by Ian Kershaw
In the triumphalist atmosphere following the election, the open violence of rampant bands of Nazi thugs prompted protests from high quarters to the Reich President as well as to Hitler himself.148 Hitler responded in characteristic vein with an aggressive defence of his SA men in response to Papen’s complaints about affronts to foreign diplomats, prompted by an incident where a mob (including S A and SS men) had behaved threateningly towards the wives of prominent diplomats, beating up one of their chauffeurs, and tearing the flag from the car of the Rumanian ambassador. He had the impression, he said, that the bourgeoisie had been rescued too early. Had they experienced six weeks of Bolshevism, then they would have ‘learnt the difference between the red revolution and our uprising. I once graphically saw this difference in Bavaria and have never forgotten it. And I will not let myself be taken away by anyone at all from the mission that I repeatedly announced before the election: the annihilation and eradication of Marxism.’149 Even so, the violence was becoming counter-productive. On 10 March, directly referring to harassment of foreigners but blaming it on Communist provocateurs, Hitler proclaimed that from this day on, the national government controlled executive power in the whole of Germany, and that the future course of the ‘national uprising’ would be ‘directed from above, according to plan’. All molesting of individuals, obstruction of automobiles, and disturbances to business life had to stop as a matter of principle.150 He repeated the sentiments in a radio address two days later.151 The exhortations had little effect.
The levels of terror and repression experienced in February in Prussia had by then wracked the rest of the country. Conditions in Bavaria, wrote the former peasant leader Dr Georg Heim to Hindenburg, were worse than ‘under the terror regime of the Communists’.152 Under the aegis of Himmler and Heydrich, the scale of arrests in Bavaria was proportionately even greater than it had been in Prussia. Around 10,000 Communists and Socialists were arrested in March and April. By June, the numbers in ‘protective custody’ – most of them workers – had doubled.153 A good number of those arrested were the victims of denunciations by neighbours or workmates. So great was the wave of denunciations following the Malicious Practices Act of 21 March 1933 that even the police criticized it.154 Just outside the town of Dachau, about twelve miles from Munich, the first concentration camp was set up in a former powder-mill on 22 March.
There was no secret about the camp’s existence. Himmler had even held a press conference two days earlier to announce it. It began with 200 prisoners. Its capacity was given as 5,000. It was intended, stated Himmler, to hold the Communist and, if necessary, Reichsbanner and Marxist (i.e. Social Democrat) functionaries. Its establishment was announced in the newspapers.155 It was meant to serve as a deterrent, and did so. Its dreaded name soon became a byword for the largely unspoken horrifying events known or presumed to take place within its walls. ‘Keep quiet or you’ll end up in Dachau’ was soon to join common parlance. But apart from the political enemies and racial targets of the Nazis, few were disconcerted at the foundation of the camp, and others like it. The middle-class townsfolk of Dachau, watching the column of their Communist fellow-citizens from the town being marched to the nearby camp as political prisoners, thought them troublemakers, revolutionaries, ‘a class apart’, simply not part of their world.156
The day after Himmler had announced the creation of Dachau concentration camp, the regime showed its other face. If keen to keep at one remove from the shows of terror, Hitler was again in his element at the centre of another propaganda spectacular. This was the ‘Day of Potsdam’, a further masterly concoction of the newly appointed Reich Minister of People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. In complete detachment from the sordid bestialities in the brutal showdown with the Left, National Socialism here put on its best clothes, and proclaimed its union with Prussian conservatism. The ‘comedy of Potsdam’, as the French ambassador called it, captured the imagination of the German public, diverted attention from the unseemly events of the previous weeks, and, not least, helped further to cement the alliance of the army and the new regime.157
The decision to have the opening ceremony of the new Reichstag in Potsdam was taken at a meeting between the Reich President and Hitler, Papen, Frick, Blomberg and Göring on 7 March. The broad contours of the ceremonials were agreed at this meeting. The opening was originally scheduled for the week between 3 and 8 April.158 The date was then changed to 21 March – the start of a new spring, and the date on which the first Reichstag had met after Bismarck’s foundation of the Reich.159 The ‘great plan’ for a symbolic festive opening of the Reichstag was worked out in meticulous detail by Goebbels five days before the event.160 The ‘Day of Potsdam’ was to represent the start of the new Reich, building upon the glories of the old. It was also to denote the forging of the links between the new Germany and the traditions of Prussia. The Garnisonkirche (garrison church) in Potsdam, where the main ceremony was to take place, had been founded by the Hohenzollern kings of Prussia in the early eighteenth century. Household guards had dedicated themselves there to service to God and the King. Frederick Wilhelm I, the ‘Soldier King’, and his son Frederick the Great were buried in the crypt. The church symbolized the bonds between the Prussian military monarchy, the power of the state, and the Protestant religion.
On 21 March 1933, Reich President Hindenburg, in the uniform of a Prussian field-marshal and raising his baton to the empty throne of the exiled Kaiser, represented those bonds: throne, altar, and the military tradition in Prussia’s glory. He was the link between the past and the present. Hitler marked the present and the future. Dressed not in party uniform but in a dark morning-suit, he played the part of the humble servant, bowing deeply before the revered and elderly Reich President and offering him his hand.161 National renewal through unity was the theme of Hitler’s address. Only with one phrase did he mention those who formed no part of that unity: they were to be rendered ‘unharmful’. Hindenburg was elevated to the protector of the ‘new uprising of our people’. He it was who had ‘entrusted on 30 January the leadership of the Reich to this young Germany’.162 ‘It can’t be denied,’ wrote one non-Nazi observer, impressed by the ‘moderation’ of Hitler’s speech, ‘he has grown. Out of the demagogue and party leader, the fanatic and agitator, the true statesman seems – for his opponents surprisingly enough – to be developing.’163 The blending of Prussian tradition and the National Socialist regime was underlined at the end of the ceremony by the laying of wreaths on the tombs of the Prussian kings, while the ‘Niederländisches Dankgebet’ rang through the church and outside a twenty-one gun salute sounded.164 Afterwards, Hindenburg took the salute at a parade, lasting several hours, of the army and the ‘national associations’ of SA, SS, and Stahlhelm. Hitler stood modestly with his ministers several rows behind the military guests of honour.165
Two days later, it was a different Hitler, brown-shirted again and imperious, who entered the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, where Reichstag meetings were now to be held, to the jubilant cheers of serried ranks of uniformed Nazi deputies to propose the Enabling Act that he had wanted since the previous November. The atmosphere for their opponents, particularly the SPD deputies, was menacing. A giant swastika dominated the chamber. Armed men from the SA, SS, and Stahlhelm guarded all exits and surrounded the building. They were giving a hint to opposition deputies of what would be the outcome were the Enabling Act not to find the necessary level of support. In the absence of the eighty-one Communist deputies who had been arrested or taken flight, the Nazis were now in a majority in the Reichstag. But to pass the Enabling Act a two-thirds majority was necessary.166
Already on 7 March, Hitler – now visibly more self-confident among the conservative ministers – had told the cabinet that he expected to gain the two-thirds majority for an Enabling Act since the Communist deputies were in custody and would not be attending.167 Just over a week later, on 15 March, he informed his ministers that the political situation had now been clarified. ‘Th
e national revolution had taken place without great shocks.’ It was now necessary, he cynically continued, ‘to divert the entire activity of the people on to the purely political plane (auf das rein Politische abzulenken) because economic decisions had still to be awaited’. Hitler then came to the Enabling Act. Its passage with a two-thirds majority would in his opinion not meet with any difficulties. Frick explained that the Zentrum was not ill-disposed towards the idea of an Enabling Act, but merely sought an audience first with the Chancellor. Frick advocated – making no bones about the intention behind the act – an act so widely framed that subsequent deviations from the Reich Constitution would be possible. He suggested a three-line draft, though in the event that scarcely sufficed and the final version was substantially longer. To ensure the two-thirds majority, Frick had worked out that if the Communist deputies were simply deducted from the total membership of the Reichstag, only 378, not 432, votes would be needed. Göring added that, if necessary, some Social Democrats could be ejected from the chamber. That is how little the Nazis’ ‘legal revolution’ had to do with legality. But the conservatives present raised no objections. Nor did they to Meissner’s acknowledgement that the Reich President’s involvement in the passage of acts under the Enabling Act would not be necessary.168 By 20 March, Hitler could confidently report to the cabinet that, following his discussions, the Zentrum had seen the necessity of the Enabling Act. Their request for a small committee to oversee the measures taken under the Act should be accepted. There would then be no reason to doubt the Zentrum’s support. ‘The acceptance of the Enabling Act also by the Zentrum would signify a strengthening of prestige with regard to foreign countries,’ Hitler commented, aware as always of the propaganda implications.169 Frick then introduced the draft of the bill, which was eventually accepted by the cabinet. The Reich Minister of the Interior also proposed a blatant manipulation of the Reichstag’s procedures to make certain of the two-thirds majority. Deputies absent without excuse should now be counted as present.170 There would, therefore, be no problem about a quorum. Absenteeism as a form of protest abstention was ruled out. Again the conservatives raised no objections.171
The way was clear. On the afternoon of 23 March 1933, Hitler addressed the Reichstag. The programme he outlined in his tactically clever two-and-a-half-hour speech, once he had finished painting the grim picture of the conditions he had inherited, was framed in the broadest of terms. He promised ‘far-reaching moral renewal’ supported by the whole sphere of education, the media and the arts. The national government saw in both Christian denominations, he declared, ‘the most important factors for upholding our nationhood’. Their rights would not be touched: words of a German Chancellor intended to weigh, and weighing, with the Zentrum deputies. Judges would have to show some ‘elasticity of judgement’ for the good of society – an attack on liberal legal principles that earned warm applause. Business, too, would be made to serve the people, not the interests of capital. Experiments with the currency would be avoided. The salvation of the peasantry and Mittelstand and removal of unemployment, at first through work-creation schemes and labour service, were the main economic aims. The army was held up for praise. But Hitler said the government had no intention of increasing its size and weaponry if the rest of the world would undertake a radical disarmament. Germany wanted no more than similar rights and freedom. At the end of his speech, Hitler made what appeared to be important concessions. The existence of neither the Reichstag nor the Reichsrat was threatened, he stated. The position and rights of the Reich President remained untouched. The Länder would not be abolished. The rights of the Churches would not be reduced and their relations with the state not altered.172
All the promises were soon to be broken. But for the time being they served their purpose. They appeared to give the binding declarations safeguarding the position of the Catholic Church which the Zentrum had demanded in its discussions with Hitler. Even so, the Zentrum deputies, meeting before the vote was taken, were divided. There was talk of civil war, of a resort to force, if the Enabling Act were not granted. Once more, Hitler’s implicit blackmailing tactic had worked. The party leader, Prälat Kaas, argued that ‘the Fatherland is in the greatest danger. We dare not fail.’ Eventually, with the greatest reservations and evincing their feelings of responsibility for the nation, other leading figures, such as Heinrich Brüning (the former Chancellor) and Joseph Ersing (one of the party’s most prominent trade unionists), and the rest of the Zentrum deputies supported him.173
It was shortly after six o’clock when the Reichstag resumed its business. The SPD leader, Otto Wels, spoke courageously, given the menacing atmosphere. Though most of his speech was low-key, he ended movingly, upholding the principles of humanity, justice, freedom, and socialism held dear by Social Democrats.174 Hitler had made notes as Wels spoke. He now returned to the rostrum, to storms of applause from NSDAP deputies, to make the most savage of replies, every sentence cheered to the rafters. Departing now from the relative moderation of his earlier prepared speech, Hitler showed more of his true colours. A sense of law was alone not enough; possession of power was decisive. There had been no need to put the current bill before the Reichstag: ‘we appeal in this hour to the German Reichstag to grant us that which we could have taken anyway’. He would not fall into the error of simply irritating opponents instead of either destroying them or making amends with them. He would offer his hand to those who differed from him but were committed to Germany. But this did not apply to the Social Democrats. They should not misunderstand him. He did not recognize the dictates of the International. The mentality of the Social Democrats was quite incapable of grasping the intentions behind the Enabling Act. He did not even want them to vote for the bill. ‘Germany will become free, but not through you,’ he concluded to wild cheering.175 After Kaas for the Zentrum, without any guarantees beyond the verbal assurances Hitler had given in his speech, had declared his party’s readiness to support the bill, and other party leaders had followed suit, the vote was taken.176 With 441 votes to the ninety-four votes of the Social Democrats, the Reichstag, as a democratic body, voted itself out of existence.
The ‘Act for the Removal of Distress from People and Reich’ – the Enabling Act – went into effect the next day.177 Hitler’s bullying tactics had worked – for neither the first nor the last time. Power was now in the hands of the National Socialists. It was the beginning of the end for political parties other than the NSDAP. The Zentrum’s role had been particularly ignominious. Fearing open terror and repression, it had given in to Hitler’s tactics of pseudo-legality. In so doing, it had helped in the removal of almost all constitutional constraints on his power. He needed in future to rely neither on the Reichstag, nor on the Reich President. Hitler was still far from wielding absolute power. But vital steps towards consolidating his dictatorship now followed in quick succession.
V
During the spring and summer of 1933, Germany fell into line behind its new rulers. Hardly any spheres of organized activity, political or social, were left untouched by the process of Gleichschaltung – the ‘coordination’ of institutions and organizations now brought under Nazi control. Pressure from below, from Nazi activists, played a major role in forcing the pace of the ‘coordination’. But many organizations showed themselves only too willing to anticipate the process and to ‘coordinate’ themselves in accordance with the expectations of the new era. By the autumn, the Nazi dictatorship – and Hitler’s own power at its head – had been enormously strengthened. What is striking is not how much, but how little, Hitler needed to do to bring this about. Beyond indications that his instinct for the realities of power and the manipulative potential of propaganda were as finely tuned as ever, Hitler took remarkably few initiatives.
One initiative that did come from Hitler was, however, the creation of Reich Governors (Reichsstatthalter) to uphold the ‘lines of policy laid down by the Reich Chancellor’ in the Länder.178 Referring to them at first as ‘State President
s’, Hitler pressed for their instalment in the Länder at a cabinet meeting on 29 March.179 With their hastily contrived establishment in the ‘Second Law for the Coordination of the Länder with the Reich’ of 7 April 1933, the sovereignty of the individual states was decisively undermined.180 All indications are that Hitler was anxious, with the establishment of the Reich Governors, to have trusted representatives in the Länder who could counter any danger that the grass-roots ‘party revolution’ might run out of control, ultimately even possibly threatening his own position. The position in Bavaria, where the SA and SS had their headquarters and where radicals had effected an actual ‘seizure of power’ in the days since the March election, was especially sensitive. The improvised creation of the Reich Governors was brought about with Bavaria, in particular, in mind, to head off the possibility of a party revolution against Berlin. The former Freikorps ‘hero’ of the crushing of the Räterepublik, Ritter von Epp, was already appointed as Reich Governor on 10 April. A further ten Reich Governors were installed less hurriedly, during May and June, in the remaining Länder, apart from Prussia, and were drawn from the senior and most powerful Gauleiter. Their dependence on Hitler was no less great than his on them. They could be relied upon, therefore, to serve the Reich government in blocking the revolution from below when it was becoming counter-productive.181 Their creation hardly, however, provided a guarantee of coherent government administration in the regions. Superimposed on existing structures, and uneasily straddling the divisions of party and state, the Reich Governors soon became unclear themselves about their precise function. This was all the less clear once the abolition of the autonomy of the Länder in January 1934 had in theory removed the very need for Reich representatives.182 Typically, however, once created, the position of Reich Governor was not abolished. ‘Elbow-power’, as usual, was what counted. Each of the ‘viceroys’ of the Reich should make out of his position what he could, was Hitler’s characteristic definition of their role.183 In cases of dispute of Reich Governors with Reich Ministers in ‘questions of special political significance’, Hitler reserved to himself the final decision. ‘Such a ruling corresponds in the view of the Reich Chancellor to his position as leader,’ Frick was told.184