by Ian Kershaw
166. Heiden, Hitler, 205: ‘Seven Years on the Magic Mountain’. Gauleiter Giesler of Munich allegedly referred to the Obersalzberg as the ‘Holy Mountain’ (Weiß, 65).
167. For the Berghof, its prehistory, and its symbolism for Hitler’s rule, see Ernst Hanisch, Der Obersalzberg: das Kehlsteinhaus und Adolf Hitler, Berchtesgaden, 1995.
168. Heiden, Hitler, 207–8.
169. Monologe, 206; TBJG, I.1, 195–7(23–4July 1926).
170. TBJG, I.1, 194–7(18–26 July 1926), quotations, 196, 197.
171. This is presumably one of the two meetings Hitler addressed in Berchtesgaden on 9 and 13 October 1926 (RSA, II/1, 71). Mimi’s mother had died on 11 September. Hitler and Mimi must have met around the end of September or beginning of October.
172. Günter Peis, ‘Hitlers unbekannte Geliebte’, Der Stern, 13 July 1959; see also Maser, Hitler, 312–13, 320–21; Ronald Hayman, Hitler and Geli, London, 1997, 93–6; Nerin E. Gun, Eva Braun – Hitler. Leben und Schicksal, Velbert/Kettwig, 1968, 62–4.
173. Knopp, 135, and see also 143–4. The source of Hitler’s letter is not given.
174. RSA, I, 297 n.1–2(text of the speech, 297–330). Hitler was allowed to speak, despite the still prevailing ban, because it was a closed society.
175. Falter et al., Wahlen, 70; Edgar Feuchtwanger, From Weimar to Hitler. Germany, 1918–33, 2nd edn, London, 1995, 191.
176. RSA, I, 318.
177. Above quotations, RSA, I, 323.
178. RSA, I, 324.
179. RSA, I, 325.
180. RSA, I, 315.
181. RSA, I, 320.
182. RSA, I, 330.
183. See, for a few of many examples: RSA, I, 362 (‘international Jewish stock-exchange and finance capital, supported by Marxist-democratic backers within’); RSA, 1,457 (mission to defend the German people against ‘the Jewish international bloodsuckers’); RSA, I, 476 (‘the profit landed in the pockets of the Jews’); RSA, II/1, 62 (‘the possibility of a German resurrection only in the annihilation of Marxism’, which could not be achieved without ‘a solution of the race problem’); RSA, II/1, 105–6(Hitler claiming to complete Christ’s ‘struggle against the Jew as the enemy of mankind’); RSA, II/1, 110 (the need for struggle against policies which ‘hand over our people to the international stock-exchange and raise Jewish world capitalism to the unrestrained ruler of our Fatherland’ and struggle against ‘the Jewish plague of our press and newspaper poisoning’); RSA, II/1, 119 (‘the international world-Jew is master in Germany’).
184. E.g. RSA, II/2, 567, 742, 848, 858.
185. RSA, II/1, 158. See also RSA, I, 20.
186. He appears to have used the term ‘Lebensraum’ on only one occasion, 30 March 1928 (RSA, II/2, 761).
187. RSA, I, 240–41.
188. RSA, I, 295.
189. RSA, II/I, 17–25, esp. 19–21.
190. MK, 726–58.
191. RSA, II/2, 552.
192. R5A, I, 137.
193. RSA, I, 25.
194. RSA, I, 100.
195. RSA, I, 102, II/1, 408.
196. E.g., RSA, I, 37, 472.
197. RSA, I, 426.
198. TBJG, I.1, 172 (13 April 1926), 196 (23 July 1926).
199. That Hitler held to a more or less coherent social revolutionary programme and consciously aimed to modernize German society has been consistently advanced by Rainer Zitelmann in his studies, notably: Hitler. Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs, Hamburg/Leamington Spa/New York, 1987; Adolf Hitler, Göttingen/Zürich, 1989; and ‘Die totalitäre Seite der Moderne’, in Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.), Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung, Darmstadt, 1991, 1–20, here esp. 12f
200. RSA, l , 62.
201. RSA, II/2, 674.
202. Weinberg (ed.), Hitlers Zweites Buch. His dictation of the book can be dated to the last weeks of June and the first week of July 1928 (RSA, IIA, XIX). Gerhard Weinberg’s introduction to the new edition of the work (RSA, HA) – now given the descriptively accurate if less pithy designation ‘Außenpolitische Standortsbestimmung nach der Reichstagswahl’ (Foreign Policy Position after the Reichstag Election) – authoritatively explains the background, timing, and content of the tract. See also Hitlers Zweites Buch, 7, 20; RSA, III/1, xi. For an analysis of the content, see Martin Broszat, ‘Betrachtungen zu “Hitlers Zweitem Buch”’, V fz, 9 (1961), 417–29.
203. Hitlers Zweites Buch, 21–6; RSA, IIA, 1–3.
204. Hitlers Zweites Buch, 21–2; RSA, I, 269–93; MK, 684–725 (with minor stylistic alterations).
205. Hitlers Zweites Buch, 23; RSA, IIA, XVI. The introduction in early 1928 of the Italian language for religious instruction in South Tyrol had prompted the revival of agitation.
206. Hitlers Zweites Buch, 36. Sales of Mein Kampf totalled only 3,015 in 1928, the worst sales figures since the publication of the first edition (RSA, IIA, XXI).
207. RSA, IIA, XXI-XXII.
208. RSA, IIA, 182–7.
209. RSA, IIA, XXIII. In contrast, see Toland’s interpretation, which notably exaggerates the significance of the ‘Second Book’ as the point at which Hitler had ‘seen the light’ and ‘finally come to the realization that his two most urgent convictions – danger from Jews and Germany’s need for sufficient living space – were entwined’ (Toland, 230–32).
210. Full recognition of this was late in coming, and only followed the publication in 1969 of Jäckel’s study, Hitlers Weltanschauung. One of Hitler’s early biographers, Alan Bullock, subsequently recognized that he had been mistaken, in the first edition of Hitler. A Study in Tyranny, in playing down the importance of Hitler’s ideas (Ron Rosenbaum, ‘Explaining Hitler’, 50–70, here 67). Hitler’s ideology figures prominently in Bullock’s later work, Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives, London, 1991.
211. Tyrell, Führer, 107–8; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 267–8. The ban had first been lifted in the small state of Oldenburg on 22 May 1926.
212. RSA, II/1, 165–79; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 268–9.
213. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 269–75.
214. RSA, II/1, 179–81.
215. Heiden, Hitler, 221.
216. RSA, II/1, 221 n.2.
217. RSA, II/1, 235, n.2.
218. BHStA, MA 102 137, RPvOB, HMB, 21 March 1927, S.3.
219. BHStA, MA 101 235/II, Pd. Mü., LB, 19 January 1928, S.11.
220. BHStA, MA 101 238/II, Pd. Nbg. – Fürth, LB, 22 November 1927. S.1, 4.
221. Tyrell, Führer, 108 (Prussia, 29 September 1928; Anhalt, November 1928).
222. Tyrell, Führer, 129–30, 163–4. The salute may, indeed, have been used sporadically (as Rudolf Heß claimed) as early as 1921, though he did not deny the likely influence from Fascist Italy. ‘Heil’ had long been used in the Schönerer Pan-German Movement and among Austrian as well as German youth groups as a mode of greeting before the turn of the century. (See Hamann, 347, 349; Klaus Vondung, Magie und Manipulation. Ideologischer Kult und politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus, Göttingen, 1971, 17; and also Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 181–2, for the Heil-Hitler greeting and the growing Führer cult in the party.)
223. Tyrell, Führer, 163–4.
224. See Theodore Abel, Why Hitler came into Power, Cambridge, Mass. (1938), 1986, 73, for Heß’s eulogy of great leadership, claiming the need for a dictator, in a prize essay of 1921 written in a competition sponsored by a German-American on the ‘cause of the suffering of the German people’.
225. Tyrell, Führer, 171.
226. Tyrell, Führer, 169.
227. Tyrell, Führer, 173.
228. Joseph Goebbels, Die zweite Revolution. Briefe an Zeitgenossen, Zwickau, n.d. (1926), 5 (trans., Ernest K. Bramsted, Goebbels and National Socialist Propaganda 1925–1945, Michigan, 1965, 199).
229. Abel, 70.
230. Abel, 152–3.
231. Peter Merkl, Political Violence under the Swastika, Princeton, 1975, 106.
232. Tyrell, Führer, 167; Hüttenberger, Gauleiter, 19, for Dincklage.
&nbs
p; 233. Tyrell, Führer, 186–8; and see Rüssel Lemmons, Goebbels and Der Angriff, Lexington, 1994, 23–4.
234. RSA, II/1, 309–11 (18 May 1927), and also 320–22 (25 May 1927); Orlow, i.106; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 64.
235. See Tyrell, Führer, 147–8.
236. See Tyrell, Führer, 388 and illustration 5.
237. Tyrell, Führer, 145; Orlow, 1.96–7and n.86.
238. Albrecht Tyrell, III. Reichsparteitag der NSDAP, 19–21. August 1927, Filmedition G122 des Instituts für den wissenschaftlichen Film, Ser.4 N0.4/G122, Göttingen, 1976, esp. 20–1, 23–5, 42–5. The attendance was lower than had been hoped.
239. Tyrell, Führer, 149, 202–3. Dinter’s book, Die Sünden wider die Zeit (Sins against the Epoch), had appeared in several hundred thousand copies since its publication in 1917, and was a best-seller in nationalist-racist circles. Dinter published his exchange of letters with Hitler in his journal Geistchristentum (Spiritual Christianity).
240. Tyrell, Führer, 149, 208–10; Orlow, i.135–6, 143. Hitler had written in firm but conciliatory vein to Dinter in July, inviting him to discussions. Dinter had been summoned by telegram to the Party Leaders’ Conference in September, but had failed to turn up.
241. Tyrell, Führer, 210–11.
242. Tyrell, Führer, 203–5.
243. Tyrell, Führer, 225–6.
244. See Tyrell, Führer, 170 (Heß to Hewel, 30 March 1927); and Krebs, 127 (Hamburg speech, October 1927).
245. Tyrell, Führer, 225. The total of 20,000 speeches given by only 300 or so party speakers during 1928 puts the number of Hitler speeches – though not of course their impact – into perspective (Tyrell, Führer, 224). Worries about his health may have been at least in part responsible for the decline in frequency of his speaking engagements. See David Irving, The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor, paperback edn, London, 1990, 31–2, for Hitler’s later comments about his violent stomach spasms in 1929.
246. Tyrell, Führer, 225, and 219–20 for the party’s financial problems; see also Orlow, i.109–10.
247. Turner, German Big Business, 83–99; Orlow, i.110 n.137.
248. Orlow, i.109.
249. With typical exaggeration, Hitler told Goebbels nine years later that he had been so distressed at the party’s financial state that he had thought of shooting himself. Then Kirdorf had come along with his contribution (TBJG, I.2, 727 (15 November 1936)). Turner, German Big Business, 91 regards the gift as ‘improbable’, though he refers (cf. 386 nn. 15, 17) only to the post-war memoirs of August Heinrichsbauer and Albert Speer’s recollections of Hitler’s comments, and not to Goebbels’s diary entry. For the intermediacy of Elsa Bruckmann, see Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 285–6. Kirdorf asked Hitler to put down his views in a brochure to be distributed privately to industrialists (Adolf Hitler, Der Weg zum Wiederaufstieg, Munich, August 1927; reprinted in RSA, II/2, 501–9). Kirdorf, formerly a member of the DNVP, resigned his membership of the Nazi party in 1928, within a year of joining, because of the ‘socialist’ aims of the party, but was an honoured guest at the 1929 Party Rally and rejoined the NSDAP in 1934.
250. According to the party’s own issue of membership cards, the number of members was 50,000 in December 1926 – still lower than before the putsch – 70,000 in November 1927, 80,000 on the eve of the 1928 election, and 100,000 by October 1928 (Tyrell, Führer, 352). These figures take no account of the considerable numbers leaving the party, nor of blocks of cards issued but not occupied. Real numbers were, therefore, substantially smaller. Local membership figures reveal stagnating membership (Orlow, i.110–11). See Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 291, for more exact figures for the distribution of membership cards by end of 1927 (72,590, marking a rise of 23,067 in the year).
251. Tyrell, Führer, 196.
252. Tyrell, Führer, 222.
253. Orlow, i.58–9. Philipp Bouhler became business manager (Reichsgeschäftsführer) of the party after its refoundation in 1925 and rose rapidly through the ranks of the NSDAP, ultimately becoming Chef der Kanzlei des Führers and head of the ‘Euthanasia Programme’. For a pen-portrait, see Wistrich, 29.
254. Stachura, Strasser, 62–5, 67ff.; Tyrell, Führer, 224.
255. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 287.
256. Peter Stachura, ‘Der kritische Wendepunkt? Die NSDAP und die Reichstagswahlen vom 20. Mai 1928’, VfZ, 26 (1978), 66–99, here 79–80.
257. Tyrell, Führer, 188.
258. Tyrell, Führer, 150.
259. See Bradley F. Smith, Heinrich Himmler 1900–1926. Sein Weg in den deutschen Faschismus, Munich, 1979; Peter Padfield, Himmler. Reichsführer-SS, London, 1990; character sketches of Himmler are provided by Fest, Face of the Third Reich, 171–90; and Josef Ackermann, in Smelser-Zitelmann, Die braune Elite, 115–33.
260. Tyrell, Führer, 224.
261. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 292; Tyrell, Führer, 193.
262. Orlow, i.151 speaks of a ‘new propaganda strategy, the rural-nationalist plan’, to replace the failed ‘urban plan’. (See also i.138.) Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 93 (discussion of the relevant literature, 66 n.2) also sees a fundamental shift, but as a consequence of the poor election results.
263. Frankfurter Zeitung, 26 January 1928, cit. in Philipp W. Fabry, Mutmaßungen über Hitler. Urteile von Zeitgenossen, Düsseldorf, 1979, 28.
264. See Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 249–50, cit. a Weltbühne comment of 17 March 1925, registering the ‘death’ of the völkisch movement.
265. See, for example, BHStA, MA 102 137, RPvOB, HMB, 19 May 1928, S.1: ‘In broad circles there is indifference towards the electioneering of the party leaderships’. The Nazi campaign remained largely confined to towns and cities (Geoffrey Pridham, Hitler’s Rise to Power. The Nazi Movement in Bavaria, 1923–1933, London, 1973, 80.) The turn-out was the lowest (75.6 per cent) of any Weimar Reichstag election (Falter et ai, Wahlen, 71).
266. See e.g. RSA, III/2, 202 for Hitler’s criticism in April 1929 of the ‘20, 30 and more parties’ and politicized economic interest groups, a reflection of the division in all areas.
267. Falter et al., Wahlen, 44.
268. The Völkisch-Nationaler Block put up its own candidates in 1928 and, to the NSDAP’s pleasure, gained only 0.9 per cent (266,430 votes) of the vote and not a single seat (Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 91).
269. Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 85–7. The party subsequently acknowledged publicly that ‘the election results of the rural areas have proved that with a smaller expenditure of energy, money, and time, better results can be achieved than in the big cities’ VB, 31 May 1928, cit. in Noakes, Nazi Party, 123).
270. Noakes, Nazi Party, 121–3).
271. Falter et al., Wahlen, 71; and Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 85–6, for derisory levels of support for the NSDAP in eastern regions. For the drop in votes for the DNVP, see also Baranowski, Sanctity, 127–8.
272. TBJG, I.1, 226 (22 May 1928), for Goebbels’s appreciation of the importance of his immunity from prosecution. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 192, recalled Göring’s satisfaction at free first-class travel on the Reichsbahn and other material advantages from becoming a Reichstag deputy. According to Hanfstaengl, Göring had threatened Hitler with an ultimatum: he was to be put on the candidate’s list, or he and Hitler would part as opponents. Hitler conceded.
273. Cit. Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 81, from Der Angriff, 30 May 1928.
274. Orlow, i.132.
275. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 293; and see Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 91.
276. Orlow, i.137–8; RSA, III/1, 22, 35. For Hitler’s passivity and near contemptuous indifference at the proceedings of the conference, condemning them to pointlessness since those attending looked all the time for decisions from Hitler that never came, see Krebs, 131–2(misdated to October).
277. RSA, III/1, 56–62. For Gregor Strasser’s organizational plan, see Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 94; Orlow, i.139–41.
278. Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 95.
279. RSA, II/2, 847.
280. RSA,
III/1, XI; also RSA, IIA, XIV, XIX.
281. Tyrell, Führer, 289.
282. RSA, III/1, 3.
283. Wilhelm Hoegner, Der schwierige Außenseiter. Erinnerungen eines Abgeordneten, Emigranten und Ministerpräsidenten, Munich, 1959, 48; Stachura, ‘Wendepunkt?’, 90.
284. The ban was terminated on 28 September 1928 (RSA, III/1, 236 n.2). Hitler had spoken on 13 July to around 5,000 in Berlin, but at a closed party meeting. (RSA, III/1, 11–22; TBJG, I.1, 245 (14 July 1928)).
285. RSA, III/1, 236–40; TBJG, I.1, 291 (17 November 1928). Goebbels commented that the hall was closed by the police with 16,000 inside. The VB’s estimate (see RSA, III, 236 n.2) was 18,000.
286. RSA, III/1, 238–9.
287. RSA, III/1, 239.
288. See Sefton Delmer, Trail Sinister, London, 1961, 101–2.
289. Bernd Weisbrod, Schwerindustrie in der Weimarer Republik, Wuppertal, 1978, 415–56.
290. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 297–8; Kolb, Die Weimarer Republik, 90. The annual average for 1929, at a little under 2 millions, was around half a million higher than the previous year. There was also a sharp rise in the numbers of workers on short-time (Petzina et al., 119, 122).
291. Joseph P. Schumpeter, Aufsätze zur Soziologie, Tübingen, 1953, 225.
292. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 296.
293. See Winkler, Weimar, ch.10; Peukert, Die Weimarer Republik, ch.7.
294. Ten per cent of the working-age population and 18 per cent of trade unionists were unemployed in 1926 (Petzina et al., 119). For the extensive alienation of working-class youth, see Peter D. Stachura, The Weimar Republic and the Younger Proletariat, London, 1989. The particularly severe impact of unemployment on youth is dealt with by Dick Geary, ‘Jugend, Arbeitslosigkeit und politischer Radikalismus am Ende der Weimarer Republik’, Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte, 4/5 (1983), 304–9.
295. See Larry Eugene Jones, ‘The Dying Middle: Weimar Germany and the Fragmentation of Bourgeois Polities’, Central European History, 5 (1969), 23–54; and his book, German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System, 1918–1933, Chapel Hill, 1988.