Hitler

by Joachim C. Fest

  As things stood, however, this conception proved to be a kind of magic, since it overcame the prevailing feeling of discouragement. Although there was no visible improvement in material conditions until 1934, from almost the very first day Hitler’s approach generated an enormous “suggestion of consolidation.” At the same time, it assured Hitler considerable room for maneuvering, which enabled him to adjust his plans to changing requirements. The style of his rule has rightly been called “permanent improvisation.” Even while he insisted on the unalterability of the party program, he was filled with that lively instinct of the born tactician not to commit himself. Thus he forbade the press in the first few months to publish unauthorized quotations from Mein Kampf. Even republication of one of the twenty-five points of the party program was banned on the grounds that henceforth what mattered would not be programs but practical work. As a pamphlet of the period put it: “The new Chancellor has so far refused, quite understandably from his standpoint, to set forth a program in detail. (‘Party Comrade No. 1 did not answer,’ the Berlin joke has it.)” One of the early party functionaries believes that Hitler at no time had a clearly formulated goal, let alone a strategy for attaining his ends. And indeed it does seem as if he had only visions, and an unusual capacity for taking in at a glance changing situations, and rapidly and forcefully seizing the opportunities they offered. The grandiose phantasmagorias, floating in eschatological mists of cosmic dooms and racial twilights, were just as much his element as tenacious, cunning, cold-bloodedly staged rapid-fire events—he was a curious combination of visionary and tactician. But the realm in between, that of soundly planned, patiently practiced politics, the realm of human history, was and remained alien to him.

  There could be no doubt, from his actions, that programs did not concern him. He forced the “reactionary” Hugenberg out of the cabinet, even as he compelled Gottfried Feder, now State Secretary in the Ministry of Economics, to modify to the verge of recantation the great idea of his life, his “breaking the bondage of interest.” Hitler now dismissed Feder’s idea, which had long ago flashed through him like an illumination, as one of a group of “officially approved fantasies.” The small shopkeepers, the original members of the party, were already looking over the department stores to find the spots where, according to Point 16 of the party program, they would set up their sales booths in the near future. As late as July, 1933, Rudolf Hess was still allowed to state that the attitude of the party on the question of the department stores was “unchanged in principle.” In reality Hitler had discarded that point in the program for good and all.

  What had happened to Feder happened to many other old fighters in the party ranks, who. as ideological lone wolves, found themselves more and more openly ridiculed and excluded from the positions of power. As the party embracing all the discontented and resentful, during the period of its rise, the NSDAP had attracted many mini-utopians: people obsessed with an idea, a conception of a new order. They had imagined that their desire for reform was most emphatically represented by the dynamic Hitler party. Now, however, that there was a chance of these ideas being realized, the unreality and in many cases the ludicrous quality of many of these notions came to light, while others held no interest for Hitler, since they offered no promise for increasing his power. The idea of the corporate state, constitutional reforms, rearrangement of the relationships between the states and the Reich, the idea of Germanic law, nationalization of the trusts, land reform, or the idea of the state’s feudal tenure of the means of production—nothing ever came of these save for a few isolated projects no one ever followed up. Moreover, the ideas were often so contradictory that their spokesmen turned fiercely upon one another, whereupon Hitler again could leave everything suspended. Complaints about “lack of organization” left him unmoved. This lack allowed his will free scope and made it the real law of the regime.

  But although the energies that National Socialism had unleashed were incapable of tracing more than the beginnings of a new order, they were nevertheless strong enough to undermine the old conditions. Even in this early phase the peculiar weakness of the regime was revealed. To be sure, it had with uncanny accuracy exposed the anachronistic structures and empty claims of the old order. But it was never able to legitimize its destructive ingenuity by a constructive sequel; in the larger historical context it assumed solely functions of clearance. It could not even develop rational, purposeful forms in which to clothe its power-political aims; even in establishing the totalitarian state it hardly went beyond initial steps. It was behemoth rather than leviathan, as Franz Neumann put it; a non-state, a manipulated chaos, not the terroristic coercive state that still is a state. Everything was improvised with one purpose or another in view. That was true for the great campaign of conquest that dominated Hitler’s imagination so powerfully that it overrode everything else. Certainly, he had no interest in ordering the social and political structures and arranging for their continuance beyond his own life. If he thought and spoke in terms of a millennium, this was vague literary phraseology. Consequently, the Third Reich developed into a peculiarly unfinished makeshift, a field of rubble patterned on contradictory sketches. Façades left over from the past covered newly laid foundations, among which jutted pieces of wall started and abandoned, fragments destroyed or torn down. What alone imposed meaning and consistency upon it all was Hitler’s monstrous will to power.

  Socialistic notions still survived in the Nazi party, isolated leftovers from the Strasser phase. Hitler’s attitude toward these doctrines is interesting, for here again we see how all his decisions were governed by the power factor. As leader of a movement which had profited from the bourgeoisie’s dread of revolution, he had to avoid all activities that might move the regime anywhere close to the traditional concept of revolution. In particular, he must avoid the appearance of nationalization or an overplanned economy. But since this was what he really intended, he used the slogan of “national socialism” to proclaim unconditional co-operation by everyone, on all levels, with the state. And since all authority ultimately issued from him, this meant nothing less than the abolition of all private economic life under the fiction of its continuance. As compensation for the state’s intrusion into their affairs, the businessmen received imposed labor peace, guaranteed markets, and in the course of time a good many vague hopes of a tremendous expansion of the national economic base. The whole idea was conceived, however, for short-term benefits: it was Hitler’s way of providing himself with henchmen. Among his intimates he justified this course with some cynicism and acuteness: he had not the slightest intention, he declared, of killing off the propertied class, as had been done in Russia. Rather, he would force it in, every conceivable way to use its abilities to build the economy. Businessmen, that much was sure, would be glad if their lives and property were spared, and in this way they would become true dependents. Why should he change this advantageous relationship when to do so would only mean he would afterward have to thresh everything out with Old Fighters and overzealous party comrades who would be forever reminding him of all they had done for the party? Formal title to means of production was only a question of detail, was it not? How much landed property or how many factories people owned did not matter when they had consented to a master they could no longer overthrow. “The decisive factor is that the State through the party controls them whether they are owners or workers. Do you understand, all this no longer means anything. Our socialism reaches much deeper. It does not change the external order of things, but it orders solely the relationship of man to the State…. Then what does property and income count for? Why should we need to socialize the banks and the factories? We are socializing the people.”24

  Hitler’s pragmatism was remarkably effective in overcoming mass unemployment. He did not doubt that both the fate of the regime and his personal prestige hung on this question. It was all important that the condition of the suffering population be significantly improved. He had been walking the high wire propaga
ndistically for so long that there was no way to make good his promises except by some such miracle. Moreover, it was also the only way he could pacify the Old Fighters who were grumbling at his many compromises and adjustments, which in their view amounted to a “betrayal of the revolution.”

  Hitler grasped the psychological aspect of the Depression as none of the Weimar politicians had done. Undoubtedly, the gradual recovery of the world economy also came to his aid. But more important, at least as far as the tempo was concerned, was his perception that gloom, apathy, and slump sprang from deep-seated, pessimistic doubts regarding the world order and that the masses required stimulus just as much as did the economy. His many comments friendly to business and his consistent efforts to keep the economy out of the revolutionary turmoil of the early phase were primarily aimed at generating a mood of confidence. Most of the measures initiated during the early months were introduced less for their economic rationale than for the sake of making a vigorous gesture. In a number of cases Hitler fell back on older plans, such as the “program for the immediate provision of work,” which belonged to the Schleicher regime. Other projects that were now spectacularly launched also came out of the Weimar files; democratic red tape, timidity about decisions, or the resignation prevalent during the Weimar years had kept them dormant. For example, the autobahn project, so closely linked with the regime’s reputation from the very outset, had been under discussion for years but had never been begun.

  When Dr. Hans Luther, president of the Reichsbank, clung to his deflationary tight-credit policy and refused to make large sums available for providing work, Hitler forced him to resign. To the anger of many of his followers, he replaced Luther by the “notorious capitalist” Hjalmar Schacht. With his eagerness for results and his absence of scruples, Hitler cranked up production by a variety of impressive measures. In his May 1 speech he appealed to the “entire German people,” declaring that “every individual… every entrepreneur, every homeowner, every businessman,” had the obligation to provide for work in a sustained community effort. The government, for its part, would take action by means of a program Hitler described as “gigantic”—one of his favorite words. “We will clear all obstacles and begin the task grandly,” he promised. Government contracts for housing projects and roads together with a system of public and private stimuli to investment, loans, tax concessions and subsidies, promoted an upswing in the economy. And along with it all went more and more words, slogans, proclamations. They contributed to the success of the effort and gave surprising significance to Hitler’s epigram: “Great liars are also great wizards.”

  The establishment and extension of the initially voluntary Labor Service was also part of the psychology of generating confidence. The Labor Service was useful, to be sure, as a catchment basin for unemployed youth. But in addition it gave vivid expression to the regime’s constructive optimism. Reclaiming swamps and wetlands, reforestation, building autobahns and regulating streams became visible and inspiring signs of accomplishment and faith in the future. At the same time, the organization served to overcome class barriers—especially after it became compulsory in 1935—and to improve the status of manual laborers.

  All these factors operated together, and by 1934 a shortage of technicians was noted, although there were still 3 million unemployed. Two years later full employment was attained.

  The initial upswing also opened the way for considerable effective action in the realm of social politics. To be sure, strikes were banned and a single state-controlled union was created, the German Labor Front. But for fear of seeming reactionary, the regime attempted to cover up such manifestations of authoritarianism by ostentatious prolabor activities. Thus vast institutions were created to organize the people, to provide them with vacation travel, sports festivals, art shows, dances, and training courses. These organizations—Kraft durch Freude (“Strength Through Joy”) and Schönheit der Arbeit (“Beauty of Work”)—served their purpose, and at the same time superintended and placated the masses.

  There was labor opposition, to be sure. Some lists giving the results of factory elections held in April, 1935, have been discovered; these reveal that in some plants at this time no more than 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the personnel voted for the Nazi unity list, and thus for the new order. But in 1932 the NSBO,. the Nazi factory organization, received on the average only 4 per cent of the votes. Even such a leftist historian as Arthur Rosenberg had to admit that Nazism realized certain unfulfilled demands of the democratic revolution. In the long run, at any rate, the regime’s stubborn, wide-ranging wooing of the workers had its effect, especially since many of them saw the difference between present and past “less in lost rights than in regained employment.”25

  Employment was indeed the key factor for the success of the Third Reich’s rigorous social policies. The loss of freedom and of social autonomy, the strict supervision, the distinctly smaller share of labor in the growing national product—all this did not greatly bother the workers. Ideological slogans persuaded them even less than the bourgeoisie. What really mattered was the feeling of restored social security after traumatic years of anxiety and gloom. This feeling dissolved the initially widespread tendencies toward opposition. It roused the determination to produce and helped enormously to create that image of social contentment to which the new rulers could proudly point: class struggle was not only tabooed and banned; it had also been largely abandoned. The regime insisted that it was not the rule of one social class above all others, and by granting everyone opportunities to rise, it in fact demonstrated class neutrality. What class consciousness remained was stamped out by the political pressures to which businessmen, blue- and white-collar workers, and farmers were subjected.

  These measures did indeed break through the old, petrified social structures. They tangibly improved the material condition of much of the population. Yet no really new sociopolitical concepts can be detected underlying these programs. Hitler’s only ideas were concerned with the seizure of power; he had no vision of the new state or the new society. Fundamentally he did not want change; he wanted only to put his hand on the wheel. Just as the party had served him as an instrument for conquering Germany, Germany was now to serve him as an instrument “for pushing open the gate to lasting domination of the world.” Hitler’s domestic policy must be seen as an adjunct to his foreign policy.

  In addition to his use of the available social energies, he employed the dynamism of nationalistic motivation to mobilize the masses. The onetime victors in the World War had already conceded German equality in principle, but in reality she had remained the pariah nation. France, above all, deeply disturbed by Hitler’s accession to power, was unrelenting, whereas England showed some discomfort at the contradictions into which she was being forced by her former ally. During the first year and a half of his rule Hitler exploited France’s fears, England’s scruples, and Germany’s indignation in a masterful manner. He succeeded in overturning the entire European system of alliances, in uniting Germany, and in preparing the ground for his Lebensraum policy.

  The initial situation was by no means favorable to his ambitions. The terroristic aspects of his coming to power, the beatings and killings, above all, the persecution of a single segment of society solely because of their origin, ran counter to all civilized views of political conduct and produced a grim image of what was going on in Germany. There was the famous Maundy Thursday debate in the House of Commons, when Sir Austen Chamberlain, the former Foreign Secretary, declared that this was not the time to consider any further revision of the Versailles Treaty. He spoke of brutality, racial arrogance, and the policy of the iron heel. The slogan “Hitler means war,” so long dismissed as a piece of refugee hysteria, suddenly seemed credible. There were anti-German outbreaks here and there in Europe, and the Polish ambassador went so far as to ask whether France was. prepared to wage a preventive war in order to eliminate the Hitler regime. In the summer of 1933 Germany was almost totally isolated in the sphere o
f foreign policy.

  Given these circumstances, Hitler found it advisable to make placating gestures and to stress continuity with the moderate Weimar policy. Although he despised the personnel of the Foreign Office and occasionally spoke of “those Santa Clauses in the Wilhelmstrasse,” he left both the bureaucracy and the diplomatic corps almost untouched. For at least six years, he told one of his followers, he must maintain a kind of truce with the European powers; all the saber rattling of nationalistic circles was a mistake, he said.26 Typical of his strategy was his grand “peace speech” of May 17, 1933, although he mingled his sincere-sounding offers of reconciliation with some strong words against the persisting distinction between victors and defeated and even threatened to withdraw from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations altogether if the victors continued to deny equal rights to Germany. But in the present situation he could easily assume the role of an advocate of reason and fairness by taking the European powers at their word, invoking their own slogans of “self-determination” and a “just peace.” So great was the general gratification at Hitler’s moderation that no one detected the warning contained within his speech. Along with the London Times many influential voices throughout the world supported Hitler’s demand that Germany be treated on a footing of equality with the other powers. President Roosevelt was actually delighted with Hitler’s tone.27