Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  While the shortage of foreign exchange prompted renewed fears of inflation, the population was also upset by actual price increases for foodstuffs59 and by shortages.60 The hopes that millions had invested in the promise of a favourable policy for self-employed artisans and retailers were being disappointed;61 peasants felt under pressure from the strict regulations imposed by the Reich Food Estate. Those who had been previously unemployed and had now found employment compared their present situation with that before the crisis and concluded that they had been better off in 1928. The idea that the reduction in unemployment resulted in millions of grateful workers turning to the regime is an exaggeration often found in the literature; there is little evidence for it. On the other hand, there were several developments that can account for the continuing discontent in factories. First, there was the removal of the workers’ rights contained in the Weimar social constitution: works’ councils had been replaced by ‘Councils of Trust’, which only had the right of consultation. Secondly, the Law for the Ordering of National Labour of 20 January 1934 had shifted the balance of power within factories decisively in favour of the employer, to whom the employees, as his ‘retinue’, now owed a duty of loyalty. The results of the elections to the ‘Councils of Trust’ in spring 1934 were so poor that the regime did not publish them. In addition to the economic problems, there was the continuing conflict within the Protestant Church, which also involved Hitler’s prestige, as he had strongly supported the ‘unification project’. But, above all, people were alienated by the loutishness of the SA and the high-handed behaviour of the local Party bigwigs. There was little left of the euphoria inspired by a new beginning that the regime had had some success in creating during the previous year.62

  Typically, the regime responded not by addressing the causes of the crisis but by using every means possible to silence opponents and those allegedly responsible for encouraging ‘negativity’. After Hitler had used his speech on 1 May for a renewed attack on ‘critics’ in general, on 3 May the Nazi Party’s Reich propaganda headquarters launched a ‘comprehensive propaganda campaign involving meetings’, ‘which will focus, in particular, on whingers and critics, rumour-mongers and losers, saboteurs and agitators, who still think they can damage National Socialism’s constructive work’. The campaign was intended through ‘a barrage of meetings, demonstrations, and events to mobilize the people against this plague’. Deploying the ‘old methods of the time of struggle, the meetings [must] mobilize everybody right down to the last village, up the tempo every week, make ever tougher demands on people, putting in the shade all previous campaigns through their impact and success’. The date fixed for the conclusion of the campaign appears, in view of later events, remarkable: 30 June 1934. However, the campaign was not directed, or at least not in the first instance, against the SA, but above all against criticism from ‘reactionary’ and Church circles, in other words, opponents who were suspected of using the obvious tensions between the regime and the SA for their own purposes.63

  However, the population was becoming tired of campaigns. They did not want to be mobilized yet again, and took the ‘whinger campaign’ for what in effect it was, namely a ban on all criticism. The response was indifference, apathy, and a further loss of trust.64 At the same time the economic situation deteriorated still further. The foreign exchange crisis reached its climax in mid-June 1934 when Schacht announced the suspension of interest payments on all Reich bonds from 1 July,65 and, a few days later, the Reichsbank abolished its monthly foreign exchange control system, in future allocating foreign exchange on an ad hoc basis. German foreign trade was in danger of collapsing; there was the threat of a trade war between Britain and the Reich.66

  It was now obvious what was indeed about to happen. As a result of a shortage of raw materials there were interruptions in production, in fact even temporary shutdowns, and bottlenecks in deliveries.67 The Reichswehr leadership responded to this situation by bitterly attacking the Reich Economics Minister, Kurt Schmitt.68 The collapse of his health at the end of June after only a year in office proved quite convenient, paving the way for Hjalmar Schacht, who was to pursue a new course in order to protect the rearmament programme. However, before Schacht took up his appointment, on 30 June, Hitler was to solve the most serious crisis his regime had hitherto faced in his own very particular way.

  The crisis comes to a head

  On 13 July, Hitler told the Reichstag that, at the beginning of June, he had had a five-hour conversation with Röhm, during which he had reassured him that all rumours to the effect that he was planning to dissolve the SA were despicable lies. We do not know what was actually said during this conversation, but Hitler’s comment suggests that it involved nothing less than the very existence of the SA. Moreover, Hitler added that he had complained to Röhm ‘about the increasing number of cases of unacceptable behaviour’, demanding that they should be ‘stopped at once’.69 After the meeting with Hitler, Röhm published a statement that he was ‘going on leave for several weeks on the grounds of ill health’, in order to take a cure, while during July the whole of the SA would go on leave. Röhm felt it necessary to add that after this break he ‘would carry on his duties to the full’ and that, ‘after its well-earned holiday, the SA [would], unchanged and with renewed energy, continue to perform its great tasks in the service of the Führer and the movement’.70

  In the meantime, however, Hitler’s conservative coalition partners, who had been losing ground since spring 1933, saw in the conflict a chance to regain the initiative. The deteriorating economic situation, the general discontent, and the regime’s insecurity, as demonstrated by the whingers campaign, encouraged this group to go on the offensive. Their hopes rested on the aged Hindenburg making a last stand. They assumed that if, with the aid of the President, they could get the Reichswehr to curb the SA, then this must have an effect on the balance of power within the government.71 Moreover, the idea of possibly restoring the monarchy as a stabilizing factor was prevalent in these circles. In the middle of May, Papen informed Hitler that, at his suggestion, Hindenburg had prepared a will. Unaware of its contents, Hitler’s entourage suspected that it might contain a recommendation to restore the monarchy. Hitler, therefore, prepared to prevent its publication after Hindenburg’s death.72 (It turned out that their fears were groundless, as Hindenburg had not followed Papen’s advice.)73 Meanwhile, during May, Goebbels had learnt from Blomberg that Papen was proposing to succeed Hindenburg himself.74 However, the previous summer, Hitler had already decided that he would take over the Reich Presidency on Hindenburg’s death.75

  During the second half of July, the crisis intensified. On 17 June, Papen gave a speech at the University of Marburg, bluntly criticizing the Nazis’ totalitarian ambitions and rule of terror.76 Hitler (and not Goebbels, as Hitler told Papen) banned the press from publishing the Vice-Chancellor’s speech.77 Papen did not resign, pacified by Hitler’s explanations of what had happened, and also because Hindenburg failed to support him, indeed disapproved of his action as a breach of cabinet discipline. When Hitler visited Hindenburg at Neudeck on 21 June, the Reich Chancellor and the Reich President were in full agreement.78

  On 23 June, Hitler went down to the Obersalzberg and, during the following days, decided to combine the neutralization of Röhm, which he considered unavoidable, with a crackdown on ‘reactionaries’, who were becoming increasingly self-confident. In short, he determined to liquidate a number of second-rank people in the conservative camp in order to crush this emerging centre of opposition. This blow against the conservative opposition would take place in the shadow of the crushing of an alleged ‘Röhm putsch’. By transforming his conflict with the SA leadership into an attempted putsch by the SA leader, he could justify his brutal settling of accounts with his opponents within the Nazi movement as ‘an affair of state’. He claimed to be dealing with a ‘national state of emergency’, and he included the planned murder of members of the conservative camp under this heading. He could be
certain that the majority of the population, and particularly the bourgeoisie, would welcome with relief the removal of the problems caused by the SA; indeed, that it would gain him respect. He reckoned that this support for the neutralization of the SA would lead the conservative elements in society to overlook the murder of a few of their number. He did not leave the sorting out of the SA to their major rivals, the Reichswehr, instead transferring it to the political police and the SS. In doing so, he was fulfilling the promise that he had made to the Reichswehr leadership at the start of his regime: in future, the Army would be kept out of domestic conflicts. At the same time, the neutralization of the SA would strengthen his alliance with the Reichswehr as the ‘nation’s sole bearer of arms’ – the promise Hitler had made to it on 28 February 1933.

  During the final days before the crackdown, there were plenty of warnings from the Party leadership. During the annual Gau Rally in Gera on 18 June, for example, Goebbels attacked ‘saboteurs, grumblers, and malcontents’ (while Hitler devoted his speech to foreign policy issues); and three days later, at Gau Berlin’s solstice celebration, Goebbels announced that there would be a ‘tough settling of accounts’ with the ‘posh gentlemen’ and the ‘whingeing pub strategists’.79 On 25 June, Rudolf Hess warned the SA, in a speech broadcast via the Cologne radio station: ‘Woe to him who breaks faith in the belief that he can serve the revolution by starting a revolt! Those people who believe that they have been chosen to help the Führer through revolutionary agitation from below are pathetic. . . . Nobody is more concerned about his [sic] revolution than the Führer.’80 The following day, at a Party event in Hamburg, Göring railed against reactionary ‘self-interested cliques’ and ‘barren critics’, declaring that anyone who attempted to undermine people’s trust in the regime, will have ‘forfeited his head’.81

  At this point, during the final phase of the crisis, the Reichswehr too got ready for action. From 28 June, the Army made preparations for an imminent violent struggle with the SA; on 29 June, Defence Minister Blomberg announced in the Völkischer Beobachter: ‘the Wehrmacht and the state are of one mind’. In the same edition a speech of Göring’s in Cologne was reported, in which he railed against ‘people who are stuck in the past and who sow divisions’, while in Kiel Goebbels attacked ‘whingers and critics’.82 Finally, on 30 June, Infantry Regiment 19 was prepared, if necessary, to restore law and order in the Tegernsee district; later on in the day, it was to take over securing the Brown House in Munich.83

  A bloody showdown

  On 28 June, Hitler attended the wedding of the Essen Gauleiter, Josef Terboven, and subsequently visited the Krupp steel plant. The previous day, he had told Rosenberg that he did not intend to move against so-called ‘reactionaries’ until after Hindenburg had died.84 During his trip to Essen, however, he received news of some kind from Berlin that prompted him to consult with, among others, Göring and SA Obergruppenführer Viktor Lutze, who were accompanying him. Following these consultations, Göring flew back to Berlin, and Hitler ordered Röhm to convene a meeting of all the senior SA leaders in Bad Wiessee on the Tegernsee, where the latter was spending his holiday.85 The following day, Hitler continued his tour of Westphalia and then travelled to Bad Godesberg, where he ordered Goebbels to fly in to see him from Berlin. During the previous days, Goebbels had been convinced that Hitler was preparing a blow against ‘reactionaries’, and so was very surprised to learn that he was planning to move against ‘Röhm and his rebels’ and was going to ‘spill blood’. ‘During the evening’ according to Goebbels, they received more news from Berlin (‘the rebels are arming’), prompting Hitler to fly to Munich that night.86

  In his speech to the Reichstag on 13 July 1934, in which he gave a detailed account of the ‘Röhm putsch’, Hitler was to claim that he had originally intended to dismiss Röhm at the meeting in Bad Wiessee and to have the ‘SA leaders who were most guilty arrested’. However, during 29 June, he had received ‘such alarming news about final preparations for a coup’ that he had decided to bring forward his flight to Munich, so that he could act ‘swiftly’, ‘taking ruthless and bloody measures’ to prevent the alleged coup. Göring had ‘already received instructions from me that in the event of [sic!] the purge occurring, he should take equivalent measures in Berlin and Prussia’.87 Hitler’s comments, and the entry in Goebbels’s diary concerning Hitler’s surprising change of plan, suggest that Hitler did indeed decide to get rid of the SA leadership on 28 June, and, on 29 June, made the final decision on the extent, the precise targets, and the murderous nature of the ‘purge’. The ‘alarming news’, of which Hitler spoke and which Goebbels summarized with the words the ‘rebels are arming’, presumably referred to the latest Gestapo information about the circle around Papen’s colleague Edgar Julius Jung, who had been arrested on 25 June.88 It suggested that this group was attempting to make a final approach to Hindenburg,89 and Hitler was determined to preempt this at all costs through his double blow against the conservatives and the SA leadership. However, from 29 June onwards, he was no longer simply concerned with winning a domestic political power struggle; he was now determined to annihilate his opponents physically and create an atmosphere of terror and fear, which would in future prevent any opposition from forming at all.

  However, to begin with Hitler carried out the Bad Godesberg programme that had been organized for him as planned.90 Late in the evening of 29 June, he had two companies of SS sent to Upper Bavaria on the overnight train. During the night, he flew from Hangelar airport near Bonn to Munich, accompanied by his adjutants, Brückner, Schaub, and Schreck, his press chief, Otto Dietrich, and Goebbels. Once there, he learnt that, during the night, the members of an SA Standarte, around 3,000 men, had been put on the alert, some of whom had marched rowdily through Munich. It seemed there was a possibility that preparations for the planned measures had leaked out or had been intentionally leaked. Hitler, therefore, now decided to further accelerate the measures. He drove to the Interior Ministry, ordering SA leaders August Schneidhuber and Wilhelm Schmid to meet him there, and then personally tore off their insignia.91

  Hitler’s decision to liberate the regime from a serious crisis through a double blow against the SA leadership and the circle round Papen had been maturing over a period of weeks. However, events now culminated in a dramatic confrontation and the more the situation escalated the more furiously angry he became. However, his behaviour was not simply a clever tactic to provide himself with a justification for his actions. For, given his anger, a cool calculated decision to have a number of old comrades murdered could have appeared to be a crackdown arising out of the situation. It is also explicable in terms of particular personal characteristics that determined how he saw the situation. If this is the case, then the question as to whether Hitler really believed the SA intended to carry out a putsch is of secondary importance. He saw any putative attempt by the conservatives to approach Hindenburg as a threat to his power, which, together with the growing SA problem, could lead to a serious political crisis. This growing threat to his position and prestige – for him an intolerable thought – was already itself the feared ‘putsch’, the threatened coup d’état. His response to this threat, as he saw it, was to unleash a tidal wave of violence.

  In this mood he did not wait for SS reinforcements to arrive in Munich from Berlin and Dachau. Instead, he drove to Bad Wiessee, accompanied by Goebbels and a small group of SS and criminal police, where he found the SA leaders still in bed. Hitler insisted on carrying out the arrests himself.92 Afterwards, he returned to Munich, on the way stopping cars bringing the remaining SA leaders to Wiessee and arresting some individuals.

  On 8 July, Rudolf Hess provided an account of what happened in the Brown House during the next few hours in a speech at a Gau Party Rally in Königsberg that was broadcast on the radio. To begin with, Hitler spoke to the political leaders and SA leaders who were present, after which he withdrew to his study to pass ‘the first sentences’.93 He then dictated various i
nstructions and statements concerning the ‘change of leadership’ at the top of the SA. These included the announcement of Röhm’s dismissal and the appointment of Lutze as his successor, as well as a ‘statement from the NSDAP’s press office’, which provided an initial summary of the events and an explanation of the measures that had been taken.

  According to the statement, the SA had been increasingly developing into a centre of opposition, and Röhm had not only failed to prevent this, but had actually encouraged it, with his ‘well-known unfortunate inclinations’ playing an important part. Röhm had also, along with Schleicher, conspired with a ‘foreign power’ (France). This was another accusation for which no proof was produced.94 Hitler had then made up his mind to ‘go to Wiessee in person, together with a small escort’, ‘in order to nip in the bud any attempt at resistance’. There they had witnessed ‘such morally regrettable scenes’ that, following Hitler’s orders, they had acted immediately, ‘ruthlessly rooting out this plague sore’. Moreover, he had ordered Göring ‘to carry out a similar action in Berlin and, in particular, to eliminate the reactionary allies of this political conspiracy’. Around midday, Hitler had addressed senior SA leaders, on the one hand emphasizing ‘his unshakeable solidarity with the SA’, but, at the same time, announcing his ‘determination, from now onwards, pitilessly to exterminate and destroy disobedient types lacking discipline, as well as all anti-social and pathological elements’.95