Hitler's First Victims

by Timothy W. Ryback

  The front-page article heralded Dachau’s sudden and dramatic rise to both national and international prominence through the conversion of its abandoned munitions factory. “Dachau has recently received a new distinction in that it now has become a center for the concentration of political prisoners,” the Dachauer Zeitung wrote. “Representatives from the foreign press have already visited the camp and will be reporting on this to the entire world. It is there that communists and other enemies of the people are made to do useful work.”

  The newspaper went on to note that for a time Dachau registered some of the highest unemployment figures in Germany. The camp proved to be a boon to the local economy. Off-duty SS men flocked to Café Bestler for its jazz and supply of local girls. Initially there had been scuffles with Bestler regulars, but the SS ultimately prevailed. The Teufelhart Bakery, which had been providing bread to generations of Dachau residents, secured a contract with the new facility. The butcher Wülfert delivered not only meat but also dried ox penises that were used as pizzles. The eighteen-inch-long strips were soaked in a large cauldron of water in the camp kitchen to keep them pliant and were fetched by the SS guards as needed. “These pizzles were always brought along with the meat deliveries by car to the camp,” Paul Hans Barfuss, a detainee assigned to the kitchen, recalled. “The shop owner himself was said to have delivered them in person.”

  The Dachauer Zeitung credited Heinrich Himmler in particular for the town’s revived fortunes. “Dachau has attained its most recent fame through an action by the police headquarters in Munich, and that pleases us greatly,” the paper noted. More than a hundred “dangerous” shopkeepers had been taken into protective custody, their establishments shuttered and affixed with a warning pasted across the door: “Business closed under police orders. Store owner in protective custody in Dachau. The political police commander of Bavaria. Himmler.” The newspaper trumpeted its gratitude: “Bravo, Herr Police Commander!”

  TWO DAYS BEFORE the Dachauer Zeitung published the heartening report of the town’s revived fortunes, Adolf Hitler met with three cabinet ministers and two personal advisers to discuss the urgent matter of Germany’s deteriorating reputation abroad and its impact on the national economy. The week had brought multiple warnings of concern for the German economy. A report on declining German exports, due in part to a foreign boycott, warned of potentially grave domestic consequences. “The situation is threatening because the negative effects on German industrial production cannot be avoided,” a May 24 report cautioned. The minister of transport, Eltz-Rübenach, who had sought to improve conditions on the German rail system a few weeks earlier, now worried about the very survival of the German shipping fleet. He spoke confidentially of an impending catastrophe in an industry that already had seen a 30 percent decline since the 1929 Wall Street crash. “Recently the situation has been exacerbated, on the one hand through the boycott of German goods and shipping that is beginning to pose a serious threat, and on the other hand through the decrease of the dollar by about one-tenth,” Eltz-Rübenach reported. “The situation is so serious that the very existence of the German maritime shipping industry is endangered.” He saw the “desperate” need for remedy. In Hamburg and Bremen, the country’s two major ports, the municipal economies had collapsed. Local governments were demanding millions from the national treasury. Among these historically “Red” electorates, there was growing talk of labor strikes.

  Hitler understood the importance of foreign relations, as demonstrated in a ministerial meeting on trade tariffs a few weeks earlier. “The Reich chancellor pointed out that the foreign policy interests take priority over the domestic economy,” the April 7 meeting notes record. “If Germany was to be isolated in international affairs, then the domestic economic interests would suffer.”

  Hitler also knew that the president was watching. Hindenberg had left Hitler with a relatively free hand during his first months in office. He had issued, at Hitler’s urging, presidential decrees banning the communist press, suppressing civil liberties, curtailing state autonomy, and permitting the swastika banner to be hoisted beside the national flag as a sign of national unity, gradually strangling the democracy he had taken a solemn oath to protect.

  Some saw signs of senility in the aging president’s acquiescence to his forty-four-year-old chancellor. In Dresden, the quiet, despairing Jewish chronicler of that troubled era, Victor Klemperer, lost all hope after seeing Hindenburg in newsreel footage at a commemoration ceremony that March. “When I saw him filmed about a year ago,” Klemperer wrote in his diary, “the president walked somewhat stiffly, his hand on the wrist of his escort, but quite firmly and not at all slowly down the Reichstag steps; an old but vigorous man.” Now, a year later, the president moved with the “tiny laborious steps of a cripple.” Hindenburg reminded Klemperer of his own father during the last two months of his life following a stroke at Christmas 1911. “During that time, he was no longer in his right mind,” Klemperer remembered. “I am now completely certain that Hindenburg is no more than a puppet, that his hand was already being guided on January 30 [when Hitler was appointed chancellor].” Klemperer saw little hope in Germany being “rescued from the grip of its new government.”

  In fact, Hindenburg knew exactly what he was doing. He had long harbored intentions to return Germany to monarchical rule but had wanted to wait for an economically and politically stable time to effect an orderly transition. Otto Meissner, his chief of staff, later insisted that upholding the constitution “was his first priority.” A less respectful observer noted that Hindenburg adhered to his constitutional oath “like a corporal following military regulations.” By 1931, Hindenburg had visibly wearied of the Weimar Republic. The 1929 stock market crash, coupled with the rising radicalism on the right and left, compelled him to resort increasingly to the Article 48 powers that had so troubled Heinrich Held back in 1919.*1 The Reichstag passed thirty-four laws in 1931, compared with forty-four decrees issued by the president. “Field-Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, President of the German Republic,” one foreign observer noted in 1931, “has entered upon the eighty-fifth year of his life with the upright carriage of an oak, and upon the seventh year of his presidential term with the resolute mien of a dictator.”

  In May 1932, Hindenburg was elected to a second term with a solid 52 percent, handily defeating Hitler, who polled 38 percent, and Ernst Thälmann, who trailed with 10 percent but nevertheless retained the support of six million loyal communists. After serving as president of the Weimar Republic for eight tumultuous years, Hindenburg was convinced that democracy, imposed on Germany “in its hour of great despair and inner weakness,” did not really “align with the true needs and characteristics of our people.” The key objective for this second-term president was to place his country firmly back on the road to monarchical rule.

  But when Hitler approached Hindenburg about appointing him as chancellor that August, the old man dismissed the idea out of hand. “The Reich president in reply said firmly that he must answer this demand with a clear unyielding ‘No,’ ” the meeting minutes recorded. “He could not justify before God, before his conscience, or before the Fatherland the transfer of the whole authority of government to a single party, especially to a party that was biased against people who had different views from their own.” Hindenburg pointed out that this would cause unrest in the country and could also raise concerns abroad that could complicate Germany’s fragile international situation.

  Hitler repeated that he wanted complete control or none.

  “So this means you will join the opposition?” Hindenburg asked.

  “You’re not leaving me any other choice,” Hitler replied.

  “Then let me warn you: Lead the opposition with dignity and remain completely conscious of the responsibilities and duties you hold toward your homeland,” Hindenburg said. He also warned Hitler about the consequences if he did not. “I will intervene without mercy against any acts of terror or violence, even if they have been commit
ted by members of the SA.”

  That autumn, there was talk of “civil war” between the militarized wing of the German Communist Party and the million-strong army of SA storm troopers. In early December, Eugen Ott, a lieutenant colonel in the Reichswehr, tabulated the potentially devastating consequences of domestic turmoil that included mass strikes in the harbor city of Hamburg and the collapse of heavy industry in the Ruhr, as well as a potential Polish incursion on disputed territory in the east. The Reichswehr, with a mere 100,000 soldiers under arms, would be incapable of maintaining order.

  In January, Hindenburg agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor, with Papen as vice chancellor. Hitler would crush the political left and appease the political right. Papen would hold the center. The president acquiesced. “I really don’t know what could still go wrong,” Hindenburg told Papen the night before Hitler’s appointment. “You are vice chancellor as well as Prussian minister-president. With the exception of two minister positions, all posts are occupied by our people. And in any event you will attend every meeting I will have with Hitler.” Hindenburg could not stand the thought of being alone with his new chancellor, whom he viewed as little more than a fascist means to a monarchical end. The president and chancellor found common cause in dismantling the democratic structures of the Weimar Republic, but Hindenburg retained his presidential powers. He had dismissed three chancellors in quick succession, and retained the constitutional authority to do the same with Hitler. “Hitler was smart enough […] not to provoke opposition from the conservative ministers and risk having the cabinet split,” Papen observed. “In the case of serious contention he would close the discussion and seek to achieve his aims through individual meetings with the respective ministers.”

  Hindenburg kept Hitler on a short leash. He called him into his office after the Reichstag fire. He repeatedly took Hitler to task for his anti-Semitic policies. That spring, Hindenburg received a distressed letter from Prince Carl of Sweden. The increasing reports of anti-Semitic excesses, the national boycott against Jewish shops, and the new law banning Jews from the civil service were cause for grave concern for the Swedish prince. He urged Hindenburg to spare Germany “from the nightmarish spectacle of racial persecution” in a country where the people were “rightfully admired for their great culture.”

  Hindenburg turned to Hitler, demanding an explanation. Hitler assured Hindenburg that the situation was not as bad as it was being depicted. He blamed the foreign press. Hindenburg wrote to the Swedish prince, informing him that he had raised the matter with the chancellor, that the civil service law was directed not so much against non-Aryan Germans as against those “Jews and non-Germans from Eastern Europe” who had immigrated to Germany after 1918—he blamed in particular the lax immigration policies of the Weimar Republic—and that the stories of atrocity had been greatly exaggerated. “Such infringements, which are by the way not nearly as widespread as they are depicted in the foreign press,” Hindenburg wrote, “have been countered successfully and stridently by the Reich government.” The Swedish prince could rest assured “that the German people have on the whole maintained an exemplary discipline, recognized even abroad,” though, in a line he struck from his missive, he confessed to sharing the prince’s concern about the treatment of the Jews, “that I equally deplore and regret.” Hindenburg was not covering for Hitler. He was protecting the good name of his country.

  Hindenburg watched developments with cool detachment, generally tolerating the excesses, but not hesitating to intervene when it seemed necessary. In early April, Captain Leo Löwenstein, president of the Reich Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers, wrote to Hitler protesting the imminent civil service law banning Jews from public service. Löwenstein recalled that of the half million Jews in Germany, ninety-six thousand had fought in the war and twelve thousand had given their lives for the fatherland. “After the blood sacrifices and services made to the homeland, we firmly believe that the German Jews are entitled to equal rights as citizens,” Löwenstein wrote the Nazi leader on April 4. “However, it is with deep pain that we see how we are being dishonored and how wide circles of Jews are being deprived of the base of their economic existence.”

  Hindenburg was also pressed on the matter. “I pleaded successfully with Hindenburg that soldiers who had taken part in the war should under no circumstances be affected by this law,” Papen would later tell the Nuremberg tribunal, “for I always held the view that a German, no matter of what race, who had done his duty to his country should not be restricted in his rights.”

  Hindenburg dispatched a stern missive to Hitler. “Dear Herr Reich Chancellor,” he wrote on April 4. “In the past few days a number of cases have been reported to me in which veteran judges, lawyers, and judicial officers who had been performing their duties flawlessly were put on leave and will soon be dismissed completely, merely because they are of Jewish descent.” Hindenburg said he found “such treatment” of long-serving Jewish professionals “completely intolerable.” The president assumed Hitler shared the same sentiment and demanded immediate remedial action. “In my opinion,” the former field marshal dictated, “all officials, judges, teachers, and lawyers who have been injured in war, were soldiers at the front, are sons of soldiers who fell at the front, or even who have lost their own sons in combat, should, as far as they give no particular reason to be treated differently, be left in office.” Hindenburg wanted Hitler to understand that “if they had enough merit to fight and to bleed for Germany, then they should also be seen as worthy of further serving the homeland in their profession.”

  The civil service law was redrafted. At a stroke, Hindenburg saved the careers of nearly half the Jewish civil servants. A similar intervention on behalf of Jewish doctors and lawyers secured the livelihoods—at least for the time being—of thousands more. “Thus far Prussia has a total of 11,814 licensed lawyers, 8,299 of which are Aryans and 3,515 are Jews,” Prussia’s ministry of justice reported that spring. “Of the latter, 735 fought at the front and 1,383 were long-standing lawyers. There are 923 Jews in office who have lost their rights to represent clients. Currently, the total of licensed Jewish lawyers numbers 2,158.”

  Hindenburg received another distressed missive in early May from Carl Melchior, a veteran German diplomat and contemporary of Hindenburg, who had played a central role in reestablishing Germany’s postwar reputation. Like Sweden’s Prince Carl, Melchior had grave concerns about the new chancellor. “For more than seventeen years the German government has trusted me, as a delegate and as an expert, to conduct negotiations mainly of an economic nature with foreign countries,” Melchior wrote Hindenburg on May 6. “Recent developments in the situation of foreign policy have filled me with grave concern. Just a few months ago the leading statesmen of England, France, and Italy recognized the German right to parity in armament.” This had been achieved through “the tenacious work of various statesmen and diplomats.” Now Germany was being treated with belligerence and suspicion. Melchior also observed, like so many others, the “great shock” arising from the new government’s treatment of “entire groups” of citizens “whose ancestors have inhabited Germany for centuries.” “If Germany treats its own citizens in such a manner,” Melchior wrote, they were asking themselves “how would it have treated us if the outcome of the war had not been in our favor? What dangers do this new Germany and its government have in store?”

  With his pointed missive, Melchior was reminding Hindenburg of his constitutional obligations and capacities as the ultimate authority in the country. He was also outlining much of the agenda that Hitler himself had set for the Nazi Party, and had been bellowing in beer halls for more than a decade. Hitler was merely making good on his rhetoric. The Nazi Party program, as framed in 1920, promised, in point 2, to abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, and, in point 4, to make citizenship contingent on race. “Consequently,” it stated, “no Jew can be a citizen.” The program also promised to establish “a strong central power in the Reich,” and commi
tted the party leadership to a blood oath. “The leaders of the party promise to support the implementation of the points outlined in this program,” it concluded, “by sacrificing their own lives if necessary.” Hitler had reiterated most of these points in Mein Kampf, and now set out to implement them as head of government. To this end, he added Joseph Goebbels to his cabinet in the newly created post of minister of propaganda and public enlightenment.

  “In the long years of party struggle I have learned how to influence the masses in order to win them over to certain ideas,” Goebbels explained at his first cabinet meeting. “You, gentlemen, will have to do exactly the same if you want the entire German people to accept without protest the political and economic measures taken by the government.” Amid the deteriorating international situation, Goebbels intended to apply the same skills abroad. “The world will learn to see that it does no good to have itself enlightened about Germany by Jewish emigrants,” he observed a day after the April 1 boycott of Jewish shops that outraged the international community. “We need to launch a campaign of spiritual conquest, one which we must spread throughout the world, just as we did in Germany itself. In the end, the world will learn to understand us.”

  That spring, Hitler launched a private foreign policy initiative either skirting or sidelining traditional diplomatic channels targeting Rome, Washington, D.C., and London. From informal exchanges, Hitler knew of potential interest on the part of the Vatican in signing a concordat with Germany. It would not only be a major foreign policy coup, healing a rift opened four hundred years earlier by Martin Luther, but also an effective domestic ploy in forcing the alignment of Germany’s Roman Catholics with the Hitler government. Pope Pius XI and his close adviser, Cardinal Pacelli, had been papal representatives in Warsaw and Berlin respectively, and had experienced firsthand the communist potential for violence, especially in Poland where a Red Army incursion in 1919 had seen Bolsheviks burn churches and slaughter clergy wholesale. Hitler had the perfect emissary in his vice chancellor, Papen, who was a devout Roman Catholic and longtime associate of Pacelli.