Death of a Nation

by Stephen R A'Barrow

  clxix As if the French had not done enough to bring Germany to her knees, the French military were busy doing everything they could to encourage a tiny separatist fringe in the Rhineland and the Saar to declare their independence from Germany. A ‘Rhineland Republic’ was proclaimed in October 1923, followed by the commanding French general recognising the Palatinate as an autonomous state a month later. The Rhineland Republic collapsed by the end of the year and in February 1924 angry locals surrounded seventeen leaders of the separatist movement in the Palatinate town hall at Pirmasens and burnt the building to the ground with them still in it.(13)

  clxx Stresemann was building on his predecessor’s success in signing the Treaty of Rapallo in 1923 with Russia, ending Bolshevik Russia’s diplomatic isolation and opening up much-needed trade between the two countries and more significantly for the future, allowing the German army to illicitly re-equip and train using tanks and aircraft (banned under Versailles) in Russia. This cooperation would be taken even further in 1928 by the Berlin Treaty. There is certainly no question that Stresemann was a German patriot and that he wanted to free Germany from the shackles of Versailles, restore her eastern pre-war borders, gain union between Austria and Germany, restore her military and make her a great power again but the great difference between him and Hitler was that Stresemann intended to achieve these things by peaceful means.

  7

  The Third Reich: From Total War to War Without End

  The rise of Nazism must be put in the context of the collapse of established order following the First World War, the crippling impact of reparations on the post-war German economy, and the failure of the Weimar Republic’s politicians to master the political and economic crisis that swept over the country following the crash. Economic meltdown, mass unemployment, political gridlock, social disintegration, escalating violence and an all-consuming sense of hopelessness caused ever more Germans to lose faith in the ability of their politicians to solve their problems. Sir Richard Evans, Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, one of my former tutors and a leading historian on the Third Reich, has written extensively on the forces that brought the Nazis to power. In the first volumn of his trilogy on Nazi Germany, The Coming of the Third Reich, Evans emphasises the extent of the societal breakdown following the First World War, stating that:

  The rise of industrial society brought the masses onto the political stage for the first time. The war destroyed social hierarchy, moral values and economic stability right across Europe. The Habsburg, the German, the Tsarist and the Ottoman Empires all collapsed, and the new democratic states that emerged in their wake quickly fell victim to the demagogy of unscrupulous agitators who seduced the masses into voting for their own enslavement. The twentieth century became an age of totalitarianism, which culminated in the attempts of Hitler and Stalin to establish a new kind of order based on total police control, terror and the ruthless suppression, and murder, of real or imagined opponents in their millions on the one hand, and continual mass mobilisation and enthusiasm whipped up by sophisticated propaganda methods on the other.(1)

  HITLERISM VS. NAZISM

  When the Nazis came to power in 1933 they did not have the support of the majority of the German people. The party had mustered little more than a third of the popular vote in free and democratic elections (based on the turnout) before it took power and its activist base totalled no more than a million. Nazism was not the phenomenon that Goebbels’ propaganda films would have us believe, certainly not in the early stages of the Third Reich. Nor was Nazism, as Churchill and Roosevelt believed, another incarnation of ‘Prussian militarism’. Nazism’s origins lay in the south, in Austria and Bavaria. Hitler had absorbed his pan-German and anti-Semitic ideas during his ‘Bohemian’ days in Vienna, before he ever set foot in Germany. Hitler’s memories of Vienna cannot have been happy ones. He had twice been refused entry to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, living a penniless and destitute existence in a homeless shelter while eking out a living painting postcards.

  Vienna before the First World War was everything Hitler grew to hate. It was a cultural melting pot, the centre of a multiethnic empire in which a growing number of Germans felt they were beginning to lose their dominant hold. As with everywhere else in the industrialising world, rural communities were increasingly moving to the cities to find work. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that meant a surge of rural Slavic populations migrating to the largely German cities, the capital of Vienna was no exception. The virulent anti-Semitism and pan-German nationalism of parliamentarians like Georg Ritter von Schönerer and the mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, had a deep impact on a young, impoverished and rootless Hitler and it was here that he absorbed many of the ideas that would come to shape his Weltanschauung (vision of the world). Schönerer’s ‘Away from Rome’ movement added anti-Catholicism to the mix. Describing himself as a pagan, Schönerer harked back to a mythical time when the Volk were unfettered by the shackles of state religion. It was Schönerer who created the ‘Heil’ salute and he was first among those deriding the very existence of Austria, calling for union with Germany.(2) While his sentiments remained firmly on the fringes of Austrian politics at the onset of the twentieth century, they took on a new momentum after defeat in 1918 that led to the crumbling of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy and its multinational mission, and left the German Austrians with beautiful landscapes, precious little industry, and a full-blown identity crisis.

  The Sudeten Germans voted to join Austria and the Austrian parliament voted for Anschluß with Germany. Both these expressions of self-determination were overruled and expressly forbidden by the Allies, heightening the sense of discrimination at the hands of a ‘victors’ peace’ within these German communities. This made the Germans of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire the most susceptible to the allure of Nazi calls to bring them ‘home to the Reich’.clxxi When Hitler began his political trajectory in Germany, he professed the importance of continuity in the role Prussia played in making Germany united and great again, but in truth he had no place in his heart for Prussia. He once said, ‘Our Baltic (Prussian) families, they seem to possess some negative sort of quality and at the same time to assume an heir of superiority, of being masters of everything. I often find it difficult to get on with them… they have for centuries been rulers of an inferior race, they are not unnaturally inclined to behave as if the rest of humanity were composed exclusively of Latvians.’(3) Hitler clearly had a mild inferiority complex, or at least felt highly uncomfortable in the presence of the old Prussian blue bloods. He was, after all, a former Viennese vagrant, a commoner, a lapsed Catholic and mere lance corporal. He had nothing but disdain for the traditions of the old orderly Prussian state apparatus, which he sought to override and sweep aside in favour of a new social Darwinist order, based on racial hierarchy and the power of the will — his will. There was absolutely nothing Prussian about him.clxxii

  Hitler left Vienna in 1912 and headed for Munich, a German city with none of the trappings of multiculturalism that he so despised. Here he scratched out a meagre existence painting again, until the outbreak of the First World War. He enlisted in Munich, choosing to join the German and not the Austrian army. The war gave Hitler the sense of purpose he had been looking for. Where it killed, maimed and broke other men, it defined Hitler. He only achieved the lowest military rank, that of lance corporal, but risked his life day in and day out as a ‘runner’ in the front lines delivering dispatches; this was arguably the most dangerous job in the trenches during the First World War. He was decorated with the Iron Cross Second Class in 1914, was wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, won the Cross of Military Merit Third Class and returned to the front in March 1917. In August 1918, he won the Iron Cross First Class, a highly unusual distinction for a man of his rank. He won this when his unit had come under friendly fire whilst advancing and his lieutenant promised the Iron Cross First Class to any man who would take on the virtual ‘suicide mission’ of getting a me
ssage back to their own artillery. Hitler made it and his Jewish lieutenant, Lieutenant Gutman, kept his promise. Hitler was wounded again in October of the same year and temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack. He saw out the end of the war in a military hospital. Germany’s defeat came as a devastating shock to Hitler. Flailing for answers, he turned to the popular notion that Germany had been stabbed in the back by revolution and the Marxist Social Democrats who had proclaimed the republic and signed the ‘Traitors’ Peace’.(5)

  At the end of the war, Hitler returned to a Munich in the grip of revolutionary chaos. The communists had briefly proclaimed a ‘Soviet Republic of Bavaria’. Munich had become awash with extremist movements, on both the right and the left, and Hitler, as an enlisted man, was employed by a Reichswehr Intelligence Unit to spy on extremist groups. On his first assignment Hitler went to attend a meeting of an extremist group calling themselves the Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (DAP — German Workers Party). Hitler was impressed with their nationalistic, anti-Marxist, anti-Semitic rhetoric. He stood cheek-by-jowl in a room filled with many other former soldiers, who were all embittered by their experiences and the sacrifices they had made, only to see it all end in defeat and to return to a country in disarray and revolutionary chaos. Rather than spying on the party, he joined it, becoming member number 555 (which was actually member fifty-five, they added a 500 to make it seem as though they had more members).

  Hitler was discharged from the military in March 1920, whereupon he took up political agitation full time. It was in the NSDAP (the party added the words ‘National Socialist’ to the name in February 1920) that he discovered and honed his talent for oratory. Some historians have called him ‘the greatest orator of the century’. Those who knew him, or witnessed him speak have described his ability to hold his audiences spellbound.(6) The role that Hitler played, especially with regard to this gift for oratory, in shaping the National Socialist Movement, and its impact on Germany and the history of the world, still engenders much argument among professional historians. No single historical figure has featured more prominently in the debate as to what extent history shapes the man, or a man can shape history. Unlike Bismarck, who believed that men simply ‘steer events’, Hitler believed great men make history. The power of the will and the ‘will to power’ were concepts that drove Hitler. He had ‘unshakeable belief’ that, had the German military, the government, and its people shown a greater will to win, then Germany would have overcome the insurmountable odds she faced in the autumn of 1918 and won through. It was his belief in his own iron resolve, matched to his belief in the innate racial superiority of the German people, that made him confident he could break the shackles of Versailles, achieve German hegemony in Europe and ultimately make his Third Reich a world power.

  The obsession historians have had with Hitler and his central role, or otherwise, in the history of the Third Reich has led to a rash of terminologies to define his place in the panoply of history’s most influential figures. Functionalists and intentionalists have often created more smoke than light in arguments, which have been largely circular. What came first, the Führer or the Reich? The discipline of social history, which emerged in the 1960s, would have us believe the war and the Holocaust would all have happened anyway, with or without Hitler. They have continued to resist, at every turn, the notion of buying into the ‘Hitler myth’ and the iconic propaganda of Joseph Goebbels, fearing attributing even ‘negative greatness’ to the man, and suggesting Hitler was merely a ‘nihilistic opportunist’ without real ideology but simply a list of ‘ideological metaphors’ and an all-consuming will to power.clxxiii

  All historians have had to guard against being taken in by the propaganda of the Third Reich and seeing Hitler as a man with an almost messianic hold over the German people. Part of the genius of Goebbels’ propaganda was to portray the ‘Führer’ as the anointed one; the man Germany had been waiting for to lead her to her manifest destiny. One Nazi propaganda slogan stated, ‘Germany is Hitler and Hitler is Germany’. Some have argued that shaping the outside world’s view of Hitler and Germany as synonymous has been Goebbels’ most enduring propaganda success; it has certainly had a more lasting impact on the outside world than it has on the German people themselves.

  And yet it is also impossible to divorce Hitler’s own charismatic leadership from the influence his world view exerted over the policies of the Third Reich. Even those who argue that a considerable degree of administrative chaos pervaded many aspects of the Third Reich would admit that the movement, nevertheless, continued to strive ceaselessly to put Hitler’s intentions into effect, in a concept Professor Sir Ian Kershaw has called ‘working towards the Führer’.(7) Examples of Hitler’s mark at crucial junctures in the history of the Nazi movement are not hard to find. When leaders of the party sought to oust Hitler in the summer of 1921, because of his overbearing nature towards the leadership, he resigned. They soon came to realise they had lost the biggest draw to their meetings. His oratory had already become the mainstay of the party’s support. When they asked him back, he set out his terms, insisting he would only return if he not only became leader, but also leader with unlimited powers. When Hitler was imprisoned in Landsberg, after his failed ‘beer hall putsch’ in Munich in 1923, the party virtually fell apart; internal squabbles and factional infighting almost destroyed the movement, which did not begin to regain any sense of discipline again until Hitler’s release.

  Hitler also purposefully negated the importance of the only document that could ever be called a blueprint or manifesto for the party. The 1920 party programme was not allowed to play a major role or ever be amended, no matter how out of date it became, to prevent it becoming a focus for factionalism and division. A united front had to be presented at all times; united behind the guiding hand of the Führer. Goebbels, as leader of the party in Berlin and the future Propaganda Minister, would come to play along keeping the party’s programme short on detail, saying, ‘If anyone asks how do you conceive the new Europe, we have to reply that we don’t know. Of course we have some ideas about it. But if we were to put them into words it would immediately create more enemies for us. Once we have the power then they’ll know, and we too will know what to do with it… Today we talk about living space. Anyone can interpret it as they wish.’(9) Hitler set out his ideas, particularly in the realm of foreign policy, but always remained vague as to how they should be realised and to what ends, stating that, ‘The important thing is to conquer, after that everything will simply be a question of organisation.’(10) It was this lack of detailed policy that allowed Hitler to build bridges between the conservative aims of the Old Order and the revolutionary ideals of the Nazi movement.clxxiv The conservative elites levered Hitler into power whilst thinking ‘he is one of us’, believing they could mould him and manipulate him once his movement was shackled with the constraints and realities of power. They had entirely underestimated the way the Nazi Party was run, and were ignorant of Hitler’s intention to impose the ‘Führer Principle’, where all power flowed from his authority to the office of the Reich Chancellorship, as soon as the opportunity presented itself. The Nazi leadership initially worked hand-in-glove with the conservative parties to introduce the Enabling Bill, which gave them dictatorial powers. They then used their new powers to ban all opposition parties and lock up their opponents. Within a year of Hitler assuming office, the remaining democratic checks and balances were removed and Germany had become a dictatorship.

  With Reich President Hindenburg’s death in 1934, the positions of Chancellor and President were combined. All power in the Third Reich was now derived from the Führer. Hitler was not bound by any authority and could step outside the administrative ‘structure’ whenever he chose.clxxv Under this principle, both the party and the state were instruments in the hands of the Führer; Hitler was theoretically only answerable to the Volk (the people). The extreme nationalist ‘völkisch ideology’, which portrayed the Führer as the executor of the nation’s wi
ll, underlines the decision-making role and power that Hitler possessed. Ultimately, as one leading authority on Hitler has put it, ‘No policy of central importance to Hitler was ever blocked or ignored by his subordinates.’(12) The Nazi Party’s constitutional theorist, Hubner, explained the authority structure of the Third Reich thus: ‘In the völkisch sense it is not state power but Führer power, as the Führer is the executor of the Nation’s common will and this embraces all spheres of our national life. The Führer’s power is unlimited… ‘(13) Hitler took a keen interest in ensuring that his power remained absolute. He had taken full control over the party’s political organisation in 1932, and had immediately set about strengthening the position of the Gauleiters (regional governors who were directly answerable to him) at the expense of other party leaders. Rudolf Hess, a man with limited intellect and unswerving loyalty to Hitler, was given the title of ‘Deputy Führer’, ostensibly with the power to decide questions of party leadership in Hitler’s name, but not without Hitler’s approval. Hitler further resisted attempts by the Reich Interior Minister, Wilhelm Frick, to rationalise the system of Nazi rule, which Frick had proposed to do by centralising control, curbing the power of the Gauleiters, and replacing the Enabling Bill with a proper constitution. Hitler was not prepared to countenance any institutional or legal restriction on his power.(14)

  Once in power, Hitler let his deeply-held social Darwinist instincts, which formed the essential core of his world view, come to the fore. The notion that races and nations were in a constant struggle for supremacy was applied to the government of the Reich. Individuals and departments had to fight it out with one another, to ‘evolve’ the best solution. The strongest and most ruthless would win. This had a profound affect upon the often chaotic way in which the Nazis administered domestic policy. Hitler would not remove the constitution or existing government departments and governmental structures, he simply created new tiers of government, above, or alongside them. The Reich Cabinet, for instance, did not meet after 1938; it was replaced with ‘super ministerial structures’ described as Kanzlei. While the traditional channels of power gradually silted up, they were increasingly bypassed from above in the form of new ministries with new and often overlapping or conflicting remits. Perhaps Hitler viewed this anarchic ‘system’ as being the only way of overcoming the painstakingly slow and methodical machine that German bureaucracy had become. By implementing this divide and rule policy, Hitler also sought the resolution of problems by allowing the strongest individual or ministry to win through, rather than having to intervene himself. Where this did not achieve the desired results, or took too long, Hitler would resort to issuing ‘Führer orders’, which took priority and cut across the authority of all institutions.