IB History Hitler: How Was Authoritarian Rule Maintained? Key Definitions

The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938, uniting the two countries in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

The 1933 law that allowed Hitler to pass legislation without the Reichstag's approval for four years, effectively ending parliamentary democracy in Germany and establishing the legal basis for dictatorship.

The Nazi secret police (Geheime Staatspolizei), responsible for investigating and suppressing political opposition. It operated outside the legal system and used surveillance, informants, torture, and arbitrary detention.

The Nazi policy of coordination, forcibly bringing all German political, social, and cultural institutions under Party control after 1933.

A Nazi leisure organisation providing subsidised holidays, concerts, and cultural events to German workers as part of the regime's strategy for building popular loyalty.

The "Night of Broken Glass" (9-10 November 1938), a state-coordinated pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria. Synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses destroyed, and around 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps.

The purge of 30 June to 2 July 1934 in which Hitler ordered the murder of SA leader Ernst Röhm and other perceived rivals. It eliminated the SA as a political threat and secured the loyalty of the army.

A 1935 propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1934 Nuremberg rally, widely regarded as one of the most effective pieces of political propaganda ever produced.

The people's receiver, a cheap, mass-produced radio deliberately designed with limited range to block foreign broadcasts, used to spread Nazi propaganda into German households.