This chapter is concerned with the first phase, the period between January and the summer of 1933, in other words those months covering what is generally known as the ‘seizure of power’. In this analysis we are following the model of a ‘seizure of power’ in stages set out by Karl Dietrich Bracher over fifty years ago in his ground-breaking book, which is still essential reading.2 This model, however, shows clearly that the process was by no means automatic; Hitler intervened decisively at every stage and to a considerable extent controlled and steered the course of events.
Stage 1: Neutralizing the political Left
The first meeting of the new cabinet took place on the afternoon of 30 January. The following day, the Reichstag was supposed to be reconvening after a two-month break and Hitler pointed out that they would need the support of the Centre Party to secure a postponement, unless they were to ban the KPD and secure a majority that way. Unlike Hugenberg, Hitler did not want to go down that path as he feared serious domestic unrest and a possible general strike. So it would be best if parliament were dissolved, thereby providing the government with the opportunity to establish a majority through a new election.3 Thus, Hitler was demanding that his coalition partners immediately fulfil the important promise they had made to him just before his government took office.
On the evening of 30 January, the Nazis celebrated their triumph in Berlin with a torchlight procession lasting several hours through the government quarter. In Wilhelmstrasse Hindenburg received the ovations of the marching columns, which, in accordance with his wishes, included the Stahlhelm. However, the cheering was, above all, for Hitler, who appeared on a balcony in the Reich Chancellery. Goebbels immediately took advantage of his new powers by providing a running commentary on the radio.4
As Hitler had hoped, a meeting arranged for the next day with senior members of the Centre Party failed to reach agreement on the question of postponement. The Centre Party negotiators were understandably unwilling to agree to a suspension of parliament for a year without receiving guarantees of their influence on the government in the meantime. Hitler immediately used these reservations as an excuse to break off negotiations.5 At the next cabinet meeting, which took place on the same day, his conservative coalition partners were only too happy to agree with Hitler that future negotiations with the Centre were pointless and so they should call new elections.6 Hitler had initially kept the post of Minister of Justice vacant, leaving open the option of filling it with a member of the Centre Party. This reinforced the conservatives’ concern that he could after all arrange a coalition with the Centre Party behind their backs. For the time being, this option was now blocked and, on the following day, the conservative, Franz Gürtner, who had been Reich Minister of Justice under Schleicher, was appointed to the post. Finally, at the cabinet meeting of 31 January, Hitler noted that the cabinet were all agreed that these should be the last elections: a ‘return to the parliamentary system was to be avoided at all costs’.7 Hitler aimed to secure a majority for the Nazis mainly because he wanted to free himself from his reliance on the President’s authority to issue emergency decrees and so from his dependence on the right-wing conservatives.
On 1 February Hindenburg signed the decree to dissolve the Reichstag ‘after’, as Hitler made clear to him, ‘it has proved impossible to secure a working majority’, and he called new elections for 5 March.8 Up until then, the cabinet was able to govern by using the President’s right to issue decrees.
On the same day, Hitler put to the cabinet an ‘Appeal to the German People’, which he read out on the radio late that evening. He began with his usual narrative about the last – in the meantime – ‘14 years’ in which the country had presented ‘a picture of heartbreaking disunity’. Now, at the height of the crisis, ‘the Communist method of madness [is trying], as a last resort, to poison and subvert a damaged and shattered nation’. Everything was at stake: ‘Starting with the family, and including all notions of honour and loyalty, nation and fatherland, even the eternal foundations of our morals and our faith.’ Thus, Hitler continued with feeling, ‘our venerable World War leader’ had appealed ‘to us men, who are members of the nationalist parties and associations, to fight under him once again, as we did at the front, but now, united in loyalty, for the salvation of the Reich at home’. Employing a hollow and clichéd set of values, he referred to ‘Christianity as the basis of the whole of our morality’, the ‘family as the nucleus of our nation and our state’, the consciousness of ‘ethnic and political unity’, ‘respect for our great past’, ‘pride in our old traditions’ as the basis for the ‘education of German youth’. Hitler intended to improve the catastrophic economic situation by ‘reorganizing the national economy’ with the help of two great ‘four-year-plans’, which would secure the peasants’ livelihoods and start to get to grips with unemployment. ‘Compulsory labour service’ and ‘settlement policy’ were among the ‘main pillars’ of this programme. As far as foreign policy was concerned, the Chancellor contented himself with the comment that the government saw ‘its most important mission as the preservation of our nation’s right to live and, as a result, the regaining of its freedom’; he expressly committed himself to maintaining international limits on armaments. Hitler concluded by appealing to the Almighty to bless the work of the new government.9
On 2 February, the new Chancellor introduced himself to the Reichsrat [Reich Federal Council] and asked the state governments for support. The SPD and the Centre Party still had a majority in the Council, for Hamburg, Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg were still not yet in Nazi hands, and in Prussia, thanks to a ruling by the Prussian Supreme Court of 25 October 1932, the constitutional and SPD-dominated Braun government was still able to perform certain functions, in spite of the appointment of the Reich Commissar the previous July.10 These included the representation of Prussia in the Reichsrat and Hitler inevitably regarded it as an affront that the Social Democrat civil servant, Arnold Brecht, in his reply to Hitler’s address warned him to obey the constitution and demanded the restoration of constitutional conditions in Prussia.11 Hitler was now more than ever determined to get rid of the opposition bloc in Germany’s biggest state, made up of the SPD and Centre Party. When the NSDAP parliamentary group’s motion to dissolve the Prussian parliament was defeated, he secured a Reich presidential decree ‘to restore orderly government in Prussia’,12 transferring all responsibilities from Prime Minister Braun to Reich Commissar Papen. Braun appealed against this breach of the Reich and Prussian constitutions and contravention of the Prussian supreme court’s judgment, but the issue was delayed until March and, finally, following Braun’s emigration, became redundant.13 Thanks to his new powers, Papen was able to dissolve the Prussian parliament on 6 February.14 Already on the previous day the acting government had dissolved all the Prussian provincial parliaments, district councils, city and town councils and called new elections for 12 March. This measure was aimed at getting control of the Prussian State Council, the Prussian second chamber.
On 3 February, the cabinet issued a decree ‘for the protection of the German people’, intended to facilitate the banning of meetings and newspapers during the coming general election. Hitler had rejected the original draft, which had gone even further, containing heavy penalties for strikes in ‘plants essential to life’, because it would have involved a public acknowledgement that the government feared a general strike. However, this fear was unfounded. Although, on 30 January, the KPD had called on the SPD and the trade unions for a joint general strike, the lack of preparations, the deep divisions within the labour movement, and the hopelessness of such a move – the regime controlled all the instruments of state power as well as the paramilitary SA and SS – prevented common action.15
On 3 February, the Defence Minister, General Werner von Blomberg, invited Hitler to meet the senior Reichswehr commanders for the first time. They met in the house of the Chief of the General Staff, General Kurt Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, where the new Chancellor
expounded the basic ideas of his foreign and defence policy to the assembled company. After an introduction about the importance of ‘race’, Hitler quickly got to the main point: the current unemployment could be dealt with in only two ways: through an increase in exports or ‘a major settlement programme, for which the precondition is an expansion of the German people’s living space. . . . This would be my proposal’. In fifty to sixty years’ time they would then be dealing with a ‘completely new and healthy state’. ‘This is why it is our task to seize political power, ruthlessly suppress every subversive opinion, and improve the nation’s morale.’ Once ‘Marxism’ had been eliminated, the army would ‘have first-class recruits as a result of the educative work of my movement and it will be guaranteed that recruits will retain their high morale and nationalist spirit even after they have been discharged’. This is why he was aiming to acquire ‘total political power. I have set a deadline of 6–8 years to destroy Marxism completely.16 Then the army will be capable of pursuing an active foreign policy and the goal of extending the German people’s living space will be achieved with force of arms. The objective will probably be the East.’ Since it was ‘possible to Germanize only land’ and not people, in the course of the conquest they would have ‘ruthlessly to expel several million people’. However, they needed to act with ‘the greatest possible speed’ so that, in the meantime, France did not intervene and ally itself with the Soviet Union. Hitler concluded with an appeal to the generals ‘to fight along with me for the great goal, to understand me, and to support me, not with weapons, but morally. I have forged my own weapon for the internal struggle; the army is there only to deal with foreign conflicts. You will never find another man who is so committed to fighting with all his strength for his aim of saving Germany as I am. And if people say to me: “Achieving this aim depends on you!” Fine, then let us use my life.’17
In his speech Hitler had revealed not only his long-term plans for conquest and Germanization, but above all the basis for a close cooperation between the Reichswehr and his regime. In fact the aim of making the Reichswehr ready for war in six to eight years was entirely compatible with the military’s own rearmament plans.18
With his announcement that his movement would deliver the army first-class recruits and maintain the morale of the reservists even after their discharge, Hitler was recognizing the Reichswehr’s claim to dominance in the sphere of military policy, with the implication that in future the SA would be restricted to auxiliary functions. At the same time, it confirmed an agreement that he had made with Blomberg in the cabinet meeting on 30 January that, in contrast to its role under Papen and Schleicher, the army would, as a matter of principle, no longer be used to support the government in domestic politics and instead concentrate entirely on its role as a future instrument of war.19
A few days later, the close cooperation between Hitler and Blomberg was given practical expression. At the cabinet meeting on 8 February Hitler emphasized that ‘the next five years must be devoted to the remilitarization of the German people’; every publicly supported measure to create work should be judged on whether it was necessary for this purpose.20 However, at this point, as he openly admitted to his cabinet, Hitler was in any case not prepared to authorize a major programme of pump-priming the economy – for electoral reasons. Issuing more credit was liable to meet with opposition from his conservative coalition partners.21
Thus, contrary to Hitler’s bombastic announcement of 1 February, the new government confined itself to using the money provided by the Schleicher government for work creation, which had been financed with credit. This occurred the following day at a cabinet committee presided over by Hitler with 140 million RM to distribute. They decided to provide 50 million RM for the Reichswehr and 10 million RM for aviation. Defence Minister Blomberg explained that the Reichswehr had launched ‘a large rearmament programme spread over several years’; he was referring to the so-called Second Rearmament Programme, which had been agreed in 1932 in anticipation of the lifting of the Versailles Treaty’s restrictions on armaments, and was intended to start on 1 April 1933.22 Blomberg asked Hitler directly to approve the finance for the whole programme, which was costed at around 500 million RM. Hitler agreed that rearmament would require ‘millions of Reich Marks’ and was ‘absolutely’ decisive for the future of Germany. ‘All other tasks must be subordinate to the task of rearmament.’ The cabinet also approved the statement by the Reich Commissioner for Aviation that he had agreed a three-year ‘minimum programme’ with the Defence Ministry costing 127 million RM.23
After only a few days, therefore, it was apparent that Hitler’s determination to rearm Germany, was matched by a military leadership that was about to ignore the military restrictions of the Versailles Treaty. It was true that the Second Rearmament Programme, with its planned expansion of the 100,000-strong professional army by 43,000 professional soldiers over five years and the training of 85,000 short service volunteers per year, was relatively modest. However, already on 1 April 1933, as the first stage, 14,000 professional soldiers were to be recruited in contravention of the provisions of Versailles. It was impossible to keep this secret over the long term. In other words, the military were determined to overcome the Versailles armament restrictions – either within the context of an international disarmament agreement or through independent action by Germany – and Hitler was only too ready to adopt these concrete rearmament measures himself.24 From the point of view of the generals his ‘take-over of power’ could not have come at a better time.
Now it was a matter of making sure these plans could be realized. The NSDAP totally dominated the campaign for the Reichstag election of 5 March.25 The Party concentrated its campaign entirely on Hitler; ‘Hitler is going to rebuild’ was the slogan, which once again aimed at arousing vague emotions – trust and hope – while dispensing with concrete political aims. At the cabinet meeting on 8 February Hitler had recommended that ‘election propaganda should, if possible, avoid all detailed statements about a Reich economic programme. The Reich government must win 18–19 million votes. An economic programme that could win the approval of such a huge electorate simply does not exist’.26 The second theme of the NSDAP campaign was the struggle with the left-wing parties. On 8 February, Hitler bluntly told a group of leading journalists: ‘In ten years’ time Marxism will not exist in Germany’.27
On 10 February, for the first time since his appointment as Chancellor, Hitler spoke at a mass meeting in the Berlin Sportpalast. The speech, introduced by the head of the Party’s propaganda Joseph Goebbels, to create the appropriate ‘mood’, was broadcast by all radio stations and designed to project the energy with which the new government intended to solve the crisis and unite the nation. After ‘14 years’ of decline they must ‘completely rebuild the German nation’. ‘That’, as Hitler taunted his political opponents, ‘is our programme!’ He was not, however, going to provide any further details. Instead, he reached the high point of his rhetoric, an ‘appeal’ to his audience: ‘. . . Germans, give us four years and then assess us and judge us. Germans, give us four years and I swear that, just as we, and just as I, have taken on this office, I shall then leave it.’ Hitler finished with a kind of confession of faith in the German people, which in its cadences and formulation was intended to be reminiscent of the Lord’s Prayer:For I must believe in my nation. I must hold on to my conviction that this nation will rise again. I must keep loving this nation and am utterly convinced that the hour will come when those who hate us today will be standing behind us and will join us in welcoming the new German Reich we have created together with effort, struggle, and hardship, a Reich that is great, honourable, powerful, glorious, and just. Amen.28
During the following days and weeks there were more mass meetings, modelled on the Sportpalast one, in Stuttgart, Dortmund, and Cologne, introduced by Goebbels in the guise of a ‘reporter’. Radio had already been used for government propaganda under Papen, but the broadcasting of election
meetings was new. Some states that were not yet in Nazi hands raised objections to this breach of radio’s party political neutrality. On 8 February the cabinet had agreed the following arrangement: Hitler would be given privileged access to radio only in his capacity as head of the government, not as a party leader; Goebbels’s introductions should not exceed ten minutes, a limit which Goebbels did not, of course, abide by.29
At this point, the regime took tough action against the Left. On 1 February, Göring had already issued a general ban on KPD meetings in Prussia, which the other Nazi-controlled states (Brunswick, Thuringia, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, and Anhalt) then also introduced; the communist press could not appear regularly as a result of numerous bans, so that the party’s election campaign soon came to a halt. Karl Liebknecht House, the KPD’s Berlin headquarters, was repeatedly searched and, on 23 February, shut down altogether. In response, after 7 February, the party began adopting illegal methods of operating, but worked on the assumption that there would not be a ban before the election. In the second half of February, the SPD’s campaign was also significantly restricted by bans on meetings and newspapers and the large-scale disturbance of its meetings by Nazi mobs.30 The two workers’ parties, which had been engaged in a bitter struggle since 1918/19, had no means of countering these attacks: they did not have the resources for an armed uprising and they were not geared for a general strike or even for continuing political work underground. On the contrary, the SPD tried to keep its struggle against the government within legal bounds for as long as possible.
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