by Ian Kershaw
30. Hitler rejected the term ‘völkisch’ as unclear. – RSA, I, 3. Despite his statement, some sympathizers of his Movement were still unclear about the attitude towards religion. On his behalf, Rudolf Heß answered a letter from a Fräulein Ilse Harff from Chemnitz on 22 May 1925 by stating that ‘Herr Hitler has never opposed the Christian religion of any denomination, merely parties calling themselves Christian which misuse the Christian religion for political purposes’ (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355/I/2, Fol.127).
31. RSA, I, 1–6.
32. Lüdecke, 248.
33. RSA, I, 9.
34. Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 51–2; Horn, Marsch, 226–7. Hitler waited more than a year before placing the reorganization of the S A in the hands of Franz Pfeffer von Salomon in autumn 1926.
35. RSA, I, 7–9.
36. Lüdecke, 256.
37. Heiden, Hitler, 198.
38. Jablonsky, 168, based on the police report of the meeting.
39. Rosenberg made plain in his memoirs that he stayed away from the meeting because of resentment which went back to the support Hitler had given during his internment to the clique around Esser and Streicher. He knew that Hitler planned a public display of mutual forgiveness for what had gone on, but wanted no part in the theatricals (Rosenberg, Letzte Aufzeichnungen, 114, 319–20).
40. Lüdecke, 257.
41. Lüdecke, 275.
42. Jablonsky, 168, 220 n.9. At the meeting in Munich in March to dissolve the Völkischer Block, Drexler is reported to have said that it was impossible to work alongside Esser. Nothing separated him from Hitler, but he could not continue with him as long as Esser was there (BHStA, Slg.Personen, Anton Drexler, Miesbacher Anzeiger, 19 May 1925).
43. Lüdecke, 255.
44. RSA, I, 14–28.
45. In his ‘Call to Former Members’ published the previous day, he had promised to account within a year for whether ‘the party again became a movement or the movement became stifled as a party’. In either event, he accepted responsibility (RSA, I, 6).
46. BHStA, MA 101235/I, Pd. Mü., Nachrichtenblatt, 2 March 1925, S.16.
47. BHStA, MA 101235/I, Pd. Mü., Nachrichtenblatt, 2 March 1925, S.16; RSA, I, 28 n.9; Lüdecke, 258.
48. RSA, I, 446, 448.
49. RSA, I, 5, 28 n.9; Horn, Marsch, 216–17 and n.25–6.
50. According to Lüdecke, 253, Hitler fell into a rage about the inadequacies of generals as statesmen when the handling of Ludendorff was broached.
51. Horst Möller, Weimar, Munich, 1985, 54.
52. Ludwig Volk, Der bayerische Episkopat und der Nationalsozialismus 1930–1934, Mainz, 1965, 5, 7.
53. RSA I, 36.
54. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 179–80; Horn, Marsch, 217.
55. See RSA, I, 38 n.2.
56. Lüdecke, 255.
57. Margarethe Ludendorff, 277–8.
58. Winkler, Weimar, 279; Horn, Marsch, 218 states that the choice for Jarres was to prevent embarrassment for Ludendorff. This was surely, however, an excuse rather than a reason.
59. Julius Streicher stated in a speech on 27 March, two days before the election, that the meaning of the election was to show that Germany needed a man like Hitler at its head (cit. Horn, Marsch, 217 n.28).
60. Falter et al., Wahlen, 76. The Communists also registered serious losses, as the radicalization of politics in the Weimar Republic was – temporarily as it turned out – reversed.
61. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 180.
62. The Tannenbergbund was banned in 1933. For image reasons, however, the Ludendorffs were still allowed to publish. There was an official reconciliation of Hitler and Ludendorff in 1937, and at his death in December that year the General was accorded a state funeral. The völkisch religious movement he and his wife founded – the Deutsche Gotterkenntnis (German Knowledge of God) – was even granted formal status (Benz and Grami (eds.), Biographisches Lexikon zur Weimarer Republik, 212–13; Wistrich, Wer war wer im Dritten Reich, 180).
63. The death-throes of the DVFB were to last until 1933, but it was never again a force to be reckoned with (Horn, Marsch, 218 and n.32).
64. Horn, Marsch, 215–16; Joseph Nyomarkay, Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi Party, Minneapolis, 1967, 72–3. On 8 March, the NSFB (Völkischer Block) was dissolved in Bavaria, and most members returned to the NSDAP. Four days later, the GVG dissolved itself with a unanimous pledge of support for Hitler and the NSDAP.
65. Tyrell, Führer, 107–8; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 246–7; Horn, Marsch, 222 and n.43. Hitler was permitted during the period of the bans only to speak at private functions – such as the meeting of the Hamburger Nationalklub he addressed in February 1926 – and at closed party meetings (though in Bavaria even speaking at these was for some time prohibited).
66. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 247; Reinhard Kühnl, ‘Zur Programmatik der Nationalsozialistischen Linken. Das Strasser-Programm von 1925/26’, VfZ, 14 (1966), 317–33, here 318.
67. Albert Krebs, Tendenzen und Gestalten der NSDAP, Stuttgart, 1959, 183, 185. Strasser’s importance to the NSDAP is thoroughly examined by Peter D. Stachura, Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism, London, 1983 and Udo Kissenkoetter, Gregor Strasser und die NSDAP, Stuttgart, 1978. Kissenkoetter provides a brief biographical sketch in Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.), Die braune Elite, Darmstadt, 1989, 273–85.
68. Nyomarkay, 72–3. In southern Germany, by contrast, the 222 local branches before the putsch (all but thirty-seven in Bavaria), compared with only 140 by late 1925.
69. Tyrell, Führer, 97–9.
70. See Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 207; Tyrell, Führer, 113; Nyomarkay, 71–89; Jeremy Noakes, ‘Conflict and Development in the NSDAP 1924–1927’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1 (1966), 3–36.
71. Noakes, Nazi Party, 65.
72. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 207.
73. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 210–11; Noakes, Nazi Party, 84–5.
74. See Krebs, 187. Goebbels’s radical, ‘national’ brand of ‘socialism’ is heavily emphasized by Ulrich Höver, Joseph Goebbels – ein nationaler Sozialist, Bonn/Berlin, 1992.
75. TBJG, I. i, 99 (27 March 1925). Three substantial biographies of Goebbels appeared during the 1990s: Ralf Georg Reuth, Goebbels, Munich, 1990; Höver (who, however, deals in detail only with the period before 1933); and David Irving, Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich, London, 1996. Shorter character sketches are provided by Elke Fröhlich in Smelser-Zitelmann, Die braune Elite, 52–68, and Fest, Face of the Third Reich, 130–51.
76. Peter Hüttenberger, Die Gauleiter. Studie zum Wandel des Machtgefüges in der NSDAP, Stuttgart, 1969, 33, 223; Shelley Baranowski, The Sanctity of Rural Life. Nobility, Protestantism, and Nazism in Weimar Prussia, New York/Oxford, 1995, 136.
77. TBJG, I.1, 127 (11 September 1925).
78. For public consumption at least, Hitler did not distance himself from the idea at this time. Replying for Hitler on 4 June 1925 to a query from a party sympathizer, Heß was apologetic about the absence of trade unions attached to the Movement, which he blamed on lack of funding (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355-I-2, Fol.22, Heß to Alfred Barg, Kohlfurt-Dorf).
79. Noakes, Nazi Party, 85–6.
80. See Krebs, 119.
81. Krebs, 187.
82. This and the following paragraph are based on Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 207–11. See also Noakes, Nazi Party, 71.
83. TBJG, I.1, 126 (11 September 1925). For Fobke’s description of Strasser, see Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 208.
84. Though the meeting had not attained all its goals, Goebbels noted his satisfaction: ‘Everything then, just as we wanted’ (TBJG, I.1, 126 (11 September 1925)).
85. The Göttingen group had regarded the Community as a vehicle for representing its views within the movement, for blocking electoral participation, and for purging the party of Esser and his clique (Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 211).
; 86. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 212–13. The Briefe appeared for the first time on 1 October 1925. The statutes were approved at the second meeting of the Community, held at Hanover on 22 November 1925.
87. Tyrell, Führer, 116–17; Nyomarkay, 80–81; Kühnl, 321ff. Gregor Strasser recommended to Goebbels the exclusion of all personal factors in the case of Esser and Streicher. Both were in demand as speakers in northern Gaue.
88. Tyrell, Führer, 115–16; Nyomarkay, 80–81; Noakes, Nazi Party, 74.
89. Tyrell, Führer, 119; Noakes, ‘Conflict’, 23ff.; Orlow, i.67–8.
90. Noakes, Nazi Party, 74–5.
91. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 223.
92. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 220; TBJG, I.1, 157 (21 January 1926); Noakes, Nazi Party, 76; Tyrell, ‘Gottfried Feder and the NSDAP’, 48–87, here 69; Horn, Marsch, 237.
93. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 222. It is possible that there was direct criticism of Hitler. But the two witnesses, Otto Strasser, and Franz Pfeffer von Salomon – speaking many years after the events – cannot be relied upon. (See Noakes, Nazi Party, 76–8.)
94. Horn, Marsch, 237–8; Gerhard Schildt, ‘Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft Nord-West. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der NSDAP 1925/6’, Diss.Phil., Freiburg, 1964, 148ff. Hitler had initiated the division of the Reich into Gaue following the refoundation of the party in 1925. There was a good deal of amalgamation and renaming of them in the late 1920s before the organizational structure of the party’s regions settled down. (See Hüttenberger, Gauleiter, 221–4; and Wolfgang Benz, Hermann Grami and Herman Weiß (eds.), Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart, 1997, 478–9.) Hitler’s chieftains in these areas were his vital props in extending and supporting his leadership in the provinces.
95. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 221. The plebiscite proposal was to fail, on 20 June, to acquire the necessary majority (RSA, I, 296 n.4, 451 n.26).
96. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 220; Tyrell, ‘Feder’, 69–70 and 85 n.105; RSA, I, 294 n.1.
97. Orlow, i.68–9; Nyomarkay, 83–4 and n.45.
98. Tyrell, ‘Feder’, 70.
99. TBJG, I.1, 161 (15 February 1926). Goebbels went on (161–2) to refer to a half hour’s discussion after a speech of four hours. According to the police report, the speech lasted five hours (RSA, I, 294 n.1).
100. VB report in RSA, I, 294–6. See also HStA, MA 101235/II, Pd. Mü., LB, 8 March 1926, S.16.
101. The ‘sic!’ is in the original (TBJG, I.1, 161).
102. Though a member of the Working Community, Ley – described by Fobke in his report on the Community’s first meeting as ‘intellectually a nonentity’ – had distinguished himself as an ‘unconditional supporter of the person of Hitler’ (Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 209).
103. TBJG, I.1, 161–2. Goebbels was reported to have stated, following the Bamberg Meeting: ‘Adolf Hitler betrayed socialism in 1923’ (Tyrell, Führer, 128). On the Bamberg meeting (if inaccurate in detail) see also Krebs, 187–8.
104. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 225; Kühnl, 323.
105. Horn, Marsch, 243 and n.119; Noakes, Nazi Party, 83.
106. Orlow, i.72. He must have had reservations. When Goebbels was in Munich in April, he and Kaufmann were strongly criticized by Hitler for their part in the Working Community and the Gau Ruhr (TBJG, I.1, 172 (13 April 1926)).
107. Stachura, Strasser, 50.
108. Horn, Marsch, 243; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 53.
109. See Horn, Marsch, 242 n. 117; Orlow, i.72; Nyomarkay, 88. Goebbels had to respond publicly to ‘Damascus’ allegations (TBJG, I.1, 204 (25 August 1926)).
110. TBJG, I.1, 134–5(14 October 1925).
111. TBJG, I.1, 141 (6 November 1925), 143 (23 November 1925).
112. Nyomarkay, 87.
113. TBJG, I.1, 167 (21 March 1926): ‘Julius is at least honest,’ he wrote. Strasser advised caution (Noakes, Nazi Party, 82).
114. TBJG, I.1, 169 (29 March 1926).
115. TBJG, I.1, 171 (13 April 1926)
116. Tyrell, Führer, 129; TBJG, I.1, 171–2(13 April 1926). Goebbels gives no indication in his diary of the content of the speech. From Pfeffer’s remarks to Kaufmann, that, having previously thought his and Goebbels’s views on socialism went too far, he was almost persuaded to advocate socialism on the basis of the latter’s speech, it can be presumed that Goebbels watered down his early views considerably for consumption for his Munich audience.
117. TBJG, I.1, 172–3(13 April 1926).
118. TBJG, I.1, 175 (19 April 1926).
119. Horn, Marsch, 247. Martin Broszat, ‘Die Anfänge der Berliner NSDAP, 1926/27’, VfZ, 8 (1960), 88ff; Hüttenberger, Gauleiter, 39 ff .
120. TBJG, I.1, 244 (13 July 1928).
121. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 190.
122. Tyrell, Führer, 103.
123. RSA, I, 430; the police report spoke of around 2,500 members present (RSA, 430 n.18).
124. RSA, I, 431.
125. RSA, I, 437.
126. RSA, I, 430.
127. RSA, I,461–5; Tyrell, Führer, 104, 136–41, 216; Horn, Marsch, 278–9; Orlow, i.72–3.
128. RSA, I, 461; and see Noakes, Nazi Party, 83 n.1.
129. RSA, II/1, 6–12 (quotations, 6, 7).
130. RSA, II/1, 15 n.1. The violence and thuggery of those attending led to a protest resolution of the Weimar town council and heated debate in the Thuringian Landtag. It also brought much welcome publicity for the NSDAP (RSA, II/1, 17 n.3).
131. It was subordinated, until 1934, to the SA. At the time of the Weimar Party Rally of 1926, it was no more than about 200 strong. (See Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head, London, 1969, 17–23.)
132. RSA, II/1, 16 and n.5.
133. Orlow, i.76; text of the speech, RSA, II/1, 17–25. Dinter had used his influence to obtain the National Theatre for the party congress (Tyrell, Führer, 149).
134. TBJG, I.1, 191 (6 July 1926).
135. Orlow, i.76. The party had an estimated 35,000 members at this time. Membership in many localities stagnated in 1926–7. (See Orlow, i.111.)
136. Orlow, i.75.
137. See Lüdecke, 250–52.
138. See Tyrell, Führer, 196.
139. See Krebs, 126–7 on Hitler’s speech in Hamburg in early October 1927.
140. See Krebs, 128.
141. See Hanfstaengl, 183; Krebs, 134–5.
142. The following description draws in the main on Krebs, 126–35.
143. Krebs, 133.
144. Krebs, 132.
145. Krebs, 135.
146. Müller, Wandel, 301.
147. Krebs, 128–9.
148. Tyrell, Führer, 212, letter of Walter Buch, 1 October 1928. The document is a handwritten draft of a letter which may never have been sent.
149. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 183. The ‘coffee-house tirades’ were, presumably, outbursts which Hanfstaengl frequently experienced during the regular gatherings of Hitler and his cronies in Munich’s cafés.
150. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 183–4. A similar incident had apparently caused trouble between Hermann Esser and his wife. According to Hanfstaengl, Hitler also found himself for a time persona non grata in the house of one of his Berlin benefactors, the later Minister for Post Wilhelm Ohnesorge, on account of pathetic professions to his daughter that though he could not marry he could not live without her. The reliability of the story might be justifiably doubted. Similarly, though Hitler greatly enjoyed the company of Winifred Wagner, the wife of the composer’s son, Siegfried, there are no grounds to believe (as was hinted, for instance, by Heiden, Hitler, 349) that the relationship was other than platonic.
151. See the writer Hans Carossa’s impressions in Deuerlein, Hitler, 86.
152. Müller, Wandel, 301.
153. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 157.
154. Krebs, 126.
155. Lüdecke, 252; Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre,
163.
156. Krebs, 129; the Munich police noted in March 1925 that Hitler had bought the black Mercedes as a second car (BHStA, MA 101235/1, PD Mü., Nachrichtenblatt, 2 March 1925, S.17). The car cost a handsome 20,000 Reich Marks – more than Hitler’s declared taxable income in the year 1925. He told the tax authorities that he had purchased the car through a bank loan (Hale, ‘Adolf Hitler: Taxpayer’, 831, 837).
157. See Monologe, 282–3, for Hitler’s preference for Bavarian short trousers.
158. Heiden, Hitler, 184.
159. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 185.
160. Müller, Wandel, 301.
161. See Krebs, 127–9, 132, 134for the above.
162. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 176.
163. Hitler was in Berchtesgaden from 18 July until the end of the month (TBJG, I.1, 194–8(18 July – 1 August 1926)).
164. Monologe, 202–5. The first volume of Mein Kampf, originally intended for publication in March – the printers had pressed Hitler to no avail in February to let them have the final manuscript (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355–I–2, Fol.223) – was eventually published on 18 July 1925. Hitler’s dictation must, therefore, have been of the second volume, work which he completed the following summer, not the first volume, as Toland, 211, thought. This is confirmed in a letter by Rudolf Heß on 11 August 1925 in which he states that Hitler ‘is retreating for about 4 weeks to Berchtesgaden to write the second volume of his book’ (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355-I-2, Fol.101). The second volume was published on 11 December 1926 (Maser, Mein Kampf, 272, 274).
165. Monologe, 206–7. In his related note, the editor, Werner Jochmann, 439 n.60, dates the renting to 1925, though without source, and in variation from Hitler’s own dating in the text. Heiden, Hitler, 205 also dates it to 1925. Toland, 229, presumes the same date. Hitler himself seemed in no doubt, however, that the year was 1928. It is unlikely that, on a matter of such significance to him, his good factual memory was playing tricks on him. The businessman concerned was Kommerzienrat Winter from Buxtehude, near Hamburg. He had had Haus Wachenfeld built in 1916 (1917 according to Hitler, Monologe, 202) (Josef Weiß, Obersalzberg. The History of a Mountain, Berchtesgaden (n.d., 1955), 59, 67). The house was close to the Platterhof – the new name of what was formerly Pension Moritz. Hanfstaengl thought that the purchase was brought about with the financial help of the Bechsteins. But there is no evidence of this (Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 186).