How to Be a Dictator

by Frank Dikotter

  Hitler now had the popular backing he needed to expand the Third Reich. But in order to wage war he believed that the economy must become self-sufficient. As early as 1933 exports had been curbed, price controls introduced, grain stores built and consumption rationed. In 1936 Hermann Goering was put in charge of the Four-Year Plan, cranking up the effort to reach economic independence by 1940. It brought widespread shortages. The American journalist William Shirer reported from Berlin that long queues of sullen people waited before the food shops, as there were shortages of meat, butter, fruit and fats. Import substitutes meant that clothes were increasingly made from wood pulp, gasoline from coal and rubber from coal and lime. Cost-conscious people wondered how much money was wasted on propaganda, not to mention the millions lavished on the mountain retreat for the ‘simple worker of his people’.68

  Panem et circenses, bread and circuses, was an old principle well understood by modern dictators, but the entertainment was also faltering: the parades and rallies all looked the same, the speeches sounded alike. ‘Gone is the belief in the magical powers of Hitler,’ one commentator ventured. Still, many credited Hitler for having freed the country from the shackles of Versailles. Hitler had elevated their country to its rightful position in the world and restored their army to its former glory.69

  Most of all, the cult provided protection against disillusionment with the system. People blamed the party, not their leader. The more disenchanted they became, the more they characterised Hitler as a man kept in deliberate ignorance by his underlings. He only wanted the best for his people. ‘If only Hitler knew’ became a popular expression.70

  Hitler, having portrayed himself as a sleepwalker guided by the hand of destiny, knew that he had to show that his star was still in the ascendant. In March 1938 he gambled again. Even before the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918 there had been calls for the unification of Austria and Germany into a Greater Germany. The Treaty of Versailles forbade the union and stripped Austria of the Sudetenland, giving the German-dominated area to Czechoslovakia. In February 1938 Hitler had browbeaten the chancellor of Austria into appointing Nazi sympathisers to key positions in Vienna. On returning home, Schuschnigg scheduled instead a plebiscite on the issue of unification. Hitler was furious, sent an ultimatum and invaded on 12 March. He himself crossed the border the very same day in a motorcade, to be welcomed by cheering crowds. Austria became the province of Ostmark.

  The international response was subdued and encouraged Hitler to eye the Sudetenland. Still, like many gamblers, he vacillated, torn between confidence and self-doubt. In September 1938 he loudly threatened war at the annual party rally. Within days Neville Chamberlain travelled to the Obersalzberg, where his host received him on the Berghof’s front steps. Halfway through a three-hour conversation, Hitler suddenly switched roles, transforming himself from an unpredictable megalomaniac who threatened war into a perfectly reasonable negotiating partner. Hitler pledged not to use force against Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain agreed to the cessation of the Sudetenland, signing the Munich Agreement two weeks later. ‘He looks entirely undistinguished,’ the prime minister admitted to his sister, but Hitler was ‘a man of his word’. Hitler clapped his hands in sheer delight the moment Chamberlain left the Berghof. The Sudetenland was occupied without a shot being fired.71

  On 20 April 1939 Adolf Hitler was fifty. ‘The fiftieth birthday of the creator of Greater Germany. Two days of flags, pomp and special editions of the newspapers, boundless deification,’ noted Victor Klemperer. The celebrations had been under preparation for weeks by Goebbels, who addressed the nation over the radio on 19 April, asking Germans to join him in fervent prayer to almighty God: ‘May he grant the German people’s deepest wish and keep the Führer in health and strength for many more years and decades.’ Shortly afterwards party leaders appeared at the chancellery to offer their congratulations. At nine in the evening the Führer showed himself to the crowds. Hundreds of thousands formed a guard of honour along the road from the Wilhelmstrasse all the way to Adolf Hitler Place in Charlottenburg, where Hitler inaugurated a new section of the new east–west axis, also called the Via Triumphalis. The ten-lane avenue was ablaze, with powerful lights throwing gilded swastikas and imperial eagles, mounted on columns every twenty metres, into sharp relief against a dark sky.72

  Birthday presents, piled high in several rooms at the chancellery, were opened around midnight. There were gifts from his entourage. Albert Speer, the Führer’s architect who had built the Via Triumphalis, used one of the salons to erect a four-metre-high model of a gigantic Arch of Triumph to be built in Berlin. Small bronze casts, white marble nudes and old paintings were heaped on long tables. There were also tributes from the people. Farmers sent their produce. A group of women from Westphalia had knitted 6,000 pairs of socks for the Führer’s soldiers. Others had baked a two-metre-long birthday cake.73

  The real festivities came the following day, as the former corporal acted as an emperor, reviewing his mighty war machine before an astonished world. He wore his usual brown uniform, but sat on a throne-like chair placed on a raised dais, covered with red plush, protected by a giant canopy decorated with eagles and iron crosses. Tanks, artillery, armoured cars, and tens of thousands of soldiers in full fighting regalia greeted their Führer along the Via Triumphalis, with 162 warplanes flying overhead in close formation.74

  The Via Triumphalis cut through the heart of the capital, but it also linked Hitler to the country’s imperial past. Albert Speer had designed the avenue as an extension of the Unter den Linden, developed by Prussia as a Via Triumphalis after its victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The axis was part of a grandiose plan to transform Berlin into the capital of a thousand-year Reich, a gleaming city called Germania that would rival Egypt, Babylon and ancient Rome. The plan, based on original sketches provided by the Führer himself, included a gigantic Grand Hall designed to host 180,000 people. The Arch of Triumph, meanwhile, would reach an enormous 117 metres. As Speer later put it, Hitler demanded ‘the biggest of everything to glorify his works and magnify his pride’.75

  ‘The Führer is celebrated by the nation like no other mortal has ever been,’ Goebbels effused. Hitler seemed to have miraculously united a nation still deeply divided only six years earlier. In an important reflection on the Nazi regime, the German journalist and historian Sebastian Haffner calculated that more than 90 per cent of the population were followers of the Führer.76

  Victor Klemperer was more prudent: ‘Who can judge the mood of eighty million people, with the press bound and everyone afraid of opening their mouth?’ When Hitler spoke in the Theresienwiese, an open space in his old stamping ground of Munich, half a million people had been expected, but at most 200,000 turned up. ‘They stood there as if the speech had nothing to do with them,’ one observer noticed. Most had been frogmarched to the event from neighbouring enterprises and factories. Speer himself remembered that in 1939 the cheering crowds were entirely stage-managed, even if some were genuinely enthusiastic.77

  ‘The fiftieth birthday of Hitler was celebrated with such extravagance that one might really believe that his popularity is soaring. But those who really know the common people realise that much, but by no means all, is mere appearance,’ wrote an anonymous critic of the regime. For two weeks before the event, people were bombarded with exhortations to decorate their homes, and woe betide any who failed to comply. Even churches were given specific instructions by the Ministry of Propaganda on how to ring their bells on the great day.78

  Whether or not they adored the Führer, as Goebbels proclaimed, they lived in fear of war. Even fanatical followers heaved a sigh of relief after Austria was peacefully incorporated into the Reich, but they did not trust the Munich Agreement. Chamberlain, upon his return to London, had received a boisterous welcome, holding a flimsy piece of paper flapping in the wind: ‘Peace for our time,’ he had confidently declared. Wild crowds had also cheered in other parts of Europe, but not in Germany. People thought
it a bluff. ‘They don’t understand Hitler,’ they whispered.79

  Chamberlain was convinced that Hitler had merely hoped to absorb the Sudetenland, when in fact the Führer wished to eliminate all of Czechoslovakia. This he did on 15 March 1939, as the country was invaded and divided up among Germany, Hungary and Poland. A week later American president Franklin Roosevelt sent a message asking Hitler to pledge that he would not attack other nations in Europe. Chamberlain himself announced that Britain would intervene if Polish independence was threatened. Despite the appearance of strength and unity, a thick cloud of fear hung over the birthday celebrations.80

  A few months later, as apprehensions of war mounted, Hitler stunned the world by signing an alliance with Stalin. The arch-enemies were now allies, meaning that there would not be a war on two fronts. But Hitler made a fatal miscalculation. With the Soviet Union on his side, he thought that France and Britain would not dare to intervene in Poland. It was a huge gamble, but Hitler trusted his intuition, which had proved him right so far. He had built an image of himself as the man of destiny and had come to believe in it. He dismissed dissenting opinions, including those of his own generals. When Hermann Goering suggested that it was not necessary to wager everything, Hitler replied: ‘In my life I have always put my whole stake on the table.’ Germany invaded western Poland on 1 September, the Soviet Union eastern Poland on 17 September.81

  On 3 September Britain and France declared war. People were in a state of shock. Instead of the wild enthusiasm of 1914, the declaration of war aroused, in Heinrich Hoffmann’s words, ‘abysmal despondency’. ‘Today, no excitement, no hurrahs, no cheering, no throwing of flowers, no war fever, no war hysteria,’ observed William Shirer from Berlin. ‘There is not even any hate for the French and British.’82

  Hitler, too, was taken aback. Hoffmann found him ‘slumped in his chair, deep in thought, a look of incredulity and baffled chagrin on his face’. But he recovered soon enough, as reports of swift military advances in Poland began to flow in.83

  The invading troops reached Warsaw within a week, but the streets of Berlin saw no wild rejoicing. ‘In the subway going out to the radio studio I noted the strange indifference of the people to the big news,’ Shirer confided to his diary. Resignation took over, as rationing increased, with French and English ships enforcing an economic blockade that affected almost every commodity, halving imports of cotton, tin, oil and rubber. In many shops – confectioner’s, fishmonger’s, grocer’s – the Führer’s picture, with flag cloth and victory green, replaced the rationed goods in window displays. Income tax increased by a hefty 50 per cent to finance the war effort.84

  By October even rubber overshoes were restricted to 5 per cent of the population. Over the winter temperatures plummeted to below zero centigrade. Half the population was freezing and without coal. Robert Ley read a Christmas proclamation over the radio: ‘The Führer is always right. Obey the Führer!’85

  When Hitler celebrated his birthday on 20 April 1940 no church bells rang, because many of them had been melted down to make bullets. Despite his victories in Denmark and Norway, invaded a few weeks earlier, a mere seventy-five well-wishers stood outside the chancellery waiting for a glimpse of the leader.86

  Hitler realised that he could not break the economic blockade. Again he risked everything, making a bid for victory now that his troops still had sufficient supplies. On 10 May 1940 the German army marched into the Netherlands, Belgium and France. It was a resounding success, with tanks easily outflanking French fortifications to reach Paris on 14 June. Four days later an armistice was signed in the very same carriage of the Compagnie des Wagons-Lits where Marshal Ferdinand Foch had dictated his terms to the German delegation on 11 November 1918.

  When the invasion of France had been announced six weeks earlier, many people had responded with apathy. ‘Most Germans I have seen,’ commented William Shirer, ‘are sunk deep into depression.’ Now they cheered Hitler, who was welcomed back home as the ‘Creator of a New Europe’. Hitler had overseen the choreography of the Victory Parade himself, insisting that it ‘reflect the historical victory’ achieved by his troops. As his train pulled slowly into the railway station, a crowd that had waited for hours cheered jubilantly. The Führer shed a tear, visibly overcome with emotion. People thronged the route back to the chancellery. ‘The streets are covered in flowers and look like a colourful carpet,’ wrote Goebbels, as ‘excitement fills the entire city.’87

  Spontaneous scenes of joy erupted across the country, as people celebrated the armistice. There was relief after the dread of war, but also genuine euphoria at the ease with which Hitler had achieved his objectives. Again, it seemed, the hand of providence had guided the Führer to victory.88

  In an eloquent speech at the Reichstag, Hitler offered peace to Britain. It was one of his best performances, calculated to rally a population that longed for peace behind the inevitable fight against Britain. The sway of his body, the inflections of his voice, the very choice of words, the cocking of his eyes, the turning of his head for irony, the gestures with his hands, the clever combination of the confidence of a conqueror with the humbleness of a true son of the people, everything created the impression of a sincere man of peace. ‘He can tell a lie with as straight a face as any man,’ noticed William Shirer. Part of the show was for his generals, massed together on the first balcony: with one imperious flick of the hand, he promoted twelve generals to the rank of field marshal. Hermann Goering became Reich Marshal.89

  Britain refused to sue for peace. To their intense consternation, many ordinary people now realised that the war would not end speedily. The Battle of Britain followed, but Reich Marshal Goering failed to bomb the island into submission. Hitler adopted another plan, one close to his heart ever since he had written Mein Kampf, namely, the conquest of Russia. Germany depended heavily on deliveries of oil and grain from Stalin. The Soviet Union appeared weak, their troops having suffered great losses after a botched invasion of Finland in the winter of 1939–40. Hitler was convinced he could win a quick victory. He gambled again and betrayed his ally, as some three million soldiers crossed the Russian border in June 1941.

  German troops soon became bogged down in a costly war of attrition. After Japan attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Hitler declared war on the United States, a country that had never loomed very large in his thinking. He apparently underestimated its ability to produce wheat, coal, steel and men. The war on two fronts that everyone had dreaded now became a reality. One defeat succeeded another, as the Führer, sure of his own genius, brushed aside the army’s high command, interfering in every aspect of the war. He repeatedly refused to withdraw his troops from Stalingrad, the city named after his nemesis. After hundreds of thousands of German soldiers died in one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, the remaining Wehrmacht troops surrendered in February 1943.90

  For years Germans had been told that Hitler was the master of the short, lightning war, a blitzkrieg conducted far away from home. In a speech at the Berliner Sportpalast on 18 February 1943, broadcast over the radio and reproduced in every newspaper, Goebbels told the population that total war was now inevitable.91

  Hitler disappeared from view. To quell rumours of his declining health, he spoke briefly on 21 March 1943. It was a dull performance, delivered so hastily that some listeners suspected it was the work of an impersonator. His hand suffered from a tremor which worsened over time, which no doubt contributed to his reluctance to appear in public. As his secretary noted, he believed that an iron will could prevail over everything, yet was unable to master his own hand.92

  On the eve of the Führer’s birthday on 20 April 1943 Goebbels explained in his annual peroration that men of great calibre did not need to show themselves before the full footlights of the world stage. In endless days of work and wakeful nights Hitler was toiling hard on the nation’s behalf, carrying the heaviest burden, and facing the greatest grief.93

  Some deri
ded Goebbels. Others were in a state of deep shock. Many realised that Stalingrad was a turning point, that Germany was losing the war. There were harsh words for the regime, although people knew how to express themselves without becoming liable to criminal prosecution. It was clear to all that if major strategic blunders had been made, only one man could possibly be responsible, a man who might not rest until all was destroyed.94

  By summer 1943, as Mussolini fell from power, criticism of the regime became more open. People listened to foreign radio, keen to learn more about the advancing enemy troops. The Hitler salute was in striking decline. ‘Many party members no longer wear the party badge,’ observed one report from the Security Service of the SS. ‘Let us hope the English will be in Berlin before the Russians’ became a wish that was heard ever more frequently, noted the estranged diplomat Ulrich von Hassell.95

  With total war came even more drastic rationing, as ordinary people were placed on a starvation diet. Still, they fared better than others. The moment Poland was invaded, the systematic killing of Jews and other undesirables began. Extermination camps were set up in occupied Poland in 1941, and soon millions of Jews from all over Europe were transported in sealed freight trains, for destruction in gas chambers. Their belongings were confiscated, catalogued, tagged and sent to Germany to assist the war effort.