Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler

by Robert Gellately

  The annual Party rally in early August 1929 was deemed by the Nazis a great success. Police estimated that 26,300 showed up in Nuremberg, whereas the Nazis said the number was 200,000.33 The event was a social phenomenon, with gatherings that included special sessions led by experts to deal with propaganda, culture, civil servant, peasant, and trade-union issues. The Party already had numerous suborganizations, such as for youth and university students. Newer ones included the Union for National Socialist Lawyers, the National Socialist Doctors’ Union, the Union of National Socialist Teachers, and the League of Struggle for German Culture. These organizations directed specific messages to respectable sections of the middle class, and to judge by new Party joiners, the efforts had considerable success.

  A number of women’s organizations had links to the Nazi Party in the 1920s. These were reorganized by Strasser, and on July 6, 1931, he announced the new National Socialist Women’s Group (NS-Frauenschaft). In the 1920s women were drawn to right-wing parties like the Nazis out of revulsion over “everything associated with socialism—including ‘atheistic Marxism.’” Such women preferred “Christian morality” to “Bolshevist license,” and Nazism appealed primarily “because of its anti-Left stance.”34 That point would also hold for many men and for various middle-class groups attracted to the movement.

  Behind the outward respectability, there was violence. Tumult erupted in the streets between the SA and members of the SPD paramilitary association during the 1929 Party rally, and a female member of the NSDAP was shot dead. The SA attacked various left-wing groups, and there were stories with headlines like “The Wild West in Nuremberg” and “Red Murder in Nuremberg.” Even while Hitler was speaking, rumors went through the crowd that some kind of leftist attack was imminent.35

  The theme of Hitler’s talks was the creation of a “racial state” for Aryans, along the lines of ancient Sparta. The mission was the “reorganization of the body politic” to stop degeneration and hold back the Jews. As always, there was a history lesson. In November 1918 Germany’s fate had supposedly fallen to Marxists or bourgeois politicians: “In the name of Socialism they delivered the nation to international high finance, in the name of progress they provided barbarism out of the Middle Ages, in the name of culture they infected art, and in the name of art they destroyed culture.” But the new movement would bring regeneration: “The miracle is that against the symbol of the Soviet star, at last there stands a German cross”—the latter being the swastika (that is, the Hakenkreuz, literally “bent cross”). Hitler chalked up a long list of crimes against the republic, as well as the bourgeois and Marxist parties. As always, the speech ended on an upbeat note. “Germany,” he assured his audience, was “awakening.”36

  In November-December 1929, the Party did better than ever in state and local elections, particularly in northerly and largely agrarian Schleswig-Holstein, where it earned 10.3 percent of the vote. It did reasonably well (5.1 percent) in parts of Hessen, where it built on the anti-Semitic tradition identified with Otto Böckel in the prewar era. In Protestant Nuremberg, Nazis captured 15.6 percent of the vote in the December 1929 municipal elections, and the Party became the second most powerful in the city, behind only the SPD. The Nazis improved their showing in every major Bavarian city, and even in “Red” Berlin the election brought a dramatic increase. Goebbels was overjoyed.37

  The Party helped its nationalist profile in late 1929 by participating in the effort, led by Alfred Hugenberg of the German National People’s Party (DNVP) and other prominent conservatives, against the Young Plan. The American lawyer and corporate executive, Owen D. Young proposed dealing with the reparations question, which was still plaguing economies since the First World War, in a plan that would make it possible for Germany to pay off its debts in fifty-nine years. In return the Allies offered to withdraw promptly from the Rhineland. The deal was signed but caused a nationalist uproar, and Hugenberg organized a petition drive to force the government to reject it. Enough signatures were collected to hold a national plebiscite, as permitted under the Weimar constitution, which was carried out on December 22, 1929. Although the great majority voted to accept the plan, and thus in effect reject the objections of Hitler, Hugenberg, and others, the campaign put Hitler on the front pages. He came across as the most nationalistic of the nationalists, the man who stood up for Germany no matter what.

  On January 5, 1930, Hitler was interviewed by Karl Henry von Wiegand of the New York American. Asked to explain why the Party was doing so well, he answered that it was due to efforts to save Germany from Bolshevism. He pointed to recent elections as proof that his message was getting through. In reply to the suggestion that he might be “overrating the danger of Bolshevism,” he referred to signs of economic decay that were smoothing the way for the Reds. “The public mind in Germany is in utter confusion. It is in this state of affairs that the National Socialists are raising the cry of home, country and nation against the slogan of internationalism of the Marxian Socialists.”

  Wiegand asked why anti-Semitism was on the Party’s program. Hitler replied, “The people would not understand it if I had not done so. All denials notwithstanding, there is a strong anti-Semitic sentiment, not only in Germany but in other countries as well.” He voiced the usual pretense that was simultaneously a threat: “I am not for curtailing the rights of Jews in Germany, but I insist that we others who are not Jews shall not have less rights than they.”

  Hitler told Wiegand he wanted measures like the restrictions of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924. It limited new entries to 2 percent of the number of people from any given country already living in the United States in 1890. Hitler said that “the National Socialists want the immigration frontiers of Germany protected as America protects hers.” He was interested in more than that, although he hastened to add that he had “no thought of revolution.” He pointed to the weaknesses of parliamentary democracy as a system of government, but showed admiration for the powers of the American president, who was “more than a rubber stamp” for decisions made by Congress.38

  Although Hitler and his more faithful followers like Goebbels expressed satisfaction at the progress they were making in the polls, they were frank enough to admit they were at least three years away from power. Even that timescale would have been overly optimistic had not the Great Depression intervened.

  12

  NAZISM EXPLOITS ECONOMIC DISTRESS

  German agriculture was affected by falling prices in the late 1920s, and the situation was not helped in 1926–27 when the republic signed trade treaties with countries like Poland and permitted imports of foodstuffs at favorable rates. Prices for all major agricultural products fell every year from 1928–29 until 1933–34.1 Peasants went into debt, and many lost their farms. The German Communist Party tried to recruit these unfortunates, but the link with Soviet Communism and collectivization led to failure. The Nazi Party was far more successful in infiltrating the emerging protest movements among the peasantry and by the end of 1930 established its own Office for Agriculture (Agrarpolitischer Apparat).2

  In the Party’s first program for agriculture, worked out by Hitler and Konstantin Hierl and published on March 7, 1930, the agricultural sector’s underlying problems were linked to defeat in 1918 and reparations. The Party also blamed the flood of foreign food products. The plight of the peasantry was summed up under four headings: high taxes; false trade policies; unfair profits by middlemen (Jews were mentioned); and steep electricity rates (said to be set by Jewish companies). Farms lost through debt were allegedly scooped up by Jewish financiers. The answer to peasant woes was a law to prevent speculation in land and make it impossible to buy out independent peasants (a law of entailment). Only “German racial comrades” would be allowed to own land; the question of agriculture was a matter of “life or death” for the nation. Although Hitler would not go so far as to regulate the size of farms, he said smaller and medium-sized properties had to be protected. He would confiscate land, but only if ow
ned by non-Germans and in exceptional cases.3

  The new agricultural program was consistent with his long-held views and the mirror opposite of the one promoted by Stalin at around the same time. In April 1929, as we have seen, Hitler renounced the “Socialist” plank in the Nazi program that talked about “expropriating land,” and “clarified” it to make it applicable only to Jews who speculated in land. Nevertheless, the original “Socialist-sounding” demand left a residue of distrust.

  One way around the problem was to send trained experts to speak in the countryside. By 1930 the Nazis had perfected their approach and could put on a real show, complete with bands, parades, and movies. Crowds were entertained while waiting for the main event. There was the usual entrance fee to the tent or the hall, and for those times the price of admission was substantial. Having to pay to hear a speaker posed the question “How important is your future and the future of the country to you?”4

  There was a pronounced racial component in the new Nazi agricultural policies. Walther Darré, who took over the leadership of the agricultural department of the NSDAP in 1930, had not been involved directly in formulating the new program, but he accepted the principles and was known for publications like Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (1929; New Aristocracy from Blood and Soil). Darré caught Hitler’s eye when he was looking for farming experts to tap rural votes. He became Hitler’s minister of agriculture in June 1933.5

  For Hitler the peasantry was vital to the realization of his ideological aims. In this context, the concept of “blood” conveyed the determination “to strengthen the racial basis of our people,” while “soil” expressed the goal of conquering “living space,” that is, foreign lands in Eastern Europe.6 No doubt what appealed to many farmers were specific promises to deal with economic problems, but they were attracted by aspects of Nazi ideology, including belief in a harmonious “community of the people.” Frequently the Party’s pronouncements contained open or thinly veiled anti-Semitism. Hitler’s March 7, 1930, speech setting forth the new program for farmers ended on a high-sounding note: the “crisis of the agricultural population is one part of the crisis that involves the whole population, and the National Socialist movement is fighting to free the whole country.”7

  FROM REPUBLICAN DEMOCRACY TO “SEMI-DICTATORSHIP”

  The economic crisis in the countryside was overtaken and deepened by the Great Depression, which began with the Wall Street crash on October 24, 1929. Germany had experienced unprecedented inflation only six years earlier, and now it was faced with chaos once again. As the economy unraveled, even those who were fairly secure wondered how long they could hold on.

  The government was reliant on loans from America, and when these were called in, it ran into trouble. The president of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, said he would agree to borrow the money to pay the debts, but only if the chancellor would put forward a long-term plan to put the financial house in order. This condition and other issues that arose began an acrimonious debate in the Reichstag that ultimately brought down the government of the “Great Coalition” of five parties under Chancellor Hermann Müller.

  The immediate cause had to do with budgetary disputes, most notably unemployment insurance. Were workers going to pay more for their insurance and get smaller benefits, or were the employers and the state going to carry more of the burden? Was Weimar’s welfare state to be maintained or dismantled? No agreement could be found among the coalition partners in the government. President Hindenburg would not back Müller by using the emergency powers under article 48 of the constitution.

  Thus on March 27, 1930, the chancellor resigned on what was long called a “black day” for the republic. In retrospect it marked the end of “relative stability” and the beginning of the dissolution phase of democracy.8 Müller’s ouster had been under active consideration by Hindenburg and a number of his influential advisers for months. They had grown weary of the SPD at the helm and wanted to move to the right. They ushered Heinrich Brüning, a political economist, of the Catholic Center Party into office. A lifelong bachelor who seemed distant, cold, and secretive, he stood for belt-tightening and reduction of expenditures, particularly of the civil service, policies that were described by Sebastian Haffner as “Operation successful, patient died.” Brüning introduced what Haffner called a novel form of government: a “semi-dictatorship in the name of democracy and in defense against a real dictatorship.” Short of an economic miracle, however, the chancellor was bound to fail.9

  Hindenburg had already seen enough of parliamentary democracy and expected Brüning to carry on without the backing of the Reichstag if push came to shove. On April 3 there was a first vote of non-confidence, but the government stayed in office. The chancellor proposed measures to keep the economy afloat, but they had the effect of reducing what citizens had to spend. The new approach was pushed through by presidential emergency decree on July 16. There followed a renewed motion of non-confidence. The Nazi Party joined with the SPD and KPD and others to protest what the Communists called the “hunger government.”

  Thus began the transition to an openly presidential government that would culminate in dictatorship. To be sure, new elections were called for September 14, but democracy was already under threat. Apart from the breakdown of the republic’s institutions, there were telltale signs the Nazis and Communists would make major gains at the next polls.10

  Fueling their rise was the economic crisis. A full year before the Depression hit, unemployment was high. In 1929, on average 8.5 percent of the “employed population” was without work. The figures jumped to 14 percent in 1930, 21.9 percent in 1931, and 29.9 percent in 1932. Trade unionists suffered even higher rates, with the result that the Depression crippled their movement.11 One recent estimate suggests that in the winter of 1932–33, almost 40 percent of all workers and white collar employees were unemployed.12 Total industrial production, pegged at 100.1 in 1929, went to 70.1 in 1931 and 58.0 in 1932. In effect the economy was grinding to a halt.13

  Contrary to some assertions, unemployment was still rising when Hitler was appointed. From 5.1 million in October 1932 it stood at just over 6 million in January and February 1933. The situation only began to improve significantly in May, June, and July 1933, namely on Hitler’s watch.14

  Unemployment became the dominant fact of life during the years of the Brüning government and beyond. It clawed back social insurance measures, like the new system introduced in 1927, when the country was reasonably stable. It also kept reducing the period a person could collect, which left those affected little choice but to join the swelling welfare rolls.15

  The sense of despair was reflected in suicide rates for 1932, which were more than four times higher than those in Britain at the time and nearly double what they were in the United States.16 There was a broad perception that the country was experiencing a breakdown of cultural and moral values. Large families were becoming a thing of the past, and more women were going to work; abortions were thought to be reaching alarming proportions; and prostitution, sexual deviancy, and venereal diseases were presumed to be spreading.17

  NAZI POLITICS AS CRUSADE AGAINST THE REPUBLIC

  For the 1930 elections, the Nazis announced they would use a thousand specially trained speakers and hold no fewer than thirty-four thousand electoral meetings. These were scheduled for a campaign to last around six weeks. The price of admission (discounted for some) to hear the better-known, particularly Hitler, helped finance the campaign. In just three speeches Hitler gave at Berlin’s Sportpalast, the Party netted at least thirty thousand marks. It was a similar story elsewhere. He had become a fund-raising machine. Most parties used amounts like that to finance an entire local campaign.18

  Most of these Hitler routines began with a lengthy historical sketch tracing the ultimate source of all Germany’s problems to November 1918, the revolution, the armistice, and the Treaty of Versailles. He never tired of repeating this story, and his audiences were always eager to listen to it yet again.
To mention just one example: the address he gave in Cologne on August 18 was titled “The November Crime and Its Consequences.” There was no need to ask, “Which crime?” or “What November?” The crowd knew the story by heart, and twenty thousand packed the Rhineland Hall to hear it. He offered no well-aimed attacks on government policies followed by concrete counterproposals. Instead, the audience was treated to a condemnation of the republic from top to bottom.

  He wanted to start a “regeneration process” of the body politic and rekindle hope that the nation was not “at the end of its days but at the beginning of a new era.” Part of the standard fare was that the Nazi movement had grown from an alleged “seven-man group” into one embracing tens of thousands at first, then hundreds of thousands, and finally millions. He attacked all other parties for representing specific social classes or interests. “They talk about the people, but know only splinters of it.”19

  Sometimes Hitler spoke about the adverse economic situation and the government’s mistaken efforts but did not dwell long on them. He mentioned Brüning’s name only four times altogether. Finance Minister Paul Moldenhauer’s tax proposals were briefly held up to scorn. Next to nothing was said about the Wall Street crash, and few details were given about unemployment and how to cure it. The fundamental blame for almost all ills was placed on the Marxists and on parliamentary democracy.

  The aim was to appear to be above parties and special interests and in favor of the nation (das Volk) as a whole. The Jews were occasionally mentioned, such as in the context of being behind the machinations of capitalism. Selections taken straight out of Mein Kampf were published as articles during the election. Hitler also repeated one of the favorite themes from that book, namely that Germany had to expand to the east or die. So the end of democracy and eastward expansion were on the agenda. However, he was trying to reach out to groups he had not already won over, so he hammered away not on the anti-Semitic and racist themes but on the nationalist one.