Hitler's Totalitarian Dictatorship

To what extent was the Third Reich a Totalitarian Dictatorship?

To be able to answer this question it is important to define what is meant by ‘totalitarian dictatorship’. Totalitarian means a form of government that does not allow rival political parties and demands total obedience from the people and, dictatorship means ruler who has complete power . The Nazi Party did have as its intention the creation of what we would see as a totalitarian dictatorship, but the important question is how far they achieved this goal.

The Third Reich was a totalitarian state in the sense that it was a ‘one party state’. A law was passed making illegal any other political party other than the Nazi Party. All political parties other than the Nazi party were abolished; the Social Democratic Party was outlawed as ‘hostile to the nation and state’ and, smaller parties were ‘persuaded’ to dissolve themselves. The individual German states also lost their independence. Nazi governors were put in charge to replace the elected state governors, making the Third Reich a Nazi only state. This principal is further enforced by ‘The Enabling Law’, which gave Hitler the same authority to make decisions and pass laws as the Reichstag once had. The Enabling Law allowed Hitler a dictatorial position, as he no longer had to consult the Reichstag on matters arising, he could pass whatever policy he wished. However, it can be argued that the Third Reich was not a totalitarian dictatorship as Hitler did not exercise his authority efficiently enough to become a totalitarian leader. Mommsen describes how he became much removed from day-to-day decision making and distanced himself from policies, either through laziness or through a fear of becoming associated with unpopular decisions e.g. the Euthanasia programme, which became unpopular and was officially withdrawn. By the later stages of the regime so many orders of the Führer were issued he must have had these brought to him by the government machine, orders which were then signed and issued as Hitler’s direct will. Indeed Mommsen goes further, saying that Hitler’s fanatical and irrational objectives could not have formed the basis for rational government. He remained a propagandist and much of what he said was nothing more than propaganda.

The use of propaganda was however a vital aspect to the indoctrination of the ordinary German people to follow Nazi ideology through sensorship. The media was virtually taken over by the Nazi’s.