Becoming Hitler
Page 45
17. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964; Richardi, Hitler, 249–259; Hanfstaengl, Unknown Hitler, 51.
18. Phelps, “Rede,” 392; SAM, PDM/Nr. 6697, police report of DAP meeting of April 6, 1920.
19. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 25, 1964; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 273–274; Phelps, “Rede,” 392–393.
20. Phelps, “Rede,” 390–395, 400, 404.
21. Ibid., all quotes on pages 400–420.
22. Hitler, Monologe, 51.
23. Piper, Rosenberg, 49, suggests that Hitler’s speech targeted Judeo-Bolshevism, but the evidence he provides in support of the claim is a quote by Alfred Rosenberg from 1922 that is unrelated to Hitler’s speech of August 13, 1920.
24. Phelps, “Rede,” 418–420.
25. Quoted in Riecker, November, 109. For another biologized reference to the supposedly harmful influence of Jews from 1920, made in private, see Ullrich, Hitler, position 2377.
26. Quoted in Riecker, November, 110.
27. For instance, in his Foundation of the 19th Century, Houston Stewart Chamberlain had already emphasized the need for an “excretion” (Ausscheidung) of the “Jewish miasma” (jüdischer Krankheitsstoff) from the German people at a time when Hitler had still been playing “cowboys and Indians” in the Austrian countryside; see Riecker, November, 111.
28. On anti-Semitism as the longest-standing hatred in the world, see Wistrich, Hatred.
29. Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism. See also Klaus Holz’s argument that anti-Semitism provides a tool with which to make sense of society and to define collective as well as individual identities; see Holz, Antisemitismus, 362.
30. Confino, World.
31. See, for example, Hitler, MK, 395.
32. Chamberlain, Grundlagen.
33. Bermbach, Chamberlain, 114–115, 207–209; Martynkewicz, Salon, 16, 54–58. Bermbach states that while it is impossible to verify Wiesner’s origins beyond any doubt, it was accepted at the time that Wiesner was of Jewish heritage. In a letter dated December 26, 1907, Chamberlain had also stated that he found “professional interactions with honest and skilled Jews particularly pleasant”; see Bermbach, Chamberlain, 293.
34. Quoted in Martynkewicz, Salon, 56–57. See also Friedländer, Persecution, 89–90.
35. Engelman, “Eckart,” 64.
36. Bermbach, Chamberlain, 66; Martynkewicz, Salon, 54–58 (quote, 56).
37. Bohnenkamp, Hofmannsthal, 550n2, 552n2.
38. Quoted in ibid., 551n7.
39. Hanna Wolfskehl to Albert and Kitty Verwey, August 1913, in Nijland-Verwey, Wolfskehl, 116–117 (quote); Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Wolfskehl, 228ff.; Voit, Wolfskehl, 36–37, 606n78; Pieger, “Wolfskehl,” 57–61.
40. Hassell, Hassell-Tagebücher, 64.
41. Bohnenkamp, Hofmannsthal, 452n17; Bernstein, Leben, 58.
42. For a similar argument, see Holz, Antisemitismus, 422.
43. SAM, PDM/6697, police report, dated January 9, 1920.
44. Phelps, “Rede,” 406.
45. Hitler, Monologe, 148.
46. Sigmund, Freund, 9, 29, 227–229, 234–237, 245–257.
47. Pyta, Hitler, 109; Sigmund, Freund, 263.
48. See, for example, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, NL Wiedemann, Fritz Wiedemann to Hans Thomsen, September 28, 1939.
49. Heß, Heß, Briefe, 334–335 (quote); RPR-TP, “Haushofer, Karl,” document OI-FIR/3, in response to the Special Interrogation Brief on Haushofer, 1945; Kallenbach, Landsberg, 66.
50. Zdral, Hitlers, 167–168; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 62–63.Austrian and American papers had claimed in 1933 that Hitler’s mother descended from Bohemian Jews; see Zdral, Hitlers, 168.
Chapter 8: Genius
1. Quoted in Joachimsthaler, Weg, 226, 254–255.
2. According to a competing explanation, the resentment Mayr felt toward the separatist tendencies of the Bavarian government as well as of many Bavarian officers may have driven him into deciding that it was time to move on; see Ziemann, Commemorations, 217.
3. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 154, 174.
4. BHStA/IV, Op 7539, Mayr’s Offiziersakte, Dehn to Otto Geßler, March 25, 1920.
5. Ibid., Dehn to Otto Geßler, March 25, 1920.
6. BHStA/IV, KSR 3038/148, 3039/130, 4474/490, 21997/8; Dawson, “Dehn”; Weber, HFW, 262, 278, 305; Bundesarchiv Koblenz, NL Wiedemann, 6, Dehn to Fritz Wiedemann, October 29, 1939, and Wiedemann to Hans Thomsen, September 28, 1939.
7. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 226, 254–255.
8. IFZ, ED561/1, Hermann Esser interview, February 24, 1924 (quote); Ziemann, Commemorations, 217; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 226.
9. Ziemann, Commemorations, 217.
10. Ibid., 89, 158–160, 215–221; IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1924 (quotes).
11. BHStA/IV, Op 7539, Mayr’s Offiziersakte; Ziemann, Commemorations, 215–221; Ziemann, “Wanderer”; Adreßbuchgesellschaft Ruf, Addreßbuch 1957, s.v. “Mayr, Stephanie.”
12. Lange, Genies, 30–43; Bermbach, Chamberlain, 111; Köhne, “Cult”; McMahon, “Evil,” 172–180 (quote, 173); McMahon, Fury, chap. 6.
13. Lange, Genies; Martynkewicz, Salon, 99, 105; Pyta, Hitler, part 1.
14. Engelman, “Eckart,” 62–66; Köhne, “Cult,” 117–118, 127–128; McMahon, Fury, 198–199.
15. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 278 (first quote); Pyta, Hitler, 246 (second quote). Hitler also discussed “genius” in an article for the Völkischer Beobachter on January 1, 1921; see Hitler, Aufzeichnungen, 279–282.
16. For Chamberlain’s concept of “pure race,” see Martynkewicz, Salon, 55.
17. Martynkewicz, Salon, 103; Roosevelt, History, chap. 8.
18. Ibid., part 1. See in particular pages 100–105. Pyta argues that Wagner had defined Jews as belonging to a religious group with certain cultural and economic features which people could and did leave behind, whereas for Hitler being Jewish was a racial category, as a result of which a Jew always was a Jew. Whether Pyta’s perception of a dichotomy between Wagner’s and Hitler’s anti-Semitism is on the mark depends on whether Hitler really meant his early racial, biologized, all-or-nothing anti-Semitic statements literally.
19. Ibid., chap. 7.
20. Bouhler, Werden, 19; Richardi, Hitler, 112 (quote).
21. Heiden, Fuehrer, 34 (first quote); NARA, RG263/3, OSS Report, December 1942, 14; RPR-TP, 46-Ilse Heß, Heß-Toland interview, April 4, 1971.
22. Deuerlein, Hitler, 44–45.
23. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 27–84.
24. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964; Hitler, Monologe, 175, 209, monologue of January 4 and 16/17, 1942; Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 274–275; Müller, Wandel, 132; Ludecke, Hitler, 95 (first quote); RPR-TP, 46-Ilse Heß, Heß-Toland interview, April 21, 1971.
25. NARA, RG263/3, OSS Report, December 1942, 15.
26. Heiden, Fuehrer, 90.
27. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964.
28. Ibid.
29. For the role of history as a driver in statecraft, see Ferguson, “Meaning.”
30. For his portraits of Bismarck and Frederick the Great, see Fest, Hitler, 374; for Cromwell, see NARA, RG263/3, OSS Report, December 1942, 46.
31. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 283.
32. For claims to the contrary, see, for example, Rauschning, Nihilism; Snyder, Black Earth, 1–10; Kershaw, “Vorwort,” 8; Bullock, Hitler.
33. Schivelbusch, Culture, 213. In his speeches, Hitler seems only once—on January 11, 1923—to have referred to a “stab in the back”; see Hitler, Aufzeichnungen, 781, 783.
34. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 278–286.
35. Kellerhoff, Berlin, 22.
36. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 27–86; SAM, PDM/6697, police reports about DAP meetings, dated January 9 (second quote) and March 4 (first quote), 1920.
37. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 284; Mook, “Nazis,” 26.
38. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 25, 1964; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 272. See also Maser,
Briefe, 110–113, which reproduces four of Hitler’s postcards to the Lauböcks.
39. Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 279–284; Hänisch, NSDAP-Wähler, 69; Pyta, Hitler, 116–117.
40. RPR-TP, “Giesler, Hermann,” transcript, interview, John Toland with Giesler, October 5, 1971.
41. Interrogation of Paula Hitler, May 26, 1945, quoted in Zdral, Hitlers, 198. See also Läpple, Hitler, 99, who misdated Hitler’s visit to Vienna.
42. Interrogation of Paula Hitler, May 26, 1945, quoted in Zdral, Hitlers, 198.
43. Zdral, Hitlers, 211 (quote); Joachimsthaler, List, 273.
44. Gefangenen-Personalakt Nr. 45, Schutzhaftanstalt Landsberg am Lech, quoted in Fleischmann, Hitler, 83.
45. Zdral, Hitlers, 140.
46. NARA, RG263/3, OSS Report, December 1942, 15.
47. SAM, PDM, Nr. 6697, police report of DAP meeting of April 27, 1920.
48. On sectarian politics and compromise, see Margalit, Compromise.
49. Zdral, Hitlers, 136; Läpple, Hitler, passim; see in particular page 238.
50. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, chap. 6.
51. For a claim to the contrary, see Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 161–170.
Chapter 9: Hitler’s Pivot to the East
1. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 280.
2. Hoser, “Beobachter.”
3. Piper, Rosenberg, 80.
4. BHStA/IV, KSR 20178/20d; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 280, 371n867; Gilbhard, Thule, 142–143.
5. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 280. According to other reports, the money for the loan had not come from the Reichswehr but from Epp himself; see IFZ, ED561/1, Hermann Esser interview, February 25, 1924.
6. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 280–281.
7. Reck, Diary, 17–18; IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964.
8. The claim that Thule members and Eckart in particular had opened the doors to bourgeois circles and/or to the upper classes in Munich (see Richardi, Hitler, 124; Mook, “Nazis,” 24; and Heusler, Haus, 80ff.) is not supported by the facts.
9. SBA, NL Heß, Heß to Milly Kleinmann, July 3, 1921; Joachimsthaler, Liste, 213, 222; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 281; Gilbhard, Thule, 142–143.
10. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interviews, February 24 and 25, 1964; ZS29/1, Befragungsprotokoll, Adolf Dresler, June 6, 1951; ZS 33/1, Gedächtnisprotokoll, Maria Enders, December 11, 1951; ZS89/2, “Mein Lebenslauf,” n.d.; BHStA/V, NL Lehmann/4.5, Fragebogen für die ersten Mitglieder der NSDAP (DAP), Lehmann, Julius Friedrich.
11. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964; Longerich, Hitler, 78; Hitler, Monologe, 208, Hitler’s monologue of January 16/17, 1942; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 281.
12. Joachimsthaler, List, 63ff., 68 (quote). According to Pätzold/Weißbecker, Hitler, 63, Eckart already introduced Hitler to the Bechsteins on their trip to Berlin during the Kapp Putsch, which seems unlikely, given the fleeting and chaotic character of their trip.
13. Hoffmann, Hitler-Bild; Bauer, Hauptstadt, 123; Joachimsthaler, List, 241ff.
14. Ihrig, Atatürk, 71–72.
15. Ibid., chap. 1; Erickson, Ordered, 98ff.; Gust, “Armenier”; Kieser/Bloxham, “Genocide”; Naimark, Fires, 12, 186.
16. Ihrig, Atatürk, 71.
17. Trumpener, Germany, 209.
18. Leverkuehn, Officer; Piper, Rosenberg, 61–62; Kellogg, Roots, 41–42, 80–84, 106.
19. Kellogg, Roots, 81, 109–124, 129.
20. Ibid., 124.
21. SAM, PDM/Nr. 6697, police report of DAP meeting of April 27, 1920 (first quote); Reuth, Judenhass, 144 (second quote); Phelps, “Parteiredner,” 280 (third quote).
22. Quoted in Ludecke, Hitler, 82.
23. RPR-TP, 45-Hanfstaengl-1, “Helen Niemeyer’s ‘Notes,’ 1939/1940” (first quote); and Toland–Niemeyer interview, October 19, 1971; Ludecke, Hitler, 86, 90 (subsequent quotes).
24. Piper, Rosenberg, chap. 1.
25. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 25, 1964.
26. Piper, Rosenberg, 34, 45.
27. RPR-TP, 45-Hanfstaengl-1, “Helen Niemeyer’s ‘Notes,’ 1939/1940”; RPR-TP, 45-Hanfstaengl-3, Toland-Hanfstaengl interview, November 4, 1970 (quote).
28. Quoted in Kellogg, Roots, 223 (quote). The publication date provided by Kellogg is incorrect; Piper, Rosenberg, 29, 64–75.
29. Kellogg, Roots, 223 (first quote); Piper, Rosenberg, 64–75 (second quote, 73).
30. See Töppel, “Volk,” 31.
31. Kellogg, Roots, 224; Koenen, Russland-Komplex, 265–266; Meyer zu Uptrup, Kampf, 90–136, 205ff.; Schröder, “Entstehung”; Piper, Rosenberg, 63–65.
32. Kellogg, Roots, 138–139 (quote, 139).
33. Kellogg, Roots, 139 (quotes); Piper, Rosenberg, 34.
34. Meyer zu Uptrup, Kampf, 90–136, 205ff.; Kellogg, Roots, 49; Koenen, Russland-Komplex, 263ff.
35. Hitler, Aufzeichnungen, 282.
36. Kellogg, Roots, 109–129.
37. Ibid., 110, 129; Piper, Rosenberg, 57–62; Müller, Wandel, 127–128; Richardi, Hitler, 241.
38. SBA, NL Heß, Rudolf to Klara Heß, February 24, 1921 (first quote); letters to Milly Kleinmann, April 11, 1921 (third quote) and July 3, 1921 (second quote); Piper, Nationalsozialismus, 22ff.
39. SBA, NL Heß, Heß to Milly Kleinmann, July 3, 1921 (quote); Mook, “Nazis,” 26, 32, 52–53, 72–73, 76. Mook slightly exaggerates the degree to which the party became more middle class in 1920, as the rise in the share of members belonging to the middle class was primarily not at the expense of other classes but of those whose social status could not be established.
40. SAM, Spruchkammerakte, Grassl, Heinrich, October 28, 1877.
Chapter 10: The Bavarian Mussolini
1. Quoted in Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 138–140. See also IFZ, ED561/1, Hermann Esser interview, February 24, 1924; Plöckinger, “Texte,” 95; Franz-Willing, Hitlerbewegung, 117–118. The author of the flier probably was Ernst Ehrensperger, the number two propagandist of the party. See Joachimsthaler, Weg, 284–294.
2. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 136ff.; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 284–285.
3. See Payne, Hitler, 158; Fest, Hitler, 204.
4. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 285ff.; Ryback, Library, 47–52.
5. Ryback, Library, 47–52; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 285ff.
6. Quoted in Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 135–136.
7. Ibid., 137–138; Deuerlein, Hitler, 54; Orlow, Nazi Party, 15, 29–30.
8. Weidisch, “München,” 259.
9. See Wilson, Hitler, 30.
10. Orlow, Nazi Party, 34; Ryback, Library, 55; Weber, HFW, 259–260.
11. Broszat, “Struktur,” 59; Deuerlein, Hitler, 57; Reichardt, “SA,” 247; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 147.
12. Franz-Willing, Hitlerbewegung, 120; Plöckinger, “Texte,” 95n8.
13. Ryback, Library, 54.
14. Ibid., 28–44; Engelman, “Eckart,” 62–66.
15. Gassert/Mattern, Library, 155 (first quote); Ryback, Library, 28 (second quote).
16. LOC/RBSCD, PT2609.C48H46 1917, Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt, in freier Übertragung für die deutsche Bühne eingerichtet; mit einem Vorwort und Richtlinien von Dietrich Eckart (Munich, 2nd ed., 1917), 37.
17. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964; Piper, Rosenberg, 14; Piper, Nationalsozialismus, 14, 25; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 304 (first quote); Evers, Traunstein, 54 (second quote).
18. For instance, the Traunsteiner Wochenblatt referred to Hitler as “the Bavarian Mussolini” on November 14, 1922; see Evers, Traunstein, 49, 53–54; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 304.
19. For a view to the contrary, see Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 162ff.
20. See Ferguson, Kissinger, 559–561, 871–872.
21. Hildebrand, Reich, 575 (first quote); NARA, RG263/3, OSS Report, December 1942, 9 (second quote).
22. See Mommsen, NS-Regime.
23. For the emphasis in Saul Friedländer’s works on Hitler’s systematic definition of anti-Jewish policy in 1919 for guiding the genesis and implementation of the “Final Solution,” as well as on the tactical nature of Hitler’s e
merging anti-Jewish policies, see Friedländer, Persecution, 3ff., 72, 104, 144; Friedländer, Extermination, passim.
24. Hitler, Monologe, 245–246.
25. BHStA/V, NL Lehmann/4.12, Lehmann to Hitler, March 12, 1935 (first quote); IFZ, ZS-177/1-31, memorandum by Tyrell about his conversation with Franz von Pfeffer, February 20, 1968 (second quote).
26. Weber, HFW, chaps. 11 and 12.
27. See, for example, Longerich, Hitler, 77–78; Richardi, Hitler, 230ff.; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 188; Ryback, Library, 131ff.; Heusler, Haus, 64–65; Pätzold/Weißbecker, Hitler, 84; Auerbach, “Lehrjahre,” 33.
28. Hitler, Monologe, 208 (quote); Tyson, Mentor, 404.
29. See, for example, Longerich, Hitler, 77–78; Gilbhard, Thule, 86; Richardi, Hitler, 230ff. Lehmann was not Lutheran but a member of the Reformed Church; see BHStA/V, NL Lehmann, 4.4, Lehmann to the Gemeinde-Präsident of Merishausen, June 30, 1919; 4.5, Fragebogen für die ersten Mitglieder der NSDAP (DAP), Lehmann, Julius Friedrich; 5.5., Lehmann to Pfarrer E. Ellwein, July 19, 1933.
30. BHStA/V, NL Lehmann/8.2, diary, Melanie Lehmann, September 11, 1919.
31. Gassert/Mattern, Library, 72, 108, 120, 125, 167, 205–206, 292, 326.The books in question are a 1919 edition of Deutsche Geschichte von Einhart (German History by Einhart), written by Heinrich Claß, the chairman of the Pan-German League; a 1923 edition of Hans Günther’s Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Racial Science of the German People); Hugo Kerchnawe’s Im Felde unbesiegt: Erlebnisse im Weltkrieg erzählt von Mitkämpfern (Undefeated in the Field: Experiences of World War as Retold by Fighters), published in 1923; and Max Wundt’s Staatsphilosophie: Ein Buch für Deutsche (State Philosophy: A Book for Germans). Hitler’s books held at the Library of Congress also include five books published by Lehmann in 1924 and 1925, with handwritten dedications to Hitler.
32. BHStA/V, NL Lehmann/4.12, Hitler to Lehmann, July 6, 1925. Only in 1928 would Hitler address Lehmann as “Lieber, verehrter Herr Lehman[n]!”; see Hitler to Lehmann, December 23, 1928.