Historians have disagreed about the role of terror under the Nazis. What is your view about
the role of terror under the Nazis?
Olivia K.
Historians have disagreed about the role of terror under the Nazis. While they concur that
terror was used to control the public, consensus is lacking over the extent to which it was
used or even needed, especially with the prevalence of consent and cooperation from the
German public. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul argue the role of the Gestapo has
been overestimated by other historians and see public consent as undermining the need for
terror. Conversely, Richard Evans downplays the significance of public consent and rather
highlights the Nazi’s use of terror in forcing compliance. Considering the value of both
arguments, Detlev Peukert argues for a mixture of terror and consent: terror did play a
significant role in controlling the public, but stemmed from more sources than just the
Gestapo and was also both supported and perpetuated by the people themselves. Ultimately,
terror was necessary for the Nazis to gain and maintain control, but within their desire for a
quiescent and supine population, they also wanted to cultivate a sense of national unity; they
did not want to entirely oppress the nation’s spirit. ‘Terror’ was also more insidious and
subtle than the overt violence and thuggery displayed by SA members in 1933, encompassing
the legal system, occurring in conjunction with seductive aspects of the regime and the
cumulative nazification of the German community, all of which was boosted by the
employment of powerful propaganda. Therefore, while Peukert’s argument is the most
convincing in its acknowledgement of the interdependent nature of terror and consent, one
must remember these other factors. It would be a mistake to understate the significance of
top-down terror, and an even greater mistake to overstate it. As Noakes and Pridham wrote,
1
,“although the regime deployed a formidable apparatus of terror, it is clear that it was also
based on a large measure of consent from broad sections of the population.”1
How historians understand Nazi Germany has developed since the fall of the Third Reich,
owing to the emergence of both greater evidence and a willingness to debate as sufficient
time passed to allow for more objective studies. “Intentionalism” and “functionalism” are two
of the historiographical schools involved in this debate, the former arguing Hitler followed a
master plan, the latter emerging in reaction to this claim, instead stating Hitler was a weak
dictator who responded to social pressures. However, the distinction is no longer so
significant for, as Richard Bessel identified, “we now know vastly more than we did two
decades ago…[and] the result is a much better informed, much more detailed and more
nuanced picture of the Nazi regime, and most serious historians of [this period] now are to
some extent both “intentionalsits” and “functionalists” - insofar as those terms still can be
used at all.”2
Mallmann and Paul conform to the functionalist view that the role terror played in the Nazis
controlling the German public has been severely overestimated. While they concede that the
Nazis did have multiple instruments of terror with which to control the German people, they
claim that the Nazis’ successful control does not lie with these: instead, control and lack of
opposition was due to cooperation of the people and their consent to the regime, which
rendered terror less important. As control through violence and intimidation was not
necessary, the popular perception of a totalitarian police state overseen by Hitler’s Gestapo is
a fabrication. Mallmann and Paul purport that the myth of a powerful secret police was not
1
J. Noakes and G. Pridham, Nazism 1919-1945, Volume 2: State, Economy and Society 1933-1939
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), p. 376.
2
Richard Bessel, ‘Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever
Happened to Functionalism and Intentionalism?’, German Studies Review, 26 (2003), 15-20, (pp.
15-16).
2
, only originally disseminated by the Gestapo themselves, but also perpetuated by Germans
after the end of the regime to serve as a convenient “escape hatch”.3 Far from being the
“omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent” surveilling instrument that this propaganda presents
them to be, the Gestapo were ill-equipped and understaffed. Instead of terror accounting for
significant lack of opposition in Germany, Mallmann and Paul view the Nazis’ ability to
control Germans as owing to the people’s consent for, and cooperation with, the regime.
There is some truth in their argument, especially regarding how the Gestapo’s numbers and
strength have been highly overestimated: by 1944 the Gestapo had a membership of only
32,0004. They only discovered approximately 10 percent of political crimes committed during
the years 1933 to 1945, with another 10 percent passed on to them by the regular police or the
Party itself, meaning around 80 percent of all political crime was discovered by ordinary
Germans.5 This cooperation and the Gestapo’s reliance on it tends to support Mallmann and
Paul’s argument. Additionally, it is clear that the Gestapo were overstretched as not only were
their overall numbers small, but their distribution was thin on the ground: there were merely
126 Gestapo officials in Düsseldorf in 1937, whose population then numbered approximately
500,000.6 To put these numbers into perspective, “it has been estimated that, proportionate to
the population, the density of the Stasi informer network in the GDR was seven times that of
the Gestapo in the Third Reich”.7 While in the GDR there was one Stasi officer or informant
for every sixty-three people, in Nazi Germany there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000
3
Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul, ‘Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent? Gestapo,
society and resistance’ in Nazism and German Society, ed. by David F. Crew (Routledge, 1994), p.
169.
4
John Hiden, Republican and Fascist Germany: Themes and Variations in the History of Weimar and
the Third Reich, 1918-1945 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014), p. 181.
5
Laurence Rees, The Nazis: A Warning from History (London: BBC Books, 2021), p. 59.
6
Robert Gellately, ‘Surveillance and Disobedience: Aspects of the Political Policing of Nazi Germany’
in Germans against Nazism: Nonconformity, Opposition and Resistance in the Third Reich (Essays in
Honour of Peter Hoffmann), ed. by Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes (Berghahn Books,
1990), pp. 15-36.
7
David Childs, ‘The Shadow of the Stasi’ in After the Wall: Eastern Germany Since 1989, ed. by
Patricia J. Smith (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018).
3
the role of terror under the Nazis?
Olivia K.
Historians have disagreed about the role of terror under the Nazis. While they concur that
terror was used to control the public, consensus is lacking over the extent to which it was
used or even needed, especially with the prevalence of consent and cooperation from the
German public. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul argue the role of the Gestapo has
been overestimated by other historians and see public consent as undermining the need for
terror. Conversely, Richard Evans downplays the significance of public consent and rather
highlights the Nazi’s use of terror in forcing compliance. Considering the value of both
arguments, Detlev Peukert argues for a mixture of terror and consent: terror did play a
significant role in controlling the public, but stemmed from more sources than just the
Gestapo and was also both supported and perpetuated by the people themselves. Ultimately,
terror was necessary for the Nazis to gain and maintain control, but within their desire for a
quiescent and supine population, they also wanted to cultivate a sense of national unity; they
did not want to entirely oppress the nation’s spirit. ‘Terror’ was also more insidious and
subtle than the overt violence and thuggery displayed by SA members in 1933, encompassing
the legal system, occurring in conjunction with seductive aspects of the regime and the
cumulative nazification of the German community, all of which was boosted by the
employment of powerful propaganda. Therefore, while Peukert’s argument is the most
convincing in its acknowledgement of the interdependent nature of terror and consent, one
must remember these other factors. It would be a mistake to understate the significance of
top-down terror, and an even greater mistake to overstate it. As Noakes and Pridham wrote,
1
,“although the regime deployed a formidable apparatus of terror, it is clear that it was also
based on a large measure of consent from broad sections of the population.”1
How historians understand Nazi Germany has developed since the fall of the Third Reich,
owing to the emergence of both greater evidence and a willingness to debate as sufficient
time passed to allow for more objective studies. “Intentionalism” and “functionalism” are two
of the historiographical schools involved in this debate, the former arguing Hitler followed a
master plan, the latter emerging in reaction to this claim, instead stating Hitler was a weak
dictator who responded to social pressures. However, the distinction is no longer so
significant for, as Richard Bessel identified, “we now know vastly more than we did two
decades ago…[and] the result is a much better informed, much more detailed and more
nuanced picture of the Nazi regime, and most serious historians of [this period] now are to
some extent both “intentionalsits” and “functionalists” - insofar as those terms still can be
used at all.”2
Mallmann and Paul conform to the functionalist view that the role terror played in the Nazis
controlling the German public has been severely overestimated. While they concede that the
Nazis did have multiple instruments of terror with which to control the German people, they
claim that the Nazis’ successful control does not lie with these: instead, control and lack of
opposition was due to cooperation of the people and their consent to the regime, which
rendered terror less important. As control through violence and intimidation was not
necessary, the popular perception of a totalitarian police state overseen by Hitler’s Gestapo is
a fabrication. Mallmann and Paul purport that the myth of a powerful secret police was not
1
J. Noakes and G. Pridham, Nazism 1919-1945, Volume 2: State, Economy and Society 1933-1939
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), p. 376.
2
Richard Bessel, ‘Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever
Happened to Functionalism and Intentionalism?’, German Studies Review, 26 (2003), 15-20, (pp.
15-16).
2
, only originally disseminated by the Gestapo themselves, but also perpetuated by Germans
after the end of the regime to serve as a convenient “escape hatch”.3 Far from being the
“omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent” surveilling instrument that this propaganda presents
them to be, the Gestapo were ill-equipped and understaffed. Instead of terror accounting for
significant lack of opposition in Germany, Mallmann and Paul view the Nazis’ ability to
control Germans as owing to the people’s consent for, and cooperation with, the regime.
There is some truth in their argument, especially regarding how the Gestapo’s numbers and
strength have been highly overestimated: by 1944 the Gestapo had a membership of only
32,0004. They only discovered approximately 10 percent of political crimes committed during
the years 1933 to 1945, with another 10 percent passed on to them by the regular police or the
Party itself, meaning around 80 percent of all political crime was discovered by ordinary
Germans.5 This cooperation and the Gestapo’s reliance on it tends to support Mallmann and
Paul’s argument. Additionally, it is clear that the Gestapo were overstretched as not only were
their overall numbers small, but their distribution was thin on the ground: there were merely
126 Gestapo officials in Düsseldorf in 1937, whose population then numbered approximately
500,000.6 To put these numbers into perspective, “it has been estimated that, proportionate to
the population, the density of the Stasi informer network in the GDR was seven times that of
the Gestapo in the Third Reich”.7 While in the GDR there was one Stasi officer or informant
for every sixty-three people, in Nazi Germany there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000
3
Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul, ‘Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent? Gestapo,
society and resistance’ in Nazism and German Society, ed. by David F. Crew (Routledge, 1994), p.
169.
4
John Hiden, Republican and Fascist Germany: Themes and Variations in the History of Weimar and
the Third Reich, 1918-1945 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014), p. 181.
5
Laurence Rees, The Nazis: A Warning from History (London: BBC Books, 2021), p. 59.
6
Robert Gellately, ‘Surveillance and Disobedience: Aspects of the Political Policing of Nazi Germany’
in Germans against Nazism: Nonconformity, Opposition and Resistance in the Third Reich (Essays in
Honour of Peter Hoffmann), ed. by Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes (Berghahn Books,
1990), pp. 15-36.
7
David Childs, ‘The Shadow of the Stasi’ in After the Wall: Eastern Germany Since 1989, ed. by
Patricia J. Smith (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018).
3
