Hitler
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Gansser continued to play an extremely important role in negotiating donations to the NSDAP. In summer 1923, in particular, he secured a loan of 60,000 Swiss francs from Richard Franck, a malt coffee manufacturer, which were used to support the Völkischer Beobachter.24 On Hitler’s instructions, Amann deposited jewellery in a bank as security. It probably came from Helene Bechstein, who together with her husband Erwin, the piano manufacturer, had already been introduced to Hitler by Eckart in 1920; the couple regularly made contributions to the Party.25 Between April and December 1923, on at least six occasions, Gansser spent lengthy periods in Switzerland, where he secured large donations from sympathizers in Swiss francs, which were much sought after during the hyperinflation. Hitler himself is alleged to have returned from one trip to Switzerland during 1923 with 33,000 francs. Hitler’s chauffeur, Julius Schreck, stated after the Munich putsch that his boss had often been paid in Swiss currency.26 Gertrud von Seidlitz, a doctor’s widow who joined the NSDAP in 1921 and shortly afterwards got to know Hitler personally, assisted the Party by securing currency from Finland.27 Heinrich Becker, a Swabian underwear manufacturer from Geislingen, was another donor.28
Figure 1. Dietrich Eckart’s poem ‘Storm’ became the inspiration for an early NSDAP anthem. In 1922 Hans Gansser, the brother of the successful fundraiser Emil Gansser, set the poem to music and dedicated it to Adolf Hitler. First performed in 1923 at the first Party Rally, the song later lost its pre-eminence because it was too difficult to sing.
Source: SZ Photo/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo
Kurt Lüdecke, a 32 year-old adventurer, globetrotter, and businessman, came into contact with Hitler in summer 1922. He possessed foreign exchange in various denominations, some of which he clearly placed at the disposal of the NSDAP. However, his main role in the Party was to arrange foreign contacts. He claimed to have met Mussolini during 1922, even before the March on Rome, in order to inform him about the NSDAP.29 In 1923 he went on another foreign trip, this time to Budapest and Italy, where he once more visited Mussolini, who had come to power in the meantime. However, according to Lüdecke, the ‘Duce’ showed no interest in his report on the impending conflicts between Munich and Berlin,30 and Lüdecke’s independent actions soon alienated the Party leadership. At the beginning of 1923, following a tip-off from Hitler, the police began investigating Lüdecke on the grounds of espionage.31 He was arrested and held on remand for two months. After his release he continued to work for the Party, but in future Hitler and the Party leadership regarded him with suspicion.32
Ernst Hanfstängl, a partner in an important fine art publishing house, joined the NSDAP in 1922 following his return to Munich in 1919 after a ten-year stay in the United States. Hitler was a frequent guest in his flat in the bohemian district of Schwabing and, especially during these visits, Hanfstängl was able to provide him with important introductions to the Munich upper-middle class.33 In 1923 Hanfstängl gave Hitler an interest-free loan of 1,000 dollars that he had acquired from sales in America; during the hyperinflation this represented a serious amount of money and contributed a great deal towards ensuring that, from February 1923 onwards, the Völkischer Beobachter could appear as a daily paper. However, Hanfstängl recalled that it proved very difficult to secure the repayment of the loan.34
The rise of the Party ensured that, by the end of 1922, Hitler had gained increased access to Munich high society. He associated with the Hanfstängls, with the Bechsteins, who, during their visits to Munich, stayed in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, and with the Görings (the famous World War fighter ace had moved to Munich at the beginning of 1923). Despite their being impressed by him, many stories were told in these circles about Hitler’s lack of social graces, his poor table manners, his unsuitable clothing, his uncivilized behaviour, his impossible taste, and his gauche manner, all of which betrayed his lower-middle-class origins. However, it was precisely this enigmatic aura he conveyed that made him such a social hit. But Hitler’s behaviour changed; among other things, his growing success was reflected in his choice of ever more luxurious motorcars. In February 1923 he exchanged the Selve, which had been seriously damaged in an accident, for a larger six-seat car, also a Selve, and in September he treated himself to a shiny red Benz, also a six-seater.35
However, Hitler continued to dress in a style that was, by contemporary standards, eccentric, an eccentricity summed up by the fact that he always carried a riding crop. In 1936 the writer, Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen, recalling a private visit by Hitler to a cultured family in Munich in 1920, noted that with his ‘riding boots, riding crop, Alsatian dog and floppy hat’ he had appeared on the scene like a ‘cowboy’ wanting to take over the conversation and preach ‘like a military chaplain’.36 The historian, Karl Alexander von Müller, also reported how, when arriving at a soirée at the Hanfstängls, in the hall Hitler ‘had put down his riding crop, taken off his trench coat and leather hat, and lastly unbuckled a belt with a revolver attached, and then hung them all on a clothes peg. It looked weird and reminiscent of Karl May’.* While at this point Hitler had already had some public success, according to Müller ‘there was still something gauche about him and one had the unpleasant feeling that he felt that himself and resented the fact that people noticed it’.37 In his anecdotal memoirs even Hanfstängl cannot help repeatedly commenting with a certain smugness on the contrast between his own cultivated milieu and the shabbily dressed petty bourgeois, Hitler, with his philistine behaviour and lack of education.38 It is no longer possible to check the truth of these anecdotes, but they clearly show that the members of the Munich upper-middle class, who sought to associate with or support Hitler, were also concerned to emphasize their social superiority to this ‘phenomenon’.
Around 1922, Hitler’s intimate circle was joined by Heinrich Hoffmann, the owner of a Munich photographic studio in Schellingstrasse 50. Hoffmann had been a member of the Party since 1920. The fact that it took two years for him to become closely acquainted with the Party leader was probably for professional reasons: at the start of his career Hitler refused to be photographed. Hoffmann made some attempts to overcome this taboo and gradually, through invitations, lengthy discussions about the artistic interests they had in common and so forth, he managed to win Hitler’s trust. In fact, in September 1923, he was permitted to publish the first studio photograph authorized by Hitler and taken only a few days after a press photographer had succeeded in snatching a photo of Hitler at the German Day in Nuremberg. From now onwards, Hoffmann became Hitler’s official and exclusive photographer, possessing a monopoly of the pictures authorized by Hitler, and in the process becoming a rich man.39
Hitler’s initial refusal to allow himself to be photographed was not, as has been often imagined, one of his clever propaganda ideas to create an aura of mystery around him; the advantages of such a strategy of concealment would undoubtedly have been outweighed by its disadvantages. A more plausible explanation would be that he wanted to remain incognito outside Bavaria in order to avoid the police – on occasions there were arrest warrants out for him – and the attentions of his political opponents.40 Hitler’s unwillingness to be photographed and his policy, from autumn 1923 onwards, of controlling published pictures of himself through Hoffmann also point to Hitler’s fears that the self-image he had created of a heroic political fighter could be damaged or revealed as a farce by other photographs. For the rest of his life he was haunted by the fear of being made to look ridiculous by unsuitable photographs.41 Now that he could no longer avoid public interest in how he looked, he ensured that pictures of him were widely distributed in a series of standard poses: holding himself stiffly with a determined, indeed grim facial expression. In later years, Hoffmann and Hitler expanded the repertoire, but this does not alter the basic fact that, with Hoffmann’s help, Hitler was himself largely responsible for devising and controlling the image we have of him to this day.
Under Hitler’s leadership the rapidly expanding NSDAP remained remarkably unstructured; i
t developed into a real Führer party, in which Hitler assigned tasks to confidants on an ad hoc basis. He did not have a deputy who could really represent him; there was no executive committee meeting regularly that might have been able to control Hitler; the Party bureaucracy under Amann was intentionally kept weak and had no means of contesting Hitler’s claim to absolute power. Hitler was the unchallenged chief propagandist, was in charge of the most important local branch, Munich, and prevented the emergence of any strong Party organization outside Munich from which competition might have arisen. In 1922/23 his informal circle included Amann (Party manager), Rosenberg (editor of the Völkischer Beobachter and link man to the Baltic Germans), Esser (propagandist), Scheubner-Richter (link man to Ludendorff ), Hanfstängl and Lüdecke with their social contacts, the ‘bodyguards’ Graf, Weber, and Maurice, although the last two increasingly took on organizational tasks, the two early mentors, Feder and Eckart, and Hoffmann as court photographer. Significantly they did not meet in formal sessions, but mainly in cafés, in Café Heck,42 and later in Café Neumayr near the Viktualienmarkt,43 or in Hitler’s favourite restaurant, the Ostaria Bavaria in Schellingstrasse.
Membership of this group depended on Hitler’s favour, and acquiring and maintaining it required the willing subordination of the person concerned to the Party leader. Anyone who lost Hitler’s confidence, such as Eckart and Lüdecke, soon found themselves consigned to the political wilderness. The former had to give up the editorship of the Völkischer Beobachter in 1923, presumably because he was not efficient enough. When Hitler’s former mentor returned to Munich in October 1923 after six months’ absence – he was lying low in Berchtesgaden because of a Reich arrest warrant – he found that he was completely isolated within the NSDAP and that Hitler no longer consulted him.44 The deep ‘friendship’ that Hitler, in later years, repeatedly claimed existed between the two men45 did not last.
The SA represented an important exception to this informal structure. It was organized hierarchically along military lines. Its position within the Nazi movement depended not so much on the personal connections of its leaders with Hitler, but rather it was heavily dependent on its links to the Reichswehr and the other paramilitary leagues. Apart from that, as an armed force it represented a power factor sui generis, which was to become clear during the turbulent year of 1923.
1923: The crisis year
On 11 January 1923 Belgian and French troops marched into the Ruhr in response to arrears in German reparation payments. The Berlin government replied with a declaration of passive resistance and the growing number of confrontations between the Ruhr population and Belgian and French troops during the following weeks and months produced another serious political crisis. The general outcry of national anger provided further food for Nazi agitation. At the same time, Hitler was fully aware that the new situation also contained risks. For as a result of the NSDAP becoming incorporated into a broad nationalist front – in November 1922 it had already joined the Vereinigung der Vaterländischen Verbände – the Party and, in particular, its leader threatened to lose their distinctiveness. From Hitler’s point of view, it was vital for the NSDAP to retain its independence so that he could maintain the role that, over the previous three years, he had established for himself on the Munich political stage. He found a way out by ensuring that the NSDAP did not, like other right-wing groups, direct its agitation against the hated French but instead, in the first instance, against those ‘November criminals in Berlin’, as he put it in a Nazi meeting, who were to blame for Germany’s humiliation. In this way he hoped the NSDAP could use the crisis to sharpen its image. Consequently, he declined to attend a protest meeting intended to unite all the right-wing organizations in a common struggle.46
Instead of that, he concentrated on a series of spectacular events with which the NSDAP tried to distinguish itself from the numerous ‘nationalist’ protest rallies. They began at the end of January with the NSDAP’s first ‘Reich Party Rally’. Originally, the Bavarian government had wanted to limit its scope. In his negotiations with the police chief Hitler began by issuing wild threats: ‘The government could shoot them down; he would be in the front row. They could shoot him too, but the one thing he would say was: the first shot would unleash a blood bath and they would see what would happen then: within two hours of the first shot being fired the government would’ve fallen.’47 Two days later, his approach to the police chief was much more restrained; he was humble and in despair. According to his interlocutor, he ‘requested on bended knees that no more difficulties be created for him. As a result of the constant changes of decision, his supporters and guests were almost going wild and if the programme were changed it was inevitable that there would be serious and unavoidable repercussions’.48 Thus, while acting as supplicant, Hitler was simultaneously making a veiled threat. Finally, prompted by Röhm, the Reichswehr intervened with the Bavarian government and, despite the state of emergency that had been declared in the meantime, secured the removal of the various conditions that had been imposed.49 On the evening of 27 January, Hitler made brief appearances at twelve meetings in Munich beer halls50 and, the following day, there was a parade of 6,000 SA men on the Marsfeld, where Hitler ‘dedicated flags’.51 Afterwards, the actual meeting of Party delegates took place with 300 chairmen of local branches, followed by a general membership meeting at which Hitler was unanimously confirmed as Party chairman.52
Röhm used the difficulties associated with the Party rally to break with Pittinger’s Bayern und Reich, blaming its leader for the restrictions imposed by the government.53 Shortly after this, he founded the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der vaterländischen Kampfverbände [Working Group of Patriot Combat Leagues], to which, apart from the SA, Röhm’s own paramilitary league, the Reichsflagge, as well as Bund Oberland, the Vaterländische Vereine Münchens [Patriotic Clubs of Munich], and the Kampfbund Niederbayern [Combat League of Lower Bavaria] all belonged. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft had its own military high command; its members received military training from and were supplied with weapons by the Reichswehr. In setting it up Röhm had brought together the radical völkisch leagues with the clear aim of opposing the moderate conservative Bund Bayern und Reich.54 At the same time, Röhm did what he could to protect the NSDAP against unwelcome attentions from the police.55
In addition, at the beginning of 1923, the retired Captain Hermann Göring, a highly decorated fighter pilot and former commander of the famous Richthofen squadron, was appointed the new commander of the SA. Göring, who had some private means through his Swedish wife, Carin, and enjoyed a high reputation in nationalist and military circles, interpreted his new role primarily as a representational one. However, many simple Party members took offence at the exaggerated and pompous way in which he performed it.56 His villa in Obermenzing became a meeting place for the political Right, and Hitler was often to be found there with his entourage. According to Carin Göring’s official biographer, writing in 1934, it was here that, surrounded by the rustic decor of the large basement room, ‘after the serious discussions . . . they spent relaxed and enjoyable times together’.57 Under Göring’s leadership the SA increasingly changed from being a Party strong arm squad to becoming a paramilitary league, with its own high command and military structure, independent of the Party’s local branches. In other words, the military wing – Röhm and Göring – were gaining the upper hand within the NSDAP.58
On 26 February 1923, Ludendorff called a meeting of the leaders of the important paramilitary leagues in Berlin and demanded their support for the existing government in the event of war. However, they were unwilling to allow their men to be incorporated into the Reichswehr as reservists, insisting that they should only be attached to the army as separate units. Hitler, who also claimed to have been in Berlin at the time, maintained at his 1924 trial that he had been willing to put his men at Ludendorff’s disposal.59 According to Hitler, in the course of these negotiations there had been a lengthy discussion with the army chief, General Han
s von Seeckt, whom he had urged to take military action against the Ruhr occupation – without success.60
Shortly afterwards, Röhm’s Arbeitsgemeinschaft began a campaign of provocation against the Bavarian government by holding big military parades and similar events. On 1 May 1923, the labour movement’s traditional annual day of celebration and also the fourth anniversary of the crushing of the Munich Räterepublik, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft decided to mount a challenge. Together with the Vereinigte Vaterländische Verbände, it sent an ultimatum to Prime Minister von Knilling demanding that the planned demonstration by the SPD and the trade unions be banned. When the government refused, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft assembled thousands of their men in Munich, some of whom had acquired weapons from Reichswehr stores, despite the fact they were only supposed to receive them in the event of war. However, when the police and the army made it clear that they were not going to back down in the face of the threat, the men returned their weapons and departed. This represented a major loss of prestige for the Arbeitsgemeinschaft and not least for Hitler, whose dependence on the Reichswehr had been clearly exposed.61 That evening at the Circus Krone Hitler celebrated the ‘alliance of defence and defiance’ represented by the leagues united in the Arbeitsgemeinschaft, although in fact the Vereinigte Vaterländische Verbände had pulled out at the last minute. But he could not conceal the fact that he had suffered a major defeat.62
Hitler’s behaviour had in fact offered the Bavarian judicial authorities the opportunity of starting proceedings against him and revoking the suspension of his three-month prison sentence, of which he had served over a third the previous year. Hitler, however, sent the prosecuting authorities a memorandum in which he threatened to expose the secret cooperation between the Reichswehr and the paramilitary leagues in the event of his being charged. In response, the Bavarian minister of justice decided to postpone the case and it was never proceeded with.63