Becoming Hitler
Page 41
• Michael Keogh papers, in private hands
• Robert Löwensohn papers, in private hands
• Paul Oestreicher papers, in private hands
Notes
Prelude
1. Crick, Federation, 329, 332. Another National Socialist candidate, D. D. Irving, was voted into Parliament in Burnley with the support of the Labour Party.
2. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 38ff.; Fest, Hitler, 169.
3. For the claim that National Socialism was a product of the First World War, see, for example, Herbert, “Nationalsozialisten,” 21.
4. Weber, HFW.
5. Hitler, Aufzeichnungen, 69, Hitler to Ernst Hepp, February 5, 1915. Ian Kershaw takes Hitler’s own claims as evidence of his growing rejection of Social Democracy; see, for example, Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, chap. 3, and pages 119–120. See also Ullrich, Hitler, loc. 1454, and Longerich, Hitler, 52.
6. Weber, HFW; Weber, “Erfahrungen,” 211; Simms, “Enemies,” 327.
7.Weber, HFW.
8. See, for example, Ullrich, Hitler; Plöckinger, Soldaten; Longerich, Hitler.
9. Weber, HFW, chaps. 1–9; Weber, “Binnenperspektive”; see also Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 251–252; Ziemann, Front.
10. See, for example, Heinrich August Winkler’s various writings on modern Germany as well as on the history of the West for a view of history that views everything through the lens of the spirit of 1776 and 1789. Tellingly, works on Bavarian and German history tend to refer to “the transition from monarchy to democracy”—see, for example, Wanninger, Buttmann, 61—as if monarchy and democracy were mutually exclusive concepts.
Due to the speed with which the monarchy fell in Bavaria and elsewhere in Germany, the near consensus that has emerged on the sudden disappearance of the German monarchies is that their legitimacy had been fatally undermined by the second half of 1918. It tends to be believed that this collapse in legitimacy made the demise of Germany’s monarchies and the onset of revolution all but inevitable. The reason for this dramatic erosion in legitimacy is said to lie in the inner contradictions of the old order and the impact of war. Political radicalization and a change in political mentalities, which provided the soil on which Hitler’s radicalization and eventual rise could flourish, thus tend to be presented as the origin, rather than the consequence, of the revolution. See, for example, Gallus, “Revolutions”; Grau, “Revolution”; Köglmeier, Ende, 183–184; Ullrich, Revolution, 12; Wirsching, Weimarer Republik, 1; Lutz, German Revolution, 36; Korzetz, Freikorps, 9; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 110–111; Ullrich, Hitler, loc. 1698; Machtan, Abdankung; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 179. Heusler, Braune Haus, 50, and Large, Ghosts, meanwhile, see the prewar period, rather than the revolutionary period, as having created the soil on which National Socialism could flourish.For the spirit of 1783, see Jasanoff, Exiles, “Introduction: The Spirit of 1783.”
11. Pohl, Arbeiterbewegung, 509–524; Jansen, Vollmar; Weber, HFW, 237–238; Weiss, Rupprecht; Bußmann, Therese, 254.
12.See, for example, Longerich, Hitler; Ullrich, Hitler; Plöckinger, Soldaten; Hockerts, “München,” 391.
13. Hitler, MK, 266.
14. Ibid., 268–269.
15. Krumeich, “Hitler,” 31.
16. Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. “Bildungsroman,” https://www.britannica.com/art/bildungsroman, accessed June 15, 2016.
Chapter 1: Coup d’État
1. For Hitler’s stop in Berlin, see Kellerhoff, Berlin, 20.
2. Hitler, MK, 731.
3. BHStA/IV, RD6/Bd. 72,4, decree, 21320, November 21, 1918.
4. Weber, HFW, chaps. 1–10; Zdral, Hitlers, passim.
5. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 178; Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 82, 139.
6. This is not to question the preexistence of stumbling blocks to democracy from before the war that continued to stand in the way of successful democratic transition in the rest of Germany; see Ziblatt, Conservative Parties.
7. For Bavarian Social Democracy, see Jansen, Vollmar; Lohmeier, Knecht; and Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 112.
8. Höller, Anfang, 45; Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 248–259; Straus, Erinnerungen, 223–224.
9. Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 242–265.
10. FLPP, diary, November 7, 1918; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 180–181.
11. Quoted in Schwarzenbach, Geborene, 157.
12. Straus, Erinnerungen, 223–224.
13. BHStA/V, NL Schmitt, No. 7, telegram, Pressebüro des Arbeiter-u. Soldaten-u. Bauernrats to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, without date (quote); Straus, Erinnerungen, 224; Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 259.For claims that the revolution was a popular movement headed by Eisner, see, for example, Höller, Anfang, 57; Machtan, Abdankung, 252–253; Neitzel, Weltkrieg, 155–156; Ullrich, Revolution, 32.
14. Höller, Anfang, 50; Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 244, 264.
15. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 33 (quote).
16. Ibid., 73; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 349n558.
17. BHStA/IV, KSR 4421/204l, 4470/7111; Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 48, 57 (quote).
18. Klemperer, Revolutionstagebuch, loc. 368 (first quote); Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 54; Braun/Hettinger, Expertenheft, 50 (second quote).
19. FLPP, diary, November 9 and 11, 1918, and February 22, 1919 (quote); Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 73.
20. ÖSNPA, Liasse Bayern 447, Kurt Eisner to Otto Bauer, January 4, 1919; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 185; Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt, Jahrbuch, 108.
21. Hitler, Monologe, 79 (quote); Joachimsthaler, Weg, 193.
22. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 88.
23. Straus, Erinnerungen, 225.
24. Schwarzenbach, Geborene, 158 (first quote); Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 31, 74, 88 (second quote).
25. BHStA/IV, KSR, 3071/918, 4424/157, 7823/64; Weber, HFW, 137–169, 202–254; Machtan, Hitler, passim.
26. Letters, Schmidt to Werner Maser, August 1964 and 1965; see Maser, Legende, 152–153.
27. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 186–188; Bundesarchiv, NL Wiedemann, 8, Max Unhold to Fritz Wiedemann, August 18, 1938. The frequent claim (see, for example, Ullrich, Hitler, loc. 1688; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 186) that Hitler reconnected with some or most of his wartime peers in his demobilization unit is thus incorrect; see BHStA/IV, RIR16/Bd.2/diary, December 9–15, 1918.
28. SAT, Dokumentationen/73, Schlager, “Bericht,” 1964 account by Josef Binder, Josef Schlager, and Oswald Schlager; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 188.
29. Hitler, MK, 277 (first quote); Heinz, Hitler, 89 (second quote). Hitler’s and Schmidt’s claims were accepted, for instance, by Fest, Hitler, 122; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 110, 116ff.; and Plöckinger, Soldaten, 35. The claims are highly implausible for one simple reason: Hitler’s transfer greatly diminished the chance of a quick reunion with his wartime peers. Throughout the war, he had done everything to stay with them. Why would he not have waited for them for another few days, preferring to serve the revolution elsewhere?
30. Evers, Traunstein, 43.
31. BHStA/V, NL Schmitt/5, report November 21, 1918; Evers, Traunstein, 12; SAT, Dokumentationen/Dok 73, Schlager, “Bericht”; GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 38–39.
32. SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein”; Haselbeck, “Gefangenenlager”; and information gathered during visit to Traunstein and its Stadtmuseum, summer 2011.
33. On Hitler’s task in the camp, see testimony of locals, such as SAT, Dokumentationen/73, Schlager, “Bericht.” For the take of Nazi propaganda on the matter, see Heinz, Hitler, 90.
34. SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 18–66. Claims that Hitler served in an overcrowded camp or in one for British POWs (see Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 116; Bullock, Hitler, 55) are incorrect.
35. SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 18–66; Hetzer, “Revolution,” 22; Sergeev, “Kriegsgefangenschaft.”
36. SAT, Traunsteiner Wochenblatt, January 6, 1919, 1, “Die Kriegerehrung in Traunstein.”
37. See, for example, SAT, Oberbayerische Landeszeitung–Traunsteiner Nachrichten, articles on “Zur Friedensfrage”
from December 11, 20, and 31, 1918.
38. SAT, Traunsteiner Wochenblatt, January 6, 1919, 1, “Die Kriegerehrung in Traunstein.” On Schlager, see Evers, Traunstein, 31ff.; GL/646, Schlager, Sepp, “A’kleinbisserl Traunstein um die Jahrhundertwende,” 3. For the allegedly overly harsh treatment of internees, see also SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 28ff.
39. BHStA/V, NL Lehmann/8.2, Melanie Lehmann’s diary, January 6, 1919.
40. See, for example, Rilke, 1914 bis 1921, 213ff., Rilke to Dorothea von Ledebur, December 19, 1918; Rilke, Mutter, 423–424, Rilke to his mother, December 15, 1918.
41. Ibid.
42. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 55.
43. BHStA/V, NL Grassmann/2.1, transcript of Ministerrat meeting, November 15, 1918 (quote); Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 242–265; Bauer/Piper, München, 250; Weber, HFW, 237–238; Weiss, Rupprecht. See also März, Haus Wittelsbach.
44. Others argue that that phase lasted from 1916 or 1917 to 1923; see, for example, Weinhauer et al., Introduction, 14–15; Gallus, “Revolutions”; also Geyer, “Nachkrieg.”
45. Pyta, “Kunst”; Heimann, Czechoslovakia, 24.
46. Reuth, Judenhass, 53; BHStA/V, NL Lehmann, No. 8.2, Melanie Lehmann, diary, entry for November 11, 1918 (quote); Hirschfeld/Krumeich, Deutschland, 259.
47. Rilke, Briefe, ii (1950 edition), 109ff., Rilke to his wife, November 7, 1918; Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 245–252; Kraus, Geschichte, 627; Bauer/Piper, München, 249; Friedlaender, Lebenserinnerungen, section xii, 1.
48. On Eisner, see Grau, Eisner; Piper, Rosenberg, 30.
49. BHStA/IV, HS/928, recollections of the revolution; Forster, “Wirken,” 501 (first quote); see also Volk, “Lebensbild”; EAMF, NLF/4103, document on the diocese’s response to the revolution, undated (second quote); Beckenbauer, Ludwig, 242–265; Düren, Minister.
50. Piper, Rosenberg, 31; Pohl, Arbeiterbewegung, 509–524.
51. Weber, HFW, 235.
52. See, for example, Münkler, Krieg, 797. The term seminal catastrophe was coined by American diplomat George F. Kennan, yet is most popular in its German translation. As of May 12, 2014, a Google News search identified more than six hundred current news reports about the First World War as the twentieth century’s “Urkatastrophe.”
53. SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 65. Weber’s report is from 1924. For erroneous claims that Weber referred to Hitler, see, for example, Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 117; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 35.
54. SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 57–62; Hitler, MK, 277 (quote).
55. BHStA/IV, KSR 4421/204l and 4470/7111; Evers, Traunstein, 142; SAT, GL/481, Weber, “Traunstein,” 61–66. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 36, misdates Hitler’s return to Munich due to his assumption that Hitler had been among the ill-disciplined guards returned to Munich in late December.
Chapter 2: A Cog in the Machine of Socialism
1. Rilke, Briefe, ii, 125–126, Rilke to Caroline Schenk von Stauffenberg, February 15, 1919.
2. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 54 (first quote); Straus, Erinnerungen, 225–226 (second quote).
3. Report by Captain Somerville and Captain Broad, quoted in White, “Perceptions,” 4. The original of the report is located at TNA, FO/608/131.
4. See Ignatieff, Fire, 170–171.
5. BHStA/V, NL Grassmann/2.1, transcript, Ministerrat meeting of December 5, 1918, Klemperer, Revolutionstagebuch, loc. 607.
6. Klemperer, Revolutionstagebuch, loc. 154.
7. BHStA/V, NL Grassmann, 2/1, transcripts, Ministerrat meetings of November 14, 21, and 27, 1918 (quote from November 27).
8. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 99 (first quote), 126 (fourth quote); BHStA/V, NL Schmitt/5, report, “Versammlung der Münchener Kommunisten am 21. November 1918” (second quote); Münchener Tagblatt, January 3, 1919, quoted in Forster, “Wirken,” 503 (third quote).
9. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 98 (first quote), 105, 132 (second quote).
10. For radicalism in Berlin and Bremen, see, for example, Neitzel, Weltkrieg, 165. For claims that the challenge had come from the right, see Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 66, and Pätzold/Weißbecker, Hitler, 52.
11. Höller, Anfang, 135ff.; Hillmayr, Terror, 29ff.; Gilbhard, Thule, 75–80; IFZ, ZS50, Unterredung mit Georg Grassinger, December 19, 1951.
12. BHStA/V, NL Lehmann, 8.2, diary, Melanie Lehmann, entry for January 6, 1919; BHStA/V, NL Buttmann/123, Bürgerwehr.
13. Hillmayr, Terror, 33–34.
14. See Joachimsthaler, Weg, 192, 194.
15. Latzin, “Lotter Putsch”; Hillmayr, Terror, 34; Höller, Anfang, 145; EPE, Pacelli to Pietro Gasparri, February 23, 1919, http://www.pacelli-edition.de/Dokument/317.
16. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 195ff. There is a high likelihood that Hitler served at Munich Central Station, as it had been decreed that only “older, experienced a[nd] conscientious guards and men” of his unit—in other words, men like Hitler—were to be deployed at the railway station; see the decree of the Demobilization Battalion, Second Infantry Regiment, February 19, 1919, quoted in Joachimsthaler, Weg, 195. A photo that survives in the collections both of the Bilderdienst of the Süddeutscher Verlag as well as in the Heinrich Hoffmann collection in the Bavarian State Library (see Image 4) depicts eight men, seven of whom are wearing uniforms, inside an office. Both collections identify the man standing in the back, in the middle, as Adolf Hitler, and state that the photo was taken at the HQ of the guard unit of Munich’s central station; see Plöckinger, Soldaten, 39–40; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 195–196. As neither collection still holds information as to how Hitler was identified, it is impossible to ascertain with 100 percent certainty the identity of the men and the location at which the photo had been taken. This has led Othmar Plöckinger to conclude that Hitler is not depicted in the photo; see Plöckinger, Soldaten, 40. I have laid out in detail elsewhere why I do not think that Plöckinger’s claim adds up; see Weber, Wie Adolf Hitler, 441–442.
17. Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 167.
18. Interview with Cordula von Godin, December 2013, and e-mail to the author, February 9, 2016.In 1933, Rudolf von Sebottendorf, the chairman of the Thule Society, would claim that Arco had assassinated Eisner to prove himself to the Thule Society after being turned down by the society due to his Jewish heritage; see Höller, Anfang, 82–83; Gilbhard, Thule, 84–85, 177n236; and Richardi, Hitler, 34. The obvious problem with Sebottendorf’s claim is that it is difficult to see how Sebottendorf would have known what the intentions of Arco in killing Eisner were.
19. Large, Ghosts, 90, 104 (quote); Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 169.
20. For claims that Eisner’s assassination was the root cause of Bavaria’s subsequent radicalization, see, for example, Ullrich, Hitler, loc. 1740; Grau, Eisner, 9; Large, Ghosts, 103.
21. EPE, doc. 315, Pacelli to Pietro Gasparri, February 3, 1919, http://www.pacelli-edition.de/Dokument/315.
22. BHStA/IV, NL Adalbert von Bayern, diary, February 16, 1919 (quote); EPE, doc. 316, Pacelli to Gasparri, February 17, 1919, http://www.pacelli-edition.de/Dokument/316; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 195.
23. EPE, doc. 316, Pacelli to Gasparri, February 17, 1919, http://www.pacelli-edition.de/Dokument/316.
24. Kraus, Geschichte, 632 (first quote) BHStA/V, NL Grassmann/2.1, transcript, Ministerrat meeting, December 5, 1918 (subsequent quotes).
25. See, for example, Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 159–160.
26. BHStA/IV, NL Adalbert von Bayern, diary, February 22–25, 1919; Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 152 (quote), 161; FLPP, diary, February 23 and 24, 1919; EPE, Eugenio Pacelli to Pietro Gasparri, February 23, 1919, http://www.pacelli-edition.de/Dokument/317.
27. Rätsch-Langejürgen, Widerstand.
28. FLPP, diary, February 26, 1919; Grau, “Beisetzung.”
29. FLPP, diary, February 26, 1919 (quote); Hofmiller, Revolutionstagebuch, 165–166.
30. BSB, Bildarchiv, Heinrich Hoffmann Collection/1111a. I am grateful to Angelika Betz of the Staatsbibliothek for information provided
about how the photo came into the library’s possession. There is also film footage that purports to depict Hitler attending the funeral march; see Knopp and Remy, Hitler, Episode 1; Reuth, Judenhass, 82. However, it is impossible to tell with any degree of certainty whether Hitler really is depicted in the film. Nevertheless, Heinrich Hoffmann Jr. confirmed to Gerd Heidemann in the early 1980s that Hitler was depicted in the photo; see interview with Gerd Heidemann, August 2016. See also Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Mühlen, 56.
Reuth, Judenhass, 82, and Pyta, Hitler, 133, for instance, argue that Hitler is in the photo, whereas Plöckinger, Soldaten, 42–43, dismisses the claim. Those who are dead certain that Heinrich Hoffmann’s photo does not depict Hitler have yet to account for the fact that Hitler felt an urge to lie about his departure date from Traunstein, moving it back well past the time of Eisner’s assassination. Plöckinger argues that the photo had already been published in 1934, which he thinks would have been impossible had Hitler been in the photo. Further, he tries to dismiss the possibility by arguing that sometimes historians have claimed that Hitler participated in the funeral procession while accompanying Russian POWs, whereas other historians have claimed that he was there as a representative of his unit. There is no way of knowing whether by 1934 Hoffmann himself already had realized that Hitler was among the soldiers in his photo. Furthermore, the fact that historians disagree as to why Hitler purportedly had attended the funeral neither contradicts nor confirms the claim that Hitler was in the photo. Moreover, Hoffmann himself claimed in 1937 to be in possession of incriminating information on Hitler; see Ulrich von Hassell’s diary, entry for July 13, 1937, Hassell, Römische Tagebücher, 205. Hoffmann made the claim to Elsa and Hugo Bruckmann.
31. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 42ff.
32. Reuth, Judenhass, 83.
33. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 198–199, argues that the election had most likely already taken place shortly after Josef Seihs—who according to Joachimsthaler had been Hitler’s predecessor as Vertrauensmann of the Second Demobilization Company—had been elected Bataillons-Rat (battalion councilor) of the demobilization battalion on February 15, 1919. Othmar Plöckinger, in Soldaten, 42ff., states that the Vertrauensmann position was only established in late March and that the election took place in early April. Plöckinger claims that Hitler was only elected as a temporary fill-in as a Vertrauensmann, as the people initially picked had to attend a different meeting. This latter argument appears to be only speculation, as it seems unlikely that an election would be called only to elect a temporary fill-in as a Vertrauensmann. Surely, if Plöckinger was correct about the timetable clash, one of the meetings would have been rescheduled rather than the company’s going through the trouble to elect a temporary fill-in.