Download 19 The Rise of Adolf Hitler

IB Contemporary World History
Mr. Blackmon
Hitler: The Rise to Power
I. The First National Socialist Party
A. The forebear of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NationalSozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei) or NSDAP or Nazi Party is the German
Workers' Party, founded in 1904 in Bohemia. It is therefore the product of the
sharp clash of nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and originates in a
region where Germans had been economically if not numerically dominant, but
were losing their position.
1. The position of German industrial workers in this region was threatened by
Czechs, who would work for less pay.
B. This party changed its name in 1918 to German National Socialist Workers' Party.
Its program states in part:
1. "The German National Socialist Workers' Party is not a narrow class party,
but defends the interests of all those engaged in honest productive work.
The party is libertarian and strictly völkisch, and it opposes all reactionary
tendencies, the privileges of church, nobility and capitalists, and all alien
influences, but above all the overwhelming power of the Jewish trading
spirit in all spheres of public life. . . " (Carsten 83)
2. Völkisch will be an important term for this unit. Some writers translate the
word as "racist" or "racial." This, however, distorts the precise meaning
of some documents which use it. The word has very heavy emotional
overtones, and is difficult to translate with a single word. The origin of
the word is the noun "das Volk" (plural form "die Völker") which is
defined in a dictionary as "people, nation, tribe, race." It is the word used
in Volkswagen--the word implies an automobile that is cheap enough for
ordinary people to own. The concept of people, nation, or tribe is organic;
the Volk is greater than the sum of individuals. The word implies a
commonalty of language, customs, religion, and values as well as blood.
The word is applied to all nations, hence, the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 is
called the Völkerschlacht or Battle of Nations. Applied to the German
people, it carries intense patriotic emotions. The German people were not
and are not concentrated in a single nation-state. Not even Bismarck
achieved that dream. Germans (thought of as an ethnic group) live in
Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Bohemia, Poland, the Baltic States,
Switzerland, and the Tyrol. Beginning with the Napoleonic Wars, there is
an enormous literature that glorifies the German Volk, which at least in
part represents a yearning for national unity. It is not always a pejorative
term; the study of folk customs and folklore is "Volkskunde:" Grimm's
collection of fairy tales are "Volksmärchen." However, in the context
with which the word is used in this unit, it would typically also mean
German racism and (usually) anti-Semitism. The Nazis will push this
meaning of the word to its uttermost extremes.
C. The program was distinctly socialist in some areas: the state was to take over
transportation, mines, insurance, and advertising; the power of Jewish banks was
to be broken and Volksbanks established; monopolies, department stores, and
large estates were to be nationalized (some of the largest German department
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stores were Jewish owned; these stores are a serious threat to small shopkeepers).
D. Their slogan was "The common weal comes before private interest." (Carsten 83)
E. This party did not have a Führer ("leader") and was not authoritarian.
F. There were numerous völkisch clubs and paramilitary organizations within Austria.
This party is small and relatively unimportant. None of Hitler's ideas were
original. All of them were common to the mix of nationalist, socialist, and
völkisch groups swirling around Vienna at the turn of the century.
II. The German Workers' Party at Munich
A. The German-Workers' Party is founded in Munich on January 5, 1919 by Anton
Drexler, a locksmith, and a small group of friends.
1. This time period coincides with the Bavarian Communist government of Kurt
Eisner, who you will recall was a Jew.
2. Their views are represented by the resolution taken on January 30 that "The
Jews and their helpers are responsible for the loss of the war." (Carsten
92)
B. The chaos and fighting in Munich intensified their views and encouraged them.
Munich emerged from the strife as a polarized city with a right-wing government
which viewed all nationalist organizations with benevolence.
C. New people are brought in:
1. Gottfried Feder, an engineer who wrote anti-Semitic pamphlets on
economics
2. Dietrich Eckart, a writer
3. Ernst Röhm, then still a Captain in the army. Tough, brutal, and ruthless,
he is an enormously important figure in the rise of the Nazis. At this time,
he is acting as a political officer for the Munich garrison, which is not
unlike Hitler's duties at the same time. He was interested in numerous
paramilitary organizations, and eventually dreams of restructuring the
German Army as a political army (his desire for a party militia resembles
Trotsky's views). Röhm is the founder of the Sturmabteilung, or SA,
Hitler's Stormtroopers or Brownshirts
a. Do NOT confuse the SA with the SS!!! This is an easy mistake to
make, but since Hitler used Himmler's SS to shoot Röhm and the
leaders of the SA, it is a serious factual error that will certainly be
penalized on an essay!!!
b. The SA were vicious street thugs; the SS make the SA look like choir
boys. The SS were elite troops, savagely disciplined, brutally and
thoroughly trained, fanatical, merciless, sadists and killers on
command. SS veterans and their apologists after the war claim
that they were “just soldiers” doing their job, like anyone else. Do
not believe these self-serving claims. Movement within the SS
from Allgemeine to Totenkopf to Waffen SS was frequent and
extensive; and anywhere the SS went, the most terrible atrocities
occurred. Everywhere. Those are the facts. That is the historical
record. So far as I am concerned, any member of the SS was a war
criminal. There were no innocent members of the SS. The other
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consideration, however, is not to believe the lie that ALL atrocities
were committed by the SS, or the Gestapo.
III. Discovery of Adolf Hitler
A. At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich, having emigrated from
Vienna in order to escape military service in the Austro-Hungarian army. (Fest
61) He was arrested by the Austrian police in 1914, was examined, and released
as too weak and unfit for military service. (Fest 62) When Germany declared war
in 1914, Hitler voluntarily enlisted in the Bavarian Army (since he was not a
German citizen, this required a special petition (Fest 65).
B. Hitler entered the List Regiment, and first saw action at Ypres in 1914. It was a
severe baptism by fire: the regiment lost 1,800 of 3,500 men in 4 days. (Fest 67)
It would be pleasant to say that Hitler was a poor soldier and a coward.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be true. He conducted himself with such courage and
initiative on the first day to be promoted to corporal by his second day in combat.
(Flood 15) He became a courier, which was in fact a very dangerous job,
requiring him to carry messages under fire over all sorts of grounds, open as well
as entrenched. He refused promotion once, and awarded the Iron Cross (Second
Class) following his first major battle, (Flood 18) and the Iron Cross (First Class)
in 1918 for his entire service since 1914. His citation stated that "invariably he
has shown himself ready to volunteer for tasks . . . at danger to himself." (Flood
25) [It was quite unusual for an enlisted man to receive the Iron Cross (First
Class); it is the same decoration awarded, for example, to Generals Ludwig Beck
and Werner von Fritsch during the First World War, when both were members of
the elite General Staff (Barnett 40-41). Hitler evidently was seconded by several
officers; ironically, the paperwork was pushed through by Assistant Adjutant
Hugo Gutmann--whom Hitler hated because he was a Jew. (Flood 19-20, 24-25,
Fest 68-69)] His regiment was his home; he rarely took leave. (Flood 18) He
was wounded on the Somme in 1916 and gassed in Ypres on October 13, 1918.
The gas attack blinded him and he was evacuated to hospital for the duration of
the war. He served 52 months in wartime, spent 45 months at the front, and
engaged in 36 major battles. His regiment first went into action with 3,500 men,
and suffered 3,754 men killed over the course of the war. (Flood 25)
C. The officers of the Bavarian garrison discovered Hitler's fiery oratory and fanatical
nationalism and assigned him to political indoctrination. He was ordered to
attend the meetings of various groups.
D. He attended the German Workers' Party meeting under orders, and joined the party
soon after.
E. A membership list at this time shows 193 members: 10 students, 22 soldiers, 4
doctors, 5 engineers, 4 journalists, 3 writers, 3 sculptors, 3 directors, 4 factory
owners, 1 professor, 1 teacher, 1 architect, 1 composer, 1 publisher, 19 tradesmen,
3 shopkeepers, 16 white-collar workers, 46 craftsmen, 5 master craftsmen.
Membership therefore seems a cross-section of society, rather than limited to a
single class.
F. Eckart and Röhm take an interest in Hitler, introducing him into bourgeois society.
Hitler was discharged in 1920 and becomes a professional politician, devoting
himself wholly to the party.
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IV. Hitler and the National Socialists
A. Hitler soon dominates the party through force of personality
B. He establishes contact with Austrian groups. From their suggestion, he changes the
name of the party to National Socialist German Workers' Party, and adopts the
swastika, a völkisch symbol of Aryan Germanism, as the party symbol. (Carsten
95)
C. Hitler personally designed the flag. He uses the black-white-red colors of Imperial
Germany, which for Weimar Germany implied a rejection of the republic, whose
colors were black-red-gold. The field is red, to emphasize revolutionary
socialism. The swastika links the party to völkisch groups, and especially to the
famous Ehrhardt Brigade, which had helped reconquer Munich.
1. Hitler's sensitivity to symbols, uniforms and ritual are extraordinary. His
appeal to emotions and to the irrational streak that runs like a blood-red
threat through German history is without parallel.
D. The Twenty Five Points: February 24, 1920
1. The union of all Germans into a single Reich on the basis of selfdetermination
2. The acquisition of land and colonies
3. The annulment of the Treaty of Versailles
4. The annulment of the Treaty of St. Germain, which forbade Anschluss of
Germany and Austria.
5. Only those of German blood could be "comrades of the people" and the state.
6. Only those of German blood could vote or hold official posts.
7. The abolition of income not earned by work
8. "breaking the shackles of interest"
9. nationalization of many businesses
10. communalization of department stores with leases to small shopkeepers
11. confiscation of land for the common good without compensation
12. prohibition of all land speculation. (Carsten 96)
E. The party buys the Völkischer Beobachter, a racialist newspaper, as their
mouthpiece in 1920. The price was RM 120,000 cash. RM 56,500 were supplied
by Dr. Gottfried Grandel, an industrialist who supported various völkisch
activities, and RM 60,000 was supplied by Col. Franz Ritter von Epp, presumably
out of Reichswehr funds under the guise of a personal loan. (Flood 165-6)
F. Hitler first organizes the SA in the fall of 1920 under the guise of the
"Sportabteilung" (Sports Organization) under the command of Emil Maurice, a
Freikorps veteran. This group evolved out of Hitler's bouncers.
1. In August 1921, Hitler reorganizes the SA, and soon changes the name to
Sturmabteilung ("Stormsection," a clear reference to World War I storm
troopers). Command is given to Hans Ulrich Klintzsch, a former member
of the Ehrhardt Brigade, participant in the Kapp Putsch, and member of
the Organization Consul, the terrorist murder organization. (Flood 209-10)
The SA had the function of protecting Nazi meetings (against, for example
the Social Democratic Erhard Auer Guard; Fest concedes that the Left
actively confronted the Nazis (143). Hitler welcomed it, sought it.
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Furthermore, he always conceived of the SA as a political spearhead to be
used violently against his opponents.
G. At about this time, Hitler asks Captain Ehrhardt to lend him some of his officers to
organize and train his own paramilitary organization, the SA, whose purpose was
to protect Nazi meetings and break up the meetings of rivals.
1. The SA was one of a number of völkisch paramilitary organizations, all of
which were supported by the Reichswehr with money and weapons. The
Reichswehr saw them as supplemental military formations which could be
called upon in an emergency to expand the 100,000 man Army.
2. Hitler saw the SA as essentially a political formation whose purpose was to
conquer the streets.
3. At the end of 1922, the SA had about 700 members in Munich, with another
300 in Landshut under the command of Gregor Strasser
4. In 1923 the size of the SA grows quickly, and Hitler names Herman Göring
(or Goering, they are alternative spellings), a World War I flying ace
and hero, the last commander of the Richthofen Flying Circus, as
commander.
V. Rival Groups
A. There was a German-Socialist Party in Düsseldorf which was much more socialist.
Another group at Nuremberg included Julius Streicher. In all, there were about a
dozen small groups.
1. Various groups complained that Streicher was exaggeratedly anti-Semitic,
even by their standards.
B. In 1920, there was a meeting of groups from Germany, Austria and Bohemia. Hitler
argued that his party was the largest, and the others should join him. He will not
accept joining any of the others.
1. Several groups do dissolve themselves and join the Nazis, including
Streicher's.
C. Hitler also fends off an attempt by Drexler to regain control of the party. It fails, and
Hitler fixes his iron grip more tightly on the party than ever.
D. The Nazis pick up adherents when "German Racialist Defense and Offense League"
(the Schutz und Trutz Bund), the chief agent of anti-Semitic propaganda in
northern Germany, was dissolved by the government. Most joined the Nazis.
E. The difference between Hitler and all the other völkisch parties may be summed up:
"What mattered most of all to the Völkische was the liberation of Germany from
its internal and external enemies, from the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles,
from the French who occupied the Rhineland and fostered separatist movements
there. What mattered most to Hitler was not nationalism, but the fight against the
Jews and their friends and protectors, the Marxists and democrats." (Carsten 107)
1. Between Hitler and the bourgeois Völkische there existed mutual contempt.
VI. The Crisis of 1923
A. On January 11, the French and the Belgians declared the German government to be
in default of its reparations, and marched troops into the Ruhr. The occupation of
the Ruhr in January by the French and Belgians created a decisive crisis.
1. The French established a customs barrier between the heart of the German
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economy and the rest of the nation.
2. The government declared a policy of passive resistance. There is a massive
strike in the Ruhr. The French use troops to run the mines and railroads,
but at greatly reduced efficiency. The entire nation was enraged.
3. The government commits itself to providing for the welfare of the striking
workers. This is an enormous financial burden, coupled with a drastic loss
of income from the Ruhr. The German mark was already in serious
trouble, but this is the last straw.
4. Freikorps fighters flocked to the Ruhr to commit sabotage.
B. Hitler opposed the participation of his followers in the sabotage, since he wanted to
overthrow the Weimar government as well as the French. This is a very
interesting stance, and was unpopular at the time. Fest notes "It has become
standard to see Hitler's behavior as totally unscrupulous and unprincipled. But
here is an instance in which he stood steadfastly by his principles, even though
this meant exposing himself to unpopularity and misunderstanding. . . . His allies
and backers . . . always looked upon him as one of their own, as nationalist and
conservative as themselves. But in his very first political decision of any
magnitude, Hitler brushed away all the false alliances, from Kahn to Paper, and
showed that when the chips were down he would act like a true revolutionary.
Without hesitation he took a revolutionary posture rather than a nationalistic
one." (164)
1. Inevitably, passive resistance leads to bloodshed and sabotage. On March
31, a French squad inspecting the Krupp works fired on and killed 13
workers, wounding 52. Half a million workers turned out for the funeral.
The French imprisoned Gustav Krupp for "inciting a riot." (Flood 362)
2. One former Freikorps officer and saboteur, a man named Schlageter, joined
the Nazis shortly before going to the Ruhr. He was caught and executed
by the French. Schlageter became a nationalist martyr. Hitler was not
slow to capitalize on this. Eventually, he will erect a monument to
Schlageter.
C. Passive resistance resulted in unbelievable inflation.
1. In October 1921, the mark had stood at M 200:$1;
2. in October 1922 it was M4,500:$1;
3. on May 13, it was M46,000:$1;
4. On May 22 in the morning, it was M51,000:$1; in the afternoon it was
M52,500:$1;
5. On June 1, it was M70,000:$1;
6. On June 13, it was M100,000:$1;
7. On June 28, it was M152,617:$1;
8. On August 1, it was M1,000,000:$1;
9. On August 8, it was M3,500,000:$1;
10. On August 9, it was M6,000,000:$1;
11. In the beginning of October it was M2,000,000,000:$1
12. In mid-October, it was M25,000,000,000:$1.
13. In November of 1923, when the inflation bottomed out with Stresemann's
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introduction of the Rentenmark, it was M 4,200,000,000,000:$1.(Flood
382, 392, 414 Passant 192)
14. German society is profoundly undermined
15. All wage earners or those on a fixed salary suffer very intensely, since
wages could not rise fast enough to make up for the inflation.
16. Pensioners and those on fixed incomes are hit even harder, and have to sell
their last belongings just to survive.
17. The value of all savings accounts are wiped out.
18. Industrialists such as Hugo Stinnes could pay off mortgages in worthless
marks and thus gain total control of their holdings.
19. Speculative gains could be made for the lucky very few with cash. Alfred
Hugenberg builds up his enormous media empire in this way.
D. Political unrest
1. As one might imagine, destructive inflation of this magnitude, coupled with
weakness in the face of foreign occupation and the fact that large
segments of the population were not supportive of the government in the
first place, led to violent disorders.
2. On September 23, the Black Reichswehr (made up mostly of Freikorps) rose
in revolt. Seeckt quickly mobilized the Reichswehr to crush them.
3. The Soviet Union sent 25 specialists to Germany to help organize a "German
October." The attempt was well organized, and seized mid-October had
seized control or partial control in Saxony and Thuringia. There was a
Communist uprising in Hamburg on October 23. The efforts ultimately
will fail because of several factors:
a. The German workers did not support a violent overthrow of the
Weimar Republic. At a genuinely representative meeting of
workers at Chemnitz, the Communists received sympathy, but
there was no consensus for an immediate general strike. The
Communists had counted on a massive uprising of workers once
they started a revolution. (One historian I have read described the
Communists as one of two possible "democratic revolutions."
Such a definition of "democratic" strains the imagination since the
submission of decisions to the will of the people or masses or even
proletariat is never contemplated)
b. Seeckt ordered the Reichswehr to restore order, and by October 25,
with the assistance of the Social Democratic paramilitary forces,
had crushed the rebellions.(Flood 409-17)
4. Working class groups turn to the Left and Red governments are formed in
Saxony and Thuringia.
5. The middle and lower middle classes turn to the Right.
E. In Munich, the Bavarian government was the most right-wing in Germany and gave
active support to nationalist and völkisch groups.
1. On September 26, Stresemann is forced to break off the passive resistance.
This arouses the insane wrath of the nationalists.
2. The Völkischer Beobachter on September 27 publishes an attack on the
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"traitors Stresemann and Seeckt."
a. There is an interesting by-lay to this. The article claimed "Seeckt's
wife like Stresemann's is a Jewess and influences Seeckt
politically." It was true that Seeckt's father in law was Jewish;
there seems no evidence that Frau von Seeckt possessed political
opinions at all, much less influenced her husband.(Flood 429)
What I find interesting about the item is that Seeckt is the epitome
of a Junker, a Prussian aristocrat, and he is married to a Jew. The
Prussian officer caste had extremely strict views on marital
propriety. Officers who violated the code of honor were
ostracized. This is precisely what happened to Werner von
Blomberg. Seeckt's marriage to a Jew implies a fairly high degree
of integration into German society than is usually imagined. When
one couples this note with the fact that Goering's god-father, whom
he admired immensely, was also a Jew (Goering's wife was his
long-term mistress) and recall the tortured pedigree of Arco auf
Valley (the man who assassinated Kurt Eisner), then it seems that
German-Jewish relations in Wilhelmine Germany have some
ambiguities that are worth exploring.
(1) I have just come across another item that I can't help
inserting, although it is something of a red-herring in this
context. The information comes from a historical novel,
entitled The Ghosts of Africa, by William Stevenson, the
biographer of Sir William Stephenson in A Man Called
Intrepid (whose life is improbable by Hollywood
standards). The novel includes a factual prelude and
epilogue on the real persons dealt with in his novel of the
First World War in German East Africa. The German
commander was Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, whose
exploits make him the most remarkable German soldier of
the war, and remarkable by any standard whatsoever. A
grateful Kaiser awarded him the Pour le Merite. He earned
the unreserved admiration of friend and foe alike, and I
couldn't resist picking up a novel about him. LettowVorbeck is of special interest in colonial history because he
believed that black African troops, if adequately armed and
well-led, could defeat European troops. He succeeded, and
in so doing, gravely undermined the idea of European
superiority. According to Stevenson and to Leonard
Mosley (in a book about the war in East Africa), LettowVorbeck returned to Germany, participated in the Kapp
Putsch--which marks him as extremely conservative, but
then he is not a Prussian aristocrat for nothing!--and was
dismissed from the service by Seeckt. He was a member of
the Reichstag for some years, consulted by the British
about the rise of Nazi power (Stevenson knew key men
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who invited him to England for that purpose), refused an
ambassadorship to England because he would then have to
join the Nazi party. He abhorred the Nazis. He was forced
into a meager retirement, and lived out the war years in the
countryside. British intelligence contacted him in 1944 to
ascertain the seriousness of the plot to assassinate Hitler
(Stevenson was in a position to know that definitively). He
died at 94. The whole point to this is Stevenson's note that
Lettow-Vorbeck was married to Walther Rathenau's
daughter, Rachel. And Rathenau, we all remember, was
assassinated by Freikorps veterans precisely because he
was a Jew. I find it very remarkable that two such
extraordinary soldiers, both Prussian aristocrats who
commanded the deepest professional respect of their
colleagues, would be married to Jews in Wilhelmine
Germany. What conclusions can be drawn? Well, I don't
know. I don't have enough data. Obviously, the caste
barrier was not impermeable. I think it bears investigation,
and I think it is pretty interesting.
(2) On the other hand, there are some murky elements about
Frau von Seeckt. Görlitz reports the slander against Seeckt
by the Völkischer Beobachter and refers to it as
"nonsense." Görlitz also suggests anti-Semitic feelings by
Seeckt towards Rathenau )which is what one would
expect). (Görlitz 237, 232) Gordon Craig omits all
mention of the Völkischer Beobachter article, but states-footnoting Seeckt's biographer--that Seeckt established his
wife in Munich at this time as the host of a "kind of
political salon which was frequented by politicians of
pronouncedly anti-republican views." (417) On the face of
it this seems atypical behavior for a Prussian soldier, and
would also provide a veneer of credibility for the idea that
Frau von Seeckt influenced his politics--an idea which
Flood rejects. Flood asserts Frau von Seeckt's Jewish
ancestry flatly, and footnotes Harold J. Gordon p. 230 to
support his statement, and adds that her maiden name was
Jakobsohn. I need to go to the library. Gordon has two
monographs on the Reichswehr and the Putsch. The latter
is published in 1972, later than either Görlitz or Craig. I
am inclined to think (tentatively) that Flood via Gordon is
accurate. One would think that the question really isn't that
complicated.
3. On or about September 27, the Bavarian government declares Dr. Gustav
von Kahr, a monarchist, völkisch conservative, as General Commissioner
of Bavaria with dictatorial powers.
4. The Weimar government orders the suppression of the paper.
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5. The commander of the Bavarian garrison, General Otto von Lossow,
refused, and passed the buck to von Kahr. Von Kahr also resists, not
because he loves the Nazis but on the grounds that Berlin had no authority
to intervene in a Bavarian matter. It is entirely a question of jurisdiction,
with the implication--which was never far from anyone's thoughts--that
Bavaria at best should be autonomous and at worst should declare its
independence. Von Kahr orders the Bavarian garrison to take a loyalty
oath to Bavaria, an obvious first step to a declaration of autonomy. For
von Seeckt as well as for von Kahr, the issues which lead to the Beer Hall
Putsch are tied up with the issue of the legitimate authority of the Weimar
Republic.
Bavaria mobilizes troops on its northern border, ostensibly to march into Saxony and
Thuringia, but in reality to march on Berlin.
1. A coalition of nationalist groups in Munich supports this, including Hitler
and the Nazis.
2. Motivation at this point is murky. On the one hand, there is a "triumvirate"
of von Kahr, von Lossow (who is head of the Bavarian Army as well as
the Bavarian Reichswehr--although he is in open insubordination), and
Col. Hans Ritter von Seisser, the head of the large, well-armed, and welltrained Bavarian police; on the other is Hitler and two other völkisch
groups, aided and abetted by Ludendorff. The triumvirate may have
ultimately hoped for a greater measure of autonomy for Bavaria or for a
restoration of the Bavarian monarchy. Hitler at this time wants a march
on Berlin and overthrow of the government; he sees himself at the
moment as the advance man for a coalition. He expected to be supported
by the Bavarian government as well as Ludendorff. This accounts for the
peculiar nature of his eventual Putsch.
When the Reichswehr, at Seeckt's orders, moves in to overthrow the Communist
governments in Saxony and Thuringia, Kahr is deprived of his excuse for
mobilization. He hesitates.
Hitler is anxious to act. His SA is extremely restive, and he had been told that they
could not be controlled for much longer. (Waite 258) He feared (with justice)
that Kahr would declare Bavarian independence rather than a march on Berlin.
Believing (correctly, I think) that he had to act swiftly or forfeit political credibility,
he takes advantage of a meeting scheduled at a large beer hall by von Kahr at
which von Lossow, von Seisser, and many other influential people would be
present. On Nov. 8, 1923, Hitler broke up the meeting with pistol shot, declared
that a revolution had taken place, and forced the triumvirate to accept his plans.
Ludendorff, who had prior knowledge, was fetched.
From this point, things fall apart. Hitler left the hall, and Ludendorff, in his absence,
allowed the triumvirate to leave, ostensibly to prepare their cooperation. No key
positions in the city were seized. All three actually begin working to crush the
Putsch.
Seeckt ordered the Bavarian garrison to fire upon the Nazis if necessary. This will
be unnecessary, since the police fire first. Seeckt is resentful at Hitler's efforts to
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politicize the army.
1. An attempt to assassinate Seeckt will be one result of his policy.
L. By the next morning, realizing that things had gone awry, Ludendorff decides to
march on the Reichswehr headquarters. He and Hitler lead a group 3 or 4,000
into the city. They probably did not believe that they would be fired upon. They
were wrong. The Bavarian police open fire. The man next to Hitler is hit and
mortally wounded, pulling Hitler to the ground and saving his life. Sixteen Nazis
and three police are killed. Göring was badly wounded (the wound is in the
groin; one notes that Göring gained weight rapidly afterwards, and began a
dependance on pain-killing drugs; one speculates that his injuries were of a
permanent nature). Hitler fled the scene. Ludendorff walked through the fire and
passed through the police lines to be arrested.
1. At this time, Hitler probably was inspired by Mussolini's example.
Putsch is actually inaccurate here, since Hitler did not think he could seize
absolute control for himself. He expected to form a coalition of
nationalist groups.
M. Hitler was arrested and tried for treason. He used the trial to attack the government
and the Treaty of Versailles. The trial is an amazing tour de force, where he
retrieved a catastrophic propaganda error. He effectively placed the government
on trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in a comfortable prison. He
served 9 months, during which he dictated Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess.
1. Hitler was scrupulously careful to maintain good relations with the Army
through the trial: "When I heard that it was the police that had fired I had
the happy feeling: at least it was not the army which has soiled its honor;
the army stands as untarnished as before. One day the hour will come
when the Reichswehr will be on our side, officers and men . . . " (Carsten
115-6)
N. One of the amazing things about the whole episode is that Hitler could sway middleaged and experienced men, such as judge of the Bavarian High Court Theodor
von der Pfordten (killed in the Putsch) and Ludendorff (who broke with Hitler
only later). If Hitler could influence these men, how much more could he sway
former lieutenants, captains, and majors.
VII. Mein Kampf
A. Hitler did not change his ideas. Mein Kampf is therefore the best insight into his
thinking.
1. WARNING!!! The content of the following quotations is extremely
offensive. I believe that the best way for students to emotionally as well
as intellectually grasp the full horror of Hitler's mind is to read what he
actually says. Secondary descriptions are just inadequate. Hitler's mind is
a prurient cess-pool.
B. Ideas:
1. Violent (this classifies as the greatest understatement of the century) antiSemitism
a. Reinforced by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent
publication exposing an alleged Jewish plot for world domination.
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(1) This document is derived from a German novel of mid-19th
century, composed by the Tsar's secret police at the turn of
the century to discredit liberal movements in Russia, and
translated into German first by Alfred Rosenberg, a Baltic
German who becomes one of the Nazi "thinkers."
Rosenberg gave it to Hitler, who however, had already
formed his ideas by then.
b. Hitler seems to have genuinely believed that Lenin was a Jew. He
certainly believed that the Bolsheviks were a Jewish conspiracy,
although how he reconciled Bolsheviks with the traditional image
of the Jewish money changer (now transformed into stock
exchange manipulators) is difficult to understand.
c.
2. Lebensraum (Living space): Colonial expansion is abandoned in favor of
territorial expansion to the East. Hitler specifically targets Russia. Since
Poland, and Czechoslovakia are on the way to Russia, he will include
them as well. The parameters of his conquests coincide pretty closely
with Ludendorff's scheme from World War I.
a. His intent was not just conquest and economic exploitation, which is
what Ludendorff had in mind. Hitler intended to remove the
population (by one means or another; they are, after all, only
Slavic Untermenschen) and repopulate the region with German
peasants.
3. The political parties of the Centre and Left were all traitors.
a. The Jews were the "leaders of Social Democracy"
4. The political parties of the Right were too bourgeois and too limited in their
appeal to the masses. They lacked revolutionary dynamism.
a. The Marxists saw the Nazis as tools of German industrialists. This is
simply not true. The Nazis are genuinely revolutionary. They
receive assistance from industrialists, but they are emphatically not
their tools. Just the opposite.
C. Mein Kampf (The fact that I am quoting Hitler directly does not imply any form of
approval whatsoever! These passages (and other writings and speeches) are both
offensive and horrifying. History is a search for Truth. I believe that we cannot
plumb the truth of the Third Reich, and the atrocities committed during it, without
facing up to its central ideology: and that means Hitler’s ideology. I believe that
it is best to confront him directly, and not water his ideology down by filtering it
and making it less offensive and easier to swallow. As students, all of you are at
a point in your intellectual and emotional maturity to confront historical truth
directly.)
1. (Originally published in 1925, the English translation is by Ralph Manheim
for Houghton Mifflin, copyright 1943. The edition available in the US
seems to be paginated differently than editions available in England.
Consequently, passages quoted in all of my secondary sources are not on
the pages cited. The result is a major pain in the neck. The pages
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indicated here are from the version in my personal possession.)
a. Unless otherwise noted, all italics and other emphasis is in the
original.
2. "One blood demands one Reich. . . . Only when the Reich borders
include the very last German, but can no longer guarantee his daily
bread, will the moral right to acquire foreign soil arise from the
distress of our own people. Their sword will become our plow, and
from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will
grow." (Hitler 3)
3. “The cleanliness of this people [the Jews], moral and otherwise, I must
say, is a point in itself. By their very exterior you could tell that
these were no lovers of water, and, to your distress, you often knew
it with your eyes closed. . . . All this could scarcely be called very
attractive; but it became positively repulsive when, in addition to
their physical uncleanliness, you discovered the moral stains on this
‘chosen people.’ . . . Was there any form of filth or profligacy,
particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it?
If you cut even cautiously into such an abscess, you found, like a
maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light--a kike!”
(Hitler Mein Kampf 57)
4. “When I recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy, the
scales dropped from my eyes.” (60)
5. “I gradually became aware that the Social Democratic press was
directed predominantly by Jews.” (61)
6. “The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of
Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by
the mass of numbers and their dead weight. . . . [T]he result of an
application of such a law could only be chaos, on earth it could only
be destruction for the inhabitants of this planet.”
7. “If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over the
other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of
humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago,
move through the ether devoid of men.
8. “Eternal Nature inexorably avenges the infringement of her
commands.
9. “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance wit the will of
the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am
fighting for the work of the Lord.” (65)
10. "What form must the life of the German nation assume in the
tangible future . . . ?" (131)
11. "Germany has an annual increase in population of nearly nine
hundred thousand souls. The difficulty of feeding this army of new
citizens must grow greater from year to year and ultimately end in
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13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
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catastrophe, unless ways and means are found to forestall the
danger of starvation and misery in time." (Hitler 131)
". . . anyone who wants to secure the existence of the German people
by a self-limitation of its reproduction is robbing it of its future."
(Hitler 133)
"Without doubt the productivity of the soil can be increased up to a
certain limit. But only up to a certain limit. . . . " (Hitler 133)
". . . only those races are stricken with such suffering [hunger] which
no longer possess the force and strength to secure for themselves the
necessary territories in this world. For . . . there are . . . immense
areas of unused [sic] soil, only waiting for the men to till them. But
. . . Nature as such has not reserved this soil for the future
possession of any particular nation or race; on the contrary, this soil
exists for the people which possesses the force to take it and the
industry to cultivate it." (Hitler 134)
"No one can doubt that this world will some day be exposed to the
severest struggles for the existence of mankind. In the end, only the
urge for self-preservation can conquer." (Hitler 135)
"The acquisition of new soil for the settlement of the excess
population possesses an infinite number of advantages. . . the
possibility of preserving a healthy peasant class as a foundation for a
whole nation can never be valued highly enough. Many of our
present-day sufferings are only the consequence of the unhealthy
relationship between rural and city population." (Hitler 138)
"It must be said that such a territorial policy cannot be fulfilled in the
Cameroons, but today almost exclusively in Europe. . . . .If this
earth really has room for all to live in, let us be given the soil we
need for our livelihood. True, they will not willingly do this. But
then the law of self-preservation goes into effect; and what is
refused to amicable methods, it is up to the fist to take." (Hitler
138-9)
"For Germany, consequently, the only possibility for carrying out a
healthy territorial policy lay in the acquisition of new land in
Europe itself." (Hitler 139)
"The talk about the 'peaceful economic' conquest of the world was
possibly the greatest nonsense which has ever been exalted to be a
guiding principle of state policy." (Hitler 143)
"Never yet has a state been founded by peaceful economic means, but
always and exclusively by the instincts of preservation of the species.
. . . " (Hitler 153)
“If the Jews were alone in this world, they would stifle in filth and
offal.” (302)
“The Jew’s life as a parasite in the body of other nations and states
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24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
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explains a characteristic which once caused Schopenhauer . . . to call
him the ‘great master in lying.’ Existence impels the Jew to life, and
to lie perpetually. . .
“His life within other peoples can only endure for any length of time
if he succeeds in arousing the opinion that he is not a people but a
‘religious community,’ . . . And this is the first great lie.” (305)
“His [the Jew’s] unfailing instinct in such tings scents the original
soul in everyone, and his hostility is assured to anyone who is not
spirit of his spirit. Since the Jew is not the attacked but the
attacker, not only anyone who attacks passes as his enemy, but also
anyone who resists him. But the means with which he seeks to
break such reckless but upright souls is not honest warfare, but lies
and slander.
“Here he stops at nothing, and in his vileness he becomes so gigantic
that no one need be surprised if among our people the
personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the
living shape of the Jew.
“Slowly fear of the Marxist weapon of Jewry descends like a
nightmare on the mind and soul of decent people.” (324)
“With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in
wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus
stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to destroy
the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate.
Just as he himself systematically runs women and girls, he does not
shrink back from pulling down the blood barriers for others, even
on a large scale. It was and it is Jews who bring the Negroes into
the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of
ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting
bastardization, throwing it down from its cultural and political
height and himself rising to be its master. [Explanatory note:
France, with its history of toleration, had long accepted Africans as
Frenchmen, as long as they were culturally gallicized. They
preferred to rule their African empire chiefly through leaders who
were culturally French. Their toleration however, predates their
African empire. In addition, African troops were used in World
War I, and you will recall that they were deliberately used in the
occupation of the Ruhr because they thought the Germans would be
especially offended. Some 800 children of mixed Afro-German
parentage were born. The Weimar police made careful note of each
one; the Nazis forcibly sterilized each and every one of them]
“For a racially pure people which is conscious of its blood can never
be enslaved by the Jew. In this world he will forever be master over
bastards and bastards alone.
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29. “And so he tries systematically to lower the racial level by a
continuous poisoning of individuals.
30. “And in politics he begins to replace the idea of democracy by the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
31. “It is in the organized mass of Marxism he has found the weapon
which lets him dispense with democracy and in its stead allows him
to subjugate and govern the peoples with a dictatorial and brutal
fist.” (325-6)
32. “The most frightful example of this kind is offered by Russia, where
he killed or starved about thirty million people with positively
fanatical savagery, in part amid inhuman tortures, in order to give a
gand of Jewish journalists and stock exchange bandits domination
over a great people.” (326)
33. “End is not only the end of the freedom of the peoples oppressed by
the Jew, but also the end of this parasite upon the nations. After
the death of his victim, the vampire sooner or later dies too.” (327)
34. "France is and remains by far the most terrible enemy. This people,
which is becoming more and more negrified, constitutes in its tie with
aims of Jewish world domination an enduring danger for the existence
of the white race of Europe. For the contamination by negro blood
on the Rhine in the heart of Europe is just as much in keeping with
the perverted sadistic thirst for vengeance of this hereditary enemy
of our people as is the ice-cold calculation of the Jew thus to begin
bastardizing the European continent at its core and to deprive the
white race of the foundations for a sovereign existence through
infecting with a lower humanity.
35. “What France, spurred on by her own thirst for vengeance and
systematically led by the Jew, is doing in Europe today is a sin against
the existence of white humanity and some day will incite against this
people all the avenging spirits of a race which has recognized racial
pollution as the original sin of humanity.
36. “in the predictable future there can be only two allies for Germany in
Europe: England and Italy." (624)
37. "Here ["the relation of Germany to Russia"] perhaps we are dealing
with the most decisive concern of all German foreign affairs. . . ."
(Hitler 641)
38. "The foreign policy of the folkish state must safeguard the existence on
this planet of the race embodied in the state, by creating a healthy,
viable natural relation between the nation's population and growth on
the one hand and the quantity and quality of its soil on the other
hand." (Hitler 643)
39. "Only an adequately large space on this earth assures a nation of
freedom of existence." (Hitler 643)
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40. ". . . in addition to its importance as a direct source of a people's food,
another significance, that is, a military and political one, must be
attributed to the area of a state." (Hitler 643)
41. "If the National Socialist movement really wants to be consecrated by
history with a great mission for our nation, it . . . must find the
courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along
the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space
to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of
vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation." (Hitler
645-6)
42. "The National Socialist movement must strive to eliminate the
disproportion between our population and our area--viewing this latter
as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics. . . . And in this
it must remain aware that we, as guardians of the highest humanity
on this earth, are bound by the highest obligation, and the more it
strives to bring the German people to racial awareness, . . . the more
it will be able to meet this obligation." (Hitler 646)
43. "The demand for restoration of the frontiers of 1914 is a political
absurdity of such proportions and consequences as to make it seem a
crime. Quite aside from the fact that the Reich's frontiers in 1914
were anything but logical. For in reality they were neither complete in
the sense of embracing the people of German nationality, nor sensible
with regard to geo-military expediency. They were not the result of a
considered political action, but momentary frontiers in a political
struggle that was by no means concluded; partly, in fact, they were the
results of chance." (Hitler 649)
44. "Today it is not princes and princes' mistresses who haggle and bargain
over state borders; it is the inexorable Jew who struggles for his
domination over the nations." (Hitler 651)
45. "we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign
policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to
which they are entitled on this earth." (Hitler 652)
46. "The soil on which some day German generations of peasants can
beget powerful sons will sanction the investment of the sons of
today, and will some day acquit the responsible statesmen of bloodguilt and sacrifice of the people, even if they are persecuted by their
contemporaries." (Hitler 652)
47. "State boundaries are made by man and changed by man." (Hitler 653)
48. "Much as all of us today recognize the necessity of a reckoning with
France, it would remain ineffectual in the long run if it represented
the whole of our aim in foreign policy. It can and will achieve
meaning only if it offers the rear cover for an enlargement of our
people's living space in Europe. For it is not in colonial acquisitions
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50.
51.
52.
53.
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that we must see the solution of this problem, but exclusively in the
acquisition of a territory for settlement, which will enhance the area
of the mother country, and hence not only keep the new settlers in
the most intimate community with the land of their origin, but
secure for the total area those advantages which lie in its unified
magnitude." (Hitler 653) (emphasis added)
"The right to possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its
soil a great nation seems doomed to destruction. And most especially
when not some little nigger nation or other is involved, but the
Germanic mother of life, which has given the present-day world its
cultural picture. Germany will either be a world power or there will be
no Germany." (Hitler 654)
"And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the
foreign policy of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off
six hundred years ago." [the Drang nach Osten, a surge of
colonization eastwards against Slavic peoples and other groups, like
the Prus–who gave Prussia their name--who were exterminated.
The drive was ultimately blunted by Alexander Nevsky's victory over
the Teutonic Knights. It left a very large German population in
what is now Poland and the Baltic states] (Hitler 654)
"If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind
only Russia and her vassal border states." (Hitler 654)
"Here Fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign. By handing
Russia to Bolshevism, it robbed the Russian nation of that
intelligentsia which previously brought about and guaranteed its
existence as a state. For the organization of a Russian state
formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slaves in
Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacy
of the German element in an inferior race. . . . For centuries Russia
drew nourishment from this Germanic nucleus of its upper leading
strata. Today it can be regarded as almost totally exterminated and
extinguished. It has been replaced by the Jew. Impossible as it is
for the Russian by himself to shake off the yoke of the Jew by his
own resources, it is equally impossible for the Jew to maintain the
mighty empire forever. He himself is no element of organization,
but a ferment of decomposition. The Persian empire in the east is
ripe for collapse. And the end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be
the end of Russia as a state. We have been chosen by Fate as
witnesses of a catastrophe which will be the mightiest confirmation
of the soundness of the folkish theory." (Hitler 654)
"Our task, the mission of the National Socialist movement, is to bring
our own people to such political insight that they will not see their goal
for the future in the breath-taking sensation of a new Alexander's
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conquest, but in the industrious work of the German plow, to which the
sword need only give soil." (Hitler 655)
54. "An alliance whose aim does not embrace a plan for war is senseless and
worthless." (Hitler 660)
55. "The present rulers of Russia have no idea of honorably entering into an
alliance, let alone observing one. Never forget that the rulers of
present-day Russia are common blood-stained criminal; that they
are the scum of humanity." (Hitler 660)
56. "In Russian Bolshevism we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews
in the twentieth century to achieve world domination." (Hitler 661)
57. "The fight against Jewish world Bolshevism requires a clear attitude
toward Soviet Russia. You cannot drive out the Devil with Beelzebub."
(Hitler 662)
D. Other Writings and Speeches
1. From Hitlers Zweites Buch, written in 1928, found after the war, and
translated in 1961, New York, 1961, pp. 212-215; qtd in Documents on
the Holocaust, pp. 26-30: “His ultimate goal is the denationalization, the
promiscuous bastardization of other peoples, the lowering of the racial
level of the highest peoples, and the domination of this racial mish-mash
through the extirpation of the völkisch intelligentsia and its replacement
by the members of his own people.
2. “The end of the Jewish world struggle therefore will always be a bloody
Bolshevization. . . . . Hence the result of Jewish domination is always the
ruin of all culture and finally the madness of the Jew himself. For he is a
parasite of nations, and his victory signifies his own end as much as the
deaths of his victims. . . . "
3. Adolf Hitler, Speech to 800 Nazi Gauleiter April 1937: "From whom is he
[a newspaper editor] demanding this? [introduction of special
insignia for Jews] Who can give the necessary orders? Only I can
give them. The editor, in the name of his readers, is asking me to
act. First, I should tell you that long before this editor had any
inkling about the Jewish problem, I had made myself an expert on
the subject. Secondly, this problem has been under consideration
for two or three years, and will, of course, be settled one way or
another in due course. My point is then this: the final aim of our
policy is crystal clear to all of us. All that concerns me to never to
take a step that I might later have to retrace and never to take a step
that cold damage us in any way. You must understand that I always
go as far as I dare and no further. It is vital to have a sixth sense
that tells you, broadly, what you can do and what you cannot do.
Even in a struggle with an adversary it is not my way to issue a
direct challenge to a trial of strength. I do not say "come out and
fight because I want a fight." Instead I shout at him (and I shout
louder and louder): "I mean to destroy you." And then I use my
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intelligence to manoeuvre him into a tight corner so that he cannot
strike back, and then I deliver the fatal blow." (Gordon 129-0)
4. Adolf Hitler, Speech to the Reichstag, January 30, 1939 ‘During the time of
my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish race
which only received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I
would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that
of the whole nation, and that I would then among many other
things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious,
but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the
other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: If the
international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should
succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then
the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and thus the
victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!”
(Documents on the Holocaust . 134-5) [Alternatively, "the
annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" and "the destruction of the
Jewish race in Europe." The German word was "die Vernichtung."} ["die
Vernichtung" is quite an intense word, and should be rendered as
"annihilation.." "Destruction" would be "die Zerstörung," which is less
intense than "die Vernichtung." The noun is constructed of the adverb
"not" ("nicht") plus the feminine suffix "-ung" for abstract nouns, plus the
inseparable prefix "ver-" which pushes the action of a verb to the ultimate
limit and intensifies. Conceptually, the noun is "the making something
not" as opposed to "die Zerstörung" which is constructed of the verb
"stören" to disturb," the feminine suffix "-ung" for abstract nouns and the
inseparable prefix "zer-" which implies breaking up into pieces.] (Gordon
130-131)
5. Adolf Hitler, speech at the Sportpalast January 30, 1942; audience included
40 high ranking army officers "On September 1, 1939, I have already
gone on record in the German Reichstag--and I am careful not to
make any hasty prophecies--that this war will not end as the Jews
imagine it, namely with the extermination of the European peoples,
but that the result of the war will be the destruction of Jewry. They
are simply our old enemies, their plans have suffered shipwreck
through us, and they rightly hate us, just as we hate them. We
realize that this war can only end either in the wiping out of the
Germanic nations, or by the disappearance of Jewry from Europe.
For the first time, it will not be the others who will bleed to death,
but for the first time the genuine ancient Jewish law, 'An eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth,' is being applied. The more this struggle
spreads, the more anti-Semitism will spread--and world Jewry may
rely on this." (Gordon 62-63)
6. Adolf Hitler; speech September 30, 1942 "On September 1, 1939, I
stated two things in that session of the Reichstag . . . . secondly,
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that if Jewry should instigate an international world war, for
instance, in order to exterminate the Aryan peoples, then it will not
be the Aryan peoples that will be annihilated but it will be Jewry . . .
." (Jäckel 63)
7. Adolf Hitler, in conversation, February 13 1945 "I have always been
absolutely fair in my dealings with the Jews. On the eve of the war,
I gave them one final warning. I told them that, if they precipitated
another war, they would not be spared and that I would exterminate
the vermin throughout Europe, and this time once and for all. To
this warning they retorted with a declaration of war and affirmed
that wherever in the world there was a Jew, there, too, was an
implacable enemy of National Socialist Germany.
8. "Well, we have lanced the Jewish abscess; and the world of the future
will be eternally grateful to us." (Gordon 65)
9. : [The last sentence of Hitler's "politisches Testament, " dictated about 4:00
am April 29, 1945] "Above all I pledge the leadership of the nation
and its followers to the scrupulous observation of the racial laws and
in an implacable opposition against the universal poisoners of all
peoples: international Jewry.” (Jäckel 66. Note cf also the same
passage translated substantially the same in Fleming 188 and in
Documents on the Holocaust pp. 162-3; I am a little puzzled, since
Fleming includes a photocopy of the document which does not include
this sentence, although other translated passages can be found; yet both
Jaeckel and Fleming agree on the text. Fleming's original was a copy;
perhaps this was added in long hand; the original is in the Imperial War
Museum. The whole question is a nice lesson in documentary history-whose published version is being used, what is the history of the
document's composition, and how reliable is it]
E. The central concept for Hitler is therefore antiSemitism. Lebensraum is the second most
important concept.
VIII. 1925-28 The Heyday of the Weimar Republic
A. After the Dawes Plan was signed in late 1924, economic conditions in the country
improve. correspondingly, in direct proportion to improving economic
conditions, the voting strength of the Communists and the Nazis decline.
B. The Nazi movement fell in disarray during Hitler's imprisonment. When he got out
on parole, he had a major challenge in order to rebuild the party and reassert
control.
1. One fundamental decision Hitler made was that he would not again attempt
to seize power by coup d'etat (although he did not make that public
knowledge, since the threat of a coup was a useful lever). Lenin seized
power by coup. Hitler seized power constitutionally.
C. Both Streicher and Röhm start parallel organizations. Hitler and Röhm disagree on
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the structure and purpose of his new paramilitary band, and this results in a
breach of several years.
1. During this time, Hitler reorganizes the SA. It remains relatively weak until
the return of Röhm. To compensate, Hitler creates the Schutzstaffel (SS
or "Defense Echelon"). This organization is originally Hitler's bodyguard,
and is quite small at this time. The SS are the most fanatical, loyal, and
disciplined of Hitler's forces. They are eventually led by Heinrich
Himmler. Of all the figures in the Third Reich, only Hitler exceeds
Himmler in sheer evil. Himmler eventually controls a party army of
enormous size and terrifying skill; he is the architect and executor of the
Final Solution; and he controlled, through his deputy, Reinhard
Heydrich (a man whose evil is rivaled only by his ability) the Gestapo, the
secret police. Himmler remains firmly loyal to Hitler and a dedicated
Nazi, which is important for Hitler since Himmler had to power to topple
him. From our perspective, of course, a coup that replaced Hitler with
Himmler would been a rebellion in hell that replaced Satan with
Beelzebub.
D. Gregor Strasser used the time Hitler was in prison to build a party organization in
the north. This wing of the party is virtually autonomous (Carsten 124) Strasser
is more of a genuine Socialist than Hitler, and represents the left wing of the Nazi
party.
1. One proposal was to break up the East Prussian estates into small peasant
farms, which would then become a hereditary caste. Another proposal
would form all businesses with less than 20 workers into compulsory
guilds.
2. His brother, Otto Strasser, who is more radical still, assists him.
3. Another follower who enters Strasser's orbit is Joseph Goebbels (Carsten
125) Goebbels became the Propaganda Minister, and as such is rather
important for this class; he was a psychopathic anti-Semite (like Hitler and
Himmler and Heydrich) and a very talented man without discern able
moral values. I have seen film interviews with the BBC with him dating
back before the war. He spoke fluent, hardly accented English. His
performance was superb--he told the BBC exactly what they wanted to
hear. Later in the war, he is responsible for keeping the Germans fighting
and working hard even as defeat stared them in the face. He murdered his
wife and five children in Hitler’s bunker before committing suicide.
E. In February 1925, the struggle for supremacy comes to a boil over the issue of
whether the former ruling families (Hohenzollern, Wittelsbach) should be
compensated for property now used by the government, or whether the
government should simply expropriate it. The Strasser wing wished to
expropriate it. Hitler wanted to defend private property; otherwise, he could not
appeal to the petits bourgeois, who feared the Communists. Hitler wins, and from
this point on, there is no longer debate within the party as to policy. The only
policy is Hitler's policy. (Carsten 126)
F. That same month, Hitler makes an important address to business and industrial
leaders in Hamburg. Here, he stresses the rebirth of national power by jettisoning
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the Treaty of Versailles and extirpation of Marxism. He does not mention the
Jews in this speech. (Carsten 127)
G. By mid-1925, Hitler has imposed a tight, centralized authority over every aspect of
the party, and bent the leaders of other groups to his will. He also subordinates
the Austrian Nazis.
H. The party, while still small, grows steadily by absorbing other völkisch groups. He
has 27,000 members in 1925, 49,000 in 1926, 72,000 in 1927, and 108,000 in
1928.
1. A large number of these members had at one time been members of the
Freikorps movement.
I. The SA is reorganized and strengthened, and is the typical manifestation of the party
at this time.
1. The new commander is Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, brother of Ernst von
Salomon (who is regarded by both the Left and the Right as the best
spokesman for the Freikorps) (Pfeffer's career with the Freikorps was
long, and, from their point of view, distinguished; he dropped his family
name because it sounded Semitic, although the family was not in fact
Jewish)
2. Pfeffer trains the SA to control the streets.
3. At this time, Hitler gives them their distinctive uniforms and they adopt the
Hitler salute.
4. Hitler has tied the SA more closely to the party; they are now the fighting
arm of a political movement and lose some of the autonomy they had had
under Röhm. (Carsten 130-1)
IX. Alliance with Hugenberg
A. The Young Plan in 1929 provided an important opening for Hitler. Alfred
Hugenberg opposed the program, and put together an alliance with Hitler, the
Stahlhelm, and the Pan-German League.
1. The Young Plan is eventually accepted by the Reichstag. But, in the course
of the campaign, Hitler picks up half of Hugenburg's supporters. For the
first time, Hitler is given wide national exposure, courtesy of Hugenberg's
media empire. Hugenburg's invitation had given the Nazis an air of
respectability, and also opened up to Hitler sources of income from large
industrialists such as Fritz Thyssen and Emil Kirdorf.
B. The period shows Hitler making some significant gains. The readership of Julius
Streicher's newspaper, Der Stürmer, which was vitriolically anti-Semitic (this is
by Nazi standards--Streicher's anti-Semitism is even more pornographic than
Hitler's and disgusted even Goebbels) was attracted by Hitler's call for a rebirth of
national power, voice support.
1. It is perhaps significant that among those officers were Ludwig Beck and
Henning von Tresckow, both of whom became leaders in the plot to
assassinate Hitler in July 1944; both were wise enough to commit suicide
before the Gestapo reached them. (Technically, von Tresckow did not
commit suicide; he exposed himself to Russian fire)
X. The Economic Crisis
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A. The Great Depression hit Germany hard in 1930. With unemployment soaring,
membership in the Nazi party increased. The SA recruited 300,000 unemployed
men during this time. Membership in the Communist party also rose, and fierce
street battles broke out.
B. All is not smooth for Hitler. The Prussian police was controlled by the Social
Democrats and attempted to control both the Right as well as the Left. The upper
ranks of the Army hated and despised the SA, most of whose leaders were exFreikorps, whom they regarded as dangerous revolutionaries (they were, of
course). The Army also feared that the SA would become a rival army (this is
quite a justified fear, as well)
1. Hitler, when forced to choose between the Army and the SA will choose the
Army and purge the SA by use of the SS. The Army thought it had won.
It had lost. The SS in time becomes far more formidable than the SA had
been.
C. Hitler must devote a lot of time to controlling the SA. In order to quell a mutiny, he
takes over personal command. Franz Pfeffer von Salomon resigns.
1. Hitler calls Ernst Röhm back from Bolivia to lead the SA again.
2. Hitler separates the SS from the SA, with Himmler as the head.
D. Hitler's position of seeking power by legal means gains benefits. He fools even
Groener sufficiently to allow army soldiers to attend Nazi meetings, and to open
the Army to Nazi recruits.
E. In 1932, Hitler addressed a meeting of industrialists in Düsseldorf, and made the best
speech of his life, winning over very substantial financial support.
F. The Party grows steadily from 178,000 in 1929, to 380,000 in 1930, to 800,000 in
1931. 38% of the party was under 30 years of age. (Carsten 142-3)
XI. The Elections of 1930
A. The elections, with the nation reeling from the Depression, are a disaster for
Parliamentary democracy.
1. Stresemann's German People's Party loses 37 seats to 41
2. The National Liberals lose 15 seats to 30
3. The Catholic Centre gained 3 seats to 19
4. The Left Liberals lost 5 seats to 20
5. The Social Democrats lost 10 seats to 143
6. The Communists gain 23 seats to 77
7. The National Socialists (Nazis) gain 95 seats to 107
8. Fundamentally, the Nazis prospered by absorbing all right-wing parties into
themselves. They never cut much into the Socialist vote or the Catholic
vote.
B. A Parliament that had a democratic majority is now replaced by one where the
second and third largest parties are implacably opposed to parliamentary
democracy.
C. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning is determined to rule by decree. Brüning's
government therefore marks the end of Parliamentary democracy in
Germany.
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XII. Political Radicalization
A. With the suffering, the populace becomes more radical and desperate.
B. Hitler's SA takes the streets to beat up Communists, who reciprocate. Fierce street
battles occur.
1. In general, the police favored the SA, since they opposed the Communists.
C. It appears that Germany is on the verge of civil war.
D. General Kurt von Schleicher, who led a special political office, opens negotiations
first with Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA, and then with Hitler to bring the Nazis
into the government. The attempt is a failure.
E. Hitler sets out to tighten his grip on the Right, especially at Harzburg, where most of
the big nationalist organizations--Hugenberg's, the Stahlhelm, big industrialists,
well-known generals, two sons of the Kaiser, Hjalmar Schacht, Hans von Seeckt-gather. He also sets out systematically to penetrate the Officer Corps (which
Seeckt would not have tolerated; Groener will not; Schleicher however supports
it).
XIII. Hindenburg's Reelection
A. Hindenburg's term as President expired in 1932. He is convinced to run again, but
this time, ironically, he is the candidate supported by the Social Democrats. The
so-called Harzburg Front cannot support Brüning, but also cannot unite behind
Hitler yet, either. The contest was fiercely fought.
B. Hindenburg won 46.6% of the vote to Hitler's 30.1%, Düsterberg (candidate for the
Stahlhelm) 6.8%, and Ernst Thälmann, the Communist candidate, won 13.2%
Hitler is disappointed, but makes the run-off.
C. Hindenburg wins the run-off by 53% to Hitler's 36.8%
D. Hitler is still disappointed, and Röhm, with 400,000 SA, presses hard for a
revolutionary take-over. Hitler refuses. He is determined to take power through
constitutional means.
E. Gen. Kurt von Schleicher now maneuvers to get rid of Gen. Wilhelm Groener. The
issue is Groener's determination to suppress the SA and SS, as well as the rising
influence of the Nazis within the officer corps. Schleicher has Hindenburg's ear
through the offices of Oskar von Hindenburg, the President's son. Groener is
forced out by the man he had regarded as his adopted son. Groener dies in 1939.
F. Hindenburg, urged on by Schleicher, now forces Brüning to resign. Hindenburg
does not like Hitler at all, but he regards his 13 million voters as German patriots,
while many of the 19 million who voted for him were socialists. Schleicher sees
the rightists as divided.
1. Schleicher is totally convinced that he can "tame" Hitler by luring him
into the government. Once saddled with responsibility, Schleicher
thinks Hitler will moderate his most extreme positions.
G. The new chancellor is a reactionary monarchist, Franz von Papen
XIV. The Papen Government
A. Few people in Germany could take Papen seriously. Papen's government was
largely made up of aristocrats, and had even less Parliamentary support than
Brüning had had. And over half the Parliament was made up of bitter enemies of
the republic anyway.
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1. When Papen summoned the Reichstag, Göring (!) was elected President.
Before the Reichstag could be organized, the Communists submitted a noconfidence motion
B. Papen lifts the restrictions on paramilitary organizations (ie. the SA and SS), who
promptly took to the streets. Hitler accepted all the assistance he could get, but
refused any quid pro quos. Street violence escalates sharply.
1. Papen's next move was to try to discipline the Nazis by working to dry up the
contributions from the industrialists
C. Papen calls for new federal elections on November 6, 1932
1. The Nazis fall by 2 million votes (down to 33.1%). They have achieved their
maximum support in the voting booth
2. The Communists gain up to 16.9% of the vote which feeds fears that
anything that damaged the Nazis would hasten a Communist take-over.
a. It should be noted that the existence of a numerous and viable
German Communist Party is an important factor in the Nazi
seizure of power.
D. Schleicher now uses Hindenburg's fear of civil war to depose Papen. Schleicher now
becomes Chancellor, confident that he can control Hitler.
XV. The Schleicher Government
A. Schleicher attempts to seduce Gregor Strasser, an important Nazi leader, and split
the Nazis.
1. Strasser had originally led his own nationalist group, which had been
absorbed by the Hitler's Nazis. He is much more of a radical socialist than
Hitler.
2. Schleicher fails in his effort.
B. Papen, angry at Schleicher, begins plotting to bring Schleicher's government down.
C. The industrialists and landowners who surrounded Hindenburg urged him strongly to
appoint a Hitler-Papen government: a Harzburg government of all the nationalist
groups. The old man finally agrees. Schleicher is forced to resign.
XVI. The Hitler-Papen Government
A. Hitler is named Chancellor on January 30, 1933
1. The government included only 3 Nazis to 9 other conservative bureaucrats.
a. Observers thought that Hitler was hemmed in by the conservatives.
Papen himself wrote that "We have him roped in. . . . In two
months we'll have pushed Hitler into a corner, and he can squeal to
his heart's content." (Hildebrandt 3)
2. Papen is Vice Chancellor and would be present at all meetings with the
President.
3. The Minister of Defense is Gen. Werner von Blomberg, an emotional man
who was easily swayed by those around him.
4. Hugenberg of the German National People's Party (DNVP) was Minister of
Economics and also Agriculture.
5. The Finance Minister (Count Schwerin von Krosigk), Foreign Minister
(Baron von Neurath), Justice Minister (F. Gürtner), and Communication
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Minister (Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach) remained unchanged from Papen's
Cabinet of Barons. They are joined by F. Seldte, the leader of the
Stahlhelm, as Minister of Labor.
6. Herman Göring is named Minister Without Portfolio and later Minister of
Aviation. More importantly, he becomes deputy commissar for Prussia,
which gave him control of the police force of Germany's largest state.
This is a crucial position. Göring used that position with utter
ruthlessness. Among other things, 40,000 members of the SA and the SS
are enrolled in the Prussian police (Hildebrandt 4). It is Göring also who
creates the terrible Gestapo (the Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State
Police).
7. Wilhelm Frick is Minister of the Interior, which gives him control of the
federal police.
XVII. The Reichstag Fire
A. On February 27, 1933, arsonists set fire to the Reichstag building. One arsonist,
Martinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch ex-Communist, was arrested.
B. Hitler immediately blames the Communists for the "plot." He moves with such
speed that many historians believe that Hitler ordered the fire set, and set up van
der Lubbe as a scapegoat. There isn't enough evidence to make this stick,
however.
C. Hitler has Hindenburg issue an emergency decree under Article 48 suspending
habeas corpus, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of association,
and the inviolability of property. The Nazi reign of terror begins.
1. This decree forms the legal basis for the demolition of the Weimar
government.
2. This decree is never rescinded.
3. Within 5 days Germany is a police state.
D. Elections are held in 1933
1. The SA fans out to suppress the left. All of the Communist leaders and many
of the Social Democratic leaders are arrested.
a. Göring instructs his "police" to "make free use of their firearms" to
suppress Communists and Socialists. (Hildebrandt 4)
2. The Nazis poll 43.9% and the Nationalists 8%. Hitler has a working
majority.
3. A law is promulgated in April giving Hitler power to purge the civil
bureaucracy (Hildebrandt 4)--a power which Hitler is not afraid to use.
The failure to do this is one of the important errors of the SPD.
E. The Potsdam Parade
1. Hitler stages a parade of conservative and nationalist groups in order to
associate himself with past German glories. He invited the Crown Prince
and his wife, and left one chair vacant for the Kaiser. Hindenburg came in
the uniform of a Field Marshall. Hitler's speech was [relatively] moderate.
It was impressive theatrics. It lulls conservative observers, as it was
intended to.
F. The Enabling Act
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1. The next day, Hitler submits the Enabling Act. This gave Hitler emergency
dictatorial powers for 4 years. Both the Reichstag and the President are
removed from legislative authority.
2. The Reichstag took up the bill. Only Otto Wels, the leader of the Social
Democrats, spoke against it. The Reichstag voted 441 to 84 in favor. The
Enabling Act passes.
a. The agonizing question remains as to why the other parties
acquiesced in their own destruction. The KPD of course was not
allowed to vote. The SDP voted against it. The Catholic Centre,
the DNVP and others agreed to it. The reason, according to
Hildebrandt, is that they thought that Nazi dominance was
inevitable and they hoped to maintain their party apparatus and
influence policy by cooperation, not confrontation. The crucial
error is that their assumptions were within the tradition of a
Rechtsstaat--a state governed by law (5) (a principle which Hitler
had deliberately not yet violated in principle; Hitler has been
attacked from the right and left for this--the Marxists see this as
evidence that he was never truly revolutionary--but that
presupposes that Hitler did not grasp the psychology of his fellow
Germans. That is a perilous assumption to make. The Marxist
strait-jacket provides explanations for Hitler that are superficially
convincing but break down both under close and dynamic/broad
scrutiny. If the Marxists had understood the Nazis better, perhaps
more of them would have survived--and Stalin would not have
been so surprised in 1941.
3. By the end of June, all parties except the National Socialists have been
suppressed.
4. By the end of June, Hugenberg has resigned his post.
5. The German Faust has met its Mephistopheles. Germany is now ruled
by the Devil
XVIII. "Coordination" (Gleichschaltung)
A. In 1933, Hitler begins to bring everything in the country under his control.
Gleichschaltung does not occur overnight, however. It takes several years before
Hitler is secure enough to turn to other issues.
B. Gen. Werner von Blomberg leads the Army into the fold.
C. The German states are brought to heel by dissolving the parliaments and dismissing
the governor, then appointing the local Gauleiter (Nazi party district leader) to
govern the state. Germany is no longer a federal state. The ancient kingdoms and
principalities are absorbed. Centuries of local autonomy are wiped out.
D. The labor unions are next. May 1 is declared National Labor Day. (Very similar to
his use of the Potsdam Parade) The most important workers' organization, the
ADGB cooperates, for similar reasons to the political parties--they expect a
modus vivendi. The workers get the day off. The next day, the SA takes over the
offices of every union. All workers are declared members of a National Labor
Front, which included the employers as well as employees. Union leaders are
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sent to concentration camps, along with other enemies of the regime. The blow
was well organized and brutal.
The other political parties fell next. The Nationalists' offices are seized and they
"voluntarily" disband. By the end of July, all parties except the Nazi party are
proscribed.
Persecution of the Jews begins with a systematic purge of the civil service,
universities, and cultural organizations. The professions are closed to Jews.
Streicher organizes a boycott of all Jewish owned businesses beginning April 1,
1933.
1. The Nuremberg Laws are passed on September 15, 1935, relegating Jews to
second-class citizenship.
Goebbels organizes the first book-burning of "un-German literature" on May 10,
1933 (Hildebrandt 7) (This is about the time that several of my professors at
college, Herr Bernhard Ulmer and Herr Victor Lange, left Germany.)
Nazi-Church relations were ambiguous.
1. During their drive for power, the Catholic Church and the Catholic
organizations had generally been more resistant to the Nazis than the
Protestants had been. For example, it is axiomatic that the Nazis were
strong in rural areas and among small farmers; election results tend to bear
that out. However, if votes are analyzed with religious affiliation in mind,
small Catholic farmers were more reluctant to vote for the Nazis than were
Protestants. (Tilton 65)
2. The reasons for this are partly historical. The Catholic Church was subjected
to systematic and official discrimination in Wilhelmine Germany.
Bismarck regarded the Catholic Church as a threat precisely because it
was international in scope. His Kulturkampf was aimed at weakening or
breaking the ties of German Catholics to the Vatican. Catholics were
declared to be "enemies of the Reich." German Catholics spoke of
themselves as living in a "ghetto."
a. The persecution strengthened their sense of unity as a group (one that
crossed class lines); the Church sponsored the creation of
numerous organizations that addressed the whole life of the
individual--socially, intellectually and culturally as well as
spiritually. Therefore, although the Catholic population was
disproportionately rural and "marginalized," they did not vote for
the Nazis to the degree that purely economic factors would lead
one to expect. (Hunt 213-222)
(1) On the other hand, German Catholics were sensitive about
Protestant doubts of their loyalty, and there is certainly a
desire among Catholics to be regarded as within the
mainstream of the nation. Obviously, Bavarian Catholics
supported a very wide range of nationalist and völkisch
groups. Politically, they tended to be centrist to
conservative.
(2) To put the controversy into some perspective: the Marxist
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historian James C. Hunts writes "Few bishops were as
outspokenly antirepublican as was Michael Cardinal
Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, at the 1922 Catholic
Rally. Condemning the November Revolution as 'perjury
and high treason,' he blamed Germany's distress on the
Weimar Constitution." (220) This same cardinal however,
issued an open letter to Chancellor Stresemann on the eve
of the Beer Hall Putsch, writing, ""How can we hope to
master the economic crisis that already is so great and the
miseries of the coming winter that widespread
unemployment will bring unless all decent men work
together regardless of faith, position, or party? How else
can we eradicate the blind, raging hatred for our fellow
Jewish citizens and other ethnic groups, a hatred that flies
through the land screaming 'Guilty!' but never asking
proof?" (Flood 457, emphasis added)
(3) In point of fact, the "Catholic bishops had hitherto attacked
Nazism in a series of strongly militant statements and had
officially condemned them. But their will to resist was
undermined by the negotiations for a concordat, [signed
July 20, 1933] already begun during the Weimar years and
eagerly resumed by Hitler. Nazi promises and sham
concessions knocked the ground from under their feet."
(Fest 426) The concordat granted protection of Catholic
schools and institutions and priests, freedom of faith and
public worship. In exchange, the Catholic Church gave up
social and political organizations. (Holborn 743)
(a) The Nazis violated the concordat as soon as they felt
they could get away with it. Hitler intended to
establish control over every aspect of every
German's life. The only question was timing (Hitler
is inflexible as to goals, but opportunistic and
flexible as to tactics.) The Nazis move against
Catholic schools in 1935, and an open breach is
"expressed in the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge
["With burning sorrow"] of 14 March 1937, in
which the Pope voiced his 'increasing dismay' at the
situation of the Catholic church in Germany,
deplored the church's Calvary and attacked the antiChristian regime." (Hildebrandt 39)
(4) The Catholic Centre Party is a force to be reckoned with in
the Weimar Republic, polling usually around 5.5 million
votes in elections, and holding 6 of the 15 Weimar
chancellorships, with two others being held by nonCatholic Centre Catholics (Cuno and von Papen).
3. Protestant resistance was apparently more successful, but the cost was
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schism.
a. One wing of the Protestant churches formed the "Evangelical
National Socialists." On April 25, 1933, Hitler announced his
support of Ludwig Müller in church elections, resulting in his
election as Reich bishop on September 27, 1933. [It really warps
one's perceptions to see a photo, as I have, of a German bishop
with a cross around his neck and a swastika on his arm]
b. "Resistance to the new authorities and the German Christians was
organized by the Pastor's Emergency League founded at
Berlin/Dahlem in September 1933 by Martin Niemöller, and by
the Confessing church which developed from it and which first
met as a body at Ulm on 22 April 1934." (Hildebrandt 12) The
Confessing Church attacked the Nazis as anti-Christian and "stated
that even the force of an oath is limited by the fact that God's word
alone is absolutely binding," (Hildebrandt 39) a genuinely
shocking position for a German cleric.
c. The Nazis kept up their pressure on the church, undermining its
autonomy by decree and arresting 800 members in 1937. Hitler
never abandoned his intention of suppressing the churches
eventually. (Hildebrandt 40)
I. All opposition was dealt with ruthlessly. The existence and horror of the
concentration camps at Oranienburg and Dachau was well enough known to chill
resistance. The Gestapo swiftly became pervasive and adept.
XIX. The Night of the Long Knives
A. Now that Hitler has achieved power, the SA has no useful function within the state.
1. "Après la révolution il se pose toujours la question des révolutionnaires."
Mussolini to Oswald Mosley (Fest 449)
B. Röhm does not believe the revolution is over, and he feels that the SA has been left
out of the rewards. He holds a philosophical difference with Hitler in that he
dreamed of the SA forming the basis for a political militia which would replace
the Army. This is rather like the Frunze/Trotsky debates, with Röhm acting the
part of Trotsky. Hitler believes that the future greatness of Germany requires
the technical expertise of the Army since expansion means offensive war, and
offensive war means modern technology. In this, he was undoubtedly correct.
This is a long-standing difference between the two which now cannot be
papered over.
1. In effect, Röhm still leads a genuine popular movement of between 3.5 and 4
million men (Fest 450)(in contrast with the Army at 100,000). Like
Robespierre, he is not yet ready for consolidation.
2. Röhm's actions could only viewed by Hitler and the Army as a challenge. He
ostentatiously parades the SA in giant rallies; he intemperately attacks
Göring, Hess, Goebbels, and even Hitler himself to his friends. A sample
of his rhetoric is: "Adolf is rotten. He's betraying all of us. he only goes
around with reactionaries. His old comrades aren't good enough for him.
So he brings in these East Prussian generals. . . . He'll make it [the
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revolution] National Socialist later on, he says. But first he's turning it
over to the Prussian generals. Where the hell is revolutionary spirit to
come from afterwards? From a bunch of old fogies who certainly aren't
going to win the new war? Don't try to kid me, the whole lot of you.
You're letting the whole heart and soul of our movement go to pot." (Fest
451-2)
3. More ominously, Röhm builds up the numbers of the SA, establishes
unauthorized detention camps, began acquiring weapons, and stepped up
military training, sought funds from industrialists, built up an SA field
police and an SA judiciary, and aggressively tried to penetrate local
government, publishing, and academia. Clearly, he is laying the
groundwork for a parallel government that would penetrate the existing
one.
C. Hitler begins accelerating German rearmament, which has powerful appeal to
Blomberg and the generals. They will not, however, accept the SA on an equal
basis (for good reason).
1. The reintroduction of conscription into the Reichswehr makes it clear that
Hitler will favor the Army is he must choose. Nevertheless, he sought to
placate Röhm, appointing him to the cabinet on December 1, 1932, and
sending him an unusually warm letter of thanks shortly afterwards. Röhm
appears to have believed that Hitler secretly agreed with him, but was
playing some devious game of his own. He blamed his problems on his
rivals within the party: Göring, Hess, Goebbels, (Himmler, if he had only
realized it).
D. Hindenburg's failing health
1. The issue comes to a head when Hitler is informed that Hindenburg would
not live many more days. Hitler needs to secure his succession to the
Presidency as well as his current office of Chancellor. He can no longer
delay.
2. On a military cruise, Hitler cuts a deal with Blomberg and Werner von
Fritsch, the Chief of the General Staff. The Army would support Hitler's
succession in exchange for curbing the SA and a promise that the Army
would not be involved in a civil war.
3. In the meantime, Göring and Röhm were on increasingly bad terms
personally. Göring begins collecting a special police force at Lichterfelde
(he is Prussian Minister of the Interior).
4. In January, shortly after his letter of thanks, Hitler orders the Gestapo to
begin investigating Röhm and SA activities.
5. On February 21, Hitler told Britain's Anthony Eden that he would reduce the
SA by 2/3s.
a. Göring makes common cause with Himmler, and appoints Himmler
to the head of the Gestapo (in addition to the SS). The SS at this
time is a subdivision of the SA, and Himmler is technically
Röhm's subordinate.
E. Hitler now sets Röhm up. On June 4, he held a long conference with him, assuring
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Röhm that he would not dissolve the SA but criticizing Röhm and the SA
leadership for "their disorder, luxury and sexual perversion." (Bullock 160) (It
wasn't as if those charges were new.) He orders the SA to take a month's leave.
Obviously without a suspicion, Röhm agrees to do so. It is an amazing display of
personal magnetism by Hitler.
F. Hitler waits until a weekend to strike. On June 25, von Fritsch canceled all leaves
and placed the army on alert. On June 30, the Gestapo and SS move into place.
Röhm is taken while on holiday. Other leaders are rounded up, taken to prisons
in Berlin and Munich, and shot. Many die with "Heil Hitler!" on their lips. They
never understood who had betrayed them. Unlike Stalin, Hitler did not indulge in
show-trials.
1. Hitler settles some old scores. Gen. Kurt von Schleicher and his wife were
shot at his front door. Otto Strasser was arrested and executed. Gustav
von Kahn was hacked to pieces. Also included were two conservative
advisers to von Papen and the head of the Catholic Action in Berlin.
(Hildebrandt 14, Bullock 168, Fest 465)
G. The story is spread that the SA had been about to stage a coup d'etat, and had been
forestalled.
1. The commander of the Breslau district, Major-General (later Field Marshall)
Ewald von Kleist told the Nuremberg Tribunal that he "received
information that presented a 'picture of feverish preparations on the part
of the SA.'" However, in discussing the matter with SA commander in
Silesia Edmund Heines, "they came to the joint suspicion 'that we . . . were
being incited against one another by a third party--I thought of Himmler-and that many of the reports came from him." (Fest 461, 792 no. 43) (For
what it's worth, Heines is the only SA leader to be arrested who struggled,
despite being arrested while in bed with another man)
2. The alleged plot is a complete fabrication, as the very unpreparedness of the
SA and the fact that they obeyed and took the 30 days' leave makes clear.
After the fact, he has the Cabinet and the Reichstag rubber-stamp his
version.
H. Hitler announces: "In the state, there is only one bearer of arms, and that is the
Army; there is only one bearer of the political will, and that is the National
Socialist Party." (Bullock 168, Fest 469)
I. Himmler is rewarded with full autonomy for his SS.
XX. Hindenburg dies on August 2, 1934. Hitler merges the office of President with Chancellor,
and also becomes Supreme Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
A. He immediately orders the Army to swear an oath of "unconditional obedience"
(“unbedingte Gehorsamkeit”) to the person of Adolf Hitler. For the proud
officer caste (it truly was a caste), bound as they were by traditions of rigid
obedience and honor, this is a very significant act.
a. Let me illustrate the meaning of Prussian Kadaverdisziplin. The great
German Romantic playwright Heinrich von Kleist (scion of a
Junker military family, close relative of Field Marshalls, and an
ancestor of the Ewald von Kleist quoted above)--a man who fought
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the French before devoting his enormous talents to the service of
art--composed the intensely patriotic Prince Friedrich of Homburg,
based on an actual event. It is in many ways his greatest play, with
the claims of society coming in closer harmony with the existential
demands of the individual than his others. The crux of the play is
that the vain and head-strong Prince wins a battle by a cavalry
charge against orders. His father, the king, orders his execution for
disobedience of orders. The climax of the play is when the Prince
recognizes and accepts the justice of the sentence. The officer
corps would have been as familiar with this play as we are to
Hamlet. (Julius Caesar or Richard II are more politically relevant,
but not everyone reads them, more's the pity.)
B. On August 19, Hitler holds a plebiscite. 95.7% of the electorate goes to the polls.
89.93% cast ballots approving Hitler's office as Führer.
C. Hitler is now in a position domestically to turn his chief attention to the acquisition
of Lebensraum. He has approached his agenda in rational stages. First he
must seize and consolidate his power. Then and only then does he turn to the
fulfillment of his foreign policy agenda. It is clear from Mein Kampf that he
intended to create a Racial Utopia. His domestic and his foreign policy are
simply two sides of the same coin.
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