by Jay Winik
One day he packed his bags for a brief stay in Munich, which he exalted as a truly “German city.” And then came World War I.
For the first time he had a sense of belonging to something meaningful, and something to be committed to. “I fell down on my knees,” he later wrote, “and thanked heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.” He fought for four years on the western front as a dispatch runner, winning the Iron Cross several times—one of these decorations was first-class, very rarely awarded to an enlisted man; ironically, it was a Jewish officer who nominated him. His comrades referred to him as “the artist.” Suddenly, Hitler found his voice and his worldview. He was at once courageous and pitiless. Where others were overwhelmed by the human suffering, he saw opportunities for making an improved, racially cleansed Germany. When others bantered about sex with French girls, he retorted moodily, “Have you no sense of German honor?” When others routinely drank and swapped stories, he would sulk alone in an earthen dugout.
But then, on the night of October 13 and 14, Hitler was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack. His war had ended. And soon thereafter, it was over for a militarily defeated Germany.
From the outset, Hitler was tormented by Germany’s capitulation and became obsessed with the so-called criminals who had surrendered. Here, November 8, 1918, stands as a formative day in his life. Still blinded by mustard gas, he was lying in a military hospital in Pasewalk when a Protestant chaplain cleared his throat and announced the armistice to the men in the ward. Hitler was devastated, calling this a “monstrous event.” He was convinced that the German army had been “stabbed in the back.” In truth, the notion of backstabbing was nothing more than propaganda—the German armed forces had fallen apart in the preceding four months. Meanwhile, across Germany, there was now industrial unrest, burgeoning press censorship, and severe food shortages. Protest and rebellion mounted. As the fighting was ending on the front, a chaotic Marxist-inspired insurrection consumed Germany: naval insurgencies broke out at Kiel; revolts burst out across the country; and a day later, Berlin itself was in chaos. Munich was also in turmoil. It was a nascent civil war.
In Munich, Hitler was mortified to see a provisional Soviet-style executive council attempting to govern. They were accompanied by widespread riots fomenting rebellion. At the same time, outspoken Jewish revolutionary leaders like Rosa Luxemburg preached the overthrow of the regime, with the aid of a Red army totaling tens of thousands of men, largely disenchanted laborers. Moreover, the executive council was led by Eugene Levine, another Jew, giving rise to the hysterical notion that Jews were running a secret international organization directed at fomenting world revolution. Thus sprouted the seeds of Hitler’s genocidal anti-Semitism and rabid anti-Bolshevism.
Yet the revolution was quickly stillborn, stymied within weeks by the regular army as well as veterans called back to service. For good measure, counterrevolutionaries murdered Luxemburg, and cities like Munich became armed camps crisscrossed with barricades and barbed wire. Hitler, now devising his own form of anti-Semitism, began to refer to Jews as a disease of society, much like parasites.
While already a committed anti-Semite, his paranoia regarding the Jews metastasized even further. In June—at the army’s behest—he attended Munich University, where he took anti-Bolshevik “instruction courses.” Before long, he developed a reputation as an expert and was himself lecturing troops, speaking against Bolshevism and the Jews with such fury that his superiors suggested he not be so vehement. But he had “stumbled across his greatest talent,” and for the first time was speaking publicly about the “Jewish question.” In September 1919, Hitler informed a participant in his lectures that anti-Semitism was based on “facts,” and the indisputable conclusion was that there should be a “removal of the Jews altogether.”
Having impressed his superiors, in the summer of 1919 Hitler was assigned to so-called educational duties, which, in the hypercharged atmosphere of postrevolutionary Munich, consisted principally of spying on political parties from the extreme right to the far left. One day, fatefully, Hitler was sent to investigate a small group of nationalistic idealists, about five hundred strong—they were known as the German Workers Party. Hitler lost his restraint on listening to one speech, and took the rostrum himself. The chairman of the German Workers Party in Munich was so impressed with Hitler’s speaking that he commented, “Goodness he’s got a gob. We could use him.”
Use him they did. On September 16, 1919, Hitler—this Bavarian hothead; this failed, frustrated artist; this ill-educated rabble-rouser; this corporal who was passed over for promotion to be sergeant—entered the then insignificant racist German Workers Party—he was given membership number 555—which soon changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). By the summer of 1921, having ably kindled the fires of resentment and hatred, he made himself chairman of a movement that had a paltry three thousand members. Within months, he was recognized as its Führer, or leader.
Among his first acts was to give the new party its greeting, the ritualistic chant “Heil!” (“Hail!”) or “Sieg heil!” (“Hail victory!”); and its new symbol, the swastika, which became emblematic of the mythical master Aryan race. The group’s credo was outlined in a twenty-five-point program, which railed alternately against the Versailles Treaty and the Jews. But its real power stemmed from Hitler himself. Humorless and histrionic, he mesmerized audiences with his eloquent, clear-toned voice and his gift for self-dramatization. Hitler augmented his power by the use of strong-arm squads that roughed up opponents and maintained order at his meetings. These squads would later become Hitler’s notorious black-shirted personal bodyguards, the SS (Schutzstaffel); and the storm troopers, the SA (Sturmabteilung), organized by Ernst Röhm—Nazi street fighters who eventually would murder their political opponents, often in broad daylight.
In 1923, Hitler nursed dreams of greater glory. Convinced that the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse, he plotted the overthrow of the Bavarian government. Storming into a seemingly inconsequential beer hall in Munich, he brandished a Browning pistol, then fired it at the ceiling while shouting that he was heading a new provisional government to carry out a revolution against the “Berlin Jew government.” Then Hitler and two thousand armed followers marched through Munich, hoping for popular support; instead, they were met by a hail of police fire. Fourteen of Hitler’s followers were killed, and the attempted “beer hall putsch” came crashing to an end. Wounded, Hitler himself fled and hid from the police; in the melee he had somehow dislocated his left shoulder. Tracked down and arrested, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Landsberg fortress. He remained as defiant as ever. As if he were an outsized Danton being led to the guillotine, he shouted to his accusers: “Pronounce us guilty a thousand times over: the goddess of the internal court of history will smile and tear to pieces . . . the court’s verdict.”
He was right. In prison he was pampered by every comfort the warden could provide, including a large, luxuriously furnished room with breathtaking views of the landscape outside, as well as a sturdy desk and writing materials, which he put to prodigious use. After melodramatically announcing in July that he was withdrawing from politics, he used this time to dictate the subsequent bible of the Nazi Party to his loyal follower Rudolf Hess: Mein Kampf. Mein Kampf was a crude and crazy patchwork of racial myths, anti-Semitism, and half-baked social Darwinism (“The racial question gives the key not only to world history but to all human culture”). However, it struck a chord and sold over 10 million copies while being translated into sixteen languages, and was even issued in braille for the blind. It would also make this once nearly starving artist an exceedingly wealthy man.
Within a shout nine months, Hitler was released. When he appeared at the prison gate his acolytes cheered him as a triumphant hero; his jailers gathered to bid him an emotional farewell; and as he left, he even stopped briefly for photos t
o be taken. At this same time, Hitler—he had been banned from speaking in public, and his party had been outlawed—shrewdly resolved that his path to power would not come from muscle alone; instead, he paid lip service to the nation’s laws. But this was flimflam. He was determined to rebuild the Nazi Party, construct a populist mass movement, and, in a blueprint that dictators would follow in years to come, wield parliamentary strength with extraparliamentary intimidation and terror. In effect, his goal was to legally subvert the Weimer Republic by making use of the German constitution itself.
It happened in stages. In 1925, the ban on the Nazi Party was lifted. Hitler quickly outmaneuvered the “socialist” north German wing of the party under Gregor Strasser, and established himself as the party’s leader. His claim rested less on any clear program of National Socialism than on his own charismatic personality—that is, on the cult of the Führer. Within a year, his appeal stretched beyond Bavaria, and he had followers from the left as well as the right. Yet in the 1928 elections, the Nazi Party was still an eccentric minority; it won a mere twelve seats—2.6 percent of the vote. Then came the Great Depression, which made Hitler a national figure and helped sweep him into power.
In hindsight, World War I and the Depression made Hitler’s rise possible. More convincingly than anyone else in Germany, he offered the defeated nation an enticing future. Thus, a new door of history had been pried opened. To be sure, in 1932 famine and slaughter stalked every great capital. But for a Germany in turmoil, there was a significant difference: reeling from global events, the German middle class was devastated by the Depression. Germans saw a lifetime’s worth of savings wiped out within hours; the national currency was ruined; inflation spun out of control. Soon, people of all classes flocked to the Führer’s vision of national liberation through strength and unity. He received the support of the press tycoon Alfred Hugenberg and, in surprisingly great numbers, of the younger generation. And he offered himself as Germany’s savior. Social dissolution, mass unemployment, hysteria, and burning hatred now became Hitler’s best friends.
In 1932, the Nazis received a surprising 18.3 percent of the total votes—6.5 million votes—and 107 seats in the Reichstag, making them the nation’s second-largest party. Hitler’s movement, unlike the other parties, could plausibly claim to have garnered support from all sections of society; this was all the more remarkable given that just a few years earlier his supporters had been only a few lunatics. Actually, even in January 1932 National Socialism was still disreputable. Among wellborn Germans the Nazi Party was considered uncouth: they clearly saw that Nazi street fighters had butchered the party’s detractors. Still, in the autumn of 1932, while Americans were voting Franklin Roosevelt into the White House, German aristocrats were reevaluating Hitler. Then, in a much-publicized address, Hitler spoke before a group of high-level industrialists at a prominent club and told them they had nothing to fear from radicals in his party. Now, in increasing numbers, they began to contribute liberally to his campaign.
Hitler officially acquired German citizenship. Then he became a candidate for the presidency, receiving over 13 million votes, four times more than the Communist candidate. In the meantime, the Nazis emerged as the largest political party in Germany, obtaining 230 seats in the Reichstag. Though the former field marshal Paul von Hindenburg became president, Hitler, having positioned himself as an agent of change, was a force that could no longer be ignored.
Yet he did not come to power in 1933 simply by a triumph of will. To be sure, he had won over more than 13 million full throated supporters in the country. But he was aided by a willing cabal of nationalists, militarists, and industrialists who had helped propel him to prominence. Equally surprising was the support he received from leading intellectuals, performers, writers, and artists. There were those, like the former chancellor, the urbane and well-connected Franz von Papen, who were genuinely disgusted by Hitler; however, they mistakenly believed that the responsibility of governing would somehow tame his radicalism. They were wrong. They also thought that it would restore the “tranquility required for a business revival.” After failing to persuade Hitler to join a coalition government, and then securing his promise of “moderation,” a desperate von Papen persuaded the reluctant von Hindenburg to nominate Hitler (“that Bohemian corporal”) as his Reich chancellor. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was sworn in. Quite by coincidence, a cameraman captured Hitler’s countenance for history: it expressed pure bliss.
Germany’s democratic experiment had been abandoned without raising a fist. Goebbels enthused “Hitler is Reich Chancellor. Just like a fairytale.” That night delirious Nazi hordes marched through the Brandenburg Gate in celebration. Meanwhile, there were those who muttered that disaster was just around the bend. Fearing for their safety, if not their lives, some of Hitler’s political opponents made hurried plans to leave the country. Still, even among his harshest critics, few believed that the Nazis would rule for very long. And in the United States, some observers, like the distinguished columnist Walter Lippmann, seemed spellbound by the new Reich chancellor; Lippmann called one of his speeches a “genuinely statesmanlike address,” and added: “We have heard once more through the fog and the din, the authentic voice of a genuinely civilized people.”
Upon coming to power, Hitler moved quickly to outwit and outmaneuver his enemies. Within a matter of months, he put Germany under martial law. Conservatives were muscled out of the government, the free trade unions were ousted or outright abolished, Social Democrats were barred from political life, and of course Jews were targeted for a series of ever more punitive steps. Then came the regime’s tactics of systematic intimidation. Demanding loyalty, the chancellor purged the ranks of some of Germany’s most distinguished professors. He bullied his political opponents and silenced all but the most outspoken. Those who stubbornly refused to stay quiet were promptly arrested. Shockingly, four thousand people, including Reichstag deputies, were put behind bars. The most vociferous of his opponents met another fate: Dachau, the first of the concentration camps.
On March 5, 1933, Europe’s ruling class watched with dismay as Germany held its last free election, which was perhaps the most violent in European history. Swastika banners hung from buildings, and Nazi posters were everywhere. Meanwhile, military music blared from public-address systems, and trucks full of brown-shirted Teutonic youths drove through the streets. When the storm troopers weren’t breaking down doors or clubbing their opponents, they were marching with torches around the clock. In retrospect, the democratic opposition never stood a chance. Hitler gained an unimpeachable majority for the first time, with more than 17 million votes. Then, through a combination of propaganda and terror, he moved quickly to solidify his position as the undisputed dictator of the Third Reich. Having cowed his opponents, he now seduced the Weimar Republic’s leading opinion makers. With the sure touch of a master politician, he mollified the old order by paying tribute to President von Hindenburg at the Potsdam garrison church, where Frederick II of Prussia, the revered Frederick the Great, lay buried. For those Germans who cherished Weimar’s “golden years,” the symbolism was profound.
Two days later, the members of the Reichstag entered the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, raised their hands, and voted to give Hitler the absolute authority he craved. The Enabling Act, in effect a far-reaching constitutional amendment, was passed overwhelmingly, 444 to 84. Germany was a dictatorship. Hitler now had the power not only to make laws but to control the nation’s finances and conduct its diplomacy.
By early spring, the fanatical hero worship had reached a level scarcely ever seen in Germany, or anywhere else. Poems were written in Hitler’s honor; trees called “Hitler oaks” were planted. Schools were named after Hitler, as were town squares. All across the nation his forty-fourth birthday—he was young; his deputies were even younger—was celebrated with song and dance and boundless adulation. And on May 10, Germany shocked the civilized world when university faculties collaborated in the lighting of huge b
onfires: they were burning books—psychology, philosophy, history—considered unacceptable by the regime.
When von Hindenburg died at the age of eighty-six in August 1934, Hitler united the positions of Führer and Reich chancellor—illegally. He now had all the powers of the state in his hands. All German officers were required to swear an oath of loyalty to him, an oath that bound them not to the government or even to the nation, but to the caprices of a single individual whose stability, even then, was suspect. Hitler was the unquestioned ruler of Europe’s most influential country. In the process, he allowed his leading acolytes, the cold henchmen Himmler, Göring, and Goebbels, to preside over their own fiefdoms of arbitrary power. Yet many Germans believed his rule would not last more than a year.
But within three years after Hitler assumed power, his regime was secure: he destroyed the left and co-opted the conservatives. He won even more adulation after abandoning the Versailles Treaty, building up the national army to five times its permitted size, and pressing Great Britain to allow Germany to increase its naval program. And after remilitarizing the Rhineland, he seemed to be a deity reborn. Dazzling success followed dazzling success—the Rome-Berlin Pact of 1936, the Anschluss with Austria, the liberation of the Sudeten Germans in 1938, and the dismantling of the Czechoslovak state in 1939. Presented with these bloodless victories and Germany’s glorious territorial expansion, the German people closed their eyes to the concentration camps, the alarming Nuremberg racial laws, and the persecution of political dissidents. And they ignored all the other evidence that Germany had become a barbaric gangster state.
There were many ironies: among those who had to flee Germany for their lives was Ernst (“Putzi”) Hanfstaengl, who had not only given generously to Hitler’s electoral efforts but also provided Hitler with asylum after the failed Nazi putsch of 1923. And during the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler would orchestrate the murder of some of his closest allies, including his onetime right-hand man, Ernst Röhm.