The Nazified German Society

The slow introduction of dictatorial rule in Germany went hand in hand with economic policies that benefitted most Germans. Work creation programs contributed to Germany’s fast-paced recovery from the Great Depression and provided a counterimage to the misguided economic policies of the democratic past. Programs such as the Strength Through Joy program seemingly elevated the position of laborers in society and introduced a new culture of travel and tourism. Nazism also appealed to more sinister dispositions of individuals by inviting Germans to denounce nonconforming behavior of friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members. Denunciationsdenunciations created fear, social chaos, and conformity. They provided short-handed state authorities the ability to put the entire population under surveillance. Germans did not have to fear the Gestapo but their neighbors and friends who might report them to the Gestapo for political infractions. And such reports often resulted in the arrest of the denounced person and their deportation to one of the feared concentration camps. Those who did want to or could not be part of this Nazified society faced incarceration and often death or exile mostly in Western Europe and North and South America.