Mastering Modern World History

by Norman Lowe

  Marxist historians believed that National Socialism and fascism in general were the final stage and culmination of western capitalism, which was bound to collapse because of its fatal flaws. British historian R. Butler, writing in 1942, believed that ‘National Socialism is the inevitable reappearance of Prussian militarism and terror, as seen during the 18th century.’ Sir Lewis Namier, a Polish Jew who settled in Britain and became an eminent historian, was understandably bitter:

  Attempts to absolve the German people of responsibility are unconvincing. And as for Hitler and his Third Reich, these arose from the people, indeed from the lower depths of the people. … Friends of the Germans must ask themselves why individual Germans become useful, decent citizens, but in groups, both at home and abroad, are apt to develop tendencies that make them a menace to their fellow-men? (Avenues of History)

  On the other hand, German historians like Gerhard Ritter and K. D. Bracher stressed the personal contribution of Hitler, arguing that Hitler was striving to break away from the past and introduce something completely new. National Socialism was therefore a grotesque departure from the normal and logical historical development. This is probably the majority view and it is one that found favour in Germany, since it meant that the German people, contrary to what Namier claimed, can be absolved from most of the blame.

  Ian Kershaw recognizes that there are elements of both interpretations in Hitler’s career. He points out that

  the mentalities which conditioned the behaviour both of the elites and the masses, and which made Hitler’s rise possible, were products of strands of German political culture that were plainly recognizable in the twenty years or so before the First World War. … Most of the elements of political culture that fed into Nazism were peculiarly German.

  However, Kershaw is also clear that Hitler was not the logical, inevitable product of long-term trends in German culture and beliefs. Nor was he a mere accident in German history: ‘without the unique conditions in which he came to prominence, Hitler would have been nothing. … He exploited the conditions brilliantly.’

  14.3 HITLER CONSOLIDATES HIS POWER

  Hitler was an Austrian, the son of a customs official in Braunau-am-Inn on the German border. He had hoped to become an artist but failed to gain admittance to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and afterwards spent six down-and-out years living in Vienna dosshouses and developing his hatred of Jews. In Munich, Hitler had joined Anton Drexler’s tiny German Workers’ Party (1919), which he soon took over and transformed into the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Now, in January 1933, he was Chancellor of a coalition government of National Socialists and nationalists, but he was not yet satisfied with the amount of power he possessed: Nazis held only three out of eleven cabinet posts. He therefore insisted on a general election in the hope of winning an overall majority for the Nazis.

  (a) The election of 5 March 1933

  The election campaign was an extremely violent one. Since they were now in government, the Nazis were able to use all the apparatus of state, including the press and radio, to try and whip up a majority. They had a great advantage in that Hermann Goering, one of the leading Nazis, had been appointed minister of the interior for Prussia, the largest and most important German state. This meant that he controlled the police. He replaced senior police officers with reliable Nazis, and 50 000 auxiliary policemen were called up, most of them from the SA and the SS (Schutzstaffeln – Hitler’s second private army, formed originally to be his personal bodyguard). They had orders to avoid hostility towards the SA and SS but to show no mercy to communists and other ‘enemies of the state’. They were given permission to use firearms if necessary. Meetings of Nazis and nationalists were allowed to go ahead without interference, but communist and socialist political meetings were wrecked and speakers were beaten up, while police looked the other way. The nationalists went along with all this because they were determined to use the Nazis to destroy communism once and for all.

  (b) The Reichstag fire

  The climax of the election campaign came on the night of 27 February when the Reichstag was badly damaged by a fire, apparently started by a young Dutch anarchist called Marinus van der Lubbe, who was arrested, tried and executed for his pains. It has been suggested that the SA knew about van der Lubbe’s plans, but allowed him to go ahead and even started fires of their own elsewhere in the building with the intention of blaming it on the communists. There is no conclusive evidence of this, but what is certain is that the fire played right into Hitler’s hands: he was able to use the fire to stir up fear of communism and as a pretext for the banning of the party. Some four thousand communists were arrested and imprisoned. However, in spite of all their efforts, the Nazis still failed to win an overall majority in the 5 March election. With almost 90 per cent of the electorate voting, the Nazis won 288 out of the 647 seats, 36 short of the magic figure – 324 – needed for an overall majority. The nationalists again won 52 seats. Hitler was still dependent on the support of Papen and Hugenberg (leader of the nationalists). This turned out to be the Nazis’ best performance in a ‘free’ election, and they never won an overall majority. It is worth remembering that even at the height of their electoral triumph the Nazis were supported by only 44 per cent of the voting electorate.

  14.4 HOW WAS HITLER ABLE TO STAY IN POWER?

  (a) The Enabling Law, 23 March 1933

  Hitler was not satisfied with the election result. He was determined that he must be dependent on nobody except his Nazi party. While President Hindenburg was still in shock after the Reichstag fire, Hitler apparently persuaded him that emergency legislation was vital to prevent a communist uprising. Known as the Enabling Law, this legislation was forced through the Reichstag on 23 March 1933, and it was this that provided the legal basis of Hitler’s power. It stated that the government could introduce laws without the approval of the Reichstag for the next four years, could ignore the constitution and could sign agreements with foreign countries. All laws would be drafted by the Chancellor and come into operation the day they were published. This meant that Hitler was to be the complete dictator for the next four years, but since his will was now law, he would be able to extend the four-year period indefinitely. He no longer needed the support of Papen and Hugenberg; the Weimar constitution had been abandoned. Such a major constitutional change needed approval by a two-thirds majority, yet the Nazis hadn’t even a simple majority.

  How did the Nazis get the Enabling Bill through the Reichstag?

  The method was typical of the Nazis. Since the election, the whole country had experienced a wave of unprecedented Nazi violence directed at political opponents and at Jews. Jewish synagogues were attacked and trashed by Hitler’s brownshirts (SA), and there were countless beatings and murders. Hundreds more were arrested and sent to newly set-up concentration camps (see Illus. 14.2). On 23 March, the day of the Enabling Law vote, The Kroll Opera House (where the Reichstag had been meeting since the fire) was surrounded by Hitler’s private armies. MPs had to push their way through solid ranks of SS troops to get into the building. The 81 communist MPs had either been arrested or were in hiding. Some of the socialists were simply not allowed to pass. Inside the building, rows of brown-shirted SA troops lined the walls, and the SS could be heard chanting outside: ‘We want the Bill, or fire and murder.’ It took courage to vote against the Enabling Bill in such surroundings. When the Catholic Centre Party decided to vote in favour of the Bill, the result was a foregone conclusion. Only the Social Democrats spoke against it, and it passed by 441 votes to 94 (all Social Democrats). The Nazi aim of killing off parliamentary democracy had been achieved, and by means that could in no way be called ‘legal’. The Papen/Schleicher/Hindenburg plan to control Hitler had failed completely, and Ludendorff’s prophecy was beginning to become reality.

  (b) Gleichschaltung

  Having effectively muzzled the Reichstag, Hitler immediately set about sidelining the Chancellery and the ministries. This was achie
ved by a policy known as Gleichschaltung (forcible co-ordination), which turned Germany into a totalitarian or fascist state. The government tried to control as many aspects of life as possible, using a huge police force and the notorious State Secret Police, the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei). It became dangerous to oppose or criticize the government in any way. The main features of the Nazi totalitarian state were:

  Illustration 14.2 Jewish people being taken to a concentration camp

  All political parties except the National Socialists were banned, so that Germany became a one-party state like Italy and the USSR. The Catholic Centre Party actually dissolved itself a week before the official ban was introduced!

  The separate state parliaments (Länder) still existed but lost all power. Most of their functions were taken over by a Nazi Special Commissioner, appointed in each state by the Berlin government, who had complete power over all officials and affairs within his state. There were no more state, provincial or municipal elections.

  The civil service was purged: all Jews and other suspected ‘enemies of the state’ were removed, so that it became fully reliable.

  Trade unions, a likely source of resistance, were abolished, their funds confiscated and their leaders arrested. They were replaced by the German Labour Front, to which all workers had to belong. The government dealt with all grievances, and strikes were not allowed.

  The education system was closely controlled so that children could be indoctrinated with Nazi opinions. School textbooks were often rewritten to fit in with Nazi theory, the most obvious examples being in history and biology. History was distorted to fit in with Hitler’s view that great things could only be achieved by force. Human biology was dominated by the Nazi race theory. Teachers, lecturers and professors were closely watched to make sure they did not express opinions which strayed from the party line, and many lived in fear in case they were reported to the Gestapo by children of convinced Nazis.

  The system was supplemented by the Hitler Youth, which all boys had to join at 14; girls joined the League of German Maidens. The regime was deliberately trying to destroy traditional bonds such as loyalty to the family: children were taught that their first duty was to obey Hitler, who took on the title Führer (leader, or guide). The favourite slogan was ‘the Führer is always right’. Children were even encouraged to betray their parents to the Gestapo, and many did so. These youth organizations worked on the assumption that the Nazi regime would remain in power for many generations; there was much talk of ‘the thousand-year Reich’. This is why the present generation of young people had to be thoroughly indoctrinated to provide a firm foundation for the regime. The vital element was: they must become steeped in militaristic values. In a speech in Nuremberg in September 1935, Hitler told the crowd: ‘What we look for from our German youth is different from what people wanted in the past. In our eyes, the German youth of the future must be slim and slender, swift as the greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. We must educate a new type of man so that our people are not ruined by the symptoms of degeneracy of our day.’

  There was a special policy concerned with the family. The Nazis were worried that the birth rate was declining, and therefore ‘racially pure’ and healthy families were encouraged to have more children. Family planning centres were closed down and contraceptives banned. Mothers who responded well were awarded medals – the Cross of Honour of the German Mother; a mother of eight children gained a gold medal, six children a silver medal, and four children a bronze medal. On the other hand, people who were considered ‘undesirable’ were discouraged from having children. These included Jews, gypsies, and people deemed to be physically or mentally unfit. In 1935, marriages between Aryans and Jews were forbidden; over 300 000 people who were designated as ‘unfit’ were forcibly sterilized to prevent them having children.

  All communications and the media were controlled by the minister of propaganda, Dr Joseph Goebbels. Leni Riefenstahl, a brilliant young film director, was invited personally by Hitler to work for the Nazis; she made an impressive film of the 1934 Nuremberg party rally. Using 30 cameras and a crew of 120, she produced a documentary the like of which had never been seen before. When it was released in March 1935 under the title Triumph of the Will, it was widely acclaimed; it even won a gold medal at the Venice Film Festival in 1935. But it was more than an ordinary documentary. In the words of Richard J. Evans, the ‘will’ in question was ‘not only that of the German people, but also and above all, the will of Hitler, whom her cameras almost invariably portrayed standing alone. … In the final stages of the film the screen was filled with columns of marching stormtroopers, and black-shirted, steel-helmeted SS men, leaving audiences no room for doubt. It was a propaganda film designed to convince Germany and the world of the power, strength and determination of the German people under Hitler’s leadership.’ No further films were made about Hitler himself – Triumph of the Will had said it all. However, the state gradually increased its control over the cinema so that only feature films approved by the regime could be shown. Radio, newspapers, magazines, books, theatre, music and art were all supervised. The government made cheap radios available so that by 1939 over 70 per cent of German households owned a ‘wireless’ set. But as John Traynor puts it: ‘While people may have appreciated the material benefit this represented, we cannot know for certain what they came to think of the relentless message that poured constantly from their radio set.’ A national book-burning day was held on 10 May 1933 when thousands of books by Jewish, socialist and other ‘suspect’ writers were publicly burned on huge bonfires in Germany’s university cities. By the end of 1934 about 4000 books were on the forbidden list because they were ‘un-German’. It was impossible to perform the plays of Bertolt Brecht (a communist) or the music of Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler (they were Jewish). American jazz was popular with young people, but Hitler hated it and tried to exclude it from Germany. But it was so widespread in nightclubs and dance halls that it proved impossible to eliminate it completely.

  Hitler had a special interest in art, having once tried to make a career as an artist. He was soon announcing that it was time for a new type of art – German art. The idea that art was international must be rejected out of hand because it was decadent and Jewish. A wide variety of artists was condemned and their works removed from galleries. They included Jewish, abstract, left-wing, modernist and all foreign artists, whatever their style. Hitler even condemned the French impressionists simply because they were not German. On 20 March 1939 about 5000 condemned paintings and drawings were burnt on a massive bonfire outside the central fire station in Berlin. Artists, writers and scholars were continually harassed until it became pointless to produce any artwork that did not win the approval of the regime, and it was impossible to express any opinion which did not fit in with the Nazi system. By these methods public opinion could be moulded and mass support assured, or so the Nazis hoped.

  The economic life of the country was closely organized. Although the Nazis (unlike the communists) had no special ideas about the economy, they did have some basic aims: to eliminate unemployment and to make Germany self-sufficient by boosting exports and reducing imports, a policy known as ‘autarky’. The idea was to put the economy onto a war footing, so that all the materials necessary for waging war could be produced, as far as possible, in Germany itself. This would ensure that Germany would never again be hamstrung by a trade blockade like the one imposed by the Allies during the First World War. The centrepiece of the policy was the Four-Year Plan introduced in 1936 under the direction of Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe (the German air force). Policies included: telling industrialists what to produce, depending on what the country needed at that moment; and closing factories down if their products were not required;

  moving workers around the country to places where jobs existed and labour was needed;

  encouraging farmers to increase agricultural yields;

  controlling food prices and r
ents;

  manipulating foreign exchange rates to avoid inflation;

  introducing vast schemes of public works – slum clearance, land drainage and autobahn (motorway) building;

  forcing foreign countries to buy German goods, either by refusing to pay cash for goods bought from those countries, so that they had to accept German goods instead (often armaments), or by refusing permission to foreigners with bank accounts in Germany to withdraw their cash, so that they had to spend it in Germany on German goods;