Hitler
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Between 1934 and 1936 such crises arose three times, when the precarious economic situation coincided with other factors putting a strain on domestic politics. In all three instances Hitler first bided his time and then intervened decisively to bring the complex situation under his control and reset the political agenda. In 1934 the conflict with the SA arose against the background of the foreign exchange crisis. It was also exploited by right-wing conservative circles around Papen to advance their own demands. Hitler ended the conflict with a double blow to the leadership of the SA and the conservatives and, during its aftermath, also saw off political Catholicism. In the summer of 1935, when the economic situation was once again precarious, the problems with the Churches reached crisis point, while at the same time the regime was facing its final confrontation with ‘reaction’ and the rank and file of the Party was using anti-Jewish street violence to press for the implementation of the NSDAP’s anti-Semitic programme. Hitler dealt with the situation by initiating the Nuremberg Laws, which made the ‘Jewish question’ the focus of the domestic political agenda. In 1936 the lack of foreign exchange not only led to gaps in the supply of certain foods but was threatening to halt the rearmament programme. The result was serious disagreement within the regime about future economic policy. Hitler took two measures to solve the crisis: in April he appointed Göring as Commissar for Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange and in the summer initiated and ‘promulgated’ the Four-Year Plan.
The key to Hitler’s effectiveness, as these developments demonstrate, did not lie in achieving overwhelming consensus by means of the power of his charisma, but rather in his ability to reshape extraordinarily complex situations through skilful, flexible, and (albeit after considerable hesitation) decisive political action. One should not forget, however, that he achieved this because as dictator he had at his disposal a range of instruments shaped by and geared to the implementation of his personal political vision.
* Translators’ note: Lammers circulated draft bills to the relevant departmental ministers for comment and approval in writing in lieu of a cabinet meeting.
PaRt V
Smokescreen
24
Resetting Foreign Policy
During 1937, Hitler finally gave up hope of an alliance with Britain, which he believed had declined as a world power; he now focused entirely on securing an alliance with Italy.1 He still received prominent British guests and tried to convince them of his earnest and heartfelt desire for friendship, but he increasingly showed his disappointment and incomprehension that his advances met with no response.2
In Hitler’s view, the new alliance was being forged above all by German and Italian cooperation in the Spanish Civil War. For this cooperation would inevitably provoke tensions (and, therefore, common diplomatic interests) in the relationship of both powers with Britain, which was continuing to try to reduce the conflict through a Non-Intervention Committee, in which Germany was also represented. From April 1937 onwards, German warships were taking part in international naval patrols in order to impose an embargo on the two civil war belligerents; but simultaneously, since summer 1936, Germany had been supplying Franco with weapons and actively supporting him with a unit of the Condor Legion composed of Wehrmacht soldiers and airmen.
On 29 May, the heavy cruiser ‘Deutschland’, docked in Ibiza harbour, was bombed by a Spanish Republican plane, a raid which caused thirty-one deaths and numerous casualties. Hitler used this as an excuse to launch a ‘revenge attack’ on 31 May, using several German warships to bombard Almería harbour. Germany also suspended its cooperation with the Non-Intervention Committee until 12 June.3 On 23 June Germany withdrew its ships from the international naval patrols after the cruiser ‘Leipzig’ was torpedoed, presumably by a Republican submarine, and the committee failed to agree on a common response.4 Hitler also postponed indefinitely a planned trip to London by Foreign Minister Neurath.5
Hitler believed that the now firm alliance with Italy would allow him to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia into the Reich in the not too distant future; he would no longer need to take account of the views of Britain, his previous alliance candidate. In autumn 1936, he had already persuaded a number of Balkan politicians to agree to a German move against Czechoslovakia on the basis that a fundamental clash was developing between a communist-led bloc and an emerging bloc of ‘authoritarian’ states led by Germany. In March he had already told Goebbels bluntly that ‘we must have [Austria and Czechoslovakia] to round off our territory’.6 The Propaganda Minister had already altered German propaganda vis-à-vis Czechoslovakia a fortnight earlier. Now, the emphasis was no longer on its alleged bolshevization, but rather on the unfulfilled demands of the Sudeten Germans, which from now onwards were going to be used as a lever against the government in Prague.7
During 1937, Hitler also increased the pressure on Austria. In the course of his visit to Italy in January 1937, Göring had openly raised the issue of the Anschluss with Mussolini; however, the upshot of the exchange of views was unclear. The Italians relied on Göring’s remark that Germany was not planning any ‘surprises’ in relation to the Austrian question; Göring relied on Mussolini’s promise that he would not deploy any troops to the Brenner pass in the event of an Austrian crisis. In any event Göring was left with the impression that the ‘Duce’ had not been totally opposed.8 Visits to Rome by Göring in April and Neurath in May convinced the Germans that a move on Austria would not provoke Italian intervention.9 Over the next few months, the Austrian government was forced to make further concessions to the Austrian Nazis and the Reich Germans living in Austria.10 During consultations in Vienna, which took place a year after the July 1936 agreement, the Germans managed to push through additions to the previous arrangement,11 and, on 12 July, Hitler appointed his economic adviser, Keppler, who had taken part in the negotiations, to be his representative for Austrian affairs.12
The choral festival in Breslau, which Hitler opened at the end of July, saw a strong emphasis on ‘Greater German’ solidarity: 30,000 singers from abroad, mainly from Austria and Czechoslovakia, took part in the two-day event. In his address to the participants Hitler made a significant reference to the ‘95 million Germans’ of whom only two-thirds lived within the borders of the Reich.13 Back in Berlin and evidently still under the impression of the event in Breslau, Hitler told Goebbels in a private conversation that one day he would ‘make tabula rasa [in Austria]. . . . This state isn’t a state. Its people belong with us and will join us.’ Goebbels commented: ‘The Führer’s entry into Vienna will one day be his greatest triumph.’ But Hitler’s ambitions were not limited to Austria: ‘Czechoslovakia also isn’t a state. It will be overrun one day.’14 A few weeks later, just after the end of the Party Rally, Goebbels noted:15 ‘He says that Austria will one day be dealt with by force. That will be the final judgement of world history.’*
The Party Rally in Nuremberg, which began on 7 September, clearly demonstrated the regime’s growth in self-confidence. Anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism were the main themes of the event, and Hitler linked them together in his concluding speech. He warned that the Bolshevik movement, which was directed from Moscow, had an ‘international character’. In Russia, ‘by taking over the leadership of the Russian proletariat, the Jewish minority’ had succeeded in ‘not only deposing the previous leadership of society and the state, but in exterminating it without further ado’. As a result, Russia was now nothing but the ‘brutal dictatorship of an alien race’. By exploiting democracy and getting control of the communist movement, this ‘racial germ’ was now striving to dominate other nations. In describing this ‘threat to the world’ Hitler developed a positively apocalyptic vision: the Jews were taking ‘the torch of Bolshevist revolution right into the heart of the bourgeois–democratic world. . . . Just as when, in the past, the masses, driven wild by incitement, and supported by asocial elements released from prisons and penitentiaries, exterminated the natural and racially pure educated classes of var
ious nations, bleeding them to death on the scaffold, the Jew will remain as the sole bearer of an albeit pathetic store of intellectual knowledge.’ Since the Jews were a ‘totally uncreative race’, ‘if they want to establish permanent rule somewhere, they have to exterminate quickly the existing intellectual elites of the other nations’.16 In his speech to the Party Rally Goebbels too claimed ‘the Jews . . . [are] mainly responsible for the spread of the Bolshevik world revolution’. However, Hitler struck out the passage in the script of his speech where Goebbels had claimed that Germany was the leader in the ‘world struggle against Bolshevism’, telling Goebbels he had done so ‘out of consideration for Mussolini, who is sensitive about this matter’.17
The visit of Benito Mussolini at the end of September represented the hitherto most important state visit in the history of the Third Reich, a high point in the regime’s attempts to acquire international recognition. The ‘Duce’ arrived in Munich on 25 September, where he was ceremonially received by Hitler at the railway station. The programme for his visit included, among other things, a visit to Hitler’s private apartment, a wreath-laying ceremony at the ‘Temples of Honour’ on Königsplatz, and a visit to the House of German Art. During this first meeting, Mussolini gained the impression that they were in such full agreement on the need for German–Italian cooperation that further political discussions between him and Hitler could be omitted from the programme.18 Thus, the main emphasis of the visit was on the joint appearances of the two dictators. During the following days, Mussolini, accompanied by Hitler, visited Wehrmacht manoeuvres and the Krupp armaments works.19
At the end of his visit Mussolini went to Berlin, where the reception accorded the ‘Duce’ was intended to put everything that had gone before in the shade. 28 September was declared a national holiday. The centre of Berlin was elaborately decorated. Hitler’s interpreter, Paul Schmidt, had the impression of being an ‘extra in a gigantic opera production. Huge flags hung from attics down to the ground in rows along the fronts of houses. In the dusk big searchlights brought out the last bit of colour in the green-white-red Italian flags and the red of the Nazi swastikas.’20 The whole population was urged by the press to participate in the spectacle and, thanks to the Party organization, the majority of Berliners did join in: a total of three million people were assembled on the Olympic grounds as well as on the approach route.21 Hitler was the first to speak to what was officially termed this ‘Demonstration of 115 Million People’. He emphasized that ‘the current strength of these two nations represents the strongest guarantee of the survival of a Europe that still possesses a sense of its cultural mission and is not prepared to allow destructive elements to cause it to collapse!’ Mussolini underlined ‘German–Italian solidarity’; it was the ‘expression and result of sharing natural bonds and common interests’. The visit ended the following day with a military parade.
On 20 October, four weeks after Mussolini’s visit, the German ambassador in Rome, Ulrich von Hassell, approached the foreign minister Ciano with the suggestion that Italy should join the German–Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact as third partner. Ciano was surprised by this idea and asked urgently whether there were secret clauses, since the text of the agreement seemed to him suspiciously thin. Hassell mendaciously denied this was the case, but Ciano remained unconvinced.22 Nevertheless, the Italian government accepted the idea and, on 6 November in Rome, Ribbentrop signed the document in which Italy declared its agreement to join the Anti-Comintern Pact.23
Meanwhile, on 5 November, Hitler signed a German–Polish Minorities Declaration, in which each state committed itself to protect the national group of the other, not to discriminate against their members in any way, and to respect their cultural autonomy. On the occasion of the signing of this agreement, Hitler received members of the Polish minority in Germany, declaring that it was the aim of his government to ensure that ‘the Polish ethnic group can live harmoniously and peacefully together with German citizens’, in order in this way to further strengthen friendly relations between the two countries. Moreover, Hitler met ambassador Lipski and a communiqué was issued stating ‘that German–Polish relations should not be damaged by the Danzig question’.24
The idea of also including Poland in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which had been mooted since the previous year, was not raised during these conversations. But it had not been dropped; in January 1939, Ribbentrop was to return to this project once again with foreign minister Beck.25
Hitler’s plans to acquire living space
It was not by chance that, at the beginning of November 1937, Hitler initiated a major change in his foreign policy. The mass demonstrations at the Breslau Choral Festival, the Party Rally with its strongly anti-communist theme, the consolidation of the friendship with Italy, and indeed the prospect of forging an alliance under Germany’s leadership, all encouraged him in his decision now to embark on a policy of overt expansion. This policy was directed initially at Austria and Czechoslovakia.
In Hitler’s view Czechoslovakia was an artificial construct created by the Allies after the end of the First World War and he quite simply refused to recognize as a legitimate nation state. The anti-Czech prejudices of his youth played a part in this as well as geopolitical considerations. A glance at a map showed that, after the planned Anschluss with Austria, Czechoslovakia would be like a stake penetrating deep into the future ‘Greater Germany’. Protected by a strong ring of fortifications, it was a relatively well-armed state, which in May 1935 had made a defensive pact with the Soviet Union and was closely allied with France. As far as Hitler was concerned, it represented an important potential pillar of an anti-German bloc that was in the process of being constructed under communist leadership. Moreover, he was acting on the assumption that, by neutralizing this alleged threat, he would be expanding the ‘living space’ of his Reich by incorporating territories to which, from a traditional ‘Greater German’ perspective, there was already a historic claim.26 During 1937, Hitler became increasingly convinced that the alliance he was seeking – with Italy at its core, but with Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Spain, and possibly the Baltic states as potential candidates – would give him superiority over the ‘Bolshevik’ camp and so he could now go on the offensive. Franco’s military advances in the Spanish Civil War and France’s domestic political difficulties strengthened him in this view. The fact that the alliance with Britain had not come about seemed to have made many things easier.
The German minority in Czechoslovakia now provided Hitler with an important factor that could be utilized for undermining and violently breaking up Germany’s unloved neighbour. Using the pretext of securing the legitimate minority rights of ethnic Germans, the Reich government now began to exploit the Sudenten German Party (SdP), the German minority’s most important political organization, to implement its aggressive policy aimed at undermining Czechoslovakia.27
Germany’s relations with Czechoslovakia, which since the spring had been a target of its press propaganda, rapidly deteriorated during autumn 1937. The Propaganda Ministry exploited an incident in Teplitz-Schönau, in which Karl Hermann Frank, the leader of the strong Nazi group within the SdP and a member of the Prague parliament, became involved in a violent confrontation with the Czech police, to launch a new press campaign against Czechoslovakia.28 At the same time, Konrad Henlein, the chairman of the SdP, sent a protest to Prime Minister Beneš, in which he demanded autonomy for the ethnic Germans. The Czech government responded immediately to these developments, which had clearly been coordinated, by postponing the local government elections scheduled for 22 November and banning all political meetings. On 3 November, Goebbels stopped the campaign after Henlein had explained to him in a private conversation that he was afraid that events might get out of control, which the Reich government did not want to happen at that particular juncture.29 A ‘press truce’ was eventually agreed through negotiations with the Czech government30 lasting into the early months of 1938.31 Meanwhile, Henlein, who had
been forced into a serious confrontation with the Prague government by the Nazis in his party, had concluded that the only way out of this difficult situation was total subordination to Hitler.32
On the afternoon of 5 November, in other words immediately after the agreement with Poland and a day before Italy’s signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, Hitler invited War Minister Blomberg, Foreign Minister Neurath, and the commanders-in-chief of the army, navy, and air force to a meeting in the Reich Chancellery, at which he informed them in a lengthy address of his strategic plans. His Wehrmacht adjutant, Colonel Hossbach, took notes of the two-hour monologue for his own purposes.33 Right from the start, Hitler tried to convince his audience of the exceptional importance of what he was going to say by stating that, ‘in the event of his death, his words should be regarded as his last will and testament’. During this autumn, he was evidently seriously concerned that he might not have much time left to him. At the end of October, he had already told the Party’s propaganda chiefs that, as far as could be judged, he did not have much longer to live. Based on this assumption, in his address he described the ‘solution to the need for space’ as the German nation’s most important future problem with its ‘over 85 million people’. He estimated that a solution could only be ‘sought for a foreseeable period of about one to three generations’.
Before reaching the core of his reflections and sketching the war scenarios he was planning, Hitler spent a long time rejecting possible alternatives. ‘Total autarky’ could not be achieved even if domestic raw materials were fully exploited and substitutes were mass-produced, and it would in any case be impossible to provide sufficient foodstuffs. Increasing participation in the ‘world market’ would be equally incapable of providing real solutions to Germany’s existential problems. This had been his standard argument since the 1920s.