by Ian Kershaw
I
Those close to Hitler later claimed that they detected a change in him after Hindenburg’s death. According to Press Chief Otto Dietrich, the years 1935 and 1936, with Hitler ‘now as absolute ruler on the lookout for new deeds’, were ‘the most significant’ in his development ‘from domestic reformer and social leader of the people to the later foreign-policy desperado and gambler in international politics’. ‘In these years,’ Dietrich went on, ‘a certain change also made itself noticeable in Hitler’s personal conduct and behaviour. He became increasingly unwilling to receive visitors on political matters if they had not been ordered by him to attend. Equally, he knew how to distance himself inwardly from his entourage. While, before the takeover of power, they had the possibility of putting forward their differing political opinion, he now as head of state and person of standing (Respektsperson) kept strictly out of all unrequested political discussion… Hitler began to hate objections to his views and doubts on their infallibility… He wanted to speak, but not to listen. He wanted to be the hammer, not the anvil.’5
Hitler’s increasing withdrawal from domestic politics once the period of consolidation of power had come to an end in August 1934 was, as Dietrich’s remarks suggest, not simply a matter of character and choice. It also directly mirrored his position as Leader, whose prestige and image could not allow him to be politically embarrassed or sullied by association with unpopular policy choices. Hitler represented, and as the regime’s central integrating mechanism had to represent, the image of national unity. He could not be seen to be involved in internal, day-to-day political conflict. Beyond that, his growing aloofness reflected, too, the effective transformation of domestic politics into propaganda and indoctrination. Choice and debate about options – the essence of politics – had by now been removed from the public arena (even if, of course, bitter disputes and conflicts continued behind the scenes). ‘Politics’ within a ‘coordinated’ Germany now amounted to what Hitler had since the early 1920s regarded as its sole aim: the ‘nationalization of the masses’ in preparation for the great and inevitable struggle against external enemies. But this goal, the creation of a strong, united, and impregnable ‘national community’ (Volksgemeinschaft), was so all-embracing, so universal in its impact, that it amounted to little more than an extremely powerful emotional incitement to formulate policy initiatives in every sphere of the regime’s activity, affecting all walks of life. Hitler – and the same would have been true of even a more administratively competent and efficient head of state – could not possibly have overseen, let alone directed, all such initiatives. What his form of leadership, linked to the broad ‘directions for action’6 which he embodied – national revival, ‘removal’ of Jews, racial ‘improvement’, and restoration of Germany’s power and standing in the world – did, was to unleash an unending dynamic in all avenues of policy-making. As Willikens had remarked, the greatest chances of success (and best opportunities for personal aggrandizement) occurred where individuals could demonstrate how effectively they were ‘working towards the Führer’. But since this frenzy of activity was uncoordinated – and could not be coordinated – because of Hitler’s need to avoid being openly drawn into disputes, it inexorably led to endemic conflict (within the general understanding of following the ‘Führer’s will’). And this in turn merely reinforced the impossibility of Hitler’s personal involvement in resolving the conflict. Hitler was, therefore, at one and the same time the absolutely indispensable fulcrum of the entire regime, and yet largely detached from any formal machinery of government. The result, inevitably, was a high level of governmental and administrative disorder.
Hitler’s personal temperament, his unbureaucratic style of operating, his Darwinistic inclination to side with the stronger, and the aloofness necessitated by his role as Führer, all merged together to produce a most extraordinary phenomenon: a highly modern, advanced state without any central coordinating body and with a head of government largely disengaged from the machinery of government. However dominant, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco (dictator of Spain after 1939) continued to run affairs through their cabinets, even if these were largely consultative bodies. Josef Stalin retained his Politburo (despite having members of it shot on occasion). All three attempted to dominate and impose rigid control over the central machinery of government. But in Germany, cabinet meetings (which Hitler had never liked running) now lost significance. There were only twelve gatherings of ministers in 1935. By 1937, this had fallen to a mere six meetings. After 5 February 1938, the cabinet never met again. During the war, Hitler would even ban his ministers getting together occasionally over a glass of beer.7 In the absence of cabinet discussions which might have determined priorities, a flood of legislation emanating independently from each ministry had to be formulated by a cumbersome and grossly inefficient process whereby drafts were circulated and recirculated among ministers until some agreement was reached. Only at that stage would Hitler, if he approved after its contents were briefly summarized for him, sign the bill (usually scarcely bothering to read it) and turn it into law. Hans Heinrich Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery, and sole link between the ministers and the Führer, naturally attained considerable influence over the way legislation (or other business of ministers) was presented to Hitler. Where Lammers decided that the Führer was too busy with other pressing matters of state, legislation that had taken months to prepare could simply be ignored or postponed, sometimes indefinitely. Alternatively, Hitler intervened, sometimes in minutiae, on the basis of some one-sided piece of information he had been fed. The result was an increasing arbitrariness as Hitler’s highly personalized style of rule came into inevitable – and ultimately irreconcilable – conflict with bureaucracy’s need for regulated norms and clearly defined procedures. Hitler’s ingrained secretiveness, his preference for one-to-one meetings (which he could easily dominate) with his subordinates, and his strong favouritism among ministers and other leaders in party as well as state, were added ingredients that went to undermine formal patterns of government and administration.
Access to Hitler was naturally a key element in the continuing power-struggle within the regime. Ministers who had for some reason fallen out of favour could find it impossible to speak to Hitler. Agriculture Minister Walther Darre, for instance, was in the later 1930s to attempt in vain for over two years to gain an audience with the Führer to discuss the country’s seriously worsening agricultural problems. Though they could not hinder the access of ‘court favourites’ like Goebbels and the highly ambitious young architect Albert Speer – skilful in pandering to Hitler’s obsession with building plans and a rapidly rising star in the Nazi firmament – Hitler’s adjutants acquired a good deal of informal power through their control of the portals of the Führer.8
Fritz Wiedemann, during the First World War Hitler’s immediate superior and in the mid-1930s one of his adjutants, later recalled the extraordinary style of his arbitrary and haphazard form of personal rule. In 1935, commented Wiedemann, Hitler still maintained a relatively orderly routine. Mornings, between about 10a.m. and lunch at 1 or 2p.m., were normally taken up with meetings with Lammers, State Secretary Meissner, Funk (from the Propaganda Ministry) and ministers or other significant figures who had pressing business to discuss. In the afternoons, Hitler held discussions with military or foreign-policy advisers, though he preferred to talk to Speer about building plans. Gradually, however, any formal routine crumbled. Hitler reverted to the type of dilettante lifestyle which, in essence, he had enjoyed as a youth in Linz and Vienna, and for which, as party leader, he had earned Gottfried Feder’s reproof in the early 1920s. ‘Later on,’ recalled Wiedemann, ‘Hitler appeared as a rule only just before lunch, quickly read the press summaries provided by Reich Press Chief Dr Dietrich, then went to eat. It became, therefore, ever more difficult for Lammers and Meissner to acquire decisions from Hitler which he alone as head of state could take.’ When Hitler was at his residence on the Obersalzberg, it
was even worse. ‘There he invariably left his room only approaching 2p.m. Then it was lunch. The afternoon was mainly taken up with a walk, and in the evenings, straight after the evening meal, films were shown.’9
The walks were always downhill, with a car stationed at the bottom to ferry Hitler and his accompaniment back up again. Hitler’s detestation of physical exercise and fear of embarrassment through lack of athleticism remained acute. The whole area was cordoned off during the afternoon walk, to keep away the crowds of sightseers eager for a glimpse of the Führer. Instead, the tradition set in of the visitors’ ‘march-past’. Up to 2,000 people of all ages and from all parts of Germany, whose devotion had persuaded them to follow the steep paths up to the Obersalzberg and often wait hours, marched, at a signal from one of the adjutants, in a silent column past Hitler. For Wiedemann, the adulation had quasi-religious overtones.10
Hitler rarely missed his evening film. The adjutants had to see to it that a fresh film was on offer each day – not always an easy task given the level of production of quality films. Hitler invariably preferred light entertainment to serious documentaries, and, according to Wiedemann, probably gleaned some of his strong prejudices about the culture of other nations from such films.11
In the Reich Chancellery, the company was almost exclusively male – the atmosphere part way between that of a men’s club and an officers’ mess (with a whiff of the gangsters’ den thrown in). On the Obersalzberg – ‘the mountain’, as it came to be called – the presence of women (Eva Braun and wives or lady-friends of members of Hitler’s entourage) helped to lighten the atmosphere, and political talk was banned as long as they were there. Hitler was courteous, even charming in a somewhat awkwardly stiff and formal fashion, to his guests, especially towards women. He was invariably correct and attentive in dealings with the secretaries, adjutants, and other attendants on his personal staff, who for the most part liked as well as respected him.12 He could be kind and thoughtful, as well as generous, in his choice of birthday and Christmas presents for his entourage. Even so, whether at the Reich Chancellery or on the Obersalzberg, the constrictions and tedium of living in close proximity to Hitler were considerable. Genuine informality and relaxation were difficult when he was present. Wherever he was, he dominated. In conversation, he would brook no contradiction. Guests at meals were often nervous or hesitant lest a false word incur his displeasure. His adjutants were more concerned late at night lest a guest unwittingly lead on to one of Hitler’s favourite topics – notably the First World War, or the navy – where he would launch into yet another endless monologue which they would be forced to sit through until the early hours.13
Hitler’s unmethodical, even casual, approach to the flood of often serious matters of government brought to his attention was a guarantee of administrative disorder. ‘He disliked reading files,’ recalled Wiedemann. ‘I got decisions out of him, even on very important matters, without him ever asking me for the relevant papers. He took the view that many things sorted themselves out if they were left alone.’14
Hitler’s lethargy regarding paperwork knew one major exception. When it came to preparing his speeches, which he composed himself, he would withdraw into his room and could work deep into the night several evenings running, occupying three secretaries taking dictation straight into the typewriter before carefully correcting the drafts.15 The public image was vital. He remained, above all, the propagandist par excellence.
Even had Hitler been far more conscientious and less idiosyncratic and haphazard in his style of leadership, he would have found the highly personalized direction of the complex and varied issues of a modern state beyond him. As it was, the doors were opened wide to mismanagement and corruption on a massive scale. Hitler coupled financial incompetence and disinterest with an entirely exploitative and cavalier usage of public funds. Posts were found for ‘old fighters’. Vast amounts of money were poured into the construction of imposing representative buildings. Architects and builders were lavishly rewarded. For favoured building or artistic projects, money was no object.16 Leading figures in the regime could draw upon enormous salaries, enjoy tax relief, and benefit further from gifts, donations and bribes to accommodate their extravagant tastes in palatial homes, fine trappings, works of art and other material luxuries – including, of course, the inevitable showy limousines. Labour Front boss Robert Ley, a former Rhineland Gauleiter with a doctorate in food chemistry, a notorious womanizer who acquired the well-earned nickname of ‘Reich Drunkard’ (Reichstrunkenbold), was one notable case – though he was merely part of the tip of a very large iceberg. His self-evident venality and luxury living were a blatant affront to many in the working class earning pitiful wages for backbreaking labour. But ordinary Germans knew nothing, for example, of his use of funds from the Bank of German Labour (Bank der deutschen Arbeit) to buy back at twice the purchase price the Berlin villa acquired by the commander of Hitler’s bodyguard, Sepp Dietrich (who had soon tired of his luxury home in the capital and wanted to replace it with one in Munich), nor of the Bank’s offer of what amounted to a handsome bribe to Hitler’s adjutant Fritz Wiedemann.17 Corruption was rife at all levels of the regime.18 Hitler was happy to indulge the infinite craving for the material trappings of power and success of his underlings, aware that corruption on a massive scale ensured loyalty as the Third Reich developed into a modern variant of a feudal system resting on personal allegiance rewarded by private fiefdoms.19 He himself, by now a millionaire on the proceeds of sales of Mein Kampf, led his publicly acclaimed spartan lifestyle (as regards his food and clothing) in a context of untold luxury. Alongside his magnificent apartments – his official one in Berlin and his private one in Munich – the initially somewhat modest alpine residence, Haus Wachenfeld on the Obersalzberg, was now converted at vast expense into the grandiose Berghof, suitable for state visits of foreign dignitaries.20 His restless energy demanded that he and his sizeable entourage were almost constantly on the move within Germany. For that, a special train with eleven coaches containing sleeping compartments, a fleet of limousines, and three aeroplanes stood at his disposal.21
Even more serious than the way corrupt party despots profited from the bonanza of a seemingly unlimited free-for-all with public funds was the corruption of the political system itself. In the increasing absence of any formal procedures for arriving at political decisions, favoured party bosses with access to Hitler were often able, over lunch or at coffee, to put forward some initiative and manipulate a comment of approval to their own advantage.22
Hitler’s impulsive verbal agreement to suggestions from subordinate leaders could prove embarrassing. When, in October 1934, Robert Ley obtained Hitler’s signature on a decree which would have strengthened the hand of the Labour Front at the expense of employers and the state authorities, the Trustees of Labour, it led to difficulties. Neither the Ministry of Labour nor the Ministry of Economics had been properly consulted. The party’s head, Rudolf Heß, personally at loggerheads with Ley (who in addition to being boss of the Labour Front had also been placed by Hitler in charge of the party’s organizational matters, bringing him directly and repeatedly into conflict with Heß), also strongly protested. Unable to antagonize economics supremo Schacht and the industrial leadership, Hitler had to comply with the pressure. To preserve his prestige, the decree was not revoked, but simply ignored and fell into desuetude however much Ley tried to have recourse to it.23
A few months later, in early 1935, the reverse happened when Hitler bowed to party pressure having initially agreed to a proposal from a Reich government minister. Labour Minister Seldte had won Hitler’s support for his plans to replace the regionally weighted wage structure for building workers by a unified structure across the Reich. This led to loud protests from the Gauleiter, the party’s regional chieftains – Gauleiter Kaufmann of Hamburg was especially vociferous – about the impact of wage reductions in some areas on worker morale.24 Hitler backed down. Again, for prestige purposes the earlier decision c
ould not simply be rescinded as a mistake. Instead, Hitler ordered further deliberations over an indefinite period before the wage revision should be implemented. This meant the matter was shelved and forgotten.25
In the two examples just cited, specific policy initiatives which ran foul of the vested interests of powerful groups in the regime had to be jettisoned. Ley and Seldte found, on these occasions, that they ultimately turned out not to be ‘working towards the Führer’. However, Hitler’s sparse involvement in initiating domestic policy during the mid – and later 1930s and the disintegration of any centralized body for policy formulation meant that there was wide scope for those able to exert pressure for action in areas broadly echoing the aims of nationalization of the masses and exclusion of those deemed not to belong to the ‘national community’. The pressure came above all from two sources: the party (both its central office and its provincial bosses, the Gauleiter) and the élite organization the SS (now merging into the police to become an ideologically driven state security force of immense power). Using Hitler’s professed (and unlimited) goals of national rebirth and strength through racial purity to legitimate their demands and actions, they ensured that the dynamic unleashed by the takeover of power would not subside.
Once power had been attained in 1933, the NSDAP, its numbers now rapidly swelling through the intake of hundreds of thousands of opportunists, became in essence a loosely coordinated vehicle of propaganda and social control. Hitler had in any case, in destroying the organizational structure built up by Gregor Strasser, already determined in December 1932 that mobilization behind the ‘National Socialist idea’ embodied in his own person was the party’s task.26 After becoming Chancellor, he had taken little interest in the party as an institution. The weak and ineffectual, but devotedly loyal Rudolf Heß was in April made Hitler’s deputy in charge of the party. Since Robert Ley, as we have noted, was left running the party’s organizational matters, Heß’s authority was from the outset far from complete.27 Nor was Heß in a strong position in his dealings with the Gauleiter, most of whom could rely on their long-standing personal bonds with Hitler to uphold their power-base in the provinces. Neither a genuine hierarchical structure of command at the top of the party, nor a collective body for determining party policy, was ever instituted. The ‘Reich Leadership’ of the party remained a group of individuals who never met as a type of Politburo; Gauleiter conferences only took place at Hitler’s own behest, to hear a speech from the Führer, not to discuss policy; while a party senate was never called into existence.28 The party acquired, therefore, neither a coherent structure nor a systematic policy which it could enforce upon the state administration. Its essential nature – that of a ‘Führer party’ tied to emotively powerful but loosely defined general aims embodied in the person of the Führer and held together by the Führer cult – ruled out both. Even so, once Heß was given in 1934 what amounted to veto rights over draft legislation by government ministers and, the following year, over the appointment of higher civil servants, the party had indeed made significant inroads into the purely governmental arena.29 The possibilities of intervention, however unsystematic, did now increase the party’s influence, above all in what it saw as crucial ideological spheres. Race policy and the ‘Church struggle’ were among the most important of these.30 In both areas, the party had no difficulty in mobilizing its activists, whose radicalism in turn forced the government into legislative action. In fact, the party leadership often found itself compelled to respond to pressures from below, stirred up by Gauleiter playing their own game, or emanating sometimes from radical activists at local level. Whatever the derivation, in this way the continuum of radicalization in issues associated with the Führer’s aims was sustained.