Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  89. Reden Parteitag 1936, 25.

  90. Domarus, 1, 645f., and 639ff. on the usual speeches on the various topics.

  91. This is how he described him to the cabinet on 1 December 1936. See Goebbels TB, 2 December1936.

  92. ADAP C 5, 761f., note. Germany accepted the invitation a week later. See ibid., 489. On Germany’s further delaying tactics see ibid., Doc. 596. Also ADAP C 6, Docs. 1, 107, and 258. See Weinberg, Foreign Policy, 204.

  93. PA 1936, 1102, 1125f., 1182, and 1289ff.

  94. Goebbels TB, 21 October and 15 November 1936.

  95. Ibid, 5 October 1936; Schieder, ‘Faschismus’.

  96. ADAP C 5, Nr. 618, Nos 620–22 and No. 624.

  97. Documenti, Diplomatici Italiani Series 8, 1935–1939, 5 (Rome, 1994), No. 277.

  98. Goebbels TB, 3 November 1936; Schulthess’ 1936, 402ff.

  99. Agreement against the Communist International. See RGBl. 1936 II, 28ff.; Secret additional agreement ADAP D, 1 No. 463, note 1; see also GerhardKrebs, ‘Von Hitlers Machtübernahme zum Pazifischen Krieg (1933–1941)’, in Krebs and Bernd Martin (eds), Formierung und Fall der Achse Berlin–Tokyo (Munich, 1994). On further secret agreements in which Japan and Germany agreed reservations about their respective official agreements with the Soviet Union see Weinberg, ‘Abkommen’.

  100. Wojciechowski, Beziehungen, 326ff. Göring reassured the general inspector of the political armed forces, Marshal Rydz-Smigly, that Germany had no territorial claims and emphasized their common anti-Soviet attitude, see ADAP C 6, No. 22. In summer 1937 the question of Poland joining the Anti-Comintern pact was discussed further at a German–Japanese conference; in November it was revived in the context of Italy joining the pact.

  101. ADAP C 5, No. 516.

  102. Lajos Kerekes (ed.), Allianz Hitler–Horthy–Mussolini. Dokumente zur ungarischen Außenpolitik (Budapest, 1966), No. 14.

  103. ADAP C 6, No. 98.

  104. Ibid., No. 38.

  105. Essential is Weinberg, ‘Secret Hitler–Benes Negotiations in 1936–37’, in Central European Affairs 19 (1959/60), 366–74; discussed among other things in Ronald Smelser, Das Sudetenproblem und das Dritte Reich 1933–1938. Von der Volkstumspolitik zur nationalsozialistischen Außenpolitik (Munich, 1980), 136ff.

  106. Goebbels TB, 2 December 1936; see also 7 December 1936 about comments made by Hitler at midday on the previous day. On the diary entry of 2 December see Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 51, although he leaves out the passage about Britain. This explains his conclusion that by ‘the end of the year Hitler had become indifferent to an alliance with Britain’ (59).

  107. RGBl. 1936 I, 999.

  108. Law to alter the Law concerning Foreign Exchange Controls in ibid., 1000f.

  109. Ibid., 1000f.

  110. Law to Implement the Four-Year Plan – Appointment of a Reich Prices Commissioner 29 October 1936 in ibid., 927f.; Decree concerning the Ban on Price Increases 26 November 1936, and the first implementation decree in ibid., 955f.; Regierung Hitler, 3, No. 190. Volkmann, ‘NS-Wirtschaft’, 347ff.

  111. Domarus, 1, 658; Göring: Trials of War Criminals before the Military Tribunal (TWC) 12, 051-NI, 460ff.

  112. Goebbels TB, 23 January 1937.

  113. Ibid., 28 January 1937. Kershaw, Hitler, 2, 82f., erroneously gives the date as 1938.

  114. Domarus, 1, 664ff., quotes 667f. and 676.

  115. Hildebrand, Reich, 252ff.

  116. For example to the former British air minister, Lord Londonderry, in February 1936, in an interview with Ward Price in March, in his speech to the Reichstag on 7 March 1936 (on the occasion of the reoccupation of the Rhineland), in the German ‘peace plan’ of April 1936, and at the Reich Party Rally in September 1936. On Londonderry see Kershaw, Hitlers Freunde in England. Lord Londonderry und der Weg in den Krieg (Munich, 2005), 169ff.; on Ward Price see Domarus, 1, 598ff. On the Reichstag speech of March 1936 and on the ‘peace plan’ see above pp. 443f and pp. 445f.

  117. Hildebrand, Reich, 357ff.

  118. PA 1936, 1076: The colonial issue was not acute, even though Hitler had referred to it at the Party Rally. See ibid., 1106 and 1126f.; PA 1937, No. 377.

  119. Hildebrand, Reich, refers to a threat of ‘colonial sanctions’.

  120. BAB, R 18/5514, 29 September 1936; Barkai, Boykott, 127; Adam, Judenpolitik, 159ff. (also on the passage of further legislation).

  121. If Z, 3939-NG, Reich Interior Minister to state secretary Fritz Reinhardt (Finance Ministry), 18 December 1936; Adam refers to this in Judenpolitik, 161.

  122. Barkai, Boykott, 127, on the basis of the file BAB, R 2/31.097.

  123. Adam, Judenpolitik, 163ff.

  124. Besier, Kirchen, 3, 706f.; Law to alter the law on Grundschulen and the Abolition of Pre-schools, 18 April 1936 in RGBl. 1936 I, 372; Regierung Hitler, 3, 189, note 1: The minister of education proposed that the law should only be published after the Reichstag election.

  125. Besier, Kirchen, 3, 710ff. In May 1936 the DAF issued a ban on simultaneous membership of the DAF and the Catholic Kolping Association. The Catholic youth associations in particular were subject to pressure during the sex abuse trials.

  126. Rapp, Devisenprozesse, 81. The currency trials were, however, soon halted, probably in view of the much more promising prospects offered by the sex abuse trials.

  127. See Frick’s polemic in the VB of 29 June 1936; it represented the provisional high point of a press campaign, which, however, was not pursued with full force. See PA 1936, 533f., 546, 626, 657, and 670. See also Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 64f. and 82f.; Reinhard Heydrich, ‘Die Bekämpfung der Staatsfeinde’, in Deutsches Recht, 15 April 1936, 121–3.

  128. Goebbels TB, 29 May and 4 July 1936. Otherwise, during this period, the campaign did not play a role in Goebbels’s diaries.

  129. Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 65, quotes a directive from the Justice Ministry, 13 July 1936.

  130. Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 66; Besier, Kirchen, 3, 739ff.

  131. Goebbels TB, 21 October 1936.

  132. Akten Bischöfe, 3, No. 316.

  133. Ludwig Volk (ed.), Akten Kardinal Michael Faulhabers, 2 (Paderborn, 1978), No. 572. Hess was present at the meeting although he remained silent.

  134. These events are extensively documented in Joachim Kuropka (ed.), Zur Sache – Das Kreuz! Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Konflikts um Kreuz und Lutherbild in den Schulen Oldenburgs, zur Wirkungsgeschichte eines Massenprotestes und zum Problem nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft in einer agrarisch-katholischen Region (Vechta, 1987).

  135. RGBl. 1936 I, 993; for the history and content of the law see Michael Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg. Hitler Jugend und nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik, 1 (Munich, 2003), 250ff.

  136. Akten Faulhabers, No. 592.

  137. Ibid., No. 599.

  138. On Hitler’s response to the meeting with Faulhaber see Goebbels TB, 6, 10, and 15 November 1936.

  139. Ibid., 5 January 1937.

  Conflict with the Churches and Cultural Policy

  1. Goebbels TB, 31 January 1937; Regierung Hitler, 4, No. 23f.

  2. Regierung Hitler, 3, No. 587. Eltz visited Faulhaber on 13 December 1936 for a discussion about Church policy. Faulhaber gave him a report on the meeting with Hitler on 4 November 1936.

  3. Goebbels TB, 5 January 1937.

  4. BAB, R 43 II/945, Statement by the Minister of Transport. 20 January 1937. Hitler had removed the draft law from the agenda of the next cabinet meeting. See ibid., minute of 26 January 1937.

  5. On Kerrl’s policy see Meier, Kirchenkampf, 2, 78ff.; Besier, Kirchen, 3, 631ff.

  6. Goebbels TB, 14 January 1937. The use of the Goebbels diaries for this topic by Hockerts is of fundamental importance. See Hockerts, ‘Die Goebbels-Tagebücher 1932–1941. Eine neue Hauptquelle zur Erforschung der nationalsozialistischen Kirchenpolitik’, in Dieter Albrecht (ed.), Politik und Konfession. Festschrift für Konrad Repgen zum 60. Geburtstag (Berlin, 1983), 371ff.

  7.
Goebbels TB, 16 February 1937.

  8. Dokumente Kirchenpolitik, 3, No. 149 II.

  9. Hockerts, ‘Goebbels-Tagebücher’, 372f.; PA 1937, No. 424; VB (B), ‘Befriedungswerk des Führers für die evangelische Kirche’ (headline).

  10. Goebbels TB, 23 February 1937; Hockerts, ‘Goebbels-Tagebücher’, 374 and 379.

  11. Ibid., 374; Meier, Kirchenkampf, 2, 154.

  12. For details see Besier, Kirchen, 3, 657ff., and 693 on the Concordat negotiations.

  13. Heinz Albert Raem, Pius XI und der Nationalsozialismus. Die Enzyklika ‘Mit brennender Sorge’ vom 14. März 1937 (Paderborn, 1979); Besier, Kirchen, 3, 777ff.

  14. Goebbels TB, 23 March 1937; Dokumente Kirchenpolitik, 4, No. 10 II.

  15. ADAP D 1, No. 642, Reference to Hitler’s directive of 6 April 1937. On this dating see Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 73.

  16. Goebbels TB, 2 April 1937. Goebbels sent someone to Brussels to report.

  17. Ibid., 29 and 30 April 1937; PA 1937, No. 985 and No. 991. The VB was used as the main newspaper for the campaign. See Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 96ff., also 99 on the background to the Belgian murder case.

  18. Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 48ff.

  19. Goebbels TB, 12 May 1937.

  20. Domarus, 1, 689ff., quote, 690f.

  21. On the preparation of the speech see Goebbels TB, 25 and 26 May 1937.

  22. Ibid., 28 May 1937.

  23. VB, 29 May 1937. On the speech see Goebbels TB, 30 May 1937; on the response ibid., 31 May and 1 June 1937. On the instructions to the press see PA 1937, Nos. 1221, 1245, and 1256. See also Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 112ff.

  24. ADAP D 1, No. 658.

  25. This was a reply to Pacelli’s statement of 21 May in response to the first German complaints about Mundelein, in which Pacelli had asked what the German government was doing about the abuse of Church figures in Germany ADAP D 1, No. 655.

  26. ADAP D 1, No. 705, according to Raem, Pius XI., 159f., on 22 June 1937. ADAP D 1, No. 661; Besier, Kirchen, 3, 799ff.

  27. ADAP D 1, No. 681.

  28. Barely legible.

  29. Goebbels TB, 3 June 1937.

  30. PA 1937, Nos. 1333, 1371, 1435, 1491, 1518, 1571, and 1600.

  31. Domarus, 1, 520, 544, 612, and 614.

  32. Excerpts of the speech in Domarus, 1, 702ff., quote 704. He had made similar statements on 6 June 1937 in Regensburg. See ibid., 698ff. (relevant quote on 700).

  33. The date of 25 July is clear from Goebbels TB, 26 July 1937. Hockerts, Sittlichkeitsprozesse, 74, gives 21 July as the date of the decision. For the announcement of a pause in the trials see PA 1937, No. 1848.

  34. Goebbels TB, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13 August 1937.

  35. Rolf Eilers, Die nationalsozialistische Schulpolitik. Eine Studie zur Funktion der Erziehung im totalitären Staat (Cologne and Opladen, 1963); Jörg Thierfelder, ‘Die Auseinandersetzungen um Schulreform und Religionsunterricht im Dritten Reich zwischen Staat und evangelischer Kirche in Württemberg’, in Manfred Heinemann (ed.), Erziehung und Schulung im Dritten Reich, 1 (Stuttgart, 1980), 230–50;  Agnes Lange-Stuke, Die Schulpolitik. Im Dritten Reich. Die katholische Bekenntnisschule im Bistum Hildesheim von 1933 bis 1948 (Hildesheim, 1989).

  36. BAB, R 43 II/945, Statements by various ministries in summer 1937; Minute of 9 August 1937 on not signing; 10 August 1937, request for it to be presented again on 20 August 1937. The matter was not raised again.

  37. Goebbels TB, 6 November 1937.

  38. Ibid., 7 December 1937.

  39. Ibid., 22 December 1937.

  40. Domarus, 1, 742.

  41. Ibid., 745. Domarus noted here information from one of the propaganda chiefs.

  42. Ibid., 761ff., quotes 761f.

  43. Edict of the Führer and Reich Chancellor concerning the Creation of a National Prize for Art and Scholarship. See RGBl. 1937 I, 305.

  44. Hans Kerrl (ed.), Reichstagung in Nürnberg 1937. Der Parteitag der Arbeit (Berlin, 1938), 77ff.

  45. VB (B), 31 January 1938, ‘Der Führer empfängt die Träger des Deutschen Nationalpreises für Kunst und Wissenschaft’.

  46. Goebbels TB, 6 and 7 June 1937.

  47. Ibid., 19 June 1937; Hoffmann, Hitler, 143ff. See also Karl Heinz Meissner, ‘ “DeutschesVolk, gib uns vier Jahre Zeit . . .” Nationalsozialistische Kunstpolitik 1933–37. Große deutsche Kunstausstellung – Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” München 1937’, in Jürgen Harten, Hans-Werner Schmidt, and Marie Luise Syringe (eds), Die Axt hat geblüht . . . Europäische Konflikte der 30er Jahre in Erinnerung an die frühe Avantgarde, 11. Oktober bis 6. Dezember 1987 (Düsseldorf, 1987), 368–76; Meissner, ‘Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung’, in Stationen der Moderne. Die bedeutenden Kunstausstellungen des 20. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland. Ausstellungskatalog (Berlin, 1988), 276–84; Ines Schlenker, Hitler’s Salon. The ‘Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung’ at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich 1937–1944 (Oxford, 2007).

  48. On the preparations for this exhibition see Goebbels TB, 5, 12, and 19 June. Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau, ‘“Deutsche Kunst”. Der Katalog’, in Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.), Die ‘Kunststadt’ München 1937. Nationalsozialismus und ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Munich, 1987), 120–83, provides a reconstruction of the exhibition ‘Entartete Kunst’. See also Meissner, ‘“Volk” ’; Katrin Engelhardt, ‘Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” in Berlin 1938. Rekonstruktion und Analyse’, in Uwe Fleckner, Angriff auf die Avantgarde. Kunst und Kunstpolitik im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 2007), 89–187; Christoph Zuschlag, ‘Entartete Kunst’. Ausstellungsstrategien im Nazi-Deutschland (Worms, 1995); Führer durch die Ausstellung.

  49. Goebbels TB, 30 June 1937.

  50. Ibid., 1 July 1937. The edict of 30 June is published in Engelhardt, ‘Ausstellung’, 94. On the preparations for the exhibition see, in particular, Zuschlag, ‘Kunst’, 169ff.

  51. Engelhardt, ‘Ausstellung’, 94.

  52. On the Goebbels family’s itinerary see Goebbels TB, 4–10 July. Hitler had already invited Goebbels to the Obersalzberg when the latter asked him for leave.

  53. Ibid., 12 July 1937.

  54. Zuschlag, ‘Kunst’; Führer durch die Ausstellung.

  55. When the exhibition was finally shown in Berlin it was not ‘educational enough’ for Goebbels. He thus had it rearranged. See Goebbels TB, 28 February, 1 and 2 March 1938.

  56. Ibid., 1 August 1937.

  57. Zuschlag, ‘Kunst’, 205ff., on this second wave of confiscations and the subsequent disposal of the works; Law concerning the Confiscation of the Products of Degenerate Art of 31 May 1938 (RGBl. 1938 I, 612). See also Longerich, Goebbels, 349.

  58. Reichstagung Nürnberg 1934, speech on culture, 140ff., esp. 157.

  59. Domarus, 1, 705ff., quotes 705f. and 708–10.

  60. Reports in the VB (N), 18 July 1937.

  61. Only a few days after this speech the Law concerning the Confiscation of the Products of Degenerate Art of 31 May 1938 was promulgated. See RGBl. 1938 I, 612.

  62. Reden des Führers am Parteitag der Arbeit 1937 (Munich, 1937), speech on culture, 26–50, esp. 34; Reden des Führers am Parteitag Großdeutschland 1938, speech on culture 29–46, esp. 33; on the opening of the Greater German Art Exhibition of 1938 see Domarus, 1, 705ff., esp. 708.

  63. Domarus, 2, 1218f., quote, 1218.

  64. On the nineteenth century as his model see his speech on the opening of the 1938 art exhibition in Domarus, 1, 878.

  65. See the seminal study by Schwarz, Geniewahn. On Hitler’s favourite painters see also the list in Picker, Tischgespräche, 687 (Picker’s comments).

  66. Schwarz, Geniewahn, 71.

  67. Ibid., 237f.

  68. Ibid., 70ff., 180, and 271f. In 1938/39 Hitler ordered the transfer of the Schack-Galerie, which was owned by Prussia, to the Reich and gave instructions that, together with the paintings owned by Bavaria, it should be turned into a gallery for German nineteenth-century artists. He also planned after the war to exhibit his own colle
ction of paintings in the gallery, which had become vacant, until the Führer museum in Linz had been completed.

  69. Ibid., 73f.

  70. Ibid.,105ff., based on the catalogue of the collection now housed in the Library of Congress.

  71. Ibid., 160ff.

  72. Ibid., 179ff.

  73. Ibid., 133ff.

  74. Ibid., 189ff.

  75. In 1925 Hitler had already prepared a detailed plan for a German National Museum, in which he intended to reflect through the organization of the space the relative importance of the most important artists. See ibid., 103ff.

  76. Ibid., 221ff.

  77. Ibid., 232ff.; Schwarz, Hitlers Museum. Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz. Dokumente zum ‘Führermuseum’ (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar, 2002); Günther Haase, Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler. Eine Dokumentation (Berlin, 2002).

  78. ‘Kulturtagung 1935’, 38; ‘Der Führer auf der Kulturtagung’, in Reden des Führers am Parteitag der Ehre 1936 (Munich, 1936), 41.

  79. Reden des Führers am Parteitag der Arbeit 1937 (Munich, 1937), 26–50, quotes 47f.

  80. For instances of this contemporary title, which was often used, see Barbara Miller Lane, Architektur und Politik in Deutschland 1918–1945 (Brunswick, 1986), 237.

  81. Speaking to Goebbels. See Goebbels TB, 8 April 1941.

  82. On antiquity as a model see, for example, the speech on culture in Die Reden Adolf Hitlers am Reichsparteitag 1933 (Munich, 1933), 22–31, esp. 27; Domarus, 1, 878; Thomas Mathieu, Kunstauffassungen und Kulturpolitik im Nationalsozialismus. Studien zu Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, Baldur von Schirach, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer, Wihelm Frick (Saarbrücken, 1997), 28ff.

  83. Schwarz, Geniewahn, 83ff.

  84. Alexander Kropp, Die politische Bedeutung der NS-Repräsentationsarchitektur. Die Neugestaltungspläne Albert Speers für den Umbau Berlins zur ‘Welthauptstadt Germania’ 1936–1942/43 (Neuried, 2005), 85f.; Hans J. Reichhardt and Wolfgang Schäche, Von Berlin nach Germania. Über die Zerstörungen der ‘Reichshauptstadt’ durch Albert Speers Neugestaltungsplanungen (Berlin, 1998), 49ff.