who struggled to afford it received government funds to receive an education. School teaching consisted nazi ideology such as staying loyal to the nation and heavily emphasised the importance of physical fitness and health rather than intellectuality. This was done so that there would be less intelligent people to rebel against the regime. Hitler youth was also implanted and compulsory for a certain age group. Hitler youth also promoted Nazi ideology and consisted of military training with real weapons. This exposed weaponry to young adults getting them use to the concept of war and fighting for the country. Other groups were erected for the ages starting from 6 to brainwash Nazi ideology to the fresh generation of Germans.

The nazi party altered the lives of German people to a remarkable extent. They achieved this through the use of the military creating terror as well as social reforms, a new education system to brainwash the young generation of germans and the economy in order to make excessive change to the German society.