To avoid the impression that Germany was about to embark on a major rearmament programme, a few days after quitting the League of Nations, and in the middle of the election campaign, Hitler put forward a new disarmament proposal. At the end of 1933, Germany would have been relatively helpless in the face of sanctions or pressure from the western powers; thus, it was only logical that Hitler sought limited and controlled German rearmament within the framework of bilateral agreements (or at least to give the impression that that was his intention). To try to achieve this he put out feelers in various directions.
He took a first step on 24 October by proposing to the British ambassador a convention with an eight-year term, which envisaged freezing the armaments of France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, while Germany would be permitted to increase its army up to 300,000 men on the basis of one-year conscription, but would dispense with heavy weapons.25
On 16 November, Hitler renewed his contacts with France. This was four days after the plebiscite, and with his position strengthened by the ‘people’s’ apparently enthusiastic support. Accompanied by Ribbentrop and Blomberg, he once again met the French journalist and intimate of Daladier, de Brinon, whom he had already met in September and whose link with Ribbentrop was still intact. They decided to publish Hitler’s statements in the form of a newspaper interview. This first interview that Hitler gave to a French newspaper was published on 22 November in Le Matin and reprinted in the Völkischer Beobachter on 23 November. He reiterated at length his wish for an understanding and for peace. ‘People insult me when they continue to say that I want war’ he declared angrily. Once the Saar issue had been resolved there were no further insoluble problems in the German–French relationship: ‘Alsace–Lorraine is not a matter of dispute.’ The controversial armaments question could be solved through a bilateral agreement with France. But these grandiose statements were too transparent to produce a change in French public opinion.26
Overcoming isolation?
By contrast, there was a significant change in Germany’s policy towards eastern Europe. As already mentioned, at the end of September, Hitler had declared in the cabinet that relations with the Soviet Union would in future be marked by a ‘sharp antagonism’. In August 1933, the former head of the delegation to the Disarmament Conference, Nadolny, was appointed German ambassador in Moscow. At the end of 1933, assuming that he was expressing the official view, Nadolny prepared a comprehensive scheme for improving German–Soviet relations; however, by January 1934, he had been forced to toe Hitler’s line.27
In spring 1933, Hitler had already put out friendly feelers to Poland.28 On 15 November, he received the Polish ambassador, Josef Lipski; this was only three days after the Reichstag election, and before the meeting with de Brinon. According to the official statement, in future both states intended to deal with matters affecting the two countries ‘through direct negotiations’, avoiding ‘any use of force’.29 The communiqué made it clear that both states were aiming to negotiate a non-aggression pact. The Foreign Ministry was sceptical, since a formal non-aggression pact could be seen as Germany renouncing a revision of the eastern border.30 Thus, Hitler agreed that the planned pact should take the form of a joint statement31 and the negotiations with the Polish side were conducted on that basis. After a final meeting between Hitler and the Polish ambassador32 the negotiations finally led to the German–Polish statement of 26 January 1934. The agreement was to last ten years and basically involved a joint renunciation of the use of force. Moreover, the text clearly indicated the intention of engaging in closer cooperation in the future.33
Throughout the Weimar period German foreign policy had focused on a revision of the eastern border; Poland had been regarded as hostile and the aim had been to join with the Soviet Union in forcing her into submission. With the so-called German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 26 January Hitler was pursuing a very different policy. In the short and medium term he intended this move to break through Germany’s diplomatic isolation, provide apparent proof of his peaceful intentions, and significantly undermine France’s anti-German alliance policy. In the longer term he had another objective: Poland could play an important role as a base and junior partner for a policy of acquiring living space in eastern Europe.34
The friendly signals that Hitler sent to the Soviet Union in January and February 1934 (for example his deportation of the Bulgarian communists, Georgi Dimitroff, Wassil Taneff, and Blagoi Popoff, who were still in custody despite having been found not guilty in the Reichstag Fire trial35) were simply intended to disguise his unambiguously anti-Soviet policy. In April, Neurath rejected a proposal by Moscow for a German–Soviet guarantee for the Baltic States.36 When the German ambassador in Moscow visited Berlin at the end of May, Hitler told him bluntly that he did not want to have anything to do with the Soviets.37
The German–Polish rapprochement inevitably led to a further cooling of relations with France. Germany provided more precise details of its disarmament proposals in a memorandum submitted to France on 18 December, but the new conservative government under Prime Minister Gaston Doumergue, with Louis Barthou as Foreign Minister, was unimpressed.38 In March 1934, Hitler sent his foreign policy advisor, Ribbentrop, to France; however, in his conversation with Barthou Ribbentrop encountered open distrust of German policy.39 Further attempts by Ribbentrop to negotiate at Hitler’s behest40 were prevented when France broke off the contacts on 17 April on the grounds that Germany was rearming unilaterally. Negotiations could restart only if Germany rejoined the League of Nations.41
France now began a diplomatic offensive, which soon drove Germany into almost complete isolation. In the first place, Foreign Minister Barthou, together with the Soviet Union, pursued an eastern pact which, by including the Soviet Union, Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, and Germany, was intended to fix the existing borders in eastern Europe in the same way that the Locarno Pact of 1925 had fixed Germany’s western border. This eastern pact, which preoccupied Germany a great deal during summer 1934, ultimately failed, but the Soviet Union moved much closer to France. In September 1934, not least under pressure from the French government, the Soviet Union joined the League of Nations and, in May 1935, Barthou’s successor, Pierre Laval, even made a pact for mutual military assistance with the Soviet Union. In addition, Germany’s Austrian policy was an important factor in bringing France and Italy closer.42
At the end of 1933, Hitler had initially continued his cautious Austrian policy, aiming to limit the damage caused by his attempt at coordination in the spring.43 During a visit to Rome in November 1933, Göring, who was increasingly being used by Hitler for special diplomatic missions, told Mussolini that at the moment Hitler had no intention of threatening Austrian independence. The union of Austria and Germany was absolutely unavoidable, but should only occur in agreement with Italy. Hitler used the visit of Fulvio Suvich, Italian Under Secretary of State, to Berlin in December to demand Dollfuss’s removal from power, but in vain.44 Meanwhile, Dollfuss increasingly sought protection from Italy. To this end, he crushed the Austrian Social Democratic Party in February 1934 and set about establishing an authoritarian regime, an Austrian version of fascism. Inevitably, he then found himself becoming diplomatically dependent on Italy.45 Although Hitler emphasized his change of course with regard to Austria,46 he could not prevent Dollfuss from signing the Roman Protocols with the Hungarian prime minister, Gyula Gömbös, and Mussolini on 17 March. This was a consultative agreement attached to a series of economic arrangements; it underpinned Austrian independence under Italian protection and rebuffed German ambitions in south-east Europe.47
Gömbös, representing a state that, like Germany, was seeking a revision of the post-war international order, had been the first head of government to visit Hitler in Berlin in June 1933. However, the Nazis’ only too obvious ambitions vis-à-vis Austria had damaged German–Hungarian relations. In 1934 Germany’s only success was in managing to sign a series of trade treaties with south-east European states.48
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The signing in summer 1933 of the Concordat was Hitler’s first diplomatic success. Yet, although he had managed during the rest of 1933 and the beginning of 1934 to push through his own foreign policy ideas against opposition from the Foreign Ministry, the results were of dubious value. In the first place, unlike his chief diplomat, he had not banked on the collapse of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, but instead had spectacularly seized the initiative and taken the risk of leaving the Conference and the League of Nations. However, after the French government broke off negotiations in spring 1934, his assumption that he would be able to secure future German rearmament through bilateral agreements had, for the time being, been proved wrong. As a result, Germany found itself relatively unprotected in the ‘risk zone’ right at the start of its major rearmament programme. Secondly, Hitler had been successful in seeking a rapprochement with Poland in order to break out of isolation, but in doing so had put at risk the Foreign Ministry’s main priority, namely revision of the eastern frontier. The Non-Aggression Pact with Poland had also had the result of pushing the Soviet Union towards the western powers and damaging Germany’s relations with France. Indeed, both powers were eventually prompted by German policy to make a military pact. Thirdly, it became clear that Hitler’s attempt to pacify Austria had failed to rectify the damage that he had caused by his aggressive coordination policy in spring 1933; instead, he had strengthened the Dollfuss regime and caused it to align itself with Italy. Above all, the Austrian question had caused significant damage to Germany’s relationship with Italy, the key partner he had hoped to win over.
16
Becoming Sole Dictator
Hitler’s increasing influence on foreign policy before spring 1934 resulted, above all, in the Third Reich becoming more and more diplomatically isolated while, at the same time, serious problems were emerging in domestic politics. The series of propaganda campaigns and major events with which the regime had swamped Germany during its first year in order to demonstrate to the outside world how united the nation was proved less and less capable during its second year of disguising the very real problems that existed.
To start with, there was the problem of the SA. After Hitler’s refusal in July 1933 to continue the Nazi ‘revolution’, the conflict between the Party leadership and the SA, which had run through the Party’s history since 1923, continued. Initially, Röhm pursued a strategy of expanding the membership from 500,000 men at the beginning of 1933 to over four and a half million in mid-1934; this was achieved by admitting new members and integrating other coordinated paramilitary organizations. Röhm believed that the sheer weight of this mass organization would guarantee his SA a powerful position in the Nazi state.1 During the months after the seizure of power, he had tried to secure a decisive influence over the state administration, particularly in Bavaria, by appointing SA special commissioners. However, by the autumn of 1933, this attempt had clearly failed. The SA auxiliary police had been dismissed,2 and the SA had not managed to maintain its role in supplying concentration camp guards.3 In addition, Röhm had attempted to transform the SA into a popular militia and, initially, during 1933, had in fact succeeded in integrating it into the Reichswehr’s rearmament plans. However, during the autumn of 1933, it became apparent, as has been described above, that Hitler and the Reichswehr leadership were moving towards adopting another model for the Reichswehr’s development. The Reichswehr was to become a conscript army, with the SA responsible only for pre-military training and for maintaining the military effectiveness of reservists.4
At the same time, Hitler cautiously, and without seeking a confrontation with Röhm, set about limiting the role of the SA elsewhere. At the end of 1933, he began to extend his control over the whole of the Nazi movement, and to ‘integrate’ the entire Party organization into the state apparatus, with the aim of further strengthening his own position.
On 21 April 1933, Hitler had already appointed Hess, who, since December 1932 had been head of the Political Commission of the NSDAP, to be his deputy for Party affairs, giving him authority ‘to take decisions in my name in all matters involving the Party headquarters’;5 on 1 September 1933, he gave him the title ‘Deputy Führer’.6 After this initial regulation of internal Party matters, on 1 December 1933, the Law for securing the Unity of Party and State was enacted, which stated that the NSDAP was the ‘bearer of the concept of the German state and is indissolubly linked to the state’. The Party was made an ‘official body under public law’, which represented a promotion from its previous status as a ‘registered association’, but still subordinated it to state law. However, the members were subjected to a special Party judicial system, which in theory was entitled to order ‘arrest and detention’. In practice, however, it never came to what would have been a breach in the state’s monopoly of the penal code; instead, there were disciplinary measures such as expulsion from the Party.7 Moreover, Hitler used this law to appoint two more Nazi ministers: Rudolf Hess, the ‘Führer’s’ Deputy, and Ernst Röhm, the chief of staff of the SA, became ministers without portfolio. All these measures had the effect of integrating the Party into the state rather than, as many Party functionaries had been anticipating,8 enabling the Party to dictate to the state. During this period, Goebbels repeatedly recorded this as being Hitler’s intention.9 However, the ‘Führer’ deliberately left open the question of how he was going to regulate the relationship between Party and state over the longer term.
The appointment of Röhm as a Reich minister was also intended as compensation for the decline in his real power. However, he did not accept this basic presupposition behind his promotion; instead, he responded to his appointment by announcing that the SA was now integrated through ‘my person into the state apparatus’ and ‘later developments will determine’ ‘what spheres of operation’ may be acquired in the future.10 In fact, he stepped up his attempt to turn the SA into an entirely independent organization, by trying to create a kind of state within the state. He set up a separate SA press office; he maintained foreign contacts,11 for which he even established a special ‘ministerial office’; he attempted to influence higher education policy; and there were even signs of the emergence of an ‘SA legal code’ with its own norms.12
Röhm had good reason to do what he could to offer his people hope for the future. For the SA was an exceptionally heterogeneous mass body and, as a result of having expanded through integrating a range of different organizations, had a very unstable structure; discontent and lack of discipline were rife. Most of the ‘old fighters’, who had often suffered a loss of social status as a result of the economic crisis, still had few prospects of employment and now saw themselves being cheated out of a reward for their years of commitment to and sacrifices for the Party. At the same time, the masses of new members were having to face the fact that, despite their support for the movement, their position had not improved overnight. The SA men’s frustration was being expressed in numerous excesses and acts of violence, which, since all their political enemies had been crushed, were often directed at the general population.13 At the turn of the year 1933/34, Röhm once again publicly asserted his old claim for the primacy of the soldier over the politician and confidently demanded the completion of the National Socialist revolution; his aim was, in part at least, to provide an outlet for this pent-up frustration.14
Hitler responded by once more proclaiming the end of the revolution and the preeminence of the Party. All the greetings telegrams he sent on 31 December to Röhm, Hess, Göring, Goebbels, and other Party bigwigs referred to ‘the end of the year of National Socialist revolution’.15 He was equally unequivocal when he spoke to the SA leadership, assembled in the Reich Chancellery on 22 January 1934, of the ‘increasingly strong position of the Party as the commanding representative and guarantor of the new political order in Germany’.16 And, at the same time, Hess was warning the organization in a newspaper article not to ‘go its own way’.17 Hitler’s appointment of Alfred Rosenberg, on 24 January, to be resp
onsible for ‘supervising the entire intellectual and ideological indoctrination and education of the NSDAP’ can be seen as not only strengthening the dogmatic-völkisch elements in the NSDAP, but also as an additional means of tightening up the whole of the Party’s operations.18
Church policy
Apart from the conflict with the SA, the disputes within the Protestant Church were reaching a climax in the autumn and winter of 1933. It was becoming clear that Hitler’s unwillingness to give further support to the German Christians (that was the implication of his declaration of neutrality on the Church question, made to the Gauleiters on 5 August 1933) in the longer term was undermining their dominant position within the Church.
On 6 September 1933, the General Synod of the Protestant Church of the Old Prussian Union, dominated by the German Christians, issued a Church law according to which, in future, all clergy and Church officials had to prove that they were of ‘Aryan descent’.19 This immediately prompted Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to set up a Pastors’ Emergency League. This became the core of an opposition movement within the Church to resist the German Christians’ ruthless use of their majorities within Church bodies to introduce Nazi ideology into the Church. Hitler’s ambivalent attitude to the Protestant Church had enabled such an internal opposition to emerge, and in fact it suited him. For although he had wanted a unified Protestant Church in order to use it as a counterweight to Catholicism, he regarded both Churches in the longer term as ideological competitors. Thus, it was entirely in his interest for them to be weakened by internal splits. The Emergency League, of which, in January 1934, more than a third of pastors were members,20 kept stressing its basic loyalty to the Hitler regime. Thus, in a telegram sent to ‘our Führer’ on 15 October, on the occasion of Germany’s departure from the League of Nations, it pledged its ‘loyalty and prayerful solicitude’.21
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