Hitler
Page 129
77 Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler, Vol. 3 (1936), ed. Friedrich Hartmannsgruber, Munich, 2002, no. 72, p. 263; no. 87, p. 313; no. 97, pp. 353f.
78 Text of the law in Bernd Sösemann, with Marius Lange, Propaganda: Medien und Öffentlichkeit in der NS-Dikatur, Stuttgart, 2011, vol. 1, no. 373, p. 445; see also Die Regierung Hitler, vol. 3, no. 194, p. 732; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, pp. 334–6.
79 Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, p. 336.
80 See Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: Biographie, Munich, 2008, pp. 165–78; Robert Gerwarth, Reinhard Heydrich: Biographie, Munich, 2011, pp. 95, 100–2.
81 See Broszat, Hitlers Staat, pp. 337–40; Kershaw, Hitler: Profiles in Power, p. 77; Norbert Frei, Der Führerstaat: Nationalsozialistische Herrschaft 1933 bis 1945, new and expanded edition, Munich, 2001, p. 139.
82 See Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, pp. 207–9; Gerwarth, Reinhard Heydrich, p. 113; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, pp. 341–3; Frei, Der Führerstaat, pp. 139f.
83 As in Gerwarth, Reinhard Heydrich, p. 113.
84 Quoted in Ulrich Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989, Bonn 1996, p. 164. On the above see Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, p. 213.
85 See Robert Gellateley, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933–1945, Oxford, 1992; idem, “ ‘Allwissend und allgegenwärtig’? Entstehung, Funktion und Wandel des Gestapo-Mythos,” in Gerhard Paul and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds), Die Gestapo: Mythos und Realität, Darmstadt, 2003, pp. 44–70.
86 See Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes, Hamburg, 2002, pp. 251ff.; Carsten Dams and Michael Stolle, Die Gestapo: Herrschaft und Terror im Dritten Reich, Munich, 2008, pp. 28–31.
87 Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz: Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich, Munich, 1989, pp. 27, 52, 66.
88 “Führer Decree” of 7 Dec. 1934; ibid., p. 72. On Hitler’s criticism of Göring’s lifestyle see Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 2/3, pp. 232 (entry for 22 July 1933), 269 (entry for 16 Sept. 1933), 294 (entry for 19 Oct. 1933), 299 (entry for 25 Oct. 1933). See also Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, pp. 59f.
89 See Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, pp. 54f., 138.
90 Schacht to Blomberg, 24 Dec. 1935; quoted in Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, London, 2006, p. 209.
91 See ibid., p. 251; Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, pp. 140f.; Christopher Kopper, Hjalmar Schacht: Aufstieg und Fall von Hitlers mächtigstem Bankier, Munich and Vienna, 2006, pp. 266f., 306.
92 See Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, pp. 142f.; Kopper, Hjalmar Schacht, p. 308.
93 According to Göring’s memorandum to Krogmann; Carl Vincent Krogmann, Es ging um Deutschlands Zukunft 1932–1939: Erlebtes täglich diktiert von dem früheren Regierenden Bürgermeister in Hamburg, Leoni am Starnberger See, 1976, pp. 272f.
94 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 74 (entry for 3 Feb. 1936); see also ibid., p. 73 (entry for 2 May 1936): “The Führer came out vigorously against Schacht. He’s now in for a hard time.” Speer also remembered a loud altercation between Hitler and Schacht in 1936; Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 111.
95 Ministerial Council meeting with Göring, 12 May 1936; Die Regierung Hitler, vol. 3, no. 89, pp. 317–24 (quotation on p. 320). See also Göring to the ministerial council meeting on 27 May 1936: “All measures are to be considered from the perspective of how we can be certain of being able to wage war.” Ibid., no. 93, pp. 339–44 (quotation on p. 340).
96 Wilhelm Treue, “Hitlers Denkschrift zum Vierjahresplan 1936,” in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 3 (1955), pp. 184–210 (quotation on p. 210).
97 Ministerial council meeting with Göring, 4 Sept. 1936; Die Regierung Hitler, vol. 3, no. 138, pp. 500–4 (quotations on pp. 503, 504). Wiedemann quoted Göring as saying in late 1936: “My Führer, if I see things correctly, a major war within the next five years is unavoidable. You surely won’t object if I subordinate all the measures I take to this perspective.” Wiedemann, “Einzelerinnerungen,” notes made in San Francisco, 28 March 1939; BA Koblenz, N 1720/4.
98 See Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, pp. 157f.; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, p. 223.
99 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 252 (entry for 15 Nov. 1936). The propaganda minister was impatient with Hitler for delaying Schacht’s dismissal: “I believe the Führer won’t be able to avoid getting rid of him. So let’s get on with it.” Ibid., vol. 4, p. 58 (entry for 19 March 1937). For his sixtieth birthday on 22 Jan. 1937, Hitler gave Schacht a valuable painting by Spitzweg. Schacht thanked Hitler the following day in an effusive telegram: “Among the many considerations I received on the day, your expression of trust in me was my greatest honour and source of joy.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 10/34.
100 Kopper, Hjalmar Schacht, p. 323; see Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, p. 189.
101 Die Regierung Hitler, vol. 4, no. 124, p. 454n6. On Hermann Göring’s creation of the Reich Works see Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, pp. 230–9.
102 On the discussion of 20 Jan. 1939 see Hjalmar Schacht, 76 Jahre meines Lebens, Bad Wörishofen, 1953, pp. 495f.; Ulrich von Hassell, Vom anderen Deutschland: Aus den nachgelassenen Tagebüchern 1938–1944, Frankfurt am Main, 1964, pp. 41f. (entry for 25 Jan. 1939). See also Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 6, p. 233 (entry for 20 Jan. 1939); Kopper, Hjalmar Schacht, pp. 315–18.
103 Memorandum from the Reichsbank directorate to Hitler, 7 Jan. 1939; quoted in Kopper, Hjalmar Schacht, pp. 326f.
104 BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 6/71; see Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945. Vol. 1: Triumph. Part 1: 1932–1934, Munich, 1965, p. 257.
105 See Peter Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter: Führung der Partei und Kontrolle des Staatsapparats durch den Stab Hess und die Partei-Kanzlei Bormanns, Munich, 1992, p. 8; Peter Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich: Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von NSDAP und allgemeiner Staatsverwaltung. Studienausgabe, Munich, 1971, p. 208.
106 See Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, pp. 10f.; Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, pp. 208f. For Martin Bormann’s biography see Jochen von Lang, Der Sekretär: Martin Bormann. Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte, 3rd revised edition, Munich and Berlin, 1987; Volker Koop, Martin Bormann: Hitlers Vollstrecker, Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, 2012.
107 On the power struggle between Hess/Bormann and Ley see Longerich, Der Stellvertreter, pp. 14–16; Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, pp. 209–12.
108 Ley to Hess, 20 June 1939; quoted in Diehl-Thiele, Staat und Partei im Dritten Reich, pp. 237f.
109 Bormann to Ley, 17 Aug. 1939; cited in ibid., p. 240.
110 Text of the law of 1 Dec. 1933 in Sösemann, Propaganda, vol. 1, no. 119, p. 167.
111 Quoted in Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, p. 20.
112 See Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, pp. 18–20; Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, pp. 231–4.
113 See Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, pp. 42–4. Text of the law of 7 April 1933 in Sösemann, Propaganda, vol. 1, no. 74, p. 119.
114 Text of the law of 30 Jan. 1934 in ibid., no. 138, p. 197. See Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, p. 61; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, p. 151.
115 Frick to Lammers, 4 June 1934; Lammers to Frick, 27 June 1934; quoted in Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich, p. 69; see Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, pp. 152f.
116 See Diehl-Thiele, Staat und Partei im Dritten Reich, pp. 70–3; Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, p. 157. Text of the laws of 30 Jan. 1935 in Sösemann, Propaganda, vol. 1, no. 234, pp. 297f.
117 Die Regierung Hitler, vol. 4, no. 21, p. 68. See Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, p. 361.
118 Hitler, Monologe, p. 50 (dated 1/2 Aug. 1941). On Hitler’s aversion to bureaucrats see, for example, Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 5, p. 59 (entry for 18 Dec.1937
): “Lawyers are a priori idiots.”
119 Frank Bajohr, Parvenüs und Profiteure: Korruption in der NS-Zeit, Frankfurt am Main, 2001, pp. 21–9 (quotation on p. 27). See also idem, “Ämter, Pfründe, Korruption,” in Andreas Wirsching (ed.), Das Jahr 1933: Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung und die deutsche Gesellschaft, Göttingen, 2009, p. 191. In a letter to Hitler on 4 Jan. 1935, a man from Leipzig complained that favouritism was shown to “old street fighters” when jobs were handed out. Without being a member of the party, it was impossible to get work. “This is a situation,” the man wrote, “that the leading heads of the NSDAP used to condemn in the sharpest terms as the economy of socialist party membership.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 51/73.
120 Haffner, Germany: Jekyll & Hyde, p. 43.
121 Guido Knopp, Geheimnisse des “Dritten Reiches,” Munich, 2011, pp. 146f. (see also the facsimile of the tax demand of 20 Oct. 1934). On Hitler’s tax exemption see also Wulf C. Schwarzwäller, Hitlers Geld: Vom armen Kunstmaler zum millionenschweren Führer, Vienna, 1998, pp. 158–60.
122 See Gerd R. Ueberschär and Winfried Vogel, Dienen und Verdienen: Hitlers Geschenke an seine Eliten, Frankfurt am Main, 1999, pp. 39–52, 92; Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 100; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, p. 83.
123 See Schwarzwäller, Hitlers Geld, pp. 195–8; Knopp, Geheimnise des “Dritten Reiches,” pp. 178f.; Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 100f.; Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, p. 211; Koop, Martin Bormann, pp. 25, 34f.
124 See Bajohr, Parvenüs und Profiteure, pp. 62–70; Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 231.
125 See Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus, p. 325: “By the summer of 1933 party comrades, whom I had visited for years in modest top-floor apartments, had moved into splendid, luxurious villas and were throwing their weight around as party big-wigs.”
126 Wiedemann, Der Mann, p. 196. When Wiedemann spoke to Hitler in the summer of 1935 about the demoralising effects of rampant corruption, Hitler answered: “Oh, Wiedemann, people always think I can act completely freely and do whatever I please. But I’m only a human being who is driven by destiny, whose actions are in some respects prescribed.” Wiedemann’s shorthand notes dated 25 Feb. 1939; BA Koblenz, N 1720/4.
127 Albert Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, Munich, 2002, p. 202 (entry for 16 March 1949).
128 Domarus, Hitler, vol. 1, part 2, p. 719 (dated 7 Sept. 1937).
129 Speech in the House of German Art in Munich, 10 Dec. 1938; ibid., p. 983. See Wiedemann, Der Mann, p. 88.
130 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Vol. 1: Eine Abrechnung, 7th edition, Munich, 1933, pp. 290f.
131 Rudolf Hess, Briefe 1908–1933, ed. Rüdiger Hess, Munich and Vienna, 1987, p. 327 (dated 18 May 1924). Even prior to the 1923 putsch, during a social event at the Scheubner-Richters, Hitler had effused about the construction projects he had in mind for Berlin. Transcript of an interview with Mathilde Scheubner-Richter dated 9 July 1952; IfZ München, ZS 292.
132 Hess, Briefe, p. 369 (dated 7 July 1925), p. 395 (dated 18 Dec. 1928).
133 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 1/2, p. 113 (entry for 25 July 1926); vol. 2/1, p. 256 (entry for 9 Oct. 1930); vol. 2/2, pp. 116f. (entry for 5 Oct. 1931).
134 Adolf Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen—Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933. Vol. 3: Zwischen den Reichstagswahlen Juli 1928–September 1930. Part 2: März 1929–Dezember 1929, ed. Klaus A. Lankheit, Munich, 1994, doc. 21, p. 192 (dated 9 April 1929).
135 Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, p. 130.
136 Domarus, Hitler, vol. 1, part 1, p. 257 (dated 22 April 1933).
137 Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 71; see also Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 135 (entry for 28 Dec. 1947): “He wanted to construct buildings for all eternity.” An article prepared by the Propaganda Ministry for Time magazine about Hitler as the initiator of massive construction projects read: “National Socialism wants to build its own stone monuments to last for centuries, nay, millennia.” Helmuth v. Feldmann to Wiedemann, 31 Jan. 1938 with the article enclosed; BA Koblenz, N 1720/6.
138 Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 44.
139 As in Fest, Speer, p. 63.
140 The theory of an erotic element to Hitler and Speer’s relationship was first presented in Alexander Mitscherlich, “Hitler blieb ihm ein Rätsel: Die Selbstblendung Albert Speers,” in Adalbert Reif, Albert Speer: Kontroversen um ein deutsches Phänomen, Munich, 1978, pp. 466f.; see also Fest, Hitler, p. 716; idem, Speer, p. 60; Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth, new edition, London, 1996, pp. 109, 138f. In a letter to Hannah Arendt on 5 Jan. 1971, Fest wrote: “No doubt there was a strong erotic component.” Hannah Arendt and Joachim Fest, Eichmann war von empörender Dummheit: Gespräche und Briefe, eds Ursula Ludz and Thomas Wild, Munich and Zurich, 2011, p. 96.
141 Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 128 (entry for 10 Dec. 1947).
142 Ibid., p. 609 (entry for 19 Feb. 1964). The Faust/Mephisto analogy in Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 44. In his conversations with Fest, Speer repeatedly declared that he had fallen “head over heels” for Hitler. Joachim Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen: Notizen über Gespräche mit Albert Speer zwischen 1966 und 1981, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2005, p. 30; see ibid., p. 196.
143 Albert Speer, “Die Bauten des Führers (1936)”; reprinted in Heinrich Breloer, with Rainer Zimmer, Die Akte Speer: Spuren eines Kriegsverbrechers, Berlin, 2006, pp. 41–8 (quotation on p. 41).
144 Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 67f.; 77.
145 See Josef Henke, “Die Reichsparteitage der NSDAP in Nürnberg 1933–1938: Planung, Organisation, Propaganda,” in Aus der Arbeit des Bundesarchivs, ed. Heinz Boberach and Hans Booms, Boppard, 1977, p. 496; Centrum Industriekultur Nürnberg (ed.), Kulissen der Gewalt: Das Reichsparteitagsgelände in Nürnberg, Munich, 1992, pp. 41f.
146 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/1, p. 350 (entry for 19 Dec. 1935). On Hitler’s visits to Nuremberg see Dietrich, 12 Jahre mit Hitler, pp. 173f.; Henke, Die Reichsparteitage, pp. 406f.; Centrum Industriekultur (ed.), Kulissen der Gewalt, p. 45.
147 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 4, p. 305 (entry for 10 Sept. 1937). Hitler told his finance minister Schwerin von Krosigk that while it was Krosigk’s duty to voice his concerns “he would never let his plans fail for lack of funds.” Schwerin von Krosigk to Lennart Westberg, 24 Feb. 1976; BA Koblenz, N 1276/36.
148 See Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 80f.; Fest, Speer, p. 83.
149 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 280. See Jost Dülffer, Jochen Thies and Josef Henke, Hitlers Städte: Baupolitik im Dritten Reich. Eine Dokumentation, Cologne and Vienna, 1978, pp. 223–8 (minutes of Professor Ruff’s presentation of his plans for the Nuremberg Congress Hall to the Führer in the Reich Chancellery, 1 June 1934).
150 Domarus, Hitler, vol. 1, part 2, p. 527; see Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/1, p. 291 (entry for 13 Sept. 1935).
151 Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 82.
152 For this connection see Jochen Thies, Architekt der Weltherrschaft: Die “Endziele” Hitlers, Düsseldorf, 1976, particularly pp. 69, 103f.
153 Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 84.
154 See Centrum Industriekultur (ed.), Kulissen der Gewalt, pp. 44f.; Henke, Die Reichsparteitage, pp. 403f.
155 See Dülffer et al., Hitlers Städte, pp. 159ff., 191ff., 251ff.; Michael Früchtel, Der Architekt Hermann Giesler: Leben und Werk 1898–1987, Munich, 2008, pp. 145ff., 284ff.; Speer, Fest, pp. 118f.; for Hamburg see Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 322 (entry for 9 Jan. 1937).
156 Report on the meeting in the Reich Chancellery, 19 Sept. 1933; Dülffer et al., Hitlers Städte, pp. 90–3 (quotation on p. 92).
157 Minutes of the meeting in the Reich Chancellery, 29 March 1934; ibid., pp. 97–9 (quotations on pp. 97, 99).
158 Minutes of the meeting in the Reich Chancellery, 28 June 1935; ibid., pp. 112–16 (quotation on p. 115). On Hitler’s meetings with the Berlin city council between 1933 and 1935 see Kellerhoff, Hitlers Berlin, pp. 122–4; Thomas Friedrich, Die missbrauchte Hauptstadt: Hitler und Berlin, Berlin, 2007, pp
. 458–60. 464–9, 475f.
159 Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 87f.; see Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 31f.
160 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 253 (entry for 16 Nov. 1936). In a similar vein see ibid., pp. 317 (entry for 5 Jan. 1937), 343 (entry for 25 Jan. 1937).
161 According to Speer’s memoirs, Hitler was initially “almost shocked” by the blueprints for the Great Hall and was sceptical about whether the dome could bear the weight it had to support. But when Speer assured him that the structural questions had been examined and the plans deemed sound, Hitler “enthusiastically approved” them. Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 79.
162 See Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 90; Fest, Speer, p. 95. On Speer’s appointment see Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 354 (entry for 31 Jan. 1937).
163 Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 147d.; see Sereny, Albert Speer, pp. 144f. (recollections of Willi Schelkes and Rudolf Wolters, two of Speer’s colleagues).
164 Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 148; see also idem, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 551 (entry for 21 Jan. 1962); Sereny, Albert Speer, p. 158.
165 See Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 89f.; Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 4, p. 52 (entry for 15 March 1937): “It will be a street of the most monumental proportions. We will immortalise ourselves in stone.”
166 See Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 149f.
167 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 4, p. 100 (entry for 20 April 1937). See Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 167f.; Hitler, Monologe, p. 101 (dated 21/22 Oct. 1941): “The Great Hall will be so large that it could swallow up St. Peter’s Cathedral and the square in front.”
168 Speer, Erinnerungen, pp. 171–4 (quotation on p. 173); see idem, Spandauer Tagebücher, p. 167 (entry for 24 Oct. 1948).
169 See Jürgen Trimborn, Arno Breker: Der Künstler und die Macht. Die Biographie, Berlin, 2011, pp. 144ff., 204ff.
170 Speer, Erinnerungen, p. 153.
171 Goebbels, Tagebücher, part 1, vol. 4, p. 52 (entry for 15 March 1937).