Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in History and Memory (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2015) ("[T]he principal instrument of terror in Nazi Germany was not the concentration camp but the law--not, to use Ernst Frankel's terminology, the prerogative state but the normative state, not in other words the coercive apparatus created by Hitler, such as the SS, but the already existing state apparatus dating back decades or even centuries. This is not to belittle the camps role in 1933, of course. During 1933 perhaps 100,000 Germans were detained without trial in so-called 'protective custody' across Germany, most by by no means all of them members of the Communist and Social Democratic parties. The number of deaths in custody during this period has been estimated at around 600 and was almost certainly higher." Id. at 100. "It is important to remember the extreme extent to which civil liberties were destroyed in the course of the Nazi seizure of power. In the Third Reich it was illegal to belong to any political grouping apart from the Nazi Party or indeed any non-Nazi organisation of any kind apart from the Churches (and their ancillary lay organisations) and the army; it was illegal to tell jokes about Hitler; it was illegal to spread rumours about the government; it was illegal to discuss alternatives to the political status quo. The Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 made it legal for the police to open letters and tap telephones, and to detain people indefinitely and without a court order in so-called 'protective custody'. The same decree also abrogated the clauses in the Wiemar Constitution that guaranteed freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and freedom of expression. The Enabling Law allowed the Reich Chancellor and his cabinet to promulgate laws that violated the Wiemar Constitution, without needing the approval of the legislature or the elected President. The right of judicial appeal was effectively abolished for offense dealt with by the Special Courts and the People's Court. All this means that large numbers of offenders were sent to prison for political as well as ordinary criminal offense." Id. at 101.).
Also:
Stanley G. Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison, Wisconsin: U. of Wisconsin Press, 1980).
Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945 (Madison, Wisconsin: U. of Wisconsin Press, 1995).
