by Ian Kershaw
For Hitler, whatever the tactical considerations, the aim of destroying the Jews – his central political idea since 1919 – remained unaltered. He revealed his approach to a meeting of party District Leaders at the end of April 1937, in immediate juxtaposition to comments on the Jews: ‘I don’t straight away want violently to demand an opponent to fight. I don’t say “fight” because I want to fight. Instead, I say: “I want to destroy you!” And now let skill help me to manoeuvre you so far into the corner that you can’t strike any blow. And then you get the stab into the heart.’240
In practice, however, as had been the position during the summer of 1935 before the Nuremberg Rally, Hitler needed do little to push forward the radicalization of the ‘Jewish Question’.241 By now, even though still not centrally coordinated, the ‘Jewish Question’ pervaded all key areas of government; party pressure at headquarters and in the localities for new forms of discrimination was unceasing; civil servants complied with ever tighter constraints under the provisions of the ‘Reich Citizenship Law’; the law-courts were engaged in the persecution of Jews under the provisions of the Nuremberg Laws; the police were looking for further ways to hasten the elimination of Jews and speed up their departure from Germany; and the general public, for the most part, passively accepted the discrimination where they did not directly encourage or participate in it. Antisemitism had come by now to suffuse all walks of life. ‘The Nazis have indeed brought off a deepening of the gap between the people and the Jews,’ ran a Sopade report from Berlin covering the month of January 1936. ‘The feeling that the Jews are another race is today a general one.’242
IV
In one of the seventeen speeches he made at the 1935 Party Rally in Nuremberg, Hitler attempted – he was speaking after all to the party faithful – to disclaim the evident wide disparity between his own massive popularity and the poor image of the party. ‘I must… take a stance here against the comment so often heard, especially among the bourgeoisie: “The Führer, yes, – but the Party, that’s a different matter!” To that, I give the answer: “No, gentlemen! The Führer is the Party, and the Party is the Führer”.’243 Since the mid-1920s the identity of Leader and Party had been a myth that had served both well. It had given the party a cohesion and discipline otherwise notably lacking. And it had established Hitler’s supreme power-base as the sole keeper of the party’s Grail. But, however necessary Hitler’s attempts to uphold the myth were, the reality was that once in power the popular images had inevitably diverged.
Hitler, by late 1935, was already well on the way to establishing – backed by the untiring efforts of the propaganda machine – his standing as a national leader, transcending purely party interest. He stood for the successes, the achievements of the regime. Within three years, his genius – so propaganda proclaimed, and so the majority of the population believed – had masterminded economic recovery, the removal of the scourge of unemployment, and (even by ordering the shooting of his own SA leaders) the re-establishment of law and order. He had, it seemed, also single-handedly broken the shackles of Versailles, restored military pride, and made Germany once more a force to be reckoned with in international affairs – and all the time skilfully avoiding conflict and upholding Germany’s peaceful aims. There was nothing specifically ‘Nazi’ about his ‘achievements’. Any patriotic German could find something to admire in them. His popularity soared accordingly also among those who were otherwise critical of National Socialism.
With the party, it was a different matter. Where Hitler seemed to represent national unity, the party functionaries were all too often seen as corrupt, high-handed, and self-serving – sowing discord rather than embodying the spirit of the ‘national community’. The party could be, and often was, blamed for all the continuing ills of daily life – for the gulf between expectations and reality that had brought widespread disillusionment in the wake of the initial exaggerated hopes of rapid material improvement in the Third Reich.
Not least, the party’s image had badly suffered through its attacks on the Christian Churches. As in the ‘Jewish Question’, much of the impetus came from the party’s grass-roots and local or provincial leadership. The long-standing antagonisms built up in the ‘time of struggle’ before 1933 were not easy to contain now that the party held power.
The attack on the autonomy of the provincial Protestant Churches in Bavaria and Württemberg provided one notable flashpoint. The deposition in autumn 1934 by Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller (implemented, with strong-arm tactics, by his henchmen) of the popular Bishops Meiser and Wurm, who headed the resistance to incorporation of these independent churches in the ‘coordinated’ new creation of a ‘Reich Church’, had led to mass unrest among some of National Socialism’s most loyal supporters.244 The pious peasantry of Franconia, one of the NSDAP’s bastions, bitterly blamed the party.245 Hitler escaped the opprobrium. Personal loyalty to him was untouched. When he intervened in late October to reinstate Meiser and Wurm, it seemed yet another indication that he had been kept in the dark by his subordinates, intervening to restore justice once he realized what was taking place without his approval. His intervention had in fact been a capitulation to popular pressure, a necessary step to end the unrest and limit the damage being done. His emollient assurances to Meiser and Wurm contrasted with his angry denunciation of them, a few months earlier, as ‘traitors to the people, enemies of the Fatherland, and the destroyers of Germany’.246
Among the Catholic population, too, the continued war of attrition against Church practices and institutions undermined the position – never as strong as in Protestant regions – of the NSDAP and its representatives in solidly Catholic areas. Hitler again escaped much of the blame. His popularity was certainly not left unscathed.247 But it was easier (and less dangerous) to criticize the local party functionaries or the ‘bogyman’ usually singled out by Church leaders as the most pernicious anti-Christian radical, Alfred Rosenberg.248 Concerned at the growth of unrest caused by the ‘Church struggle’, especially with vital issues in foreign policy still unsettled, Hitler told Goebbels in the summer of 1935 that he wanted ‘peace with the Churches’ – ‘at least for a certain period of time’.249 He took the ‘question of Catholicism’, noted Goebbels, ‘very seriously’.250 But, as with the ‘Jewish Question’, the radicals at the party’s grass-roots, and in its leadership, were not so easily controlled. The ‘Church struggle’ in Catholic areas intensified. And by the winter of 1935–6, morale in such regions plummeted.251
The dismal mood in those parts of the country worst affected by the assault on the Churches was only part of a wider drop in the popularity of the regime in the winter of 1935–6. Hitler’s personal standing was still largely untouched. But even the Führer was increasingly being drawn into the criticism. For a regime – and its Leader quite especially – which had built a doctrine on erasing the consequences of November 1918 and ensuring that no future people’s rising could take place, the manifestations of unrest could not be ignored.252
Hitler was aware of the deterioration in the political situation within Germany, and of the material conditions underlying the worsening mood of the population. ‘Führer gives an overview of the political situation. Sees a decline,’ registered Goebbels in mid-August.253 A summary of price and wage levels prepared for Hitler on 4 September 1935 showed almost half of the German work-force earning gross wages of 18 Reich Marks or less per week. This was substantially below the poverty line. The statistics went on to illustrate that a family of five – including three children of school age – existing on the low wage of even 25 Reich Marks a week earned by a typical urban worker and living on an exceedingly frugal diet could scarcely be expected to make ends meet. Wages, then, remained at the 1932 level – substantially lower than the last pre-Depression year of 1928 in the much-maligned Weimar Republic. Food-prices, on the other hand, had risen officially by 8 per cent since 1933. Overall living costs were higher by 5.4 per cent. Official rates did not, however, tell the whole tale. In
creases of 33, 50, and even 150 per cent had been reported for some foodstuffs.254 By late summer, the terms ‘food crisis’ (Ernährungskrise) and ‘provisions crisis’ (Versorgungskrise) were in common use.
Dwindling currency reserves and a chronic shortage of foreign exchange had already led in 1934 to Schacht being given near-dictatorial control over the economy. His ‘New Plan’ of September that year had imposed strict controls on allocation of foreign exchange for imports and aimed to reorientate Germany’s foreign trade through bilateral agreements with countries in south-eastern Europe, essentially obtaining supplies of raw materials on credit set against subsequent exports of finished goods from Germany.255 The problems, however, continued. The priority given to rearmament made them unavoidable. Noticeably rising armaments expenditure and expensive imports, given a refusal to entertain any consideration of currency devaluation, were creating inevitable difficulties. It was becoming impossible to provide both the imports of raw materials needed for the expanding armaments industry and the imports of foodstuffs required to keep down consumer prices. A bad harvest in 1934 and a combination of inefficiency, mismanagement and over-bureaucratization in Darré’s Reich Food Estate further exacerbated the structural economic problem. The ‘production battle’ (Erzeugungsschlacht) trumpeted by Darré in November 1934 had, despite reducing imports, begun with some misplaced bureaucratic intervention by the Reich Food Estate. The result was a serious shortage of domestic fodder, falling livestock herds, and a vicious circle of food shortages. By the autumn of 1935, reserves of fats and eggs had been almost entirely used up.256 But foreign exchange for imports could only be at the expense of industry – and primarily armaments manufacture.
All at once, it seemed, the food shops were empty. Queuing for food became part of a dismal daily routine in the big cities. Fats, butter, eggs, then meat became scarce and expensive. Farmers, with their usual public-spirited support for the ‘national community’, held back their produce to maximize profits. Standards of living, already depressed in the big cities, fell sharply. The industrial working class – the section of society treated with most suspicion and caution by the regime and worst hit by the ‘food crisis’ – was especially disaffected.
The Berlin police reported a serious deterioration in the mood of the population in autumn 1935 as a result of the fats and meats shortage, rising food-prices, and renewed growth in unemployment. There was great anger among those queuing for food. Butter sales had to be watched over by the police. There was ill-feeling towards hoarders. But most ill-feeling was directed at the government, which had proved incapable of controlling prices.257 The situation was even worse in some other big cities. After all, the capital had been singled out for favourable treatment.258 By January 1936, a further deterioration had set in. The mood among a ‘shockingly high percentage of the population’ in Berlin was said to be ‘directly negative towards State and Movement’. Criticism was ‘now moving into uncontrollable territory’. Income and food-prices stood in crass disproportion to each other. Rises in food-prices – 70 per cent in the case of frozen meat – were the main source of unrest. Reality stood in contradiction to official declarations about the situation. Food stalls in the markets of Moabit and Charlottenburg were hotbeds of discontent. Communist sentiments could be heard and were apparently falling increasingly on ready ears.259 By March, the mood prompted ‘great worry’. There was ‘marked bitterness’ in wide sections of the population. The ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting had largely vanished. There was a lot of talk of a second ‘30 June’ (the Night of the Long Knives), bringing a military dictatorship and ‘a fundamentally new and clean state leadership and administration under the dominant influence of the armed forces’. The food shortages had highlighted the enormous gulf between the poverty of the masses and the ostentatious wealth and blatant corruption of party bosses. Hitler himself came under fire for tolerating such a situation. ‘Confidence of the population in the person of the Führer is also undergoing a crisis,’ claimed the report of the Berlin police.260
‘The mood in the people is not bad, but good. I know that better. It’s made bad through such reports. I forbid such things in future,’ raged Hitler, when his adjutant Fritz Wiedemann tried drawing the accounts of low morale to his attention.261 But such an irrational response itself hinted that Hitler had a good impression of how the material shortages had affected the popularity of his regime. He was, in fact, fully in the picture of the seriousness of the situation.
He had been made well aware, as early as September 1934, of complaints from the poorer sections of society about the price of fat products. Darré was asked whether the complaints were justified and had to supply information on the price trends for milk and fats.262 This was followed by a number of top-level discussions, involving the party’s Gauleiter, with Hitler himself present on one occasion.263 Two months later, Hitler ordered the appointment of Carl Goerdeler, Lord Mayor of Leipzig, as Reich Commissar for Price Surveillance. Hitler had, he told a meeting of ministers on 5 November 1934, ‘given the working class his word that he would allow no price increases. Wage-earners would accuse him of breaking his word if he did not act against the rising prices. Revolutionary conditions among the people would be the further consequence. He would not, therefore, allow the shocking driving up of prices.’264
Goerdeler’s position, however, had more to do with appearances than with any actual power to prevent the price-rises. By July 1935, Frick was sending copies of worrying reports from all parts of the country to the Reich Chancellery. He urgently requested that Hitler be made aware of the ‘serious danger’ they illustrated of the impact the rising prices was having on the working class.265 The Trustees of Labour, meeting in Berlin on 27 August, painted the same picture.266 Hitler demanded the statistical report on prices and income levels which we have already noted. The report, of 4 September, showed poor living-standards, falling real wages, and steep price increases in some necessities.267 This was the dismal reality behind the ‘fine façade of the Third Reich’.268
Hitler was told later in the month of the implications of the food shortage for the rearmament programme. The minimum from the critically depleted reserves of foreign exchange needed to import fats (especially cheap margarine) to overcome the shortages was estimated at 300,000 Reich Marks per day – and even this was well below what Darré was wanting. There was no doubt what this meant: ‘All foreign exchange [expended] for fats provisions has as a consequence a drop in raw material imports and therefore increased unemployment. But even this must be accepted, for the provisioning of the population with fatstuffs must take precedence over all other needs.’269 Rearmament had, for the time being, to take second place. By then, Schacht had already warned the Gauleiter, in Hitler’s presence, that only 5 milliard Reich Marks were available for armaments, and that he would have to introduce cuts, ‘otherwise the whole thing will collapse’.270
Price Commissar Goerdeler wanted more than a temporary reordering of the priority given to rearmament. In a devastating analysis of Germany’s economic position, sent to Hitler towards the end of October 1935, he regarded ‘the satisfactory provisioning of the population with fats, even in relation to armaments, as having political priority’. He favoured a return to a market economy, a renewed emphasis upon exports, and a corresponding reduction in the rearmament drive – in his view at the root of the economic problems. The only alternative, he apocalyptically proclaimed, was the return to a non-industrial economy with drastic reductions in the standard of living for every German. If things carried on as they were, only a hand-to-mouth existence would be possible after January 1936.271 The prognosis was anathema to Hitler.272 For Goerdeler, it marked the beginning of the path that led eventually into outright resistance.273 His more immediate response, however, was to recommend the winding-up of the Reich Commissariat for Price Surveillance since, in his view, it served no useful purpose. On both occasions the suggestion was made, in November 1935 and again in February 1936, Hitler refused – plainly to
retain appearances – to entertain the dissolution of the Price Commissariat ‘until further notice’.274
Meanwhile, Hitler had intervened in October to ensure that Schacht made available an additional sum of 12.4 million Reich Marks in precious foreign exchange for the import of oil-seed for margarine production.275 Göring – his first sally into the economic domain up to now rigidly in Schacht’s hand – was deployed by Hitler to arbitrate between Schacht and Darré in the fight for foreign exchange.276 He came down on the side of Darré – a decision that took Schacht and some business leaders by surprise. But for Hitler, the immediate prime need was to avoid the damaging psychological effects of the only alternative: food rationing. The press agency was confidentially informed in November of the Führer’s decision ‘that the card for fats should not be introduced and that instead sufficient currency for the import of foodstuffs should be made available by the Economics Minister’. Rearmament was affected. The War Ministry was prepared to forgo until spring some of its allocation of foreign exchange so that foodstuffs could be imported.277 Popular unrest was directly impinging on the regime’s absolute priority. Hitler had cause for concern.278
As the domestic problems deepened, however, the Abyssinian crisis, causing disarray in the League of Nations, presented Hitler with new opportunities to look to foreign-policy success. He was swiftly alert to the potential for breaking out of Germany’s international isolation, driving a further deep wedge between the Stresa signatories, and attaining, perhaps, a further revision of Versailles. Given the domestic situation, a foreign-policy triumph would, moreover, be most welcome. Already in August, he had expressed eager anticipation of what he saw as a certain war about to take place in Abyssinia. He outlined in Goebbels’s presence how he saw foreign-policy plans developing: ‘with England, eternal alliance. Good relationship with Poland… Expansion to the east. The Baltic belongs to us… Conflicts Italy-Abyssinia-England, then Japan-Russia imminent.’ Within a few years would arrive ‘Our great historic hour. We must be ready then.’ ‘Grandiose perspective,’ added Goebbels. ‘We’re all deeply moved.’279 Less than two months later, with the Italian war in Abyssinia now a reality, Goebbels recorded Hitler’s view, expressed to ministers and army leaders, that ‘everything is coming for us three years too soon’. He emphasized, however, the opportunity that Germany now faced: ‘Rearm and get ready. Europe is on the move again. If we’re clever, we’ll be the winners.’280