Governing the Third Reich: Terror, Propaganda and Foreign Policy Ambition

Propaganda was a central method by which the Nazis maintained their regime, but its importance is best judged by asking how far it actually secured obedience compared with terror and genuine consent. This answer judges 'importance' by what most reliably kept the regime in power, and argues that propaganda was very important in building loyalty but worked alongside, rather than instead of, terror and real popularity.

The case for propaganda's importance. The regime invested heavily in manufacturing belief, recognising propaganda as a tool of government. Josef Goebbels ran the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, which coordinated the whole cultural output of the state. Through the cheap People's Receiver radio set, Hitler's voice reached millions of homes, while loudspeakers carried his speeches into streets and factories; the press was given daily instructions, and film and art were controlled to celebrate the Volk and the Fuhrer. Spectacles such as the Nuremberg Rallies and the 1936 Berlin Olympics projected unity, power and order to Germans and the world. This machinery built the cult of the Fuhrer and bound millions to Hitler, helping to reconcile Germans to the dictatorship.

The limits of propaganda's importance. However, propaganda could not work alone. It was backed by terror: the Gestapo, the SS and the concentration camps removed organised opposition so that the propaganda faced no rival message. It also rested on genuine achievements the regime could point to — falling unemployment, restored order, and foreign-policy triumphs such as the Rhineland and the Anschluss. Propaganda was most effective where it reinforced what Germans already wanted to believe and could attach itself to real success; where it contradicted experience or demanded sacrifice, it had far less grip, and grumbling persisted.

Judgement. Propaganda was very important because it built the loyalty and the Fuhrer cult on which the regime depended for much of its life; without it, the depth of Hitler's popularity is hard to explain. Yet its importance was conditional: propaganda manufactured belief only because terror had silenced competing voices and because real success gave it something true to amplify. Propaganda was therefore the most visible everyday tool of control, but it maintained the regime in partnership with terror and genuine consent rather than on its own.

Terror played a real part in maintaining the Nazi regime, but judged by the standard of what actually secured the obedience of most Germans, it was less important for the conformist majority than for the targeted minorities it crushed. This answer argues terror was essential against opponents but not the whole basis of the regime's hold on power.

The case for the importance of terror. The Nazis built a genuine police state. The Gestapo, the secret state police, could impose 'protective custody' without trial; the SD gathered intelligence; and the SS under Himmler controlled the police and the concentration camps, the first of which, Dachau, opened in 1933 for political prisoners. Block wardens watched individual streets, the judiciary was Nazified, and the People's Court (1934) handed down harsh political sentences. This apparatus destroyed the organised opposition — the KPD and SPD were broken in 1933 — and the fear of denunciation discouraged open dissent. Against opponents, terror was decisive.

The limits of terror. Yet the reach of terror over ordinary Germans is easily overstated. Research on Gestapo files shows the secret police was relatively SMALL and depended heavily on voluntary denunciations from the public, which suggests cooperation rather than mere submission. Terror also fell SELECTIVELY — hardest on the left, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses and 'asocials' — rather than uniformly on a frightened nation. For the conformist majority, who approved of falling unemployment, restored order and foreign-policy success, fear of an understaffed Gestapo cannot explain their active enthusiasm; that came from propaganda and genuine consent.

Judgement. Terror was important in a specific way: it destroyed organised opposition and set the boundaries within which propaganda and consent operated. But it was not the foundation of the regime for most Germans, because the small, denunciation-driven Gestapo and the selective nature of repression show the majority were governed mainly through manufactured and genuine consent. Terror was therefore decisive against minorities and opponents, but a supporting rather than the principal pillar of the regime's hold over the German people as a whole.

Up to 1939 Nazi foreign policy produced a remarkable run of triumphs, and judged against Hitler's stated aims it looks like a clear success. But the better question is how far that success was secure and self-made rather than dependent on others' weakness. This answer judges success by whether the policy advanced Hitler's aims WITHOUT storing up the isolation and war that would soon destroy Germany, and argues it was a striking but precarious and ultimately self-limiting success.

The case that the policy was a success. Judged against Hitler's aims — reversing Versailles, achieving pan-Germanism, and preparing for Lebensraum — the record to 1939 is impressive. Germany left the League of Nations (1933) and openly rearmed; it remilitarised the Rhineland (1936), tearing up Versailles and Locarno; it secured the Anschluss with Austria (1938), uniting German-speakers; and at Munich (1938) it gained the Sudetenland without firing a shot. The Anti-Comintern Pact lined Germany up with Japan and Italy, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) brilliantly secured the East before the attack on Poland. Step by step, Hitler overturned the post-war settlement and expanded German power, all while boosting his popularity at home.

The case that the success was limited or precarious. Yet much of this 'success' rested on the WEAKNESS of others rather than German strength alone. The Rhineland was a gamble — the army was ordered to retreat if challenged — that succeeded only because Britain and France did nothing; appeasement, not German power, made the early steps cheap. The success was also self-limiting: the seizure of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 (non-German territory) finally destroyed British faith in Hitler's word, ended appeasement, and led directly to the guarantee of Poland. By invading Poland in September 1939, Hitler triggered the general war his bloodless triumphs had been designed to avoid for now. The 'success' had created the isolation and conflict that would prove ruinous.

Judgement. If success is measured by the achievement of stated aims, Nazi foreign policy up to 1939 was a striking success: Versailles was dismantled, pan-Germanism largely achieved, and Germany re-established as a great power. But if it is measured against the deeper test of advancing those aims securely, it was precarious and self-limiting, because it depended on Allied weakness and ended by provoking the war it had so far avoided. The policy was therefore a real but unstable success — brilliant in the short term, yet already carrying the seeds of the over-reach that would follow after 1939.

Opposition to the Nazis existed across German society, which disproves any myth of a totally united nation, but whether it posed a 'real threat' is a different question. Judging threat by whether opposition could ever realistically have endangered the regime's hold on power before 1941, this answer argues that opposition, though varied and brave, posed little real threat because it was fragmented, isolated and overwhelmed by terror and consent.

The case that opposition was a threat. Opposition came from many directions. Youth groups rejected the regime: the middle-class Swing movement defied Nazi culture, while the working-class Edelweiss Pirates avoided the Hitler Youth, sometimes attacked its patrols, and later aided deserters. The Churches resisted Nazi control: the Pastors' Emergency League and the breakaway Confessing Church defended Christian independence, and the Catholic Bishop Galen publicly condemned the 'euthanasia' programme in 1941, forcing the regime to scale it back publicly — a rare case of opposition changing policy. The KPD and SPD ran underground networks distributing illegal material. Passive resistance — anti-Nazi jokes, listening to foreign radio, refusing the salute — was widespread.

The case that opposition posed little threat. Yet measured against the regime's grip on power, opposition was strikingly weak. It was FRAGMENTED: youth, Church and left never combined into a single movement, and each acted for different and often limited aims. Most was DEFENSIVE — the Confessing Church protected religion rather than seeking to overthrow Hitler — or merely CULTURAL, like the Swing movement. The organised left, the only force with a revolutionary aim, had been crushed in 1933 and was heavily infiltrated by the Gestapo. Even Galen's success was confined to one policy and did not challenge the regime itself. Above all, the genuine popularity built by economic recovery, foreign-policy success and propaganda meant most Germans never wanted to resist.

Judgement. Opposition was real, courageous and broad enough to show the regime never won total enthusiasm, but it posed little real threat to Nazi power before 1941. Its fragmentation, its largely defensive or cultural character, and the overwhelming combination of terror and consent meant no group could endanger the regime's survival. The very weakness of opposition is itself evidence of how effectively the Nazis governed: terror isolated potential resisters, while genuine consent ensured most Germans had no wish to oppose a regime they broadly approved of.

Whether the Nazi regime depended more on terror than on consent turns entirely on the standard used. 'Terror' means control through fear and force; 'consent' means control through genuine approval. This answer argues that, for the conformist MAJORITY of Germans, the regime depended more on consent than on terror, while for targeted minorities terror was decisive — and that the two were intertwined. The criterion here is decisive: dependence is judged by what secured the obedience of the mass of ordinary Germans, not merely the suppression of opponents.

The case that the regime depended on terror. The Nazis built a formidable police state. The Gestapo could impose 'protective custody' without trial; the SD supplied intelligence; the SS under Himmler ran the police and the concentration camps, beginning with Dachau in 1933. The judiciary was Nazified and the People's Court (1934) delivered savage political sentences, while block wardens policed individual streets and the fear of denunciation made surveillance feel total. This apparatus destroyed the organised opposition — the KPD and SPD were broken in 1933 — and intimidated waverers into outward conformity. On this view, fear underpinned everything.

The case that the regime depended on consent. Yet terror's grip on the conformist majority was far weaker than the police-state image suggests. Research on Gestapo case files shows the force was relatively SMALL and depended on voluntary denunciations from ordinary Germans — which points to cooperation, not cowed submission. Terror also fell SELECTIVELY, on the left, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses and 'asocials', not uniformly on the population. The mass enthusiasm Hitler enjoyed for much of the 1930s is better explained by genuine consent: falling unemployment and restored order; pride in foreign-policy triumphs such as the Rhineland (1936) and the Anschluss (1938); and the Fuhrer cult sustained by Goebbels' propaganda machine, the People's Receiver and the Nuremberg Rallies. The weakness and fragmentation of opposition further suggests most Germans did not want to resist a regime they broadly approved of.

Weighing the strongest counter-argument. The strongest case for terror is that consent only existed because terror had silenced every alternative — without the Gestapo and the camps, critics could have punctured the Fuhrer cult and offered another path. This is a serious point and must be conceded: terror was a necessary precondition that cleared the political field. But a precondition is not the same as the decisive cause of MASS obedience. Terror produced silence and outward compliance; it could not manufacture the active enthusiasm millions plainly felt. Since the question asks what the regime depended MORE on, and since the conformist majority appears to have consented rather than feared, consent did more of the actual work of control than terror.

Judgement. The regime depended more on consent than on terror, but only to a qualified extent and never on consent alone. For the majority of Germans, genuine approval — built on economic recovery, foreign-policy success and the Fuhrer cult — secured obedience more reliably than fear of an understaffed, denunciation-driven Gestapo. Yet for targeted minorities and the organised left, terror was decisive, and it remained the precondition that protected the space in which consent could flourish. The Third Reich is therefore best understood as a 'consensus dictatorship' resting primarily on the active approval of the many, underpinned and protected by selective but ruthless terror against the few — which is precisely why so few Germans ever chose to resist.

Whether Nazi foreign policy was a planned programme or opportunism depends on what we are measuring: the AIMS or the METHODS. This answer argues that Hitler pursued strikingly consistent long-term AIMS, which supports the 'programme' view, but did so through flexible, improvised and opportunistic METHODS, which supports the 'opportunism' view — so the most accurate verdict separates the two. The criterion is whether the consistency lay in the goals (a programme) or in a fixed, pre-arranged sequence of steps (which the evidence does not support).

The case for a planned programme. Hitler's central aims were remarkably consistent over many years. In 'Mein Kampf' he had set out the reversal of Versailles, the union of German-speakers (pan-Germanism), and above all Lebensraum in the East at the expense of the Soviet Union and communism. The secret Hossbach Memorandum (1937) recorded his expansionist intentions, and the trajectory of policy fits the aims: Germany overturned Versailles by leaving the League (1933) and remilitarising the Rhineland (1936), achieved pan-Germanism through the Anschluss (1938) and the Sudetenland, and finally turned East with the invasion of Poland (1939) and Operation Barbarossa (1941). The destination never changed, which strongly suggests a guiding programme.

The case for opportunism. Yet the methods and timing look improvised rather than scripted. The remilitarisation of the Rhineland was a bluff — the army was ready to retreat if challenged — whose success depended on Allied inaction, not a foreseen plan. The pace of each crisis was driven by the weakness of Britain, France and the League rather than a fixed schedule, with Hitler seizing opportunities as appeasement offered them. The clearest evidence of opportunism is the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939: a non-aggression deal with the communist USSR that flatly contradicted Hitler's lifelong anti-communism, adopted purely to free Germany to attack Poland without a two-front war. A leader following a fixed programme would not have allied with his ultimate enemy.

Weighing the strongest counter-argument. The strongest case for the 'programme' reading is that the consistency of aims, the early statement in 'Mein Kampf' and the Hossbach evidence amount to a genuine blueprint, of which the steps are merely the execution. This deserves weight: the aims really were a plan. But consistency of GOALS is not the same as a planned SEQUENCE OF METHODS. The Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Rhineland bluff and the dependence on appeasement show that HOW and WHEN Hitler advanced was decided opportunistically. A programme in aims can coexist with opportunism in execution, and the evidence points firmly to exactly that combination.

Judgement. Nazi foreign policy was a planned programme in its AIMS but opportunism in its METHODS. The destination — Versailles overturned, Greater Germany, Lebensraum, the destruction of communism — was fixed and long-held, which justifies calling the aims a programme. But the route was improvised, dependent on Allied weakness, and capable of a stunning reversal like the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which justifies calling the methods opportunistic. To choose only one label distorts the evidence; the precise verdict, which addresses the extent of planning, is that Hitler was a consistent planner in his goals and a flexible opportunist in achieving them.