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in what ways did the nazi state seek to establish total control over its people

The Nazi state sought to establish total control by combining terror, laws, propaganda, and the reshaping of everyday life so that almost every German felt watched, guided, or pressured into obedience.

Crushing democracy and the law

  • The Nazis dismantled the Weimar Republic’s democratic system soon after Hitler became chancellor in 1933, suspending basic civil rights like free speech, assembly, and privacy through emergency decrees.
  • Political parties (especially Communists and Social Democrats) were banned or persecuted, and opposition politicians were intimidated, imprisoned, or killed, leaving no legal alternative to Nazi rule.
  • A “police state” emerged in which people could be arrested without proper charges and held indefinitely, often in concentration camps, for supposed “crimes against the state.”
  • Special “People’s Courts” and Nazi-controlled legal associations ensured judges and lawyers followed the regime’s wishes; many normal legal safeguards disappeared and the number of offences punishable by death rose sharply.

In effect, the law no longer protected ordinary people; it protected the regime from ordinary people.

Terror, policing, and surveillance

  • Secret police and special security forces (often referred to collectively as the Gestapo and SS) could search homes, monitor conversations, and act outside normal legal limits, creating constant fear of denunciation and arrest.
  • Files were kept on suspected opponents; people could be sent to concentration camps for political opposition, being “asocial,” or simply being labelled a threat.
  • The atmosphere of surveillance encouraged neighbours, colleagues, and even children to inform on one another, making society tense and suspicious.
  • The existence of concentration camps and the regime’s readiness to use violence and murder against perceived enemies (including Jews and other targeted groups) reinforced a climate where resistance seemed life‑threatening.

A typical example is someone lowering their voice in public, avoiding political jokes, and choosing friends carefully, because any careless remark could lead to interrogation or worse.

Propaganda and control of ideas

  • A dedicated Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels controlled newspapers, radio, film, and mass rallies, flooding public space with messages glorifying Hitler and Nazi ideology.
  • The regime carefully shaped language in the media, often avoiding blunt words like “murder” and instead using euphemisms to hide brutality while keeping support for its policies.
  • Censorship suppressed opposing views, banned “un-German” books and art, and promoted works that fit Nazi racial and national ideals.
  • Propaganda portrayed the Nazis as protectors of the “national community” and depicted Jews and other groups as enemies, encouraging conformity and discouraging sympathy for victims.

The goal was not just to persuade, but to shape how people felt and even what they believed was thinkable.

Reshaping society and daily life

  • Education was redesigned to stress racial “biology,” military fitness, obedience, and loyalty to Hitler; textbooks and lessons promoted antisemitism and nationalism.
  • Youth organisations like the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls drew children into Nazi activities, training them to accept the regime’s values and to see Hitler as a heroic father figure.
  • Churches and religious groups that opposed the regime faced pressure and persecution; clergy could be imprisoned, and independent religious influence was curtailed.
  • The regime pushed a specific role for women (focused on motherhood and supporting the family), limiting some career and education options to align with its racial and population policies.

In everyday terms, this meant children learned Nazi ideas at school, heard them again in youth groups, saw them in films, and watched them enacted at rallies—leaving little mental space for alternative viewpoints.

Targeting “outsiders” and using racism

  • Jews were progressively stripped of rights, property, and citizenship by laws such as the Nuremberg Laws; they were barred from many professions and public life, excluded from the “German” community.
  • Other groups—Roma, disabled people, homosexuals, so‑called “work‑shy” or “asocial” individuals—were persecuted, sterilised, imprisoned, or killed under policies that claimed to protect or “purify” the nation.
  • The Holocaust and other acts of mass murder and forced labour became central to the regime’s racial policies, terrorising not only victims but also the broader population, who understood the consequences of being cast as an enemy.

The systematic attack on these groups served two purposes: it advanced racist goals and reminded everyone else of the deadly power of the state.

Economic, work, and community control

  • The regime sought to integrate workers into Nazi organisations, weakening independent trade unions and replacing them with bodies loyal to the state.
  • Employment and welfare were tied to political loyalty, encouraging people to support or at least appear to support the regime to secure jobs, housing, and benefits.
  • The idea of a “people’s community” promised unity across classes but in reality rewarded loyal “Aryan” Germans and excluded or exploited those the Nazis defined as inferior.

In practice, this meant many people calculated that cooperation, or at least outward conformity, was safer and more profitable than resistance.

TL;DR: The Nazi state worked toward total control by destroying democracy, turning law into a weapon, using terror and surveillance, saturating life with propaganda, reshaping schools and communities, and enforcing racist policies that divided society and made disobedience extremely dangerous.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.