Final answer:
Adolf Hitler utilized terror and totalitarian methods to consolidate power in Germany, orchestrating systematic violence to coerce obedience, purging opponents, and employing propaganda to control the population's ideology and actions.
Step-by-step explanation:
After being elected as Germany's chancellor in 1933, Adolf Hitler employed both terror and totalitarian tactics to consolidate power and establish a dictatorship, thus shaping National Socialism with a unique genocidal program. His regime used systematic violence and the threat of violence to create an atmosphere of fear, ensuring obedience and eliminating dissent. Propaganda was another tool, promoting the Party's goals and reducing individuals to the identity of 'citizen' in a totalitarian state where the law was mutable, and liberty was deeply compromised.
Hitler's approach to govern can be seen through the actions after the Reichstag fire, where he secured "emergency powers," which led to the banning of the communist party, the suppression of the press, and the abolition of the civil liberties. This culminated in a series of purges including the 'Night of the Long Knives' where political rivals and potential threats were eliminated. The establishment of paramilitary organizations like the SA ('Stormtroopers') and the use of symbols like the swastika helped in both unifying the party's image and in exerting violence.
Throughout his reign, Hitler increased his influence by diminishing the political power of others, repressing any form of dissent through the use of secret police and concentration camps, and leading a genocide against Jews, Romani, and other groups deemed undesirable. His totalitarian regime infiltrated every aspect of life, aligning personal and sociopolitical activities entirely with the state's ideology, as explained by Hannah Arendt in 'The Origins of Totalitarianism'.