So far our podcast had provided a broad overview of the Nazi seizure of power. In today's episode, we look more closely at what this experience was like at the local level, focusing on the small German town of Northeim, an idyllic city of 10,000 people located in central Germany. Here, the Nazis grew from an otherwise unremarkable splinter party in 1928 to producing clear electoral majorities by 1932. The episode examines the secrets to the Nazis' meteoric rise at the local level, as well as the failures of the other local parties and institutions to respond to them (again with a focus of local events).

Note: 1) there is a second Patreon-only episode detailing events after 1933, covering the transition to the Nazi dictatorship. 2) The episode draws heavily from William Sheridan Allen's The Nazi Seizure of Power: the Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945, which I highly recommend reading.

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In our second episode on the topic of Gleichschaltung or the "coordination" of German civil society, we explore the responsibility individuals had in the process of conforming to Nazi ideology. Simply put, I argue that while the Nazis did use violence and terror to intimidate Germans into obedience, social forces including economic opportunism and the desire to be "left alone" also led people to submit willingly to totalitarianism. In particular, the episodes explores case studies such as Gustav Krupp (of Krupp industries), the history of German soccer and changing cultural practices such as greeting - each of which illustrates a major reason why people chose submission over their own personal freedom.

Post script: for those interested in the topic, I highly recommend reading Andrew Stuart Bergerson, Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times (2004), which discusses greetings and other cultural ways of normalizing Nazism in greater detail.

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For more information on History Off the Page, check out our website www.historyoffthepage.com! Or you can support the show via Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/historyoffthepage?fan_landing=true.

Many revolutions have resulted in the creation of a dictatorship, of the concentration of all political power in the hands of a single individual or party. But part of what makes the Nazi Revolution so terrifying is the way the Nazis simultaneously conquered civil society, nazifying all social and civic institutions in the span of just five months.

This episode begins to walk readers through the process of Gleichschaltung or "coordination," which forced all institutions in Germany to nazify themselves or face dissolution. From the boy scouts, to the local Church choir, to your favorite soccer team, essentially all elements of public life began to promote Nazi ideals of politics and race, including the notion of complete submission to Hitler.

In the end, the episode shows how the Nazis began to create a totalitarian society, convincing many otherwise hostile or apathetic Germans to adopt Nazi beliefs about submission to Hitler, anti-Semitism, eugenics and more.

Support the show

For more information on History Off the Page, check out our website www.historyoffthepage.com! Or you can support the show via Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/historyoffthepage?fan_landing=true.