by Ian Kershaw
108. AdR, Reg. Hitler, ii.1354–8. According to the post-war testimony of Lammers, several cabinet ministers (including, he said, himself and Gürtner) preferred an amnesty for the actions rather than a declaration of their legality. But Hitler insisted on a law, and the rest of the cabinet came round to accepting this. Lammers said it amounted to one and the same thing in practice (Gritschneder, ‘Der Führer’, 47–9)·
109. Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, vol.2, 1933–1945, Newton Abbot, 1973, 114–15.
110. Domarus, 406.
111. AdR, Reg. Hitler, I375–7. Pearson’s question about whether the government would now swing to the Left or the Right – Hitler predictably answering that no other course than the one already charted would be followed – was presumably a somewhat clumsy attempt to allay fears that further turbulence, affecting the economy, might follow.
112. Papen, 321.
113. Domarus, 407, points out that the speech would have taken time to prepare. It is unlikely that the initial intention was not to give a public account, but to hush up the matter and simply let things die down. This would have flown in the face of all Hitler’s propaganda instincts. Suggestions of inner uncertainty also seem wide of the mark (Fest, Hitler, ii.643–4). The justification, when it came, was framed consistently along the lines Hitler had taken both in public announcements and in his statements to party leaders in Munich and then to the cabinet in the immediate aftermath of the events. Nor was it the case, as has been claimed, that Hitler went on holiday with Goebbels and his family to Heiligendamm on the Baltic coast, then to Berchtesgaden, to recuperate (Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 298–9; Orlow, ii.114; Frei, Führerstaat, 33). These accounts appear to draw on passages in Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 341ff., whose own account, however, makes it clear that he visited Hitler and Goebbels in Heiligendamm after Hitler’s speech which he had heard on board ship while passing through the English Channel on his way back from a visit to America. The engagements Hitler held on 6 July left, in any case, only the period between 7 and 13 July available for any retreat – precisely the days when Hitler would have been involved in preparing his speech, not holidaying on the Baltic.
114. Domarus, 410; Gritschneder, ‘Der Führer’, 52.
115. Domarus, 421.
116. Gritscheder, ‘Der Führer’, 54.
117. DBS, i.250 (21 July 1934).
118. BHStA, MA 106670, RPvOB, 4 July 1934.
119. BHStA, MA 106675, Arbeitsamt Marktredwitz, 9 July 1934.
120. See the reports from the Prussian provinces in BAK, R43II/1263, Fols. 238–328.
121. BHStA, MA 106691, LB of RPvNB/OP, 8 August 1934.
122. BAK, R43II/1263, Fols. 238–328; DBS, i.198–201 (21 July 1934).
123. Domarus, 401–2. Almost a fifth of the SA leaders were eventually removed from office in a long-drawn-out purging process (Mathilde Jamin, ‘Zur Rolle der SA im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem’, in Hirschfeld and Kettenacker, Der ‘Führerstaat’, 329–60, here 345).
124. DBS, i.249 (21 July 1934).
125. BAK, R43II/1263, Fols.235–7, letter of Göring to Heß, 31 August 1934. A copy of the letter was passed on to Hitler.
126. Gritschneder, ‘Der Führer’, 71–2; Lewy, 169–70.
127. Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 303–5; Müller, Heer, I25–33. When Hammerstein turned up at Lichterfelde Cemetery for the burial of his friend, it transpired that the bodies of Schleicher and his wife had been removed during the night.
128. Gritschneder, ‘Der Führer’, 72–3.
129. Cit. Fallois, 9.
130. Mau, ‘Die “Zweite Revolution”’, 137.
131. Weinberg, i.87–101, esp. 99–101; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 223–4; Bruce F. Pauley, Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis, chs.7–8.
132. Domarus, 426, has no doubt that Hitler gave Habicht, who would never have dared operate independently, the order. Weinberg, i.104, suggests that ‘it may be assumed that the coup was launched with the knowledge and at least tacit approval of Hitler’. Pauley, 133–7, greatly modifies such views, reaching the conclusion that Hitler’s responsibility lay in his reluctance to take any firm line on Austria, allowing policy to drift and be dominated by the local hot-head forces. Hermann Graml, Europa zwischen den Kriegen, Munich, 1969, 298, also suggests that misinterpretation by the Austrian Nazi leadership of Hitler’s passivity, encouraged by the uncertain domestic situation following the Röhm affair, prompted the putsch attempt. Reinhard Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt. Bekenntnisse eines Illegalen, Munich (1986), 4th edn., 1994, 61–6, provides an account from an insider to the Austrian putsch plans, though without casting light on the question of Hitler’s knowledge and approval.
133. Pauley, 134; Jens Petersen, Hitler-Mussolini: Die Entstehung der Achse Berlin-Rom, 1933–1936, Tübingen, 1973, 338; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 224. See, however, Weinberg, i.104 n.89, suggesting that the reliability of Göring’s testimony at Nuremberg (IMT, ix.294–5), on which this is based, may be questioned.
134. Anton Hoch and Hermann Weiß, ‘Die Erinnerungen des Generalobersten Wilhelm Adam’, in Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Miscellanea. Festschrift für Helmut Krausnick, Stuttgart, 1980, 32–62, here 47–8, 60 n.40.
135. Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 223.
136. Weinberg, i.105.
137. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 353–4.
138. Papen, 339.
139. See Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 352 for Dietrich’s press directions; Pauley, 134–6.
140. Domarus, 427; Weinberg, i.106.
141. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 354. As a Catholic, experienced diplomat, and personal friend of the murdered Dollfuss, Papen evidently seemed to Hitler the right person to allay Austrian suspicions about German intentions and to pour oil on troubled water. According to his own version of events, Papen was able to extract conditions from Hitler for his appointment (Papen, 340–41; Pauley, 135).
142. Papen, 337ff; Domarus, 428; Weinberg, i.106.
143. Domarus, 429. Precisely when Hitler was told that the President’s death was imminent is uncertain. Hanfstaengl’s account has Hitler deciding to send Papen to Vienna in the immediate wake of a telephone call from Meissner with bad news of the President, then flying off to East Prussia to visit Hindenburg. The chronology is, however, conflated. Hitler’s letter to Papen, requesting him to undertake the ‘special mission’ for a limited time as ambassador in Vienna, was dated 26 July. The public was informed of Hindenburg’s condition on 31 July; Hitler, presumably, some time before that. Hitler’s visit to Neudeck took place on 1 August (Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 354; Domarus, 429).
144. Sauerbruch, 520. Sauerbruch was Hindenburg’s chief doctor during his last illness. See also Papen, 334, for Hitler’s last visit to Hindenburg. Sauerbruch, 519 and, apparently following him, Meissner, Staatssekretär, 377, place Hitler’s visit on 31 July. A notice in VB, I August 1934, makes it clear that Hitler flew to Neudeck that morning, returning within a few hours. He held a cabinet meeting that evening at 9.30 p.m. (AdR, Reg. Hitler, ii.1384). Hanfstaengl’s story (15 Jahre, 355) that Hitler and his entourage spent the night in Neudeck – where Hitler allegedly refused to sleep in the same room used by Napoleon in a nearby Schloß – before returning to Bayreuth, where the news of Hindenburg’s death was received, then returning immediately to Neudeck, appears to lack any foundation.
145. AdR, Reg. Hitler, ii.1384. Hindenburg died at 9.00 a.m. on 2 August.
146. AdR, Reg. Hitler, ii.1384; Domarus, 429; Gritschneder, ‘Der Führer’, 75–6; Müller, Heer, I33.
147. AdR, Reg. Hitler, ii.1387; Domarus, 431.
148. Müller, Heer, I34; Fallois, 161.
149. Müller, Heer, I35.
150. Domarus, 444. This was on 20 August, the day after the plebiscite. Hitler referred in his statement of thanks to the ‘law of 3 August’, though this was, of course, the law passed by the cabinet on the headship of state on 1 August – before, therefore, not after, Hindenburg’s death.
151. Müller, Heer, I34; Papen,
335–6.
152. Müller, Heer, I34; Gritschneder, ‘Der Führer’, 76.
153. Cit. Müller, Heer, I35.
154. Cit. Müller, Heer, I36.
155. Cit. Müller, Heer, I37.
156. Müller, Heer, I38.
157. Müller, Heer, I39 and n.313–14.
158. Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, 4 August 1934.
159. Domarus, 438.
160. AdR, Reg. Hitler, ii. 1385–6, 1388–9 and n.8; Meissner, Staatssekretär, 377–8.
161. Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1935, Berlin, 1935, 537. There were significant levels of no-votes – up to a third – in some working-class and Catholic areas.
162. TBJG, I.2, 475 (22 August 1934).
163. Domarus, 447–54.
164. Loiperdinger and Culbert, 17–18; David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933–1945, Oxford, 1983, 147–59. The account in Leni Riefenstahl, A Memoir, New York, 1993, 156–66, as Loiperdinger and Culbert (15–17) have pointed out, has to be treated with caution.
CHAPTER 13: WORKING TOWARDS THE FÜHRER
1. Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Oldenburg, Best. 131 Nr.303, Fol. 131V.
2. See Ulrich Herbert, ‘“Die guten und die schlechten Zeiten”. Überlegungen zur diachronen Analyse lebensgeschichtlicher Interviews’, in Lutz Niethammer (ed.), ‘Die Jahre weiß man nicht, wo man sie heute hinsetzen soll’. Faschismuserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet, Berlin/Bonn, 1983, 67–96, here esp. 82, 88–93.
3. See, for the implications of the term, Mommsen, ‘Kumulative Radikalisierung’; and Hans Mommsen, ‘Cumulative Radicalisation and Progressive Self-Destruction as Structural Determinants of the Nazi Dictatorship’, in Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin (eds.), Stalinism and Nazism, 75–87.
4. See Müller, Armee, Politik und Gesellschaft, 39–47.
5. Dietrich, Zwölf Jahre, 44–5.
6. Broszat, ‘Soziale Motivation und Führer-Bindung’, 403.
7. Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Die “Reichsregierung” im Führerstaat. Stellung und Funktion des Kabinetts im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem’, in Günther Doeker and Winfried Steffani (eds.), Klassenjustiz und Pluralismus, Hamburg, 1973, 192, 202.
8. See Wiedemann, 69, 71.
9. Wiedemann, 68–9.
10. Wiedemann, 80–82.
11. Wiedemann, 78. Once the Berghof had been completed, in 1936, with full projection facilities, it was frequently the case that two films would be shown each evening (BBC Archives, interview, 1997, with Hermann Döring, Manager (Verwalter) of the Berghof, transcript, Roll 243, 31).
12. Wiedemann, 79, 90–91. See Schroeder, 60, 81, 84, and the interviews conducted in 1971 (Library of Congress, Washington DC, Adolf Hitler Collection, C-63, 64, 9376 63–64, and C-86, 9376 85) with Gerda Dananowski and Traudl Junge for confirmation of this, mainly relating to later years. See also Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: his Battle with the Truth, London, 1995, 113–14, for the comments of Maria von Below, widow of Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant (also referring to later years).
13. Wiedemann, 76, 78, 93; Percy Ernst Schramm, in the Introduction to Picker, 34; see also Spitzy, 126–7, 130 (though for a later period).
14. Wiedemann, 69.
15. Wiedemann, 85; Schroeder, 53, 78–82.
16. See, e.g., Friedelind Wagner, 93, 124–5, for Hitler’s ambitions to be a patron of the arts in the grand style.
17. Wiedemann, 194ff.; Smelser, 166.
18. See Frank Bajohr, ‘Gauleiter in Hamburg. Zur Person und Tätigkeit Karl Kaufmanns’, VfZ, 43 (1995), 269–95, here 277–80, for specific examples of corruption in Hamburg which were characteristic for the local and regional level.
19. Robert Koehl, ‘Feudal Aspects of National Socialism’, American Political Science Review, 54 (1960), 921–33.
20. See Hanisch, 13ff; Geiß, 65–95.
21. Wiedemann, 72, 74–6, 94–6.
22. Wiedemann, 69–70.
23. The text of the decree is printed in Walther Hofer (ed.), Der Nationalsozialismus. Dokumente 1933–1945, Frankfurt am Main, 1957, 87.
24. See Bajohr, 286, for Kaufmann’s attempts to uphold wage levels for workers in Hamburg.
25. BAK, R43II/541, Fols. 36–95; BAK, R43II/552, Fols.25–50; and see Mason, Sozialpolitik, I58–9.
26. BAK, NS22/110, Denkschrift, 15 December 1932; see Mommsen, ‘Die NSDAP als faschistische Partei’, 267–8.
27. Orlow, ii.67–70; Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter. Führung der Partei undKontrolle des Staatsapparates durch den Stab Heß und die Partei-Kanzlei Bormann, Munich/London/New York/Paris, 1992, 16 (and see Parts I–IV for the operations of the office of the Deputy Führer).
28. Orlow, ii.74–5; Mommsen, ‘Die NSDAP als faschistische Partei’, 262–3; and see Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, 24, for emphasis on the improvised and unclear structure of the party at the top, under Heß.
29. Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, I8–20, and Part II. As Longerich points out (257), from the state’s point of view, the approval of the office of the StdF for civil service appointments was not recognized as legally binding, though in practice adhered to.
30. See Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, ch.8, pts.2, 4 210ff, 234ff.
31. Dietrich, Zwölf Jahre, 45.
32. See Diehl-Thiele, 69–73.
33. MK, 433–4.
34. Anatomie, ii.46. The conflict between the Gestapo and Reich Justice Ministry over the question of the representations of lawyers in cases of ‘protective custody’ stretched back to October 1934. Himmler had subsequently informed Gestapo offices in April 1935 that such representations were banned where political and police interests might be endangered. Gürtner did not give up the attempt to preserve the rights of the legal profession, even after Hitler’s intervention in the autumn. Himmler dragged the affair out, however, and the Reich Justice Minister made as good as no progress, whatever concessions he was prepared to make. Resting on Hitler’s authority, the Gestapo was able to block all attempts to constrain the arbitrary use of its power. (See Gruchmann, Justiz, 564–73.) For his part, Gürtner was himself, however, woefully weak in upholding legal principles against political expediency. On 8 October 1935 he wrote to Hitler about the case of an SA man accused of the torture of six Communists in a Berlin ‘SA-Home’ in January 1934. ‘Despite the seriousness of the maltreatment, which shows a certain sadism,’ Gürtner wrote, he was prepared to recommend quashing the indictment (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1413-I-6, Fol.36).
35. Anatomie, ii.39–40.
36. Johannes Tuchel, Konzentrationslager, Boppard am Rhein, 1991, 314–15. ‘Kampf gegen die inneren Feinde der Nation’ was a formulation used (Tuchel, 314) by Hitler at the Party Rally on 11 September 1935. See also Robert Gellately, ‘Allwissend und allgegenwärtig? Entstehung, Funktion und Wandel des Gestapo-Mythos’, in Gerhard Paul and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds.), Die Gestapo: Mythos und Realität, Darmstadt, 1995, 47–70, here 54–5.
37. Anatomie, i.50–54.
38. RGBl, I936, Teil I, 487–8.
39. Anatomie, i.118.
40. Anatomie, ii.50–51. See also Herbert, Best, I63–8.
41. For the expansion of the Gestapo’s spheres of activity, see Herbert, Best, I68–80. One example was the extension of persecution, not greatly in evidence before the publicity stirred up by the Röhm affair, to homosexuals. Lists of practising homosexuals were collected by a newly established department in the Gestapa in Berlin from October 1934 (Günter Grau (ed.), Homosexualität in der Ν S-Zeit. Dokumente einer Diskriminierung und Verfolgung, Frankfurt am Main, 1993, 74). Regional Gestapo offices joined suit in widening their persecution, coordinated from 1936 by the ‘Reich Headquarters for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion’ (Burkhard Jellonnek, ‘Staatspolizeiliche Fahndungs- und Ermittlungsmethoden gegen Homosexuelle’, in Paul and Mallmann, Die Gestapo, 343–56, here 348–9, 353. See also Burkhard Jellonnek’s monograph, Homosexuelle unter dem Hakenkreuz. Die Verfolgung von Homosexuellen im Dritten Reich, Paderborn, 1990).
&
nbsp; 42. See Christine Elizabeth King, The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity, New York/Toronto, 1982.
43. The subtitle of the first of Weinberg’s two-volume analysis of German foreign policy between 1933 and 1939.
44. AdR, Reg. Hitler, i.313–18, here 318. See also Wollstein, ‘Eine Denkschrift des Staatssekretärs Bernhard von Bülow vom März 1933’, 87, 93; and Wendt, 75, 79.
45. See Weinberg, i.46, 166–70.
46. See Wendt, 85; Weinberg, i.171.
47. Weinberg, i.60–61, 69–73.
48. Cit. Wendt, 78.
49. Herbert S. Levine, Hitler’s Free City. A History of the Nazi Party in Danzig, 1925–39, Chicago/London, 1973, 56–7.
50. See Levine, 9–17, 61–7.
51. Weinberg, i.63–8, 71.
52. Józef Lipski, Diplomat in Berlin, 1933–1939, New York/London, 1968, 105.
53. Weinberg, i.73.
54. Leonidas Ε. Hill (ed.), Die Weizsäcker-Papiere 1933–1950, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Vienna, 1974, 78.
55. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, ANA-463, Sammlung Deuerlein, E200263–9, Dirksen to Bülow, 31 January 1933; Bülow to Dirksen, 6 February 1933, and E496961, Dirksen telegram to Neurath, 28 February 1933.
56. Weinberg, i.81.
57. Weinberg, i.180–83.
58. Müller, Heer, 147ff.
59. Müller, Heer, I55–7.
60. Domarus, 468 and n.8; Orlow, ii.138–9; Müller, Heer, I58–61.
61. For the term, see Hüttenberger, ‘Nationalsozialistische Polykratie’, 423ff., 432ff.
62. Patrik von zur Mühlen, ‘Schlagt Hitler an der Saar!’ Abstimmungskampf, Emigration und Widerstand im Saargebiet, 1933–1945, Bonn, 1979, 230, refers to 1,500 meetings and rallies and over 80,000 posters as part of the campaign. For months before the plebiscite, special efforts had been made to organize broadcasting propaganda to the Saar, including distribution of cheap radios (the Volksempfänger) and transmission of a flow of programmes hammering home the message in different ways that the Saar was part of Germany (Zeman, 51–4).