Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler by Linda Jacobs Altman

Author:Linda Jacobs Altman [Altman, Linda Jacobs]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780766061996
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2015-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Enforcers of the Reich

The Nazis did not rely on propaganda alone to build their Third Reich. A vast network of secret state police existed to enforce government policies and ensure public loyalty to the Nazi party.

The Schutzstaffel (“guard detachment”), or SS, did not begin as a police unit. It was a small detachment of Ernst Roehm’s Brownshirts, formed to act as an elite bodyguard for Adolf Hitler.

On January 6, 1929, Hitler placed Heinrich Himmler in charge of the SS. He built it into an elite corps that enforced Nazi racial policies, ran the concentration camps, and operated the killing centers where millions of people were murdered.

The SS men regarded themselves as forerunners of the new German master race. Candidates for the unit had to have an unblemished Nordic appearance and be able to prove the “purity” of their Germanic ancestry. They had to believe in Aryan superiority without question and be willing to eliminate “inferior” peoples without remorse.

The round-faced, bespectacled Himmler did not look the part of a fanatical racist. He was soft-spoken, polite in the extreme, and able to present the most outrageous ideas of the Reich in a calm and reasonable manner. For example, in a speech to SS group leaders, he openly called for utter ruthlessness toward “inferior” peoples:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.