History glossary
Gleichschaltung
the Nazi process of bringing German institutions under party control.
- Category
- Political process
- Region
- Germany
- Date range
- 1933–1934
What it means
Gleichschaltung means coordination or bringing into line. In Nazi Germany it described the forced reshaping of political parties, unions, regional governments, courts, culture, schools, and professional bodies so that independent institutions were absorbed into or subordinated to Nazi control.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Holocaust
From legal discrimination to genocide, the Holocaust traces twelve years of escalating persecution that killed six million Jews and millions of others across Nazi-occupied Europe.
Nazi Germany
From Weimar collapse to WWII, Nazi Germany imposed totalitarian rule, expansion, and genocide.
The Roman Republic
From the expulsion of Rome’s kings to the rise of Augustus, the Roman Republic built a powerful mixed constitution, expanded across the Mediterranean, and ultimately collapsed into civil war and one-man rule.
The American Revolution and Early Republic
From colonial tensions to independence, this traces the birth and early struggles of the United States of America.
The Anglo Boer Conflict
A war between Britain and Boer republics that exposed imperial costs and reshaped South Africa.
The Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were the peoples and kingdoms that shaped Anglo-Saxon England after the end of Roman rule in Britain. From migration and settlement in Anglo-Saxon Britain to Christian conversion, Viking attacks, Alfred the Great, and the road to 1066, Anglo-Saxon history explains how early medieval England took form. Their language, laws, kingdoms, monasteries, and political traditions left a lasting mark on English identity before the Norman Conquest transformed the realm.
The Aztec Empire
From migrants to empire, the Aztecs built a powerful civilisation before collapsing after Spanish conquest.
The Elizabethan Age
Elizabeth I’s reign brought stability, cultural flourishing, exploration, and victory over the Spanish Armada.
