Hitler
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Two days later, the government agreed the so-called ‘Reinhardt programme’, named after the new state secretary in the Finance Ministry, Fritz Reinhardt, who had revised the Labour Minister’s proposals to produce a two-pronged programme. Apart from further funds for direct work creation measures, it now included tax breaks, which industry preferred.199 The programme envisaged providing credit of up to one billion Reich Marks for the carrying out of repairs to buildings, the construction of housing estates, as well as improvements to infrastructure; furthermore, exemption from tax for money spent on job creation and replacements, but also the provision of marriage loans in order to remove women who had hitherto been employed from the labour market.200 On 21 September, there followed a Second Law for the Reduction of Unemployment,201 with additional money for the autobahn programme as well as for substantial work creation measures by the railways and Post Office. Between 1933 and 1935, a total of 4.7 billion RM was provided for work creation measures; over 1.5 billion of this money was spent in 1933, of which only a little more than 10 per cent came from programmes initiated by the Hitler government.202
In addition, the regime drove forward rearmament as never before. The new Reich Bank president, Schacht, provided the financial instruments with which such a programme could be financed in secret. On 4 April, the government had already decided no longer to include the funds earmarked for the rearmament of the Wehrmacht in the Reich budget and so to exclude it from the usual budgetary controls. The budget plans no longer included purchases and investments, only running costs.203
Three days later Schacht announced a moratorium on Reich debt.204 The withdrawal from the international payments system, which was actually triggered on 30 June, was intended to enable the Reich government to delay repaying overseas debt until export surpluses had been achieved.205 This moratorium coincided with a second fundamental decision in which Schacht again played a central role. To finance German rearmament he declared himself willing to provide the gigantic sum of 35 billion RM, spread over a period of eight years, as credit.206 For the purposes of comparison: in previous years the total defence budget had been only 600–700 million RM per year.207 Schacht exemplifies the extent to which the rearmament programme being pushed through by Hitler had the support of a broad consensus among the conservative elites. When Hitler came to power the Reichswehr and German diplomats (the Foreign Ministry’s role will be dealt with in the next chapter) assumed that the armaments limitations imposed by the Versailles Treaty would soon be ignored; industry saw in rearmament new business opportunities; and the conservative bourgeoisie greeted the return of ‘defence sovereignty’ as the basic precondition for the restoration of German greatness.208
Stage 6: The end of the political parties and development of policy towards the Churches
These measures initiating a gigantic rearmament programme provided the real background to Hitler’s so-called ‘peace speech’ to the Reichstag on 17 May. In the next chapter we shall look at the content of his speech in the context of his foreign policy; the point to be made here is that Hitler was once again using the parliamentary deputies elected on 5 March as extras. And, in fact, the Reichstag approved Hitler’s government statement unanimously, with the votes of the Centre Party, the German State Party, and those members of the SPD who were still in Germany and not under arrest.209 To achieve this, Hitler had personally approached Brüning the previous day to assure him of his willingness to discuss changes to those emergency decrees which limited civil rights.210 Thinly disguised threats by Interior Minister Frick to murder imprisoned Social Democrats contributed to persuading the majority of the forty-eight remaining SPD deputies, at a meeting of their parliamentary group, to support the government statement.211
Two weeks later, Brüning reminded Hitler to keep the promise he had made. Brüning reports in his memoirs that Hitler denied that any politicians had been mistreated, to which Brüning responded that he should ‘come at once with me to the Hedwig Hospital and see for himself the barbaric wounds inflicted on harmless people who simply held different political views’. Hitler did not reply, instructing Frick to negotiate with Brüning. However, these negotiations were continually ‘postponed from one day to the next’.212
Hitler concluded that in future he would be better off doing without any further ‘involvement’ by other parties. Thus, their formal abolition in July 1933 represented the last stage in the seizure of power. The first victim of this policy was the SPD, which had stuck systematically to its policy of legality and had to accept its organization being gradually and comprehensively shut down.213 With the elimination of the trades unions at the beginning of May, it was clear that the end of the SPD was only a matter of time. Thus, on 4 May, the SPD’s executive committee decided that all full-time officials should go abroad; during the following days, this step was taken by, among others, Otto Wels, Friedrich Stampfer, and Erich Ollenhauer. On 10 May, the whole of the party’s assets were confiscated on the grounds of alleged embezzlement.214 The behaviour of the Reichstag group in the 17 May session led to bitter disagreements, contributing to the committee finally splitting into those who remained in the Reich and the group who fled into exile in Prague.215 In view of this desperate situation, the official ban on the party by the Interior Ministry on 22 June 1933 simply confirmed what de facto had already happened – the SPD had ceased to exist.216
On 14 July 1933, a new expatriation law provided the regime with the grounds for removing their citizenship and property from all those who ‘through their behaviour have damaged German interests by failing in their duty of loyalty to the Reich and the nation’. On 23 August, the Reich Interior Ministry announced the names of thirty-five prominent opponents of Nazism who had fled abroad and now were to come under the law; among them were the left-wing politicians Rudolf Breitscheid, Albert Grzesinsky, Philipp Scheidemann, Otto Wels, and Bernhard Weiss, as well as the authors Georg Bernhard, Lion Feuchtwanger, Alfred Kerr, Heinrich Mann, and Kurt Tucholsky. Further cases were to follow and by 1939 the law had affected more than 39,000 emigrés.217
Unlike the SPD, the DNVP, now operating as the German Nationalist Front, had a key position in spring 1933. For the Hitler government was basically still a coalition government of NSDAP and DNVP, and the latter’s cabinet member, the Economics and Agriculture Minister, Hugenberg, represented the interests of influential circles in industry and agriculture; it would be risky to force him out of the government. Moreover, Hugenberg could rely on considerable support from the Reich President, who still had the power to appoint and dismiss Chancellor and ministers. The Enabling Law, which made Hitler independent of parliament and President, applied after all to the ‘present government’; thus, in the event of the coalition breaking up, it was theoretically possible for this ‘enabling power’ to be jeopardized. It would be followed by a power struggle between conservatives and Nazis, which at this juncture Hitler had to avoid at all costs. In fact, he managed to exclude Hugenberg and the DNVP without provoking this power struggle and was assisted in this by the clumsy and indecisive behaviour of his coalition partner and now opponent.218
Hugenberg responded to increasing Nazi attacks during the spring by appointing his deputy, Friedrich von Winterfeld, to take over the leadership of the DNVP, and concentrating entirely on his work as a multi-minister. Despite this, he was unable to avoid being isolated in the Reich cabinet and in the Prussian government (Göring refused to upgrade his status from acting to permanent minister).219 At the end of May, there were the first bans on DNVP meetings; members of the ‘combat squads’, the paramilitary wing of the party, were arrested and the organization itself subjected, for the time being, to local bans. Prominent members of the DNVP joined the NSDAP. In his address to the Reich and Gau leaders of the NSDAP meeting in Berlin on 14 June Hitler announced that the ‘law of the nationalist revolution had not yet lapsed’220 and this was clearly intended as a threat to the DNVP. A week later the ‘combat squads’ were subjected to a Reich-wide ban.221
> In the meantime, Hugenberg had submitted a memorandum to the World Economic Conference in London, in which he proposed that, in order to improve Germany’s ability to pay its debts, it should be given colonies and territory for settlement in the East.222 This ran counter to the Foreign Ministry’s position and that of Hitler himself, since they were seeking to calm the international situation in line with the Chancellor’s government statement of 17 May. On 21 June, Hitler stressed to Hugenberg his desire ‘to maintain the pact of 30 January’.223 Encouraged by this, two days later, at a cabinet meeting on 23 June, Hugenberg decided to risk a trial of strength. He complained about Foreign Minister Neurath, who had distanced himself from Hugenberg’s London memorandum, and demanded the recall of the deputy head of the German delegation, Hans Posse, on the grounds that unbridgeable differences had emerged between them. However, Hitler politely informed Hugenberg that he supported Neurath; to recall Posse would be a sign of weakness and so was out of the question. The cabinet agreed with Hitler.224
After this defeat Hugenberg was put hopelessly on the defensive, particularly as his attempts to seek support from the President met with no response.225 He now decided to resign, but without informing the other DNVP leaders and in a way that did not involve a break-up of the coalition, but appeared simply as a personal decision. In doing it this way, he was failing to deploy the only means of pressure he still possessed. Had he linked his resignation with the DNVP quitting the government (he was the only member of the party in the cabinet), then, at least theoretically, further use of the Enabling Law, crucial for the government’s position, would have been at risk. However, this assumes that the non-party ministers and, above all, the President would have had the determination to resist the NSDAP’s drive to monopolize power and, by June 1933, this was certainly not the case. On 24 June, Hugenberg informed only his closest party colleagues about his plans and, on 26 June, composed a resignation letter that he submitted to Hindenburg in person. In it he asserted his conviction that the ‘basis on which the cabinet was formed on 30 January no longer exists and will no longer exist’.226
Despite clearly outlining his assessment of the situation, Hugenberg was a long way from advising the President to act on the basis of this assessment. Hugenberg himself was not contemplating a break-up of the coalition; he wanted to move the DNVP into a position of ‘benevolent neutrality’227 towards the new state, a kind of reserve position, from which, at a later stage, they might once again take part in the government. But, by acting in the way he did, Hugenberg prevented those elements within the DNVP who did not want to leave the field without a struggle from rousing themselves and joining forces. On 26 June, under pressure from Nazi threats and behind Hugenberg’s back, the party’s central committee decided to dissolve the DNVP. Thus, Hitler had found it easy to get rid of his coalition partner.228
Unlike Hugenberg, Hitler was aware of the DNVP’s decision to dissolve itself when he received his minister for a final meeting on 27 June.229 In view of the anticipated disappearance of the DNVP, Hitler was concerned above all to retain Hugenberg in the cabinet (albeit without all his posts), in order to avoid creating the impression of a bitter and definitive rift with the German Nationalists. In the course of the conversation, Hugenberg, who was still insisting on his resignation, introduced a new scenario: he could imagine returning to the cabinet in a few months’ time when Hitler, in the impending conflict with ‘the left-wing elements who were present in his party . . . [would] require the help of my friends’. Hitler immediately interpreted this offer as a significant attempt to restrict his claim to power. He told Hugenberg that the latter’s proposal was ‘one of those suggestions with a counter-revolutionary tendency’ that were current in German Nationalist circles, who were hoping ‘they would get into power when he and his government had failed’. Hitler feared the continuation of a conservative power base with strong support in the civil service, the military, among big landowners, and in industry. According to Hugenberg, the conversation became ‘very lively’ and was carried on while they were ‘standing up and moving around’. The Chancellor urged Hugenberg to remain in the cabinet, but no longer as a coalition partner, merely as a departmental minister; the DNVP had to be wound up. If he went, the DNVP would inevitably end up becoming an opposition party and ‘there would be a struggle’. ‘Thousands of civil servants’, Hitler threatened, ‘who belong to your party, will then lose their jobs – I can’t prevent that because my lot will demand it and – many people, through your fault, will suffer, and a ruthless struggle will begin all along the line’. This struggle, and Hitler was now addressing Hugenberg, the ‘media mogul’, would also occur ‘in press and film’ and ‘within three days it will have been settled, and not in your favour’.
However, these threats were not necessary to achieve the dissolution of the DNVP, since the party had already indicated to Hitler its willingness to do so. Hitler’s violent reaction is explicable more from the fact that Hugenberg’s suggestion that he and his friends were waiting in the background, ready if necessary ‘to support’ him, seemed to Hitler to challenge his dominance.
Hugenberg wanted Hitler to take responsibility for banning the DNVP, with all the consequences that would flow from the break, and had prepared a resignation statement for the press.230 However, the DNVP’s executive, anxious to avoid any disagreement with the Chancellor, had decided, on the evening of 27 June, to dissolve the party.231 There was now only one thing left for Hugenberg to do. He informed Hindenburg of the content of his conversation with Hitler, including the threats, and requested that he, as the ‘patron of the whole of the nationalist movement in Germany’ should guarantee the ‘safety of those who hitherto have been under my leadership’. He also gave, as a reason for his resignation, his position ‘as a Protestant Christian’, a clear hint to Hindenburg of the threats to German Protestantism posed by Nazi Church policy. Only a few days earlier, the Prussian government had appointed a state commissar for the Protestant Church, a development we shall examine in more detail.232 In fact, it may well be that Hugenberg’s intervention with Hindenburg contributed towards preventing the campaign of vengeance that Hitler had threatened in the event of the former’s departure from the cabinet. In any event, on 29 June Hitler agreed with Hindenburg on a reshuffle of the cabinet and on sorting out the situation in the Protestant Church. This meeting appears to have established a kind of modus vivendi between Nazism and Protestant conservatives.
The dissolution of the DNVP was followed by that of the State Party on 28 June, of the Christlich-Sozialer Volksdienst on 2 July, of the German People’s Party and the Bavarian People’s Party on 4 July, and the Centre Party on 5 July. The dissolution of the Catholic parties was closely linked to the conclusion of a Concordat between the Reich government and the Vatican, which will be dealt with later. During the last phase of negotiations in June, the Nazis had applied considerable pressure on Catholic organizations in order to achieve their goal of a depoliticized Catholic Church.233
Alongside the enforced dissolution of the DNVP, the regime set about removing the organizational independence of its third partner in the revived Harzburg Front of 30 January, the Stahlhelm. Having ‘subordinated’ himself to Hitler on 26 April, on 21 June Seldte agreed to the transfer of the younger Stahlhelm members (18–35 year olds) to the SA. In future the Stahlhelm leadership would be in charge only of the older members, the ‘core Stahlhelm’. The integration into the SA took place on 26 June, together with the admission of the German Nationalist Scharnhorst Youth into the Hitler Youth.234 Shortly afterwards, at the beginning of July, Hitler announced to a meeting of leaders of the SA, SS, and Stahlhelm in Bad Reichenhall that the core Stahlhelm would now also join the SA. By the end of October, the amalgamation had been completed, although the Stahlhelm continued to exist. In March 1934 it was renamed the League of National Socialist Front Line Fighters (Stahlhelm).235
As has already been indicated, it was no accident that, alongside the dissolution of
the Catholic parties and the DNVP (which was the embodiment of Prussian Protestantism), Hitler had also set about sorting out the regime’s relationship with the two Churches. As far as the Catholic Church was concerned, the main aim was to prevent the relatively well-organized Catholic population from becoming opposed to the new government. The conclusion of a Concordat with the Vatican appeared to be the right way to avoid this danger. At the same time, Hitler aimed to achieve a comprehensive reform of the Protestant Church in order to create a counter-weight to the Catholic bloc.
Hitler had already offered the Churches a guarantee of their legal rights in the government declaration linked to the Enabling Law, referring to a ‘sincere co-operation between Church and State’.236 The Catholic bishops had responded to this signal and, on 28 March, in a joint declaration, had withdrawn their hitherto resolute opposition to Nazism.237 The first meeting between Hitler and representatives of the Catholic Church took place at the end of April; Hitler had already made contact with Rome via Papen. At this meeting Hitler had expressed the view that without Christianity ‘neither a personal life nor a state could achieve stability’, but he had become convinced that the Churches ‘in recent centuries had not summoned up the strength or determination to overcome the enemies of the state and of Christianity’. Nevertheless, he would ‘not permit any other form of religion’. He referred in this connection to Rosenberg’s ‘Myth’, which he rejected. He said he wanted to retain the confessional schools (‘Soldiers who have faith are the most valuable ones’) and did not wish to restrict the Catholic associations.238