In all these spheres, the Third Reich moved appreciably closer to its goals in the six and a half years that elapsed between its beginnings in the spring of 1933 and the outbreak of war in the autumn of 1939. And yet, six and a half years is not a long time; scarcely long enough to achieve the scale and depth of the transformations the Nazis sought. In one area after another, the totalitarian impulse was forced to compromise with the intractability of human nature. The scale and severity of repression drove people into the private sphere, where they felt relatively safe in talking freely about politics; in public they paid the regime its necessary dues, but for most of them, that was all. The regime’s most popular domestic policies and institutions were those that catered for people’s private aspirations and desires: Strength Through Joy, National Socialist Welfare, job creation, the reduction of unemployment, a general feeling of stability and order after the alarms and excursions of the Weimar years. The overwhelming majority of adults, whose minds and beliefs had been formed before the onset of the Third Reich, kept their own values more or less intact; sometimes they overlapped strongly with those of the Nazis, sometimes they did not. It was above all the younger generation whom the Nazis targeted. In the long term, as the Third Reich moved steadily through its projected thousand years, the reservations of the older generations would not matter. The future lay with the young, and the future would be Nazi.
The young too, of course, like their elders, wanted their private pleasures, and the more they felt cheated of them by their perpetual mobilization in the Hitler Youth, the schools and the universities, the more they grumbled about life under the Third Reich. Some teachers and university professors managed to distance themselves from Nazi ideology, though the alternatives they had to offer were seldom dramatically different from the ideas the Nazis purveyed. The entertainment content of the media, film, radio, magazines, theatre and the rest, grew over time as boredom with outright propaganda amongst young and old became apparent. Education and culture did manage to survive, though only in a compromised form. Yet despite all this, six and a half years of incessant, unremitting propaganda had their effect. All commentators, whatever their point of view, were united in their belief that the younger generations, those born from the mid-1920s onwards, were on the whole more thoroughly imbued with the ideas and beliefs of National Socialism than their elders were. It was for example above all young people, even children, who took part in the pogrom of November 1938 in the wake of the stormtroopers and SS who began the violence, while their elders in many places stood aside, aghast at the mayhem on the streets. But even the older generations were far from completely immune: antisemitism in particular was so insistently propagated that people began to use its language almost without thinking, and to think of the Jews as a race apart, however much they might have deplored the open violence of the November pogrom in 1938 or sympathized with individual Jews with whom they were personally acquainted.
Map 22. Prewar German Annexations
Above all, however, it was the Nazis’ nationalism that won people’s support. However concerned they were at the threat of a general war, there was no mistaking the pride and satisfaction of the great majority of Germans, including many former Social Democrats and in all likelihood not a few ex-Communists as well, at Hitler’s achievement in throwing off the universally hated yoke of Versailles. Resignation from the League of Nations, the plebiscite in the Saar, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the annexation of Austria, the incorporation of the Sudetenland, the regaining of Memel, the takeover of Danzig - all of this seemed to Germans to be wiping out the shame of the 1919 Peace Settlement, restoring Germany to its rightful place in the world, claiming for Germans the right to self-determination granted to so many other nations at the end of the First World War.
All of this also appeared to Germans as the work above all of one man, Adolf Hitler, Leader of the Third Reich. The propaganda image of Hitler as the world statesman who had given back Germans pride in their country almost single-handedly did not, of course, entirely correspond to reality. Even in the area of foreign policy there were occasions, notably the annexation of Austria, where he had followed the lead of others (in this case Goring), or, as in the Munich crisis, been forced against his inclination to yield to international pressure. Others, notably Ribbentrop, had also wielded considerable influence on the decision-making process at key moments. Nevertheless, it had indeed been Hitler above all others who, sometimes encouraged by his immediate entourage, sometimes not, drove Germany down the road to war between 1933 and 1939. He laid down the broad parameters of policy and ideology for others to apply in detail. At crucial junctures he took personal command, often uncertainly and hesitantly at particular moments of crisis, but always pushing on towards his ultimate goal: war. The story of the Third Reich from 1933 to 1939 was not a story of ceaseless radicalization driven on by inherent instabilities in its system of rule, or by a constant competition for power between its satraps and minions, in which the most radical policy was always the most likely to be implemented. Irrational and unstable though it was, the Third Reich was driven in the first place from above, by Hitler and his key henchmen, above all Goring and Goebbels, later on joined by Ribbentrop. When Hitler was determined to slow down the implementation of a particular policy, for example in the case of antisemitism in the run-up to the 1936 Olympic Games, he had little difficulty in doing so. This does not mean that everything that happened in the Third Reich was ordained by Hitler; but it does mean that he was in the driving-seat, determining the general direction in which things moved.
Hitler himself of course had no doubts of his central importance to everything that happened in Nazi Germany. As time went on, his foreign policy successes began to convince him that he was indeed, as he said on more than one occasion towards the end of the 1930s, the greatest German who had ever lived: a man ordained by destiny, a gambler who won every throw, a sleepwalker guided by Providence. Well before 1939 he had come to believe in his own myth. Anyone who tried to restrain him was pushed aside. So far, his increasingly unshakeable faith in himself had proved more than justified. In September 1939, however, he made his first serious miscalculation. Despite all his efforts, despite Ribbentrop’s assurances, despite Göring’s intervention, despite Chamberlain’s last-minute equivocations, the British had declared war. For the moment, however, Hitler was not concerned with them. In the West, the first few months of the conflict saw so little action that they quickly came to be known as the ‘twilight war’ or the ‘drôle de guerre’. It was in the East that the real war was taking place. The war launched against Poland on 1 September 1939 was from the outset a war of racial conquest, subjugation and extermination. ‘Close your hearts to pity,’ Hitler told his generals on 22 August 1939. ‘Act brutally! The stronger man is right! Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The greatest harshness!’209 Brutality and harshness, death and destruction were what the war would mean for millions of people in the conflict that had now begun.
Notes
Chapter 1. THE POLICE STATE
1 . Karl-Heinz Minuth (ed.), Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, 1933- 1934 (2 vols., Boppard, 1983), I. 630-31 (the above quotation combined two different sources for this speech).
2 . Kurt Werner and Karl-Heinz Biernat, Die Köpenicker Blutwoche, Juni 1933 (Berlin, 1958).
3 . Quoted in Martin Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers: Grundlegung und Entwicklung seiner inneren Verfassung (Munich, 1969), 251-2.
4 . Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (London, 2003), 344-9.
5 . Richard Bessel, Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism: The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany 1925-1934 (London, 1984), 97; Peter Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone: Geschichte der SA (Munich, 1989), 184.
6 . Bessel, Political Violence, 119-22; for the general background, see Wolfgang Sauer, Die Mobilmachung der Gewalt (Karl Dietrich Bracher et al., Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung: Studien zur E
rrichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933/34 (3 vols., Frankfurt am Main, 1974 [1960] III. 255-324).
7 . Peter H. Merkl, Political Violence under the Swastika: 581 Early Nazis (Princeton, 1975), 472-3, quoting Abel testimony no. 58.
8 . Norbert Frei, National Socialist Rule in Germany: The Führer State 1933-1945 (Oxford, 1993 [1987]), 13.
9 . Ibid., 126.
10 . Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 179-88.
11 . Heinz Höhne, Mordsache Röhm: Hitlers Durchbruch zur Alleinherrschaft, 1933-1934 (Reinbek, 1984), 127-8.
12 . John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945 (London, 1953), 761.
13 . Immo von Fallois, Kalkül und Illusion: Der Machtkampf zwischen Reichswehr und SA während der Röhm-Krise 1934 (Berlin, 1994), 105-8.
14 . Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 59-122, for Röhm’s growing ambition, and 177-206, for the growing unease of the army leadership. See also Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, 316-17.
15 . Fallois, Kalkül, 131; Robert J. O’Neill, The German Army and the Nazi Party 1933-1939 (London, 1966), 38-42.
16 . Minuth (ed.), Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, 1933-1934, I. 1,156-8.
17 . Bessel, Political Violence, 130-32, quoting the file on Max Heydebreck in the former Berlin Document Centre, now in the Bundesarchiv Berlin.
18 . Heinrich Bennecke, Die Reichswehr und der ‘Röhm-Putsch’ (Munich, 1964), 43-4; Sauer, Die Mobilmachung, underlines the vagueness and lack of serious political content in Röhm’s concept of revolution (338-9); see also Höhne, Mord sache Röhm, 207-26.
19 Minuth (ed.), Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, 1933-1934, II. 1,393.
20 Frei, National Socialist Rule, 15-16; Edmund Forschbach, Edgar J. Jung: Ein konservativer Revolutionär 30. Juni 1934 (Pfullingen, 1984).
21 . Elke Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels: Sämtliche Fragmente, part I: Aufzeichnungen 1924-1941 (Munich, 1987-96), II. 472 (21 May 1934).
22 . Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 227-38.
23 Klaus Behnken (ed.), Deutschland-Berichte der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (Sopade) 1934-1940 (7 vols., Frankfurt am Main, 1980), I (1934), 99-117, 187.
24 . Minuth (ed.), Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, 1933-1934 II. 1, 197-200; Max Domarus (ed.), Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945: The Chronicle of a Dictatorship (4 vols., London, 1990- [1962-3]), I. 442-6.
25 . Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 218-24.
26 . Domarus, Hitler, I. 447.
27 . Frohlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher, I/II. 472-3 (29 June 1934).
28 . Franz von Papen, Memoirs (London, 1952), 307-11; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen and Werner Jochmann (eds.), Ausgewählte Dokumente zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus (3 vols., Bielefeld, 1961).
29 . Domarus, Hitler, I. 463-4.
30 . Papen, Memoirs, 310-11.
31 . Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, 319-20; Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 239-46.
32 . Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 215-16.
33 . Domarus, Hitler, I. 466.
34 O’Neill, The German Army, 72-6; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 215-17; Ian Kershaw, Hitler, I: 1889-1936: Hubris (London, 1998), 510-12; Domarus, Hitler, I. 466-7; Bessel, Political Violence, 131-3; Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 239-46.
35 . Ralf Georg Reuth, Goebbels: Eine Biographie (Munich, 1990), 313.
36 . Domarus, Hitler, I. 468-9.
37 . Herbert Michaelis and Ernst Schraepler (eds.), Ursachen und Folgen: Vom deutschen Zusammenbruch 1918 und 1945 bis zur staatlichen Neuordnung Deutschlands in der Gegenwart, X: Das Dritte Reich: Die Errichtung des Führerstaates, die Abwendung von dem System der kollektiven Sicherheit (Berlin, 1965), 168-72, document no. 2378 (reminiscences of Erich Kempka, first published in the German illustrated magazine Quick, 1954, no. 24).
38 . Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 216-17; Domarus, Hitler, I. 470-71.
39 . Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 217-18; Domarus, Hitler, I. 472-7; Kershaw, Hitler, I. 513-14; Behnken (ed.), Deutschland-Berichte, I. 194-5; Hitler’s orders to the SA in Völkischer Beobachter, Sondernummer, 1 July 1934, front page; Röhm’s murder in Karl Buchheim and Karl Otmar von Aretin (eds.), Krone und Ketten: Erinnerungen eines bayerischen Edelmannes (Munich, 1955), 365-6, excerpted and translated in Noakes and Pridham (eds.), Nazism, I. 10.
40 Detailed narrative in Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 247-96.
41 Report on Schleicher in Erste Beilage der Germania, 180, 2 July 1934: ‘Schleicher und sieben SA-Führer erschossen’; details in Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 247-96, also for the following paragraphs.
42 . Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 247-96.
43 . Bessel, Political Violence, 133-7.
44 . Goring later declared that he had ‘extended my task by striking a blow against these malcontents too’. That he did this spontaneously and on his own initiative on hearing of the events in Munich, as some historians have maintained, must be doubted in view of the care with which the rest of the action had been prepared, and the vehemence with which Hitler had denounced Papen and his associates a few days before. For the view that the action was ‘improvised’, see Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 218 (though his principal evidence, the statement by Goring, does not in fact demonstrate that he decided to ‘extend’ his task spontaneously and without consultation; the need to explain himself was obvious given the fact that the justification for the purge was provided by the supposed activities of Röhm, not those of Schleicher and Papen); for evidence of careful advance planning, see Bessel, Political Violence, 133-7. Further details in Kershaw, Hitler, I. 512-15; and Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS (London, 1972 [1966]), 85-121. Sauer, Die Mobilmachung, 334-64, notes the systematic work of preparation carried out by Hitler and the Party leadership from April onwards, stressing the importance of the propaganda offensive against Röhm and the SA, particularly within the Party. For Ballerstedt, see Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, 181. For Ludendorff, see Harald Peuschel, Die Männer um Hitler: Braune Biographien, Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler und andere (Düsseldorf, 1982).
45 . ‘Goebbels erstattet Bericht: Die grosse Rede des Reichspropagandaministers’, Berliner Tageblatt, 307, 2 July 1934, 3.
46 . Minuth (ed.), Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, 1933-1934, I. 1,354-8; press report in Berliner Tageblatt, 310, 4 July 1934, front page.
47 . Erste Beilage der Germania, 180, 2 July 1934; ibid., 181, 3 July 1934; Berliner Tageblatt, 306, 1 July 1934, 2; for the ‘purge’ see particularly Göring’s declaration, as reported in ibid., page 3, and Völkischer Beobachter, 182/183, ½ July 1934, front page.
48 . Domarus, Hitler, I. 498.
49 . Kershaw, Hitler, I. 517-22. Postwar attempts to bring the surviving killers to justice are documented in Otto Gritschneider, ‘Der Führer hat Sie zum Tode verurteilt’ ...’: Hitlers ‘Röhm-Putsch’ - Morde vor Gericht (Munich, 1993).
50 Bernd Stover (ed.), Berichte über die Lage in Deutschland: Die Meldungen der Gruppe Neu Beginnen aus dem Dritten Reich 1933-1936 (Bonn, 1996), 169-85, for some samples.
51 . Behnken (ed.), Deutschland-Berichte, I. 197-203; Martin Broszat et al. (eds.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit (6 vols., Munich, 1977-83), I. 71 (Bekirksamt Ebermannstadt, Halbmonatsbericht, 14 July 1934); Thomas Klein (ed.), Die Lageberichte der Geheimen Staatspolizei über die Provinz Hessen-Nassau 1933-1936 (Cologne, 1986), 117; Wolfgang Ribbe (ed.), Die Lageberichte der Geheimen Staatspolizei über die Provinz Brandenburg und die Reichshauptstadt Berlin 1933 bis 1936, I: Der Regierungsbezirk Potsdam (Cologne, 1998), 141-2; Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabe, 151, 2 July 1934, front page, for the crowd; ibid., 153, 4 July 1934, front page, for the police warning; for the Propaganda Ministry, see Gabriele Toepser-Ziegert (ed.), NS-Presseanweisungen der Vorkriegszeit: Edition und Dokumentation, II: 1934 (Munich, 1985), 264 (3 July 1934).
52 . Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image
and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 1987), 83-95.
53 Jochen Klepper, Unter dem Schatten deiner Flügel: Aus den Tagebüchern der Jahre 1932-1942 (Stuttgart, 1955), 194.
54 . Staatsarchiv Hamburg 622-1, 11/511-13: Familie Solmitz: Luise Solmitz geb. Stephan, 1889-1973, Tagebuch: vols. 28 and 29, entries for 21 March 1933, 3 April 1933, 30 June 1934 (transcripts are held in the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg).
55 See the list in Höhne, Mordsache Röhm, 319-21.
56 Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 223; Bessel, Political Violence, 147-8.
57 Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 227-30.
58 Höhne, The Order, 113, 118, citing Der Spiegel, 15 May 1957, page 29, and Bennecke, Die Reichswehr und der ‘Röhm-Putsch’, 65, 87-8; Peter Hoffmann, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder (Stuttgart, 1992), 132; Hermann Foertsch, Schuld und Verhängnis: Die Fritsch-Krise im Frühjahr 1938 als Wendepunkt in der Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1951), 57-8.
59 Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Das war mein Leben (Bad Wörishofen, 1951), 519-20; for the dating of the visit, see Kershaw, Hitler, I. 748, n. 144. Papen, Memoirs, 334, denies this.
60 . Tagebuch Luise Solmitz, 2 August 1934; Minuth (ed.), Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, 1933-1934, II. 1,384-90. In fact, Hitler did use the title ‘Reich President’ again, when appointing Dönitz his successor in his ‘Political Testament’. This illustrated the hypocrisy of his reference to the title’s ‘indissoluble’ connection with Hindenburg; the reality was that the title of ‘Leader’ was indissolubly connected with Hitler and derived purely from his own person. See Hans Buchheim, ‘The SS - Instrument of Domination’, in Helmut Krausnick et al., Anatomy of the SS State (London, 1968 [1965]), 127-301, at 137.
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