Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

by Ian Kershaw

  119. Mommsen ‘Van der Lubbes Weg’, 47–8; Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 384. Hitler appears at first, however, to have been less than wholly certain that it was the work of the Communists (Sefton Delmer, Trail Sinister, London, 1961, 187–9).

  120. Rudolf Diels, Lucifer ante Portas, Stuttgart, 1950, 194; Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 116.

  121. Delmer, Trail, I89; Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 384.

  122. Diels, 194–5; Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 362, 385 and n. 143. Göring’s order to arrest all Social Democrat functionaries was omitted when the telex was transmitted.

  123. TBJG, I.2, 383 (27 February 1933), gives the opposite impression, though this version of his diaries was the published account (Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 270).

  124. Diels, 195; Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 362, 386.

  125. TBJG, I.2, 383 (Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 270); Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 390.

  126. Mommsen, ‘Der Reichstagsbrand’, 389–90.

  127. Mommsen ‘Van der Lubbes Weg’, 51; AdR, Reg. Hitler, I30 and n.12: Frick expressly stated that he had based the decree on Papen’s decree for the ‘Restoration of Public Security and Order in Greater Berlin and the Province of Brandenburg’, of 20 July 1932.

  128. Mommsen ‘Van der Lubbes Weg’, 51–3.

  129. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I30–31.

  130. RGBl, I933. I. Nr.17, 83.

  131. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I28.

  132. See e.g. Kessler, Tagebücher, 710.

  133. Hans-Norbert Burkert, Klaus Matußek and Wolfgang Wippermann, ‘Machtergreifung’ Berlin 1933, Berlin, 1982, 65.

  134. Hans Buchheim et al., Anatomie des SS-Staates, 2 vols., Olten/Freiburg im Breisgau, 1965, ii.20.

  135. Miesbacher Anzeiger, 2 March 1933.

  136. VB, 2 March 1933; and see Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.124–5, 515 n.17.

  137. Jochmann, Natonalsozialismus und Revolution, 427–8.

  138. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 427.

  139. Jochmann, Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 426.

  140. Domarus, 216–17; Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 273–4 (4 March 1933), TBJG, I.2, 386.

  141. Falter et al., Wahlen, 44. (See the analysis in Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.143–90.)

  142. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 275 (5 March 1933), TBJG, I.2, 387.

  143. Martin H. Sommerfeld, Ich war dabei. Die Verschwörung der Dämonen 1933–1939. Ein Augenzeugenbericht, Darmstadt, 1949, 32.

  144. Falter et al., Wahlen, 44; Falter, Hitlers Wähler, 111–12.

  145. Falter et al., Wahlen, 74–5. And see Falter, Hitlers Wähler, I86–8. In Catholic rural districts of Bavaria, a double or even trebling of the Nazi vote was common (Hagmann, 12–27, and Thränhardt, 181–3).

  146. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I33–4. However, Hitler was not passive. The decision to extend the ‘coordination’ to Bavaria was taken in his presence on 8 March. Four days later he flew to Munich to discuss ‘the most pressing Bavarian matters’ with party leaders (Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 277 (8 March 1933), 280 (12 March 1933), TBJG, I.2, 389, 391).

  147. Above based on Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I30–40; Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i. 190–202.

  148. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I88–92.

  149. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 204–8; here 207.

  150. Domarus, 219.

  151. Domarus, 221.

  152. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I90.

  153. Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich and Falk Wiesemann (eds.), Bayern in der Ν S-Zeit, vol.1, Munich, 1977, 209 n.30, 240–41.

  154. BHStA, M A 106682, RPvS, 6 April 1933; MA 106680, RPvUF, 20 April 1933. The extent to which, nevertheless, the police depended upon denunciations has been emphasized – based on material drawn largely from Lower Franconia – by Robert Gellately, ‘The Gestapo and German Society: Political Denunciation in the Gestapo Case Files’, Journal of Modern History, 60 (1988), 654–94, and The Gestapo and German Society. Enforcing Racial Policy 1933–1945, Oxford, 1990, ch.5.

  155. Becker, Hitlers Machtergreifung, I49–50.

  156. Tony Barta, ‘Living in Dachau, 1900–1950’, unpublished paper, 14.

  157. François–Poncet, 103–7; Ebermayer, 45–7; Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.212; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 74; Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Verführung und Gewalt. Deutschland 1933–1945, Berlin, 1986, 270–72; Klaus-Jürgen Müller, ‘Der Tag von Potsdam und das Verhältnis der preußisch-deutschen Militär-Elite zum Nationalsozialismus’, in Bernhard Kröner (ed.), Potsdam–Stadt, Armee, Residenz, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin, 1993, 435–49, here 435, 439, 448.

  158. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I57–8.

  159. Müller, ‘Der Tag von Potsdam’, 435.

  160. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 283–4 (16–19 March 1933), TBJG, 1.2, 393–5. For Goebbels’s own description of the day’s events: TBJG, I.2, 395–6 (Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 285–6, 22 March 1933).

  161. Müller, ‘Der Tag von Potsdam’, 435–8; Werner Freitag, ‘Nationale Mythen und kirchliches Heil: Der “Tag von Potsdam”’, Westfälische Forschungen, 41 (1991), 379–430, provides a good account of the ritualistic nature of the proceedings (esp. 389–404), and emphasizes their symbolic significance, in particular, for the Protestant Church through the express linkage of religious motifs and the glorification of the Prussian-German state (see esp. 427–30).

  162. Domarus, 227–8.

  163. Ebermayer, 46.

  164. Müller, ‘Der Tag von Potsdam’, 438.

  165. Domarus, 228.

  166. Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.213–15.

  167. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I60.

  168. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 213–14, 216.

  169. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 239.

  170. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 239–40.

  171. Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.221–4. See also, on the genesis of the Enabling Act, Hans Schneider, ‘Das Ermächtigungsgesetz vom 24. März 1933. Bericht über das Zustandekommen und die Anwendung des Gesetzes’, VfZ, I (1953), 197–221.

  172. Domarus, 229–37; Rudolf Morsey (ed.), Das ‘Ermächtigungsgesetz’ vom 24. März 1933, Düsseldorf, 1992, 55–62; Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.229–33.

  173. Josef Becker, ‘Zentrum und Ermächtigungsgesetz’, VfZ, 9 (1961), 208–10; Morsey, ‘Ermächtigungsgesetz’, 63, 69–71.

  174. Domarus, 239–41; Morsey, ‘Ermächtigungsgesetz’, 64–6.

  175. Domarus, 242–6; Morsey, ‘Ermächtigungsgesetz’, 66–9. See Ebermayer, 48, for the impact Hitler’s reply made on one critic: he thought Hitler had ‘ripped poor Wels apart’ (Dann zerriß er den armen Wels förmlich in der Luft).

  176. Becker, Hitlers Machtergreifung, I76–7; Domarus, 246–7; Morsey, ‘Ermächtigungsgesetz’, 69–75; Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.234–5.

  177. RGBl, I933, Teil I, Nr.25, S.141. Its duration was four years. But in 1937 it was renewed without discussion, as it was in 1939, and, finally – without limits on its duration–by Führer decree on 10 May 1943 (Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I17 and note).

  178. RGBl, I933, Teil I. Nr.33, S.173; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I43.

  179. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 273.

  180. RGBl, I933, Teil I. Nr.33, S.173; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I43.

  181. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I44–50.

  182. Peter Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich. Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von NSDAP und allgemeiner innerer Staatsverwaltung, Munich, 1969, 61–9.

  183. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I50.

  184. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I53.

  185. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I45.

  186. Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz. Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich, Munich, 1986, 31–3; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 96–7.

  187. For the term, see Hans Mommsen, ‘Kumulative Radikalisierung und Selbstzerstörung des Regimes’, Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon, Bd.16, Mannheim, 1976, 785–90.

  188. Domarus 219; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, 249.

  189. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 84–5; for �
�Einzelaktionen’, see Die Lage der Juden in Deutschland 1933. Das Schwarzbuch – Tatsachen und Dokumente, ed. Comité des Délégations Juives, Paris, 1934, repr. Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Vienna, 1983, 93ff.

  190. Die Lage der Juden, 495–6.

  191. Walter Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch 1933–1940, East Berlin, 1975, 32–7.

  192. Die Lage der Juden, 496.

  193. See Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 76–9.

  194. Hans Mommsen, ‘Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die “Endlösung der Judenfrage” im “Dritten Reich”’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 9 (1983), 381–420, here 390. See also Genschel, 46–7; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 86–7.

  195. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 87.

  196. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 288 (26 March 1933), TBJG, I.2, 398.

  197. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 271 and n.3; Domarus, 248–51.

  198. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 87–8.

  199. Jürgen Hagemann, Die Presselenkung im Dritten Reich, Bonn, 1970, 139 n.2; Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf, 1972, 63 n.196.

  200. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 277.

  201. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 91.

  202. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 277.

  203. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 290 (31 March 1933), TBJG, I.2, 400; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 91–2.

  204. Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz, I970, 87.

  205. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, 291–2 (1–2 April 1933), TBJG, 1.2, 400–401; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 92–3; Die Lage der Juden, 292–314; Rumbold report of 5 April 1933 in DBFP, V, No.22, 24–5, No.30, 38–44.

  206. Tausk, 52; Schleunes, 88–9.

  207. Tausk, 58; Allen, 219; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 92–3.

  208. Allen, 220–21. As Gay, ‘In Deutschland zu Hause’, 32–3, points out, however, many Jews continued to harbour the fateful illusion that the antisemitic whirlwind would blow itself out; that what was happening to them was something not typical of Germans, and would be eventually overcome by the strong civilizing traditions of the German culture which they shared with their non-Jewish neighbours.

  209. Schleunes, 88.

  210. Adam, 61 and n.190, 63–71; Schleunes, 101–3. And see Hans Mommsen, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich, Stuttgart, 1966, 48–53 for the background to the ‘Aryan Paragraph’ in the Civil Service Law of 7 April 1933.

  211. Erich Matthias, ‘Die Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands’, in Matthias and Morsey, Das Ende der Parteien, I01–278, here 177–8.

  212. Matthias, 178–80.

  213. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, I01–2, 105–7; Thamer, 284–6; Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.254–9.

  214. Domarus, 259–64.

  215. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, I05.

  216. On the formation of the Labour Front see Ronald Smelser, Robert Ley: Hitler’s Labor Front Leader, Oxford/New York/Hamburg, 1988, ch.5.

  217. Timothy W. Mason, Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft. Dokumente und Materialien zur deutschen Arbeiterpolitik 1936–1939, Opladen, 1975, 78–81. The NSBO had effectively lost all influence by the turn of the year 1933–4, though was eventually extinguished only in mid-1934.

  218. Domarus, 270–79.

  219. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I19–20; Thamer, 286–7.

  220. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I21–3; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, I14–15.

  221. Hans Müller, Katholische Kirche und Nationalsozialismus, Munich, 1965, 88–9.

  222. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I23–6; Thamer, 289–90.

  223. RGBl, I933, Teil I, Nr.81, S.479; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I26.

  224. At the city level, the change of personnel at the top of local government was drastic: some three-fifths of Oberbürgermeister and Bürgermeister of towns and cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants had been dismissed by the end of 1933. The bigger the city, the greater was the turnover: in only four out of twenty-eight was the Oberbürgermeister not replaced by the end of 1933 (Horst Matzerath, Nationalsozialismus und kommunale Selbstverwaltung, Stuttgart, 1970, 79–80). See also Jeremy Noakes, ‘Oberbürgermeister and Gauleiter. City Government between Party and State’, and Horst Matzerath, ‘Oberbürgermeister im Dritten Reich’, both in Hirschfeld and Kettenacker, Der ‘FührerStaat’, 194–227, 228–54.

  225. See Zofka, 238–86 for examples.

  226. Martin Broszat and Norbert Frei (eds.), Das Dritte Reich im Überblick. Chronik, Ereignisse, Zusammenhänge, Munich, 1989, 195, 212; Kater, Nazi Party, 262 (Figure 1).

  227. Broszat et al., Bayern in der NS–Zeit, i.494.

  228. Cit. Thamer, 299.

  229. E.g. see Allen, 222–32; Koshar, 253ff.

  230. Allen, 222.

  231. Thamer, 305. Hitler had promised a ‘far-reaching moral renewal (Sanierung) of the public body’, including education, theatre, film, literature, press, and radio (Domarus, 232 (23 March 1933)).

  232. Paul Meier-Benneckenstein, Dokumente der deutschen Politik, Bd .1, 2nd edn, Berlin, 1937, 263–4; Heiber, Goebbels-Reden, i.90.

  233. Thamer, 301.

  234. See, from an extensive literature, the outstanding work of Michael H. Kater, The Twisted Muse. Musicians and their Music in the Third Reich, New York/Oxford, 1997.

  235. J. M. Ritchie, German Literature under National Socialism, London/Canberra, 1983, 9–10. The regime remained cool towards Hauptmann, recognizing the superficiality of his commitment to National Socialism.

  236. Cit. Thamer, 300–301.

  237. Cit. Hans Mommsen, ‘Der Mythos des nationalen Aufbruchs und die Haltung der deutschen Intellektuellen und funktionalen Eliten’, in 1933 in Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft, ed. Pressestelle der Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, 1983, 127–41, here 132.

  238. Ritchie, 48–9.

  239. Cit. Thamer, 301.

  240. Cit. Mommsen, ‘Mythos’, 132.

  241. Cit. Mommsen, ‘Mythos’, 129, 132.

  242. Cit. Mommsen, ‘Mythos’, 131.

  243. See the entries in Thomas Mann, Diaries, 1918–1939, paperback edn, London, 1984, 141–51 (1–13 April 1933).

  244. Mann, Diaries, I50 (9 April 1933). And see Thamer, 302.

  245. Cit. Mommsen, ‘Mythos’, 134.

  246. See Mommsen, ‘Mythos’, 132–5.

  247. Thamer, 303.

  248. See Gerhard Sauder, Die Bücherverbrennung, Munich/Vienna, 1983.

  249. Cit. Sauder, 181 (and see also 177).

  250. Mommsen, ‘Mythos’, 128; Thamer, 304.

  251. Cit. Thamer, 305.

  252. Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’. Image and Reality in the Third Reich, Oxford (1987), paperback edn., 1989, 53, 55.

  253. Beatrice and Helmut Heiber (eds.), Die Rückseite des Hakenkreuzes. Absonderliches aus den Akten des Dritten Reiches, Munich, 1993, 119–20 and n.1, 181–3.

  254. Rolf Steinberg, Nazi-Kitsch, Darmstadt, 1975.

  255. Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’, 57–9.

  256. BAK, R43II/1263, Fols. 93, 164.

  257. Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, I26–7.

  258. Kershaw, The ‘HitlerMyth’, 61, cit. Schwäbisches Volksblatt, 9 September 1933.

  259. BHstA MA-106670, RPvOB, 19 August 1933; Heiber, Rückseite, 9.

  260. Above from Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 309–17.

  261. See Papen, 261.

  262. TBJG, I.2, 410 (23 April 1933, unpubl.).

  263. RGBl, I933, Teil I, Nr.86, 529–31.

  264. On Gütt, see Wistrich, Wer war wer, I06; Gisela Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik, Opladen, 1986, 25.

  265. AdR, Reg. Hitler, 664–5; Noakes, ‘Nazism and Eugenics’, 84–7.

  266. Bock, 8, 238.

  267. Guenter Lewy, The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany, London, 1964, 77; ch.3 deals with the background to the Concordat, and the important role played by Kaas. See also Conway, 24–8.

  268. Conway, 41.

  269. Lewy, 88–9.

  270. Papen, 281; Lewy, 77–8.

  271. Lewy, 72–7.

  272. AdR, Reg
. Hitler, 683; Lewy, 78. He had also not thought it possible, he said, that the Vatican would be so quickly ready to abandon the Christian trade unions and political parties.

  273. Lewy, ch.4, esp. 99, 103–4. The text of the pastoral letter is printed in Müller, Katholische Kirche, I63–73.

  274. Alfons Kupper (ed.), Staatliche Akten über die Reichskonkordatsverhandlungen 1933, Mainz, 1969, 293–4, Nr.117.

  275. Conway, 33.

  276. Kurt Meier, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz. Die evangelische Kirche im Dritten Reich, Munich, 1992, 42.

  277. Bracher et al., Machtergreifung, i.452; Domarus, 290–91.

  278. Conway, 49.

  279. Above from Conway, 34–55.

  280. The term is the subtitle of the first volume of Gerhard L. Weinberg’s authoritative study, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany. Diplomatic Revolution in Europe 1933–36, Chicago/London, 1970.

  281. Günter Wollstein, ‘Eine Denkschrift des Staatssekretärs Bernhard von Bülow vom März 1933’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, I (1973), 77–94; AdR, Reg. Hitler, i.313–18; Bernd-Jürgen Wendt, Großdeutschland. Außenpolitik und Kriegsvorbereitung des Hitler-Regimes, Munich, 1987, 72–9; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, I49. Bülow’s memorandum provides the clearest indication of the thinking of the Foreign Ministry at the beginning of the Third Reich. The tone is one of the need for early caution and avoidance of external conflict, during which phase internal rebuilding as well as careful formation of bilateral alliances could pave the way for later revisionism and expansion. Drawing heavily upon the conception of an expansionist foreign policy developed in the Wilhelmine era, it demonstrates how extensive the platform was for close collaboration with Hitler even where, as in the case of Russia and Poland, the views were rapidly shown to differ sharply from his own notions. The structure of the Foreign Office, and how it altered under Hitler, was thoroughly explored in the extensive work of Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Außenpolitik 1933–1938, Frankfurt am Main, 1968.

  282. Weinberg, i.161. Hitler had commented to Nadolny, soon after becoming Chancellor, that he knew nothing of foreign policy, that it would take him four years to make Germany National Socialist, and only after that would he be able to concern himself with foreign affairs. The Foreign Office, he remarked, was run according to traditional rules, and had to consider the wishes of the Reich President (Rudolf Nadolny, Mein Beitrag. Erinnerungen eines Botschafters des Deutschen Reiches, Cologne, 1985, 239).