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The Nazi Party in Power - Coordination (Gleichschaltung)

Gleichschaltung []"coordination"] was the process by which Nazi Germany systematically brought all aspects of society—political, cultural, media, legal, and even private organizations—under state control. It involved purging dissenting voices, enforcing ideological conformity, and ensuring that institutions served the interests of the regime. The government of Adolf Hitler was popular with most Germans. Although the Gestapo (secret state police) and the Security Service (SD) suppressed open criticism of the regime, there was some German opposition to the Nazi state and the regimentation of society that took place through the process of Gleichschaltung — the alignment of individuals and institutions with Nazi goals. Opposition ranged from non-compliance with Nazi regulations to attempts to assassinate Hitler. Political opposition to the regime by leftist parties was crushed by force and imprisonment. Fascism aimed to replace pluralist corporatism by state corporatism, or what the Nazis would later call Gleichschaltung. Its rhetorical advantage over Marxism-Leninism was that it left the system of private ownership intact, merely imposing state control over it.

Most Americans today might find it hard to believe that such a level of centralized ideological control could happen in a democratic society. However, there are comparisons to more familiar situations. The consolidation of narratives through corporate media and Big Tech could be seen as a soft form of Gleichschaltung. For example, platforms banning political figures or demonetizing dissenting views. The U.S. government’s alleged coordination with social media companies to suppress "misinformation" (as revealed in certain Twitter Files reports) could be presented as a modern parallel. Some states or urban centers where one political party dominates all branches of government and institutions, making opposition voices effectively powerless. With the post-9/11 Patriot Act and War on Terror, the way civil liberties were curtailed under the guise of national security could be an example of a government using crises to expand control.

Americans typically associate Gleichschaltung with authoritarian regimes like Nazi Germany, so applying the concept to modern democracies might trigger resistance. Instead of using the Nazi term outright, the process might more effectively be described in neutral terms, such as: "Centralization of control"; "Institutional capture"; deological enforcement across all sectors".

President Donald Trump settled several high-profile lawsuits in 2024, some of which legal experts have deemed meritless. These settlements have raised concerns among media analysts and legal experts about potential implications for press freedom and the precedent they set for future litigation. Critics argue that settling such lawsuits, especially those considered meritless, may encourage similar legal actions against media organizations, potentially leading to self-censorship and a chilling effect on journalistic practices.

In October 2024, former President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, alleging that a "60 Minutes" interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to favor the Democratic Party. CBS initially dismissed the lawsuit as meritless, asserting that the interview was not doctored and that Harris's responses were presented accurately. By January 2025, reports indicated that Paramount Global, CBS's parent company, was considering settling the lawsuit. This potential settlement is viewed as a strategic move to facilitate regulatory approval for Paramount's pending merger with Skydance Media, maintaining favorable relations with the incoming Trump administration.

In December 2024, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit filed by President-elect Donald Trump. The lawsuit stemmed from a March 2024 interview on "This Week," during which anchor George Stephanopoulos incorrectly stated multiple times that Trump had been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. In reality, a New York jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape, due to specific legal definitions in New York state law.

As part of the settlement, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's future presidential foundation and museum, cover $1 million in Trump's legal fees, and issue a public apology expressing regret for the inaccurate statements. This settlement is notable as it represents a significant legal victory for Trump against a major news organization. It also raised concerns among media analysts about potential implications for press freedom, as it may encourage similar lawsuits against news outlets, potentially leading to self-censorship or a chilling effect on journalistic practices.

In January 2025, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump after his accounts were suspended following the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The settlement allocated $22 million to Trump's presidential library and the remainder to legal fees. Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

The NSDAP, having achieved power, now proceeded to extend its hold on every phase of German life. Other political parties were persecuted, their property and assets confiscated, and many of their members placed in concentration camps. On 26th April, 1933, the defendant Goering founded in Prussia the Gestapo as a secret police, and confided to the deputy leader of the Gestapo that its main task was to eliminate political opponents of National Socialism and Hitler. On the 14th July, 1933, a law was passed declaring the NSDAP to be the only political party, and making it criminal to maintain or form any other political party.

Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933 and the formation of his NSDAP government was met with enthusiasm throughout Germany and infamously marked the beginning of the Third Reich and the “legal” concerted persecution of those deemed enemies of Germany – Jews, Communists, capitalists, political dissidents, etc. The following months saw that everything in Germany, from accounting to zookeeping, was brought under National Socialist control (Gleichschaltung, bringing into line)). Gleichschaltung was meant to be complete, total, and uniform.

Immediately after seizing power, the leadership of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP ) began to eliminate those organizations that threatened to oppose its claim to totalitarianism. The aim was to adapt all state and social institutions to the political and ideological goals of the NSDAP and replace the pluralistic diversity of the Weimar Republic . In penetrating the state, the judiciary and society and in establishing their system of rule, the National Socialists primarily used coordination. After a short time, there was hardly a club or association in the German Reich whose coat of arms and signet did not include a swastika .

The term, coined by Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner, was German for coordination, from gleichschalten to coordinate, from gleich equally, alike (from Old High German gilicho, adverb of gilih equal, alike) + schalten to govern, direct, from Old High German scaltan to push; akin to Old Saxon skaldan to shove (a boat), Old High German scalta boathook, Old Norse skalda ferryboat, Greek skallein to hoe.

Gleichschaltung first became public in two identical laws on the coordination of the states in March and April 1933. Under the pretext of unifying the Reich, the Reich government under Adolf Hitler forced the establishment of National Socialist state governments. As part of the Nazi "Coordination" (Gleichschaltung, Nazi conformity) of all public offices, the Reich Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Wilhelm Frick (1877-1946) issued the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (also known as the Civil Service Law) on April 7, 1933, a week after the nation-wide boycott of Jewish businesses. This law excluded all racial and political “enemies” of the regime from the civil service.

The “Aryan Clause” established a racial criterion for continued employment in the civil service, effectively banishing Jews from government and administration; it also set a model that would soon be followed in other professions. Several days later, a law was passed that defined “non-Aryan” to mean descent from one or more “non-Aryan” grandparents; the law implies that grandparents are to be considered Jewish if they practiced the Jewish religion.

A short-lived exception was made for veterans of the Great War (the “Hindenburg Exception”) and for civil servants who lost a father or a son at the front. Subsequent orders related to this law terminated the services contracts of non-salaried Jewish employees of the state, expelled “non-Aryan” honorary professors and untenured junior professors, and forbade any advancement of Jews protected under the “Hindenburg Exception.” Those married to “non-Aryans” were also not granted admission to civil service positions.

In order to place the complete control of the machinery of Government in the hands of the Nazi leaders, a series of laws and decrees were passed which reduced the powers of regional and local governments throughout Germany, transforming them into subordinate divisions of the Government of the Reich. Representative assemblies in the Laender were abolished and with them all local elections.

The Government then proceeded to secure control of the Civil Service. This was achieved by a process of centralisation, and by a careful sifting of the whole Civil Service administration. By a law of the 7th April it was provided that officials "who were of non-Aryan descent " should be retired; and it was also decreed that " officials who because of their previous political activity cannot be guaranteed to exert themselves for the national state without reservation shall be discharged." The law of the 11th April, 1933, provided for the discharge of " all Civil Servants who belong to the Communist Party."

Similarly, the Judiciary was subjected to control. Judges were removed from the Bench for political or racial reasons. They were spied upon and made subject to the strongest pressure to join the Nazi Party as an alternative to being dismissed. When the Supreme Court acquitted three of the four defendants charged with complicity in the Reichstag fire, its jurisdiction in cases of treason was thereafter taken away and given to a newly established " People's Court ", consisting of two judges and five officials of the Party. Special courts were set up to try political crimes and only party members were appointed as judges. Persons were arrested by the SS for political reasons, and detained in prisons and concentration camps, and the judges were without power to intervene in any way. Pardons were granted to members of the Party who had been sentenced by the judges for proved offences.

The effects of the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933 reached all the way to the lowest administrative levels of the municipalities. In violation of all constitutional provisions, it permitted the dismissal of civil servants critical of the regime. In addition to democrats and liberals, it was mainly civil servants of the Jewish faith who lost their jobs as a result of the Aryan paragraph , which was included for the first time in the law . Almost all organizations, right down to the smallest sports or singing clubs, readily adopted the Aryan paragraph without the need for state coercion.

The coordination included administrative measures as well as brutal street terror. Due to the " Reichstag Fire Decree ", the Nazi regime had a free hand in persecuting opposition members. It was mainly KPD and SPD officials who were abducted and imprisoned . Resigned to the overwhelming superiority and terror of the NSDAP, all parties dissolved themselves by the beginning of July 1933 after the SPD was banned on June 22nd. The establishment of the one-party state and the merging of the offices of head of government and Reich President in the person of Hitler after the death of Paul von Hindenburg on August 2nd, 1934, completed the "unity of party and state". With immediate effect, the Reichswehr swore its military oath to the "Führer and Reich Chancellor" Hitler.

The cultural realm was not excluded from strict Nazi regulation and the Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer – RKK) was created to ensure that all forms of artistic creation reflected the Nazi viewpoint.

The RKK was linked to the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels and was divided into seven subchambers -- literature, music, films, theater, radio, fine arts, and press. Membership in one of the RKK subchambers was compulsory for those wishing to engage in intellectual pursuits. Though the exclusion of non-Aryans and others deems subversive was not explicitly noted in the acts creating the RKK and its subsequent implementation orders, instructions were handed down requiring a certificate of Aryan descent.

Moreover, every applicant wishing members had to meet the ‘reliability and aptitude” standards. The subchambers were authorized to investigate the activities and political reliability of their members. Needless to say, those not considered acceptable by the Reich were the very people deemed to lack the aptitude and reliability for membership. In addition, power was given to subchambers to prosecute members that transgress Nazi standards or individual who purse their occupation without membership.

Denial of or expulsion from membership was tantamount to the loss of livelihood. In the realm of fine arts, those not granted licenses to work in the art trade were forced to close their businesses or transfer ownership to an approved member through the process of Aryanization.

As part of the Nazi "coordination" (Gleichschaltung) of all public offices, the Reich Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Wilhelm Frick (1877-1946) issued the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (also known as the Civil Service Law) on April 7, 1933, a week after the nation-wide boycott of Jewish businesses. This law excluded all racial and political “enemies” of the regime from the civil service. The “Aryan Clause” established a racial criterion for continued employment in the civil service, effectively banishing Jews from government and administration; it also set a model that would soon be followed in other professions.

Hanna Arendt wrote that " ... professional party organizations, such as those for teachers, lawyers, physicians, students, university professors, technicians, and workers. All these were primarily duplicates of existing nontotalitarian professional societies, paraprofessional as the stormtroopers were paramilitary. It was characteristic that the more clearly the European Communist parties be- came branches of a Moscow-directed Bolshevik movement, the more they, too, used their front organizations to compete with existing purely professional groups. The difference between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks in this respect was only that the Nazis had a pronounced tendency to consider these paraprofessional formations as part of the party elite, while the Communists preferred to recruit from them the material for their front organizations. The important factor for the movements is that, even before they seize power, they give the impression that all elements of society are embodied in their ranks."

During the time of the Weimar republic the professors and students at the School of Veterinary Medicine Hannover had a national-conservative political attitude with a clearly anti-republican tendency. Before 1933 the National Socialism did not play a role at the school. After the assumption of power by Hitler the 'Gleichschaltung' -- which also took place at the universities -- ran mostly smoothly at the veterinary school. 75% of the teaching staff and 50% of the students had joined the NSDAP (nazi party) respectively the NSDStB (nazi student organisation) at the end of the summer semester 1933.

In 1933, following the May Day celebration, the trade unions affiliated with the Social-Democratic Party were taken over by the “Nazi Factory and Office Cells’ Organization.” This Gleichschaltung of the principal trade unions in Germany, with over three million members, was carried out by the Nazi Storm Detachments under the direction of a newly created “Committee for the Protection of Labor,” headed by Dr. Ley, the Nazi President of the Prussian Staatsrat. The plan for the seizure of the trade unions, which had been kept secret up to the last minute, was carried out with the usual Nazi ruthlessness and completeness. Punctually at 10 a.m., all of the offices of the trade unions throughout the Reich affiliated with the Social-Democrats, as well as the Workmen’s Bank, were occupied by Storm Detachments. Union leaders, editors of union journals, and [Page 274]directors of the Workmen’s Bank were arrested. Among the fifty officials arrested are such prominent labor leaders as Leipart, Grassmann, and former Minister of Labor Wissell. The arrests were made by uniformed Nazis.

A few hours after the seizure of the trade unions, Dr. Ley stated to representatives of the press that he was selected for this task because he enjoyed the confidence of Chancellor Hitler. The seizure of the unions, he said, was an important step in furthering the revolution. Various labor organizations had been in process of dissolution, and there was danger that the workmen, who paid dues to these organizations, would lose their insurance and other social benefits.

The head of the press section of the “Nazi Factory and Office Cells’ Organization” emphasized that the Nazis did not intend to destroy the trade unions and that this applied also to the trade union journals, which would be taken over by his organization. Hereafter, the press section of the Nazi Cells’ Organization would direct the policy of the trade union journals, and the official organ of the Nazi Cells’ Organization would become the official organ of the trade unions.

In a manifesto to the German workmen and employees, Dr. Ley pointed out that with the seizure of the trade unions the second stage of the National-Socialist Revolution had begun. In a few weeks the Nazis, as the May Day celebration had shown, had achieved more in the interest of labor than the corrupt Marxist parties had been able to do in years. Though the trade union leaders had pretended to be loyal to Hitler, it was safer to take them in custody. By taking over the unions, the Nazis had wrested from the Marxists their main weapon. He assured the workmen that the trade unions and their institutions were regarded by the Nazis as sacred and inviolable, and that they would be preserved, after reorganization, in the interest of the workmen. The Nazis would retain what was good in the unions and would further extend the rights of the workmen in order to give them a place in the Third Reich as respected members of the community, on a footing of equality with the rest of the population. The reorganized unions would serve as the foundation for the corporative State.

Intimidated by the fate of the Socialist trade unions, the Christian Labor Unions and the minor unions have declared, in writing, that they are willing to submit unreservedly to Hitler’s leadership. Thus, all the trade unions, comprising 8 million organized workmen and employees, have now been put under direct Nazi control. According to an order issued by Dr. Ley, the chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Labor, all negotiations for collective wage agreements hereafter are to be conducted by this committee only.

Storm Detachments, not the regular police, were employed in taking possession of the trade unions. It is characteristic of the political situation in Germany, that the duly constituted authorities remained in the background, even Minister of Labor Seldte not being in any way identified with this seizure. It shows to what extent the State and the Nazi Party had become, to all intents and purposes, identical. Of especial significance is the fact that Goering’s order of a week earlier, to the effect that only regular police had the right to make arrests, was completely disregarded. Only after the Nazis had gotten complete control of the unions did the Government state semi-offieially that it approved this action as being in line with the Chancellor’s fight against Marxism.

The previous attempts of the trade union leaders to come to terms with the Government, in order to be allowed to function as non-political organizations and to continue their social insurance and savings-bank activities, proved entirely futile. While the union leaders were still negotiating with the Nazi leaders with this end in view and permitted their members to take part in the Nazi May Day celebration, the Nazis were secretly preparing for this final blow, which they carried out with such cunning that the trade union leaders were taken completely by surprise.

Through the subordination of the trade unions to Nazi control, the link between the Social-Democrats and the principal trade unions had been completely severed. This move on the part of the Nazis was perhaps the severest blow which they had thus far dealt to the hated Social-Democrats. It shows that the capacity for resistance of the trade unions has been widely over-estimated and that the Nazis are determined to make no compromise with political foes.

By the summer of 1934, the process of bringing the most important associations into line with the NSDAP's organizational structure was well advanced. The forced and voluntary adjustment enabled the party to gain almost complete control over all areas of society. In addition to clubs and organizations, the press, film and radio were also brought into line and used as a means of influence. Only in the two large churches did the ruthless process of bringing the parties into line encounter considerable resistance at the start of the "Church Struggle."

The external symbol of National Socialist coordination was the swastika. After January 30, 1933, the NSDAP party badge was an indispensable part of the streets and everyday life of Germans. In 1935, it was declared the sole emblem of the German Reich. As a means of coordination, uniforms were also extended to include all age groups. The Hitler Youth (HJ) was also uniformed and organized militarily. After compulsory membership was introduced in 1936, it was supposed to guarantee ideological training and the integration of all young people into the state.