Gleichschaltung

Gleichschaltung is an example from the early days of the Nazi dictatorship of this use of language to manipulate and confuse. ‘Gleich’ means equal, ‘Schaltung’ means switch. Gleichschaltung therefore means switching on to the same track or wavelength, or, to put it in one word, alignment or co-ordination. It became, in 1933, the word for the process by which all organizations and associations existing in society were nazified and some, such as the political parties and the trade unions, were simply suppressed. The government had planned to remove all previous notions of freedom, civil rights and self-government. In some way, it indirectly suggests that violence would be used to maintain the Nazi ideology.