Later, in a secret statement made in 1940, Goebbels boasted that when Nazism came to power in 1933, “it had only to transfer its organization, its intellectual and spiritual principles, to the State,” for it had already been “a state within the State,” which had “prepared everything and considered everything.” That was a gross exaggeration. Nevertheless, it is true that the Nazi party was better prepared for its claim to power than any other totalitarian party. The Reichsleiters and the gauleiters put on the airs of cabinet ministers long before 1933. On public occasions the SA usurped the functions of the police without asking anyone’s leave. Quite often, Hitler, as leader of the “opposition government” contrived to be represented by a personal observer at international conferences. The same polemical principle underlay the wide display of the party symbols. The swastika was represented as the insignia of the true, honorable Germany. The Horst Wessel song became the anthem of the shadow government, while brown shirts, medals, and badges, as well as the party’s memorial days, promoted a sense of togetherness in those irreconcilably opposed to the existing government.
In spite of its mania for bureaucracy, the National Socialist government was highly personal. At crucial moments, administrative rulings and bureaucratic channels had little bearing; subjective factors decided the issue. Positions within the party hierarchy were defined less by actual rank than by the signs of favor the holders enjoyed. Similarly, all standards were subject to arbitrary change, at the mercy of whim. High above all else stood the “will of the Führer”—the basic fact of the constitution, supreme and unassailable. He impulsively followed his inspirations. He installed and dismissed the party’s lesser leaders and employees, determined candidatures and electoral lists, regulated the income of underlings and even supervised their private lives.
In principle, there were no restrictions whatsoever upon the absolute power of the Führer. Early in 1928 Albert Krebs, gauleiter of Hamburg, having had differences with others in the district, submitted his resignation. Hitler initially refused to accept the resignation. In a magnificently circumstantial report he made the point that the confidence of the membership could neither grant nor rescind positions of power within the party. These depended solely on the confidence of the Führer. He alone praised merit, reproved failure, mediated, thanked, or forgave. Only after this elaborate exposition did Hitler accept the resignation of Krebs.
By such means Hitler’s personality increasingly dominated and determined the structures of the party. In fact, the bureaucracy itself mirrored aspects of his personal history. The bureaucratic passion that expressed itself in the proliferation of departments, the craze for titles, and the meaningless departmental functions hearkened back to the complicated officialdom of Imperial Austria, to which Hitler’s father, albeit humbly, belonged. The prevalence of arbitrary subjectivity pointed to Hitler’s past in the lawless and freebooting veterans’ associations. The megalomaniac tendencies of his youth came to the surface again in the fantastically exaggerated scale of the bureaucracy. So did his craving for inflated display; he invented high-sounding labels for offices that scarcely existed except in his imagination.
Yet this shadow government and swollen party bureaucracy were a form of impatient snatching at the future, efforts to anticipate reality. Endless meetings were held. In 1925 alone, according to a count of Hitler’s, the party could boast of almost 2,400 demonstrations. But the public showed only sluggish interest. All the noise, the brawls, the battle for headlines yielded only meager results. During those years of the Weimar Republic’s gradual consolidation, when in Goebbels’s phrase the Nazi party could not claim even its opponents’ hatred, Hitler himself sometimes seemed to doubt ultimate success. At such times he would escape from reality into one of his grand, breathtaking prospects and transfer his faith to the distant future: “Perhaps another twenty or a hundred years may pass before our idea is victorious. Those who believe in the idea today may die—what does any one person amount to in the evolution of the race, of humanity?” In different moods he saw himself leading the great war of the future. Sitting before a plate of pastries in the Cafe Heck he said to Captain Stennes in a loud voice: “And then, Stennes, after we have won the victory, we’ll build a Victory Boulevard, from Doberitz to the Brandenburg Gate, sixty meters wide, lined on the right and the left by trophies and war booty.”34
The central office, however, complained that some thirty local party groups (there were about 200) had failed to order posters for the August, 1927, party rally, and generally deplored the difficulties it encountered in organizing mass meetings. This contributed to Hitler’s decision to hold the 1927 annual party rally for the first time against the backdrop of the ancient imperial city of Nuremberg, where, as in Bamberg, Julius Streicher provided a further attraction. By now Hitler’s staging had improved immensely; his touch could be felt in all the proceedings that dramatized with such eclat the movement’s coherence and belligerency. After it, one of his followers called him a “wizard in leadership of the masses.” With benefit of hindsight we can in fact see in this rally first elements of what later developed into a pompous ritual. The storm troopers and the party units from all the regions of Germany arrived in special trains, with their flags, pennants, and bands. Included, too, were many delegations from foreign countries, and the Hitler Youth, founded the previous year, also marched for the first time. The uniforming of the party, which in Weimar had still been hit and miss, had by now become standardized. Gerhard Rossbach had obtained a supply of brown shirts from old militia stocks and had introduced them into the SA. Hitler thought them exceedingly ugly, but even he now wore one.
The grand demonstration in the Luitpoldhain, on the outskirts of Nuremberg, featured an “address by the Führer.” In conclusion, twelve standards were solemnly dedicated. Then, in the market place, Hitler sat in his open car, arm stiffly outstretched, reviewing the marching contingents. The Nazi press spoke of a parade of 30,000; the Völkische Beobachter magnified that figure to 100,000; but more sober estimates did not go beyond 15,000 marchers. Some women and girls, who had appeared in fanciful brown costumes, were not allowed to participate in the march past Hitler.
This party rally passed a number of resolutions. It called for a congress on labor-union problems, considered the idea of a “sacrifice circle” to cope with the party’s precarious financial situation, and called for the creation of a National Socialist scientific society in order to extend the influence of the party’s propaganda to intellectual groups.
Some time later, in Hamburg, Hitler for the first time addressed several thousand farmers from Schleswig-Holstein. Stagnation was forcing the party to seek followers among new, hitherto untapped classes of society.
The government, meanwhile, had successfully continued the stabilization efforts of 1923–24. A new reparations agreement, the Treaty of Locarno, the acceptance of Germany into the League of Nations, the Kellogg Pact, and finally some degree of reconciliation between Germany and France (based initially on the personal factor of the two Foreign Ministers’—Stresemann and Briand—respect for one another, but supported by a growing public mood)—all these factors indicated that the trend of the times was toward relaxation of tensions, a trend to which the strained radicalism of the Nazis was directly opposed. Large American loans had meant an increase in Germany’s indebtedness, but at the same time had made possible large investments for the rationalization and modernization of the economy. German production indices between 1923 and 1928 showed rises greater than those of all other European countries in virtually every sector of the economy. What is more, in spite of the losses in territory, production surpassed the prewar achievements of the country. In 1928 national income was some 12 per cent higher than in 1913; improvement in social conditions had been considerable; and unemployment had been reduced to approximately 400,000.
It was obvious that the times were countering the efforts of the Nazis. Hitler himself lived largely in retirement at Obersalzberg, often virtually invisib
le for weeks. But his withdrawal was proof that he felt himself unassailable within the party. Now and then, at shrewdly calculated intervals, he brought his authority to bear, issuing a reprimand or a threat. Occasionally he went on trips to cultivate contacts or to find contributors. On December 10, 1926, the second volume of Mein Kampf came out; but it, too, failed to bring him the smashing success he had expected. In 1925 almost 10,000 copies of the first volume had been sold, and in the following year nearly 7,000. But in 1927 the sale of the entire two-volume work dropped to 5,607, and in 1928 the figure was only 3,015.35
At any rate, his publishing income allowed him to buy the property on Obersalzberg. Frau Bechstein helped him with the furnishing; the Wagners in Bayreuth donated linens and china and later sent a set of the Master’s collected works, together with a page from the original score of Lohengrin. At about the same time Hitler spent 20,000 marks to acquire a six-seater, supercharged open Mercedes that satisfied both his taste for technology and his love of display.
Hitler’s tax declarations, found after the war, indicate that these expenditures considerably exceeded his reported income—and that the Treasury was not unaware of this fact. In a letter to the tax collectors reminiscent, in its whimpering slyness, of his appeal to the authorities of Linz after he had been tracked down as a draft dodger, he maintained that he was without funds and insisted on the modesty of his life style: “Nowhere do I possess property or other capital assets that I can call my own. I restrict of necessity my personal wants so far that I am a complete abstainer from alcohol and tobacco, take my meals in most modest restaurants, and aside from my minimal apartment rent make no expenditures that are not chargeable to my expenses as a political writer…. Also the automobile is for me but a means to an end. It alone makes it possible for me to accomplish my daily work.”36
In September, 1926, he declared himself incapable of paying his taxes and spoke repeatedly of his sizable bank debts. Years later, he occasionally recalled this period in which he was constantly strapped for money and said that at times he had lived on nothing but apples. His Munich home on Thierschstrasse, sublet from the widow Reichert, was in fact unostentatious: a small, scantily furnished room whose floor was covered with worn linoleum.
In order to increase his income, Hitler joined with the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann—to whom he had granted virtually exclusive rights to pictures of him—to found a picture magazine, the Illustrierte Beobachter, to which he henceforth contributed an article in every issue. In the summer of 1928, in the very middle of this period of waiting, planning, and keeping still, he began writing another book, setting forth the ideas of foreign policy he had been developing. This, however, remained unpublished during his lifetime.
By means of a succession of strained-sounding appeals, he kept the party together in spite of the divergent forces tugging it every which way. He turned a deaf ear to those dissatisfied with the legal course he had chosen. The consolidation of the republic did not mislead him into the shortsighted conclusions many of his followers came to. His instinct for the frangible allowed him to nurse his plans patiently. In characteristic fashion he used the very obstacles the party was encountering, the very hopelessness of its predicament, to bolster his belief in ultimate success: “In this very fact is to be found the absolute, or rather, the mathematically calculable reason for the future victory of our movement,” he told his followers. “As long as we are a radical movement, as long as public opinion proscribes us, as long as momentary circumstances in the country are against us—just so long will we continue to gather around us the most valuable human material, even in times when, as people say, rational arguments are against us.” At a Christmas party given by a Munich section of the NSDAP he raised morale by comparing the woes of the party with the situation of the early Christians. National Socialism, he went on-—sustaining the parallel because he had been carried away by his own bold image and the Christmas mood of the gathering—would “translate the ideals of Christ into deeds.” He, Hitler, would complete “the work which Christ had begun but could not finish.”
The preceding amateur performance of a skit titled Redemption had prepared the way for his appearance by dramatizing the present “misery and bondage.” As the Völkische Beobachter described the action: “The rising star of Christmas Eve pointed to the Redeemer; the parting curtain now showed the new redeemer who will save the German people from shame and misery—our Leader Adolf Hitler.”
To the outside world, such pronouncements added to the aura of dementia surrounding the man. As at the beginning of his career, the reputation of being a queer duck preceded him. It was hard for people to take him seriously; one theory was that his odd traits sprang from the colorful idiosyncrasies of Bavarian politics. The style he cultivated often aroused ridicule. Thus, for example, he made an object of veneration of the flag that had been carried on the march to the Feldherrnhalle; it was called the “Blood Banner” and whenever other standards were consecrated, they were touched with the tip of this Blood Banner. Presumably mystical forces flowed on contact. Party members to whose radically pure pedigree he wanted to pay tribute might find themselves addressed, in letters, as Euer Deutschgeboren, a form of address roughly equivalent to “Your German-born Worship.” But other activities suggested that the Nazi party was pursuing its goals with seriousness and determination. At the end of 1926 the party set up a speakers’ school to give its followers the techniques and information needed for effective public speaking. By the end of 1932 this school had, according to its records, trained some 6,000 speakers.
In the spring of 1927 the governments of Saxony and Bavaria, no longer nervous about the Nazi party, decided to lift the ban on speeches by the party leader. Hitler readily gave the requested assurances that he would not pursue any unlawful goals or use any unlawful means. But speak he would, and glaring red posters announced that at eight o’clock in the evening of March 9 Adolf Hitler would once again, for the first time since the ban, address the people of Munich at the Krone Circus. The police report on the meeting reveals how deep an impression the event made on the informant himself:
The circus is considerably more than half filled by ten minutes past seven. From the stage hangs the red swastika flag. The stage is reserved for prominent party members and the speaker. The seats in the boxes also seem to be reserved for special party members, since they are assigned by brownshirts. A band has assembled on the platform. No other decorations were to be seen.
The people on the benches are excited and filled with anticipation. They talk about Hitler, about his former oratorical triumphs at the Krone Circus. The women, who are present in great numbers, still seem to be enthusiastic about him…. There is a craving for sensation in the hot, insipid air. The band plays rousing marches while fresh crowds keep pouring in. The Völkische Beobachter is hawked about. At the ticket office each visitor is given a copy of the Program of the National Socialist Workers’ Party, and at the entrance a slip is pressed into everyone’s hand warning against reacting to provocations and emphasizing the need to maintain order. Small flags are sold: “Welcoming flags, 10 pfennig apiece.” They are either black-white-red or entirely red, and show the swastika. The women are the best customers.
Meanwhile the ranks are filling. “We have to make it like the old days!” people are saying. The arena fills…. Most of the spectators belong to the lower economic groups, workers, small artisans, small tradesmen. Many youths in windbreakers and knee socks. Few, hardly any, representatives of the radical working class are to be seen. The people are well dressed; some men are even in evening dress. The crowd in the circus, which is nearly entirely filled, is estimated at seven thousand persons.
It is now half past eight. From the entrance come roars of Heil. Brownshirts march in, the band plays, the crowd cheers noisily. Hitler appears in a brown raincoat, walks swiftly, accompanied by his retinue, the whole length of the circus and up to the stage. The people gesticulate in happy excitement, wave, continually shout Heil,
stand on the benches, stamp their feet thunderously. Then comes a trumpet blast, as in the theater. Sudden silence.
Amid roars of welcome from the spectators, the brownshirts now march into the hall in rank and file, led by two rows of drummers and then the flag. The men salute in the manner of the Fascists, with outstretched arms. The audience cheers them. On the stage Hitler has similarly stretched out his arm in salute. The music surges up. Flags move past, glittering standards with swastikas inside the wreath and with eagles, modeled on the ancient Roman military standards. Perhaps about two hundred men file past. They fill the arena and stand at attention while the flag-bearers and standard-bearers people the stage….
Hitler steps swiftly to the front of the stage. He speaks without a manuscript, at first in a slow, emphatic way; later the words come tumbling forth, and in passages spoken with exaggerated emotion his voice becomes thin and high and ceases to be intelligible. He gesticulates with arms and hands, jumps agitatedly about, and is bent on fascinating the thousands in the audience, who listen with close attention. When applause interrupts him, he raises his hands theatrically. This protest, which occurs frequently in the later course of the speech, strikes a histrionic note, and indeed is deliberately overplayed. The oratorical performance in itself… did not strike this observer as anything remarkable.37
That Hitler could speak again did not remove the difficulties of the party. Yet Hitler himself, it now appeared, had gained rather than lost by the ban. For he had been tided over the period of general amused indifference, when meeting halls would have remained empty and his name and message would have only become a bore. He soon realized this and behaved accordingly, In 1927 he spoke in public fifty-six times; two years later he had reduced his public appearances to twenty-nine. There are indications that at this period he began to see the advantages of living in semidivine remoteness. The moment he returned to the masses, he was competing with the overpowering force of unfavorable circumstances. Failures began to pile up, and with this came criticism from within the party. It was directed equally against his style of leadership and against the stringently maintained policy of legality. Even Goebbels, so embarrassingly subservient to Hitler and one of the prophets of the Führer cult, assailed the strictly legal course in his 1927 pamphlet, Der Nazi-Sozi. Answering the question of what the party should do if its efforts to obtain a majority failed, Goebbels broke out with: “What then? Then we’ll clench our teeth and get ready. Then we’ll march against this government; then we’ll dare the last great coup for Germany; then revolutionaries of the word will become revolutionaries of the deed. Then we’ll make a revolution!”
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