‘Gleichschaltung’ in Germany and Austria

Summary

It was extraordinary to observe that Nazi Germany constantly lost sympathy yet won admiration: opinion in Europe evidently shirked the discreditable evidence which was painful, and jumped at the impressive slogans. After the Enabling Act all political parties other than that of Hitler were abolished, and the rights of Bavaria and the other Länder destroyed in favour of rigid centralisation under the Nazi party. The trade unions were suppressed in the spring of 1933 in favour of the Nazi Labour Front, and employers and workers transformed into leaders and following. The press was strangled. Every newspaper that survived became some sort of organ of the National Socialist party except for the Frankfurter Zeitung: this great liberal paper was allowed a little unreal liberty and survived until 1941. It suited the Nazis to parade this curious mascot—before the end, indeed, it became Hitler's property, a birthday present from his publisher, Max Amann, in April 1939. The effect of seeing and hearing party slogans at meetings, in the press, on the wireless, everywhere, warped the attitude of convinced anti-Nazis in spite of themselves.

Anti-Semitic action was at first sporadic. It began to be systematised in a boycott of Jewish shops ordered by the Nazi party for 1 April 1933. There was not much violence on that day. If foreign papers reported anti-Semitic incidents, the Nazis pointed out how peaceful things were on 1 April and blamed the Jews for stirring up world opinion against Germany.