Hitler

by Peter Longerich

Hitler’s charisma

  In Nazi eyes the Führer state was based on the mysterious identity of ‘Führer’ and nation, on the assumption, in other words, that ‘the nation’s will can be expressed in a pure and unadulterated manner only through the Führer’.71 Although not every action by the ‘Führer’ was dependent on the consent of the nation – for that would have been democratic72 – the regime was ultimately compelled to offer proof that in the medium and long term the policies pursued by the man at the top enjoyed the nation’s support and were acknowledged as being successful.

  Thus the legitimacy of Hitler’s position derived essentially from his charisma; in Nazi terms he was the ‘Führer’ because the ‘nation’ ascribed to him extraordinary abilities and a historic mission, and because (in the eyes of his adherents) in the final analysis he was able to fulfil these expectations. This charismatic relationship, it should be noted, is a construction that served to legitimize the Führer state; it must not be confused with the actual basis of Hitler’s power, nor does it tell us anything about his actual abilities and successes.

  First and foremost, Hitler’s regime was in fact a dictatorship. Basic rights had been abolished since February 1933; anyone was liable to be dragged off to a concentration camp for an unspecified length of time, without due process of law and without any verifiable reason, and was there at the mercy of the guards. Torture, torments of all kinds, and the murder of prisoners were part of this system and were not prosecuted. Although in the mid-1930s the number of concentration camp prisoners amounted to only a few thousand, the terror inspired by the camps left a deep impression on anyone who no more than toyed with the idea of resisting the dictatorship. The concentration camps were one part of a comprehensive system of repression that from 1936 onwards had been unified and centralized under Himmler’s direction; other branches of it were the Gestapo, the criminal police, the uniformed order police, the SS with its own intelligence service (SD), as well as armed organizations. Special courts were standing by and could be relied on to find people guilty of political crimes as defined by the regime.

  All potential sources of resistance that might have prevented the system from degenerating into a dictatorship had been eliminated. The separation of powers, the carefully calibrated balance of power between the individual constitutional institutions in the Reich as well as between the Reich and the states was suspended, as was the independence of local government. The independence of the judiciary was an illusion, for the judiciary had become a tool of the regime. There were no parties apart from the NSDAP, no social organizations that were not controlled by the National Socialist movement. The Churches as a source of moral authority had been compromised. There was no longer a free press.

  Secondly, the regime enjoyed an organizational monopoly. We have seen that the entire country was covered by several overlapping networks of Party organizations that guaranteed effective, close-range supervision of people’s everyday lives, without the need as a rule to deploy more muscular methods of repression.

  Thirdly, the regime had taken control of the whole of the public sphere. This came about not only because it controlled the media and was continually waging propaganda campaigns, but also because Nazism (with its symbols, flags, uniforms, rituals, and involvement in very diverse activities, not least its architecture) put its stamp on public spaces and the public face of the so-called Third Reich and thus governed people’s behaviour in those public spaces. In addition to their general propaganda, the Nazis educated the young and were also involved in the continuous ‘instruction’, in other words indoctrination, of large sections of the population. Conversely, opposition voices were to a great extent excluded or made to retreat into the private realm or semi-public contexts. The machinery of repression saw to this, as well as the surveillance of the population described above carried out by the Party and its satellite organizations.

  Fourthly, if the Führer state rested in the final analysis on the identity of ‘Führer’ and ‘nation’/‘people’ (‘Volk’), the concept of the nation underpinning it must not be confused with the actual population and its attitudes. ‘Volk’ in Nazi ideology was a mythic category. Huber, the National Socialist constitutional historian, summed it up: ‘The nation that shares a common ethnic descent is a supra-personal ethnic unit linking past, present, and future. It is a natural, elemental, organic, and at first unconscious entity. It is the nation as given by nature. The nation in this sense operates as the basic constituent in all political phenomena and all historical epochs, even if it has not come into people’s consciousness as such. It has frequently been overlaid, obscured, degraded, but even in these distorted and obscured forms it remains the real and crucial core.’73 In other words ‘Volk’ in Nazi thinking was always a closed unit. If the Nazis’ key domestic aim was to create a ‘national community’, then the society of the Weimar Republic, which in their eyes had been divided and made degenerate by, among other things, liberalism, democracy, and Jewish influence, should be brought back to its authentic roots and the nation as an ‘entity’ should be restored.

  What this ‘national community’ should look like in detail was never clearly defined, as is evident from the rather rare comments Hitler made on the subject.74 Yet this lack of definition for one of Nazism’s key terms was in fact its strength. On the one hand the vision of a ‘national community’ was certainly attractive to many people, for it held the promise of a nation as a united, homogeneous community with a shared ethnic background that, politically and ideologically at one with itself, was working to bring about national revival. In that process social tensions would be put aside, barriers of class and status torn down, and new chances of advancement opened up. The promise of the ‘national community’ was something people were supposed to be able to catch a glimpse of already, for example in the cheering masses at big National Socialist Rallies, through ‘socialism in action’, as the Winter Aid campaign was presented in propaganda, or in the experience of community in indoctrination and holiday camps, or during the Party Rallies.

  For millions of people the extension of the Party’s complex organizational machine and its satellite organizations, the creation of new administrations for specific projects, the assembling of large military forces, and the armaments boom meant concrete career opportunities and resulted over all in a rise in prosperity. The extensive political and racial purges in the realms of culture and higher education meant that intellectuals on the political right found they had new scope for working in many fields opening up under the headings of ‘Race’ and ‘Nation’. For young people the regime seemed through the Hitler Youth to be offering a new form of autonomy. It is therefore not surprising that many younger Germans in particular gained the impression that this new regime would liberate German society from outmoded class differences and rigid and anachronistic structures and herald a more mobile type of ‘national community’ based on merit.75

  On the other hand, the vagueness of the term enabled the regime to marginalize ‘alien’ minorities in this community and thus to encourage people to seek to belong to the majority community. While those Germans, such as the Jews, who were alleged to belong to an alien ‘race’ were the primary target of such exclusions, they could also be applied arbitrarily and in specific situations, such as when campaigns were mounted against ‘whingers’, intellectuals, or ‘Jewish sympathizers’. Thus the ‘national community’ had two aspects: it was both a visionary promise of a marvellous future and an important tool in domestic policy, for by this method the basis of the Führer state’s legitimacy could be redefined arbitrarily and in response to changing situations. No one who opposed the regime could belong to the ‘national community’ and such people were excluded from the mythical unity of ‘Führer’ and ‘nation’.76

  The machinery of repression, the close surveillance of national comrades, the control of the public sphere, as well as the central project of the ‘national community’ – these created the essential framework for the operation of Hitl
er’s charisma within the Nazi regime. In fact, no ‘pure’ or actual relationship existed between the ‘Führer’ and the ‘nation’, but rather we are dealing with the strategy by which a dictatorship that had at its disposal an extensive array of instruments to create and underpin charisma, sought to legitimize itself. The fact that Hitler had a mass following and enjoyed a high degree of popularity for considerable stretches of his period in power does not alter this situation. The fact too that in reports on the national mood and in everyday comments by Germans Hitler was often not included in criticism of the regime (summed up in the set phrase, ‘If only the Führer knew . . .’) is not a confirmation of his charisma but instead must be regarded as an instinctive response to his sacrosanct position as projected by the regime’s propaganda. Whatever criticism might be voiced about the inadequacies of the regime, belief in the ‘Führer’ had to be unsullied by doubts. That was, as it were, the operational basis on which Hitler’s regime rested.77 In reality, however, Hitler’s dictatorship was not dependent on the consent of the majority of Germans.

  The history of the period from 1933 to 1937 as presented in the preceding chapters of this book provides more than enough evidence that the identity of ‘Führer’ and ‘nation’ propagated by the National Socialists, the charismatic position occupied by Hitler as the agent of the true will of the nation, does not stand up to critical scrutiny. Even so, while the regime was not dependent on the consent of the majority, it could not simply ignore the mood of the country. Discontent was simmering beneath the surface and repeatedly flared up, to be countered by propaganda campaigns and repressive measures on the one hand, but also by material concessions and spectacular and astonishing interventions in domestic policy, although these did not divert Hitler from his fundamental political aims.

  Since 1933 Hitler had been pursuing two central political objectives. In foreign policy he was out to establish a dominant position for Germany in Central Europe as the precondition for expansion and for acquiring ‘living space’ (although the timescale for this was still undecided). In domestic policy his aim was to produce the highest degree possible of unity and cohesiveness within the German nation, by whatever means possible. These two aims were inextricably linked. Internal unity at home was designed to demonstrate strength to the outside world and help to pave the way for expansion abroad, while foreign policy successes were designed to strengthen the regime domestically.

  During the first months of his rule Hitler had already begun to push through his own ideas on foreign policy in opposition to the Foreign Ministry’s traditional and cautious revisionist policy. In the first instance his aim was principally to create close alliances with Italy and Britain. In order to achieve his long-term expansionist goals, from the start Hitler’s preference was to rearm at all costs and in so doing he rapidly exceeded the restrictions imposed by the established international system for arms control. His policy, however, not only put excessive strains on the economy and led to negative repercussions at home, but also quickly isolated Germany, an effect he could counteract only by means of the unexpected agreement with Poland. The alliance he sought with Italy was pushed into the distant future by his risky Austrian policy, while Britain’s very receptive attitude to limited German rearmament turned out not to herald any kind of alliance but rather represented a British attempt to draw Germany back into the international security system by making concessions. To that extent his policy towards Britain was based on a fundamental miscalculation, in spite of the naval agreement concluded in 1935.

  Hitler did, however, achieve early foreign policy successes with the reincorporation of the Saarland in 1935 and the occupation in 1936 of the demilitarized Rhineland, which did not provoke any serious sanctions. In addition, relations with Italy improved to the extent that he could now set about making Austria dependent on Germany. In the course of the summer of 1936 he expanded his view of international relations, viewing them increasingly in terms of the emergence of blocs. He perceived as a threat the possibility of an alliance led by the Soviets, of which France (which had been governed by a ‘popular front’ since June 1936), Czechoslovakia, and Spain would be members. His decision to intervene in the Spanish Civil War was also motivated by a wish to prevent Spain from becoming ‘Bolshevist’. Instead he hoped to incorporate the country into a counter-alliance led by Germany, to which Italy, Poland, possibly Romania and Yugoslavia, and in the longer term Britain, and in East Asia Japan would also belong. The creation of such a bloc, which he pursued vigorously, was to his mind the decisive lever that would enable him to overcome purely revisionist policies, such as those supported by the conservative elites. Yet international recognition for his regime was still limited. The 1936 Olympic Games, with their projection of an image of Germany as a peace-loving country, did not alter this. In fact, the western powers responded to Hitler’s political initiatives by rearming on a large scale.

  Although Hitler’s foreign policy successes had gained him some standing, his audacious foreign policy gave rise at the same time to considerable apprehension concerning Germany’s continued isolation and to fears of war. Above all, the accelerated pace of rearmament, which was the basis for his foreign policy, placed considerable burdens on his regime domestically and was at odds with his second great political aim, namely to weld the Germans together into a unified ‘national community’. This can be seen occurring in several phases between 1933 and 1937.

  By July 1933 the so-called seizure of power had for the time being come to a close. From the late summer onwards the regime had saturated the population with an unremitting flood of mass rallies and propaganda campaigns and in October had used a referendum and fresh elections to confirm its decision to leave the League of Nations. Yet by the beginning of 1934 it was evident that propaganda was unable to disguise the reality of the problems any longer. Although in its first year in power the regime had succeeded in halving the number of statistically verifiable unemployed (a reduction that continued largely as a result of the armaments boom), the frequent assumption that the working classes, now able to support themselves, would feel grateful to the regime does not appear to have been borne out by reality. Instead people compared their circumstances with those before the crisis and came to the conclusion that they had been better off in 1928. The overheated boom created by rearmament had led, in conjunction with other factors, to distortions in the German economy, among them a fall in exports, a shortage of foreign exchange, problems with the supply of certain foodstuffs and everyday necessities, and rising prices at a time of wage stagnation. Large swathes of the population saw their standard of living fall and from 1934 onwards this situation was a constant source of complaints and dissatisfaction.

  The economic situation of the masses was especially precarious during three phases: between spring and autumn 1934, in the summer of 1935, and at the beginning of 1936. In 1934 the fall in German exports led to a devastating lack of foreign exchange. For the average German this meant above all price rises coupled with shortages and a drop in quality in consumer goods. In addition to Schacht’s total reorganization of foreign trade, in November the regime responded by appointing a Prices Commissioner. In July and August 1935 a wave of price rises, alongside wage stagnation, again provoked considerable discontent among the population. The regime’s attempt in the autumn of 1935 to counter this mood with the slogan ‘Guns before butter’ soon petered out and had to be abandoned. When at the start of 1936 Germany once again found itself in an acute and serious export and foreign exchange crisis that threatened the pace of rearmament, the regime changed course: on the one hand it made more foreign exchange available to enable imports of food and on the other, led by the new Chief of Police, Himmler, it took more vigorous steps to combat ‘whingers’. In addition, the most important series of reports on the population’s mood, namely the surveys conducted by the Prussian Gestapo and by the district presidents [Regierungspräsidenten], were halted on Göring’s instructions. Thus critics of the deficiencies
in food supplies, whose views were widely recorded in these reports, lost their most powerful organ inside the regime. The March 1936 elections to the councils of trust were called off as a precaution. Dissatisfaction with the regime was also spreading to broad sections of the small business population and to agriculture, in other words to population groups that before 1933 had voted in larger than average numbers for the NSDAP, for the regime was doing little to keep its promises to retailers and artisans. Agriculture was suffering as a result of pressure on costs, indebtedness, and a labour shortage.

  In all sections of society there were complaints that Party functionaries were fat cats. Amongst practising Christians Hitler’s policy towards the Churches also provoked negative responses. In spite of the explicit promise of protection contained in the Concordat, the Catholic Church found itself under considerable pressure to limit the activities of its associations or even to give them up. Since 1935 the regime had been taking action against state-maintained Church schools, while in 1935, 1936, and again in 1937 large numbers of priests were accused of currency violations (and then also of sexual offences). And Hitler’s immense efforts to bring together the Protestant Churches of the individual states in one single Reich Church were unsuccessful in their ‘unifying’ aim, while managing to provoke bitter conflicts within the Church.

  These facts point to one conclusion: the regime’s repeated claim during the first years of Hitler’s rule that the ‘national community’ was united was an illusion created by propaganda.

  At the same time, however, Hitler developed an impressive ability to assert his leadership with confidence, in spite of the shaky ground on which he stood at home. This was an ability that had marked him out as Party leader since the earliest days of the NSDAP. From his position of extraordinary power he succeeded above all in finding spectacular solutions in tune with his own aims to profound political crises.