ABSTRACT
Subduing and annihilating Germans: The Nazi leaders controlled the German people by instilling terror in every individual citizen. They wanted men to become vulnerable, isolated and defenseless, subject to the rulers’ arbitrary orders. Citizens were to live under constant fear that if ever they resisted orders they would share the fate of their Jewish fellow citizens. At the same time, the Nazi leaders wished to make the people fit to serve the needs of the state. They sought to achieve this aim by inculcating in every citizen, the belief that obedience was a manly quality, by the systematic subjection of the person to the needs of the movement, and by promoting physical fitness. Obedience was a virtue that was promoted in Germany long before the Nazi period. It was instilled at home by the father, at school by strict male teachers, and by an obligatory curriculum reinforced by state exams. Prescribed physical exercises were designed to strengthen the body and break the spirit and physical punishment sought to enforce obedience. By the time the young male finished school he was ready for military service and knew that obedience was the paramount virtue expected of him. The Nazi rulers readily employed violence against “Aryan” Germans, beginning with the “Night of Long Knives” in 1934 and ending with the “scorched earth” policy on German soil in the last months of the War.
