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i .
_ J

= »

The Nazi Elite

Edited by

Ronald Smelser
and
Rainer Zitelmann

Translated by Mary Fischer

M
MACMILLAN
© Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1989
English translation © The Macmillan Press Ltd 1993

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of

this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.

First published as Die Braune Elite: 22 Biographische Skizzen, 1989

This translation published 1993 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS z.
and London : % /
Companies and representatives Yy /
throughout the world a) t
r
=
ISBN 0-333-56950-4 2, Cc.
7

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Printed in Great Britain by

Antony Rowe Ltd
Chippenham, Wiltshire

Reprinted 1994 Fac WA

Contents
Notes on the Contributors

Translator’s Note

Glossary of German Terms and Abbreviations

1 Introduction
Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann

Martin Bormann: Hitler’s Secretary

Jochen von Lang
Richard Walther Darré: The Blood and Soil Ideologue
Gustavo Corni
Gottfried Feder: The Failed Policy-maker
Albrecht Tyrell
Hans Frank: Party Jurist and Governor-General in Poland
Christoph Klessmann
Joseph Goebbels: The Propagandist
Elke Frohlich
Hermann Goering: Second Man in the Third Reich
Alfred Kube
Rudolf Hess: Deputy Fihrer
Dietrich Orlow
Reinhard Heydrich: Security Technocrat
Giinther Deschner
Heinrich Himmler: Reichsfiihrer — SS
Josef Ackermann
Adolf Hitler: The Fuhrer
Rainer Zitelmann 113
Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Chief of the Supreme National
Security Office
Peter Black 133
13 Robert Ley: The Brown Collectivist
Ronald Smelser 144
vi Contents

14 Otto Ohlendorf: Non-conformist, SS Leader and

Economic Functionary
Hanno Sowade 155
13 Joachim von Ribbentrop: From Wine Merchant to
Foreign Minister
Wolfgang Michalka 165
16 Ernst Julius Réhm: Chief of Staff of the SA and
Indispensible Outsider
Conan Fischer 173
W Alfred Rosenberg: National Socialism’s ‘Chief Ideologue’?
Reinhard Bollmus 183
18 Fritz Sauckel: Plenipotentiary for the Mobilisation
of Labour
Peter W. Becker 194
19 Baldur von Schirach: Student Leader, Hitler Youth Leader,
Gauleiter in Vienna
Michael Wortmann 202
20 Albert Speer: Cultural and Economic Management
Jost Dilffer 212
21 Gregor Strasser: Nazi Party Organiser or Weimar Politician?
Udo Kissenkoetter 224
22 Otto Strasser: Nationalist Socialism versus National
Socialism
Patrick Moreau 235
23 Fritz Todt: From Motorway Builder to Minister of State
Franz W. Seidler 245

Index 257
Notes on the Contributors
Josef Ackermann studied at the Universities of Munich and Gottingen. He
received his doctorate in 1969 with a work on Heinrich Himmler and has
been working since 1983 as Head of the Department of Social Sciences at a
grammar school in Gottingen. His publications include Heinrich Himmler
als Ideologe and Kemal Atatiirk. Wegbereiter des Fortschritts (in preparation).

Peter W. Becker studied history at Stanford University and completed his

doctorate in 1971 with a work on the German war economy in the Second
World War, The Basis of the German War Economy under Albert Speer,
1942-1944. Since 1966 he has taught German history at the University of
South Carolina. He has published numerous articles on the Third Reich
and the German war economy in the Second World War and is joint editor
of the Historical Dictionary of Napoleonic France 1799-1815.

Peter Black studied history at the University of Wisconsin and at Columbia

University. In 1981 he received his doctorate with a work on Kaltenbrun-
ner. He works as a historian with the American Justice Ministry in
Washington DC. He is the author of Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological
Soldier of the Third Reich.

Reinhard Bollmus studied history, German, and political science at the

universities of Tubingen, Bangor and Heidelberg. He received his doctor-
ate in 1968 with a work on the Rosenberg Bureau. He is currently at the
University of Trier. His books include, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine
Gegner, Studien zum Machtkampf im Nationalsozialistischen Herr-
schaftssystem; Handelshochschule und Nationalsozialismus, Das Ende der
Handelshochschule Mannheim und die Errichtung einer Staats- und Wirt-
schaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultat an der Universitat Heidelberg.

Gustavo Corni studied history and political science at the University of

Bologna. He received his doctorate in 1974 with a work on agriculture and
politics in Germany from Absolutism to Dictatorship. Since 1989 he has
been Professor of Modern History at the University of Chieti. His publica-
tions include Stato assoluto e societa agraria in Prussia nell’eta di Federico I
and Cultura politica e societa borghese in Germania fra Otto e Novecento
(co-editor).

Giinther Deschner studied at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and

received his doctorate in 1967 with a work on Gobineau. He works as a
journalist, author and executive in a publishing firm. His most important

Vii
Vill Notes on the Contributors

publications are Menschen im Ghetto; Reinhard Heydrich. Statthalter der

totalen Macht: Saladins Séhne. Die Kurden — das betrogene Volk.

Jost Diilffer studied history, Latin, and political science at the universities
of Hamburg and Freiburg. He received his doctorate in 1972 with a work
on politics and the building of the navy, and completed a post-doctoral
degree in 1979 with a work on the Hague Peace Conferences. Since 1982 he
has been Professor of Modern History at the University of Cologne. His
books include Weimar, Hitler und die Marine. Reichspolitik und Flottenbau
1920-1939, Hitlers Stadte. Baupolitik im Dritten Reich. Eine Dokumenta-
tion (with J. Thies and J. Henke); Regeln gegen den Krieg? Die Haager
Friedenskonferenzen von 1899 und 1907 in der internationalen Politik;
Nationalsozialismus und traditionelle Machteliten; Bereit zum Krieg.
Kriegsmentalitat im wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890-1914 (co-edited
with K. Holl).

Conan Fischer studied modern history, sociology and German at the

University of East Anglia and history at the University of Sussex. He
received his doctorate in 1980 with a work on the SA. He is presently
Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. His
publications include Stormtroopers: A Social, Economic and Ideological
Analysis, 1929-35 and The German Communists and the Rise of Nazism in
the Weimar Republic.

Elke Frohlich studied history and political science, and completed a

doctorate. Since 1973 she has worked at the Institut fiir Zeitgeschichte,
Munich. She is joint editor and co-author of the series Bayern in der
NS-Zeit, 6 vols, and editor of the Tagebiicher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I,
4 vols.

Udo Kissenkoetter studied at the universities of Bonn, Cologne and

Disseldorf. He gained his Doctor of Philosophy in 1975. He is the author
of Gregor Strasser und die NSDAP.

Christoph Klessmann studied history, classical philology and _political

science at the universities of G6ttingen, Tubingen and Munich. He re-
ceived his doctorate in 1969 with a work on Nazi cultural policy and the
Polish resistance. Since 1976 he has been Professor of Contemporary
History at the University of Bielefeld. Amongst his many publications are
Die Selbstbehauptung einer Nation. NS — Kulturpolitik und polnische
Widerstandsbewegung im Generalgouvernement 1939-1945: Streiks und
Hungermarsche im Ruhrgebiet 1946-48 (with P. Friedemann); Polnische
Bergarbeiter im Ruhrgebiet. Soziale Integration und nationale Subkultur
einer Minderheit in der deutschen Industriegesellschaft, Gegner des Natio-
 Notes on the Contributors ix

nalsozialismus (co-edited with F. Pingel); Die doppelte Staatsgriindung.

Deutsche Geschichte 1945-1955; Zwei Staaten, eine Nation. Deutsche Ge-
schichte 1955-1970.

Alfred Kube studied history, art history and German at the universities of
Trier, Heidelberg and Berlin. He received his doctorate in 1983 with a
work on Hermann Goering. Since 1987 he has worked as a historian and
director of exhibitions in the ‘Haus der Geschichte Baden-Wiurttembergs’
in Stuttgart. His publications include Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz.
Hermann Goering im Dritten Reich; Die Verdusserung der Nationalgiiter im
Rhein-Mosel-Departement 1803-1813 (with Wolfgang Schieder); Siidwest-
deutschland und die Entstehung des Grundgesetzes (with Thomas Schnabel).

Jochen von Lang has written numerous books and television documen-
taries on the Third Reich. He received the DAG Television Prize for his
programme ‘Das Verhdr des Adolf Eichmann’. He was awarded the
Federal Merit Cross First Class for his researches in the field of National
Socialist history and his contribution to German-Jewish reconciliation. His
most important publications include Der Sekretar. Martin Bormann: Der
Mann, der Hitler beherrschte; Das Eichmann-Protokoll (editor); Der Adju-
tant. Karl Wolff, der Mann zwischen Hitler und Himmler; Der Krieg der
Bomber. Dokumentation einer deutschen Katastrophe; Der Hitlerjunge,
Baldur von Schirach: Der Mann, der Deutschlands Jugend erzog; Die
Partei. Mit Hitler an die Macht und in den Untergang; ‘und willst Du nicht
ein Deutscher sein . . .’ Terror in der Weimarer Republik.

Wolfgang Michalka studied history, German and education at the univer-

sities of Heidelberg and Mannheim. He received his doctorate in 1976 with
a work on Ribbentrop. Since 1988 he has worked as an editor at the
‘Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt in -Freiburg. His books include
Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik (editor); Ribbentrop und die deutsche
Weltpolitik 1933-1940; Gustav Stresemann (co-editor with M. Lee);
Nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung (editor); German Foreign Policy
1917-1933: Continuity or Break? (with M. Lee).

Patrick Moreau studied history, philosophy and political science at the

Universities of Paris I and IV, the Sorbonne and at the Institut d’Etudes
Politiques de Paris. He received his doctorate in 1978 with a work on the
Otto Strasser Group. In 1984 he received a post-doctoral degree with a
work on the NPD. Since 1987 he has been a civil servant in the French
Foreign Office and has worked for the CNRS since 1983. He is a member
of the Mission Historique Francaise in Germany. His publications include
Nationalsozialismus von links. Die ‘Kampfgemeinschaft Revolutiondarer
Nationalsozialisten’ und die ‘Schwarze Front’ Otto Strassers 1930-1935.
x Notes on the Contributors

Dietrich Orlow studied history at Ohio University and at the University of

Michigan. He received his doctorate in 1962 with a work on National
Socialist policies on the Balkans. Since 1971 he has been Professor of
European History at the University of Boston. He is the author of The
History of the Nazi-Party 1919-45, 2 vols; Weimar Prussia 1918-25. The
Unlikely Rock of Democracy; A History of Modern Germany, 1871 to
the present.

Franz W. Seidler studied history, German and English at the universities

of Munich, Cambridge and Paris. He received his doctorate in 1955 with a
work on the concept of revolution. Since 1973 he has been Professor of
Contemporary History, especially social and military history, at the Uni-
versity of the Bundeswehr in Munich. His publications include Die Abriis-
tung; Frauen zu den Waffen?; Wehrdienst-Zivildienst,; Das Militar in der
Karikatur; Fritz Todt. Baumeister des Dritten Reiches; Die Organisation
Todt. Bauen fiir Staat und Wehrmacht 1938-1945; Deutscher Volkssturm
1944/45.

Ronald Smelser studied history at the University of Wisconsin. He re-

ceived his doctorate in 1970 with a work on Nazi foreign policy and
the Sudeten problem. Since 1983 he has been Professor of History at
the University of Utah. He is past President of the German Studies Asso-
ciation. His books include Das Sudetenproblem und das Dritte Reich
1933-1938. Von der Volkstumspolitik zur Nationalsozialistischen Aussen-
politik; Robert Ley: Hitler’s Labor Front Leader.

Hanno Sowade studied at the universities of GOttingen and Munich. Since

1984 he has worked at the Jnstitut fiir Zeitgeschichte, and he is currently
writing a doctoral thesis. He is joint editor of Die Eingliederung der
Bundesrepublik in die westliche Welt.

Albrecht Tyrell studied political science, history and Latin at the universi-
ties of Bonn and Munich. He received his doctorate in 1972 with a work on
Hitler. He has worked since 1986 as a director of the ‘Schaufenster
Schlesien’ (museum, library, archive) in the Haus Schlesien, K6nigswinter.
His publications include Fiihrer befiehl . . . Selbstzeugnisse aus der ‘Kampf-
zeit’ der NSDAP (editor); Vom ‘Trommler’ zum ‘Fiihrer’. Der Wandel von
Hitlers Selbstversténdnis zwischen 1919 und 1924 und die Entwicklung der
NSDAP; Bibliographie zur Politik in Theorie und Praxis; Grossbritannien
und die Deutschlandplanung der Alliierten 1941-1945.

Michael Wortmann studied history and German at the University of

Cologne. He received his doctorate in 1980 with a work on Baldur von
Schirach. He has worked since 1981 as an editor with the Westdeutsche
Rundfunk. His books include: Baldur von Schirach: Hitlers Jugendfiihrer.
 Notes on the Contributors XI

Rainer Zitelmann studied history and political science at the Technische

Hochschule in Darmstadt. He received his doctorate in 1986 with a work
on Hitler’s concept of himself as a revolutionary. Since 1987 he has been
Research Fellow at the Freie Universitat, Berlin, in the Zentralinstitut fiir
sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung. His works include Hitler. Selbstver-
standnis eines Revolutionars; Adolf Hitler. Eine politische Biographie.
Translator’s Note
The language of the Third Reich is highly specialised and often incompre-
hensible to the general reader. In translating the contributions to this book
I have sought to put the specialised terminology and vocabulary of the
period into an accessible form of English, while at the same time trying to
retain the original sense of that terminology. German terms have been
retained only where no meaningful English equivalent exists, as for
example in the case of Gauleiter, who were the National Socialists’ regional
leaders. Where organisations are referred to by their initials (e.g. KPD,
KGRNS) I have translated the name of the organisation into English and
thereafter referred to it by its German initials, following the practice of
most English language books on this period.
Chapters 13 and 16 were submitted in English by their authors.

MARY FISCHER

Xl
Glossary of German Terms
and Abbreviations
AG Arbeitsgemeinschaft der nordwestdeutschen
Gaue der NSDAP - Study Group North West
of the NSDAP
BAK Bundesarchiv Koblenz — Federal Archive,
Koblenz
DAF Deutsche Arbeitsfront - German Labour Front
DAP Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - German Workers’
Party, forerunner of the NSDAP
DNVP Deutschnationale Volkspartei - German
National People’s Party
DVFP Deutsch-V6lkische Freiheitspartei - German
Ethnic Freedom Party
Freikorps Free Corps
Frontbann Cover organisation for the banned SA, 1924-5
Gauleiter NSDAP regional leader
GG Government General (in German-occupied
Poland)
IfZ Institut fiir Zeitgeschichte — Institute for
Contemporary History, Munich
IMT International Military Tribunal (at Nuremberg)
Kampf Verlag Strasser publishing house
KDAI Kampfbund Deutscher Architekten und
Ingenieure — Fighting League of German
Architects and Engineers
KfdK Kampfbund fiir deutsche Kultur — Fighting
League for German Culture
KGRNS Kampfgemeinschaft Revolutionarer Nationaler
Sozialisten — Battle Group of Revolutionary
National Socialists
KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands —
Communist Party of Germany
NSBDT Nationalsozialistischer Bund Deutscher Technik ~
— National Socialist League of German
Technology
NSBO Nationalsozialistische Betriebzellen Organisation
— National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation
NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei —
National Socialist German Workers’ Party

Xill
X1V Glossary of German Terms and Abbreviations

NSKD Nationalsozialistische Kampfgemeinschaft

Deutschlands — Nationalist and Socialist
Fighting Association of Germany
OKW Oberkommando Wehrmacht — Supreme
Command of the Armed Forces
OT Todt Organisation
PO Politische Organisation — Political Organisation
of the NSDAP
Reichskriegsflagge ‘Imperial War Flag’ (paramilitary league)
Reichsredner National speaker (elite of Nazi public speakers)
RFSS Reichsfihrer SS — National Director of the SS
RHSA Reichssicherheitshauptamt — Supreme National
Security Office
ROL Reichsorganisationsleitung — National
Administrative Headquarters (of the NSDAP)
SA Sturmabteilung — Storm Section
(of the NSDAP)
SD Sicherheitsdienst — State Security Service
SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands —
Social Democratic Party of Germany
SS Schutzstaffel - Guard Squadron
(of the NSDAP)
Stahlhelm Steel Helmet — monarchist paramilitary
organisation
Stiirmer, Der Anti-semitic Nazi newspaper
USPD Unabhangige Sozialdemokratische Partei
Deutschlands — Independent Social Democratic
Party of Germany
VDI Verein Deutscher Ingenieure — Association of
German Engineers
volkisch Populist ethnic
Volkischer Official organ of the NSDAP
Beobachter
1 Introduction
Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann

Who were the leaders of the NSDAP and the Third Reich? What were the
experiences which led them to embrace National Socialism? What role did
they play in the National Socialist state? How can the success — and the
failure — of National Socialism be explained? What were the motives which
determined the actions of these men, what do we know of their personal-
ities and the philosophy which guided them?
In this book historians from Germany, France, Italy, Scotland and the
USA attempt to give answers to these questions. All the authors have
undertaken in-depth studies of the personalities they discuss. Years of
archival research, often resulting in extensive monographs, form the basis
of the contributions presented here; indeed in many respects they go
beyond the longer studies. In every case they take the most recent research
into account. However this book is not simply intended for historians, but
is aimed in the first instance at teachers, students, school pupils — a broad
readership with an interest in history. The authors have tried to write
academically reliable studies in language which is accessible to all. They
have dispensed with any scholarly apparatus. However at the end of each
contribution there are notes for those who would like to find out more
about any of the personalities discussed.
The sequence of the contributions is not a comment on the importance
of the person concerned. To a certain extent the alphabetical arrangement
is a means of side-stepping a source of difficulty but at the same time it is
the expression of a historical fact; in the NSDAP and the Third Reich
formal responsibilities, rank and position did not necessarily give any clue
to real influence, and therefore in many cases they do not give any reliable
indication of a Nazi leader’s position within the hierarchy of the Nazi elite.
Today, historical research talks of a ‘polycratic system’ or of a ‘confusion of
powers’, in which different personalities within the leadership and institu-
tions struggled for power and influence — with varying degrees of success.
Many of the Nazi leaders held quite important positions before the seizure
of power but no longer had a role to play in the Third Reich. This is true,
for example, of the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser. Otto Strasser
quarrelled with Hitler in 1930 and left the party. His brother, the powerful
National Organiser, resigned his post in December 1932 and was shot on 30
June 1934. The mercurial political career of the SA leader, Ernst ROhm,
who was murdered by the SS shortly afterwards, ended on the same day.
Ideologues who were accorded some influence in the NSDAP before 1933,
like Gottfried Feder and Alfred Rosenberg (both of whom had belonged to

l
2 Introduction

the party since 1919), did not play the important role they had hoped for in
the Third Reich. On the other hand, others, who did not embrace National
Socialism until later, like the foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop or
Hitler’s architect and Armaments Minister Albert Speer (both joined the
party in 1931/32), held significant and powerful positions in the Third
Reich for a time.
However, as in the case of Hermann Goering, who was regarded for a
time as the ‘second man’ in the Third Reich and in 1934 was named by
Hitler as his successor, advancement was often followed by a rapid loss of
power, which in many cases was not least the expression of Hitler’s loss of
faith in them. Many of the acts of the Nazi leaders have to be seen as
attempts to enhance their standing with Hitler by means of extra-ordinary
deeds. This was possibly one of Joseph Goebbels motives for initiating the
so-called Reichskristallnacht on 9 November 1938. His standing with Hitler
had suffered considerably because of his love affairs. Rudolf Hess, the
Deputy Fuhrer, certainly thought he was acting in accordance with Hitler’s
wishes when he flew to Britain in 1941. He probably hoped that if he
succeeded in bringing Hitler his long sought-after alliance with Britain, this
would increase his standing with the Fuhrer and therefore also his influence
in the Nazi leadership. The cult of the Fuhrer in the Third Reich was
probably not a coolly calculated, artificially stage-managed propaganda
ploy: all those who propagated the ‘Hitler myth’ were themselves in its
thrall. Nonetheless this did not prevent people from criticising many of
Hitler’s actions and ideas. But in general Hitler’s miscalculations and
wrong decisions were regarded by his supporters as resulting from the
Fuhrer having been ‘influenced’ by ‘bad company’ (by which they meant
other party leaders with whom they were in competition) and they hoped
to mitigate this tendency through their own influence.
For all the figures we discuss here their relationship with Hitler was the
main factor on which their political career depended. Personal access to
Hitler was more important than their own — often only ill-defined — terms
of office. This indicates the extraordinary importance of the Fiihrer in the
National Socialist system. Coversely, this book makes it clear that it would
be oversimplistic to equate National Socialism with Hitler. Emphasising
the ‘Hitler Factor’ need not be synonymous with considering Hitler in
isolation. Any examination of the Nazi leadership extends beyond the
personalities concerned. Areas of policy formulation and the structures of
the Nazi system of government are described as explicitly as the by no
means coherent ideology which has been termed ‘National Socialist phil-
osophy’.
Structural factors, the importance of which is heavily emphasised in
current historical research, are however not abstract concepts, totally
separate from the people involved. The notion that ‘the conscious will of
the actors makes history’ (Treitschke) is regarded today as the expression
 Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann 3

of an understanding of history which is too naive, personalised, even

anachronistic. Structural factors, or according to the doctrines of Marxist
historiography, the laws of economic causality, it is said, are more import-
ant than the people involved. An understanding of the significance of
these factors undoubtedly marked an advance in attempts to understand
the motive forces of history. But we must not ‘throw out the baby with the
bath water’. A view of history which works solely within a structuralist
context and treats the people involved as an insignificant factor is as
unconvincing as a psychological view which regards the ‘nature’ or ‘charac-
ter’ of influential personalities as the sole keys to the understanding of
history. The unqualified use of one methodological approach or theoretical
construct leads to a selective understanding of the historical process.
Anyone whose aim is to explain history must accept the necessity of a
pluralistic methodological approach. Structural analysis, social and econ-
omic history, constitutional history, intellectual history, the history of
everyday life and other methods which make history accessible do not
necessarily have to be mutually exclusive and each can be justified just as
historical biography can. These approaches are only counter-productive
when they are no longer regarded as being complementary but are set
against one another. Thus it is unhelpful to set ‘history from below’ against
‘history from above’, as many historians of everyday life do, or to construct
illusory alternatives between the biographical method and the structural
approach, as is sometimes attempted by representatives of the so-called
‘history of society’.
Alongside these general observations the importance of the biographical
method is underlined by two distinct arguments. The first is a didactic one.
Historical research is not the only task for historians; they also have to
make their results accessible and comprehensible to a wider public.
However this wider public often tries to gain access to history by trying to
understand the people participating in it. An interest in the individuals who
have had an effect on history can often be the incentive to develop a deeper
interest in factors above or beyond personalities, to press forward from the
particular to the general and from the individual person to structural
factors. This is however more than a didactic concept, it corresponds to the
way in which knowledge unfolds. For, and this is a second reason which
underlines the justification of the biographical method, it is possible to
proceed from the particular to the general, but there is no path from
general theory which ‘leads to the contemplation of the particular’
(Ranke). The substantive history of National Socialism in the years
1919-45 cannot be derived from the often very abstract ‘theories of facism’.
But as the contributors to this book demonstrate, an understanding of key
National Socialist personalities can lead to more general insights, even if
the outcome does tend to suggest the need to take more care with gener-
alisations and blanket pronouncements.
4 Introduction

Taken as a whole, the contributions compel the reader to take leave of

many current stereotypes. For example it is no longer possible to maintain
the theory that Nazi ideology is anti-modernist in character. There were of
course Nazi leaders in whose thinking anti-modern, agrarian utopias play-
ed a role — often those who are not commonly associated with such goals by
many historians — like for example Otto Strasser. Men like Fritz Todt,
Robert Ley, Albert Speer and Joseph Goebbels were, like Hitler himself,
by no means supporters of an anti-modernist ideology, but to some extent
pursued wholly modern ideas.
The ‘mysticism’ represented by Rosenberg and Himmler should not
simply be equated with Nazi ideology as such. There were contradictions
between the version of National socialist philosophy they propagated and
the self-image and world view of Hitler (and other Nazi leaders), which
were in many respects more ‘rationalistic’ in nature and these contradic-
tions can no longer simply be evaluated as the varying emphases within a
unified ideology.
Some of the men who held the reins of power in the Third Reich and
were responsible for propaganda and the realisation of the National Social-
ist philosophy did not accept central elements of its racial ideology or saw
themselves more as apolitical technocrats of power. The first is true of
Joseph Goebbels who repeatedly lashed out at the racial ideologues who
held that it was possible to draw conclusions about a person’s capabilities
from his external appearance. In his critique of this ‘racial materialism’
Goebbels knew himself to be in agreement with Hitler. The second applies
to Richard Heydrich, one of the main initiators of the ‘final solution’, for
whom the ruthless implementation of technocratic efficiency and the
greatest possible effectiveness were more important than the beliefs of
volkisch (populist ethnic) ideology. He was thus the opposite of the ‘blood
and soil’ theorist Walther Darré. It is worth noting that Darré’s Secretary
of State Herbert Backe and Heydrich laughed together at the philosophical
idiosyncrasies of their respective superiors, Darré and Himmler, just as
Hitler and Goebbels mocked Rosenberg’s and Himmler’s ‘mysticism’.
Alongside differences such as these there was of course common ground:
the fundamental rejection of bourgeois values, anti-semitism, the rejection
of Marxism and liberalism and a conviction of the absolute primacy of the
needs of the ‘ethnic community’ before those of the individual, were
imprinted to a greater or lesser degree on the minds of most National
Socialists. Nonetheless it is necessary to differentiate even with regard to
these basic tenets. It would be wrong, for example, to reduce National
Socialism primarily to anti-semitism. Anti-semitism played a pre-eminent
role for many Nazi leaders, but for many other motives came to the fore.
The vision of a synthesis of Nationalism and Socialism, of a ‘thir¢ way’
between communism and capitalism led many people to National Socialism
and as a motive was often of greater significance than hatred of the Jews.
 Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann 5

The experience of the First World War played a part for many men who
later formed the leadership corps of the Nazi party. The ‘ethnic community
of the trenches’, in which there seemed to be no differences in status or
rank, was to be carried over into society as well.
That anti-Jewish feelings were not necessarily a determining factor is
also indirectly confirmed by the fact that from 1930 at the latest, anti-
semitic themes became less dominant in Nazi propaganda. The National
Socialists were evidently aware that they would not attract a mass following
in Germany with radical anti-semitic slogans.
Even the motive recently suggested by Ernst Nolte of ‘anti-communism’
or ‘fear of bolshevism’ was by no means the decisive factor for most of the
Nazi leaders discussed here in their decision to join the Hitler movement.
Supporters of the so-called Nazi left, like the Strasser brothers or Goeb-
bels, even entertained considerable sympathy for Russian bolshevism. It is
also worth noting that Hans Frank, later the Governor-General of Poland,
was Originally an enthusiastic admirer of Kurt Eisner, and that the ‘econ-
omic theoretician’ of the NSDAP, Gottfried Feder, gave his programme for
the ‘abolition of interest slavery’ to Eisner’s government in the hope that it
would take steps to implement the plan. The recognition that idealistic
motives played an important role not only for many supporters of National
Socialism but also for many of its leaders does not in any way render
National Socialism and its crime ‘harmless’. But it makes a more precise
understanding of them possible. This is the aim of the authors of the
present volume. Of course the contributions also reflect the great variety of
differing approaches to historical writing. The question of the role played
by moral judgement in the discipline of history is answered in many
different ways in the debate among historians. But even in the case of
authors who regard an explicit moral assessment as important and even
inescapable, the emphasis is not on accusation and moral condemnation
but on an effort to achieve a more precise understanding of past events and
hence to make them more comprehensible. Naturally it goes without
saying that all the authors included here have no truck with attempts at
apologism or justifying Nazism on moral grounds. However the frequent
demonisation of Hitler and other prominent Nazis is also unproductive.
Anyone who measures history solely by the standards of morality, even the
history of the Third Reich, who categorises the leaders of National Social-
ism solely under the heading of ‘moral depravity’ or even simply as the
‘incarnation of evil’ is putting barriers in the way of his/her access to an
understanding of their career and of historical events as a whole.
This book represents only the first part of a larger project. Further
volumes are in preparation which, like this one, contain contributions on
the dominant personalities of the NSDAP and the Third Reich. The
selection made for this volume does not therefore claim to be comprehen-
sive in any sense of the word. One might well ask why Nazi leaders like, for
6 Introduction

example, Max Amann, Philipp Bouhler, Wilhelm Kube, Hans Heinrich

Lammers, Viktor Lutze, Julius Streicher and Otto Wagener or alterna-
tively leading members of the armed forces, like for example Werner von
Blomberg, Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel are not discussed here. The
selection in this volume is not representative nor is it intended to convey
anything about the relative importance of the persons discussed, or not
discussed, here. Along with the limits set by a compact volume, the
following consideration was felt by the editors to be crucial: where there
was any doubt, a person was not included if there was no really competent
author available. For, in contrast to many reference works on the Nazi
elite, it remains a fundamental aim of this project that contributions should
only be accepted if their authors can be regarded as experts on the Nazi
leader under discussion. Unfortunately no biographical studies exist as yet
for countless leading figures in the NSDAP and the Third Reich. This
project should be seen as an initiative to fill this gap.
The editors would like to take this opportunity to thank both the
authors, who to a great degree have done justice to the aims of this
book, and the History Editor at the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
Hermann Ciirten, without whose untiring efforts this study would not
have been possible. Among the many colleagues who gave their help
in the realisation of this project, the editors wish to thank in particular
Dr Gerhard Schreiber, Freiburg, and Dr Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Berlin.
2 Martin Bormann: Hitler’s
Secretary
Jochen von Lang

At the end of October 1945, as they lay rotting and starving in the rubble of
their cities, with no hope for the future, the Germans heard that twenty-
four of the most important men in the Third Reich were being prosecuted
as criminals. The names were all familiar to them, except one: Martin
Bormann. Now for the first time they learned of his many functions:
National Director of the NSDAP, General of the SS, Chief of the Party
Chancellery, Secretary to the Fuhrer, and still more besides. In the indict-
ment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg he was accused
of having contributed to the ‘Nazi conspirators’ seizure of power’ before
1933 and thereafter of having taken part in a conspiracy against peace, the
Geneva Convention and humanity.
This indictment was as vague as the whereabouts of the man himself; he
was the only accused for whom the victors were still looking. They did not
find him, in spite of 200 000 copies of a ‘wanted’ circular, newspaper
appeals and radio announcements. He had always worked in the back-
ground and now he had melted away into it. The Allies had no idea of what
they were losing in the process: as perfect a National Socialist as Hitler
himself could have asked for. Because of this he had become Hitler’s
shadow over the years; in many respects he even became a man who
directed the dictator, by deciding what his Fuhrer was allowed to know.
Hitler, who barely trusted anyone, trusted him almost unreservedly, and
with good reason. From Hitler’s point of view Bormann was his most loyal
follower — to the very end. |
To all external appearances Hitler’s pre-eminent functionary was totally
unremarkable, the average German in every respect: 170 cm tall, dark eyes
and prematurely greying dark hair, a round head, bull necked, he had
become overweight from attending banquets and drinking. He was as good
at taking as at giving orders and he carried them out without scruples. If he
gave an order there was no mistaking it; anyone slow on the uptake might
be helped on his way with a kick. He understood quickly and immediately
grasped essentials. Both at work and at home he ruled absolutely. If a
woman took his fancy he made no attempt to restrain himself and had
taught his wife that she had to accept his affairs with a good grace. In a
party which reserved all the important decisions for men this behaviour
caused no offence.
His origins and Wilhelmine ideals predestined Bormann to be the ideal
7
8 Martin Bormann

official. Although the son of a National Socialist petty bourgeois family, he

boasted of coming from a Prussian military dynasty. In fact, his father was
a post office clerk and had only been a trumpeter for a time in a Hussar
regiment. His year of birth in 1900 should have singled out Martin
Bormann as one of those heroic youths who overran enemy positions in the
last year of the war. In fact, until his demobilisation he was batman to an
officer in the Naumberg garrison. The profession he then studied was
farming. He worked first as a trainee on a big estate in Mecklenburg and
then as a farm manager; he was however never a real farmer, who accord-
ing to Nazi dogma would be the life source of the nation. He was director
of two large concerns in the Third Reich, but the only work he did there
was with his index finger.
Even as a young man he said he wanted to sooth the sufferings of his
vanquished people. In fact, he was convicted of having misdirected
rationed foodstuffs. He made a more ominous contribution to German
revival when he joined a North German volkisch (populist ethnic) league,
became a member of an ‘Association against the Arrogance of the Jews’,’
and from his farm manager’s desk he administered hordes of shadowy
figures whom the estates had given lodging. They were demobilised
soldiers who had been unable or unwilling to gain a foothold in civilian life,
who as Volunteer Units defended the exposed eastern border against
Polish irregulars, and who were tolerated or even secretly supported by the
governments of the Reich as a counterweight against communist revol-
utionary schemes. Years later Martin Bormann wrote in an NSDAP ques-
tionnaire that he had been ‘sectional leader of the Rossbach Organisation
in Mecklenburg’. This was a mark of honour in the NSDAP, for in its early
days it was a rallying point for this kind of super-patriot. Bormann even
said he went to prison with some Rossbach members for ‘love of the
Fatherland.’ In fact, the rabble on the estate accused a comrade of conspir-
ing simultaneously with the Bolshevists and the French occupying power in
the Ruhr. That was in spring 1923. They tried the supposed traitor accord-
ing to their principles: he fell victim to the Vehme. They filled him with
gin, took him into the woods, where they smashed in his skull, cut his
throat, and, just to finish the job, put two bullets in his brain.* The State
Court in Leipzig reduced the charge of ‘patriotic’ murder to one of
grievous bodily harm resulting in death. Bormann’s part in the deed
remained unclear; he got away with one year in prison. A few years later
he described his martyrdom in the dungeons of the Republic in the V6/ki-
scher Beobachter. The thanks of the Fatherland caught up with him ten
years later in the shape of a gleaming silver medal: the Blood Order of the
NSDAP.
According to Hitler's wishes, this decoration, to be worn on a red
ribbon, was originally to be given only to those who had taken part in the
attempted putsch of 8 and 9 November 1923. However after the invasion of
 Jochen von Lang 9

Austria anyone was allowed to adorn themselves with it if they had been
deprived of their freedom for at least one year in the service of the
swastika. When Bormann’s Party Office devised this condition in 1938 he
too availed himself of this honour. He never wore other decorations,
although, like all of Hitler’s constant companions, protocol allowed him to
wear all sorts of exotic insignia during state visits.
When he was released from prison in February 1925 a reward like this
was still a long way off. Neither the aristocratically inclined vdlkisch
leagues in the north nor the more plebeian National Socialists in the south
were more than insignificant political sects. So, to begin with, all the
anti-republicans gathered in paramilitary leagues. Bormann went to
Weimar, because his mother was well placed there, and since Captain
Ernst Rohm’s Frontbann was particularly active there, he joined it. By July
of the following year, 1926,* at the National Convention of the newly-
established NSDAP in Weimar, he could already be seen standing in his
brown shirt uniform alongside Hitler’s big Mercedes, in which, as was to
become the custom, the Fihrer saluted his followers’ march past.
Six months later the Party became Bormann’s employer — and remained
so until the end. In Weimar he became the general factotum for the Party
District Executive: in exchange for pocket money he helped keep alive a
Struggling weekly newsheet by being its advertiser, representative, account-
ant, cashier and driver, because he had succeeded in buying himself a
small car. He also drove speakers out to the villages. His first and last
attempt to win supporters in a busy pub ended in stuttering and ultimately
silence after ten minutes which he had laboriously managed to fill with the
party’s propaganda slogans. From then on he knew that he would get to the
top in this party of fire-eaters, orators, saviours of the world and fighting
cocks only if he developed his own strengths: assiduousness, the ability to
settle complex matters quickly, to organise, to be a bureaucrat. Fanatical
brutality towards opponents, ruthlessness with friends and devoted obedi-
ence towards those in command soon marked him out as suited for greater
tasks.
When the director of a Nazi relief fund in the SA High Command in
Munich did not give the contributions to wounded fellow activists but put
them in his own pocket instead, Bormann was given his job. In an amaz-
ingly short time he became an expert on insurance schemes. He dispensed
with the secondary cover provided by investment companies, collected the
contributions of all party members in one special fund and paid out for loss
or injury at his own discretion and without allowing recourse to law. When
the Party could yet again not balance its accounts for propaganda material,
a loan from Bormann’s reserves made them solvent once more.
He also made sure of his career in other ways. He married Gerda Buch,
the daughter of a former major and Party member from the earliest days of
the NSDAP whom Hitler had nominated as Chief Justice of the Party. At
10 Martin Bormann

the wedding’ nearly all the men wore brown shirts, including the Party
boss, who came to the celebration to act as witness and put his car, the big
Mercedes, at their disposal. Rudolf Hess, at that time (1929) the Fuhrer’s
secretary, had also come to the celebration, and because Bormann did not
meet with the approval of the rowdies of the SA High Command — the true
blue fighters of the Freicorps and the former officers — in future the
guardian of the relief fund addressed his criticisms of the SA coterie to
Hess. In this way he showed himself to be a loyal citizen, intent on political
morality, a German Everyman.
This reputation stood him in good stead when, with the seizure of power
in 1933, the Party mushroomed in size. This, and the earlier fall from grace
of the former National Organiser Gregor Strasser prompted Hitler to
restructure the Party hierarchy.’ Rudolf Hess, a political fool and therefore
no rival, was now allowed to serve the Party as Hitler’s deputy, but it was
probably thought advisable to allocate him a Chief of Staff with a practical
understanding of human nature, with burning ambition and unshakeable
loyalty to the Fuhrer: Bormann. As one who prided himself on his mod-
esty, Hess had no need to fear that his new colleague could steal even a
fraction of the glory of his new duties; Bormann stayed in the background.
For this too he was rewarded; when Hess became even more demonstra-
tively modest by dispensing with any mark of rank on his brown shirt — this
was moreover just what the Fuhrer had done — Bormann received the title
of National Director of the Party and naturally along with it the tab with
the golden eagle on a red ground on his brown jacket.
In 1933 there were sixteen such dignitaries in the Party. Later their
number increased to nineteen. To all appearances they were equal in rank,
so they were constantly fighting amongst themselves about their powers
and annoying the Fuhrer with their insistence on arbitration. They did not
suspect that in the not too distant future their new colleague would spare
them all this unpleasantness by announcing — in Hitler’s name, naturally —
that the affairs of the Party could only be brought before their very busy
Fuhrer if they had first been brought to the attention of his deputy (or of
his deputy, Bormann). Hess the dreamer naturally did not want to be
concerned with trivia; he liked to float above the clouds — and not just as an
aircraft pilot. Hitler therefore preferred to collaborate with Hess’s Chief of
Staff. Bormann presented him with short documents which lent themselves
to swift decisions, had been evaluated for their implications for Party
policy and were legally watertight — thanks to the steadily growing band of
assistants in his steadily growing department.
Hitler had given assurances to people in Munich that the Party National
Directorate would stay in Munich. Hess therefore felt obliged to stay
there. Bormann however gradually moved to Berlin where he was allowed
to set up a small office in the Reich Chancellery. Later a larger office was
 Jochen von Lang 11

added close by, so that he had all the documentation at hand when the
Fuhrer needed something. Bormann soon had a regular place at Hitler’s
lunch table.° There his devotion occasionally compelled him to take a meal
from Hitler’s vegetarian menu, in spite of his own preference for juicy
steaks, and then he could not refrain from assuring those at the table how
much he was enjoying it.
He admired the Boss, — as Hitler was called in the small circle of those
constantly with him — honestly and unreservedly, far more than most
national or Party comrades. Overpowered by his charisma and confirmed
in this feeling by the successes of the first years of government, he and
countless other Germans transferred to their Fuhrer one of the tenets of
religious faith: whatever he does is good, even if we fail to recognise it at
first. However Bormann had yet another reason for toasting himself in the
glow of Hitler’s favour; his unexpected rise in the Party and the nature of
his duties constantly increased the number of his enemies and those jealous
of him, and any who realised that Bormann himself was not to blame were
offended by his brutal manner and the inconsiderateness of his methods.
These too met with the Fihrer’s approval. When he once happened to hear
Bormann shouting at a colleague over the phone a grin spread across
Hitler’s face and he exclaimed ‘That’s letting him have it!’ Many months
later however he fended off complaints about Bormann, explaining that he
needed this ruthless follower to win the war.
This comment reveals that even this constantly loyal follower, who was
always ready for duty, was never more than a tool for Hitler, to be used as
long as he needed it, and which he would have regarded as so much scrap
when he no longer had any use for it. If Bormann had ever hoped that in
time the Fiihrer would treat him with more than goodwill embellished with
a sprinkling of carefully calculated marks of distinction, for all his efforts he
never gained anything more than a benevolent patron. Armaments Minis-
ter Albert Speer had sadly proclaimed the truth: ‘Hitler did not have any
friends’.’ The feminine intuition of the then twenty-three year old Eva
Braun led her to suspect this as early as March 1935. ‘He needs me only for
specific purposes . . .’ she wrote in her diary.®
Because of Bormann’s blind devotion Hitler regarded him as suited to
organising private matters as well. The Fuhrer concealed these almost
more carefully than his state secrets; evidently he feared that he would lose
the aura of being superhuman if he showed all-too-human traits. He left
the administration of his fortune to the financial administrator who had
proven his worth with the Relief Fund; given his artistic temperament he
never bothered about financial matters. In this case his lack of respect for
Mammon paid dividends: because the financial director collected when-
ever there was anything to be had. He also administered the millions from
an ‘Adolf Hitler Fund’ from big business — honestly, but not entirely
12 Martin Bormann

selflessly, since it increased his influence if he could give a hand to the

leading lights of the Party after the expense of attaining new offices had led
them into difficulties.
For Hitler the private citizen he obtained land at Obersalzberg above
Berchtesgaden; the Fiihrer had bought a holiday house there and was now
having it converted into a holiday Residence. With a good deal of money
and where necessary by wielding the power of the state, Bormann acquired
all the landholdings in the village, had them entered in his name in the land
register and turned the mountain environment into a long-term building
site. In accordance with plans drawn up by Hitler, the frustrated architect,
his small house was extended upwards, downwards and outwards and fitted
out with an enormous window which could be lowered to give a majestic
view from the conference room over the expanse of the Unterberg. The
Bormann family, with a final tally of nine children, a large number of
domestic servants and frequent visitors moved into a former children’s
home up there — after suitable alterations. Goering too obtained a building
site and Albert Speer was given a studio. The upper valley soon filled up
with buildings: a guest house, SS barracks, a Party department, accom-
modation for employees, a farmhouse with outbuildings for cattle and
horses, a plant for producing fruit juice, an apiary. Bormann himself
managed the farming. It provided Hitler as first priority with hot house
vegetables, milk products and honey, but also fed his retinue. However it
ran at a great deficit; it would have been cheaper to buy the products at a
shop. Amused, the lord of the manor one day presented his major domus
with a bill.
The most expensive object at Obersalzberg was the Kehlstein House, a
private guest house on the summit of a rock outcrop, reached by a moun-
tain road, built solely for this purpose, and by a gleaming brass lift. The
cost: in today’s money a few hundred million marks. Since the Fiihrer was
held up to the people as a shining example of the modest life style, any
mention of this building required special permission. A rumour was spread
by word of mouth that Bormann had given it to the Fiihrer for his birthday.
In fact Hitler only paid a couple of visits to this ‘Eagle’s Nest’, as it was
known by the American occupying forces. The roads and footpaths which
Bormann had built across the formerly peaceful pasture land were of more
practical use. With kilometres of high wire fencing gates and guards he
prevented the hoi polloi from disturbing the Fuhrer’s peace.
Bormann displayed particular vigilance towards those who were in his
opinion the most dangerous enemies of the Germans: Jews and priests.
Party policy committed him to the persecution of the Jews in any case; a
convinced National Socialist could do nothing wrong in that respect. The
battle against the authority of the church and its servants was however
more difficult; they sheltered behind the ‘positive Christianity’ which the
Party had promised to protect. So Bormann had to confine himself to
 Jochen von Lang 13

trimming back the traditional rights of the churches,’ such as religious

education in the schools. He had protestant clerics, who had once sup-
posed National Socialism to be an enemy of atheism, driven out of the
Party. He promoted groups who depicted Jesus as a Jew and overthrew his
teaching. He banned everything Christian from his own family. His wife
Gerda was instructed to protect the children from church influences at
school or from playmates. Among the Gauleiter were some who dis-
approved of such a rigorous attitude. Most of them had gathered together
their supporters themselves in the early days and only felt obliged to obey
Hitler. With the agreement of the latter, Bormann intended to teach them
to be more biddable. To this end each had a District Chief of Staff
introduced into his office, a new functionary responsible to Bormann. They
were no longer allowed to meet as a group without Bormann’s permission.
Their prerogative of free access to the Commander-in-Chief was restricted;
they were now only allowed to invite themselves to lunch but they were not
allowed to bring up matters pertaining to their duties there. Anyone who
made himself unpopular went in fear for his office and prerogatives. Thus
Julius Streicher, the ‘Chief of Franconia’ and editor of Der Stiirmer, who
was acting particularly high-handedly, was driven out of his Nuremberg
Gauleiter’s office back to his farm. In Bormann’s office lists were compiled
of functionaries held in reserve to replace disobedient Gauleiters. Anyone
who wanted to gain promotion in Party or state needed the approval of
Bormann’s chancery.
No-one was better informed about Hitler’s plans than he was. He was in
Prague when the remnants of Czechoslovakia were made into a Protec-
torate. He was Hitler’s shadow at the launch of a new battleship, a tour of
inspection of the West Wall and at SS battle manoeuvres. He helped
prepare for war. At the end of July 1939 Bormann was honoured when, in
his family home in Pullach, Hitler informed a few selected members of the
Party that within a few days he would change from being a rabid anti-
Bolshevik into Stalin’s accomplice. When the SS Personnel Office enquired
of Bormann whether he already had a position, should war break out, he
answered ‘Not necessary, since if mobilisation occurs I will be at Hitler’s
side’.
On the evening of 3 September 1939, therefore, he boarded Hitler’s
special train, the first Headquarters. He had dressed up in field grey in an
SS General’s uniform, and in it he played at soldiers until the closing
minutes of his life. However he never shot at the enemy, fighting instead
on the ‘home front’ against defeatists, parasites, hangers-on, Christians
and Jews. The Fuhrer’s military entourage were miserly in their respect of
his Party office, but since he clung doggedly at Hitler’s heels and could only
be excluded from military briefings, he scarcely missed a single tip-off. He
took care of important matters immediately, other paperwork ended up in
a card index which he could refer to some future date. If Hitler happened
14 Martin Bormann

to be busy at Headquarters as Commander-in-Chief, then for all practical

purposes Bormann was the first and last authority in civilian matters. If the
Boss retired to the Berghof, even generals had to stay down below on the
plains. Party leaders were categorically only allowed to come when
Bormann invited them, and he was a witness to nearly every conversation.
Even Goering, Goebbels and Himmler had to accommodate themselves to
his omnipresence. At Hitler’s nightly monologues he was usually the only
Party grandee among the listeners. It was typical that Hitler’s initial,
spontaneous reaction was to call Bormann when he was told that Hess had
flown to Britain.
Two days later, on 12 May 1941,'° Hess’s deputy to all intents and
purposes moved into his former patron’s place. As the director of the Party
Chancellery he followed his Supreme Commander into the ‘Wolfsschanze’,
set deep in the forest, where Hitler reduced his team of advisers to a
‘Committee of Three’: Keitel, Lammers and Bormann, whose influence
soon far exceeded that of his two colleagues. In April 1943 he fell heir to
yet another title which Hess had held from the early days of the NSDAP:
Secretary to the Fuhrer; it allowed him to take part in every decision.
Bormann intervened in the matter of exploiting the occupied lands to the
east, in the decision to allow Polish children no more than a rudimentary
schooling, and when the fate of shot-down enemy pilots was being dis-
cussed. When Goebbels proclaimed ‘total war’ to be the means of rescue
from defeat after the catastrophe of Stalingrad, Bormann flung himself
energetically into the plan and succeeded in playing a leading role in the
‘levée en masse’.
After the attempt on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944 the Fuhrer trusted
almost him alone. The Army had committed high treason. The Air Force
and its Commander-in-Chief had lied to him and failed. Ministers were
unwilling to break laws as ruthlessly as their Fiihrer demanded of them.
The Waffen SS was no longer providing the expected victories, the Gestapo
was not capturing the enemies of the state in time and even the leader of
the SS, who always carried the oath of loyalty about with him on his belt
buckle, was no longer free of suspicion of cultivating links with enemies
within and without. Since the massacre of June 1934 the SA had sunk to
the level of a rifle club. And Germany’s Allies? They had appeared after
victories; now after defeats they were disappearing, one after the other.
Even the Duce of Italy, once an admired model, was now a dictator
without land or people. Enemy forces were advancing towards the German
borders from the east, west and south and their aeroplanes were destroying
the Reich almost unopposed. That might have made many a follower
waver, but Bormann remained reliable and willing.
When reason had long since declared the war lost'!! Bormann still, in
spite of his understanding of the true situation, believed in Hitler’s luck, in
his supposed genius and even in miracle weapons. An imagined providence
 Jochen von Lang 15

could not, in his belief, permit six years of privation, distress, fear, sac-
rifices of health and life to remain unrewarded. Bormann and his wife often
encouraged each other to this effect in their letters. They sought prophetic
consolation in historical novels and, like their Fuhrer, after military defeats
they kept up their spirits by remembering events from the reign of King
Frederick II of Prussia.
On 5 February 1945 he wrote to Gerda from the destroyed Reich
Chancellery: “You would have to be quite an optimist to say we still had a
chance. But we are. We trust our destiny. It is quite simply inconceivable
that fate would lead our people and its leader along this wonderful path,
for us finally to stumble and disappear’. For this staunch Party member
there could be no defeat which would precipitate the nation into a super-
Versailles and which would confront him himself with the many crimes he
had committed or simply condoned.
Finally he only had heroic rhetoric left with which to strengthen his
resolve. On 2 April he wrote to his wife ‘We will do our sworn duty to the
end; and if we perish, as the old Nibelungs once did in Attila’s Hall, let us
go proudly and unbowed!’ He knew of course that nothing else could be
gained by bowing. All he too had left was hope in the miracle on which
Hitler the gambler was still speculating.
The more the Reich dwindled during the last few weeks of the war into
the Reichs Chancellery and the bunker underneath it, the closer Hitler and
Bormann must have felt to each other. He was allowed to write down the
latter’s will and send it by courier to the Obersalzberg. He could assign a
few troops to each of his fanatical Party officials and send these small forces
to strengthen morale in areas near the front — as executioners for defeat-
ists. He instructed members of the Hitler Youth (boys and girls)!” to allow
the enemy to sweep past them and then to commit acts of sabotage as
Werewolves. His activism did not slacken as long as he still had the tools of
his trade at his disposal: batteries of teleprinters, through which he sent
commands, proclamations, entreaties and abuse almost without pause into
the world above. Just as his Fuhrer could only call upon shattered divisions
for his ‘blow for freedom’, so Bormann’s messages were at the end trans-
mitted into a void. The ministers, Gauleiter, National Party Leaders, even
Albert Speer, Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering were now only
concerned with saving their own skins — from the enemy and from him too.
The faithful Bormann stayed in his Fuhrer’s underworld until the latter’s
body was half consumed in the flames. It is open to doubt whether he was
sustained at this time by his ardent heroism alone. Tradition has it that,
along with two generals he was friendly with, he drew courage from the
cognac which was available in abundance — top quality French produce, of
course. At the same time, in the last days of his life he had the satisfaction
of being, along with Hitler, who had lost interest, the unrestricted ruler of
the Reich. Of course it now measured only a few square kilometres.
16 Martin Bormann

In the night of 1 to 2 May 1945’° the inhabitants of the bunker attempted

to break through the encircling Red Army. During this time Bormann
disappeared. He wanted to take Hitler’s political testament to Flensburg to
Admiral Karl Dénitz and take up his office there at the same time. Hitler had
nominated Donitz as his successor and named Bormann as Party Minister.
He never arrived in Flensburg. The Nuremberg judges would have been
able to find Bormann’s body if the Americans had believed the statements
of the National Youth Leader, Artur Axmann. At the hearings he had
stated that he had seen the Fuhrer’s Secretary dead at the first light of
dawn, after the night he fled, in the vicinity of the Lehrter Station in
Berlin. As it later transpired, Bormann had made use of the Nazi suicide
pill, the capsule filled with prussic acid, which Hitler too had used. The
corpse was buried as a nameless soldier not far from where it was found;
after breaking out of the Fuhrer’s bunker Bormann had removed all marks
of rank and all clues to his identity. Perhaps he would have had a chance of
surviving unrecognised in prison. He had always remained a typical petty-
bourgeois in every respect and was scarcely distinguishable from the
millions who had trustingly followed Hitler.
Bormann was condemned to death in his absence on 1 October 1946 in
Nuremberg, one of twelve accused. His skeleton lay undiscovered under
the earth of the Exhibition Grounds in the Invalidenstrasse Berlin until 7
December 1972.

NOTES

1. Bormann’s own entries on the Party questionnaire (Berlin Document Center).

2. From the verdict of the State Court, Leipzig (Berlin Document Center).
3. Information given to the author by Hans Severus Ziegler, former deputy
Gauleiter of Thuringia.
4. Information given to the author by Albert Bormann, Martin Bormann’s
brother; wedding photographs.
5. Letters from Bormann to Rudolf Hess dated 5.10.1932 and 27.3.1933 (Bundes-
archiv Koblenz and the personal file on Martin Bormann in the BDC).
6. Information given to the author by Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer.
7. Information given to the author by Albert Speer.
8. Eva Braun’s diary, entry dated 11.3.1935, in: W. Maser, Adolf Hitler. Legende-
Mythos-Wirklichkeit (Munich and Esslingen, 1971) p. 317.
9. Letter from Bormann to Bernhard Rust dated 20.5.1939 (Berlin Document
Center).
10. Circular from Bormann to the National Directors ef al. dated 15.5.1941 (Berlin
Document Center).
11. Correspondence between Bormann and his wife Gerda.
12. Statement made to the author by Artur Axmann.
13. Statement by Artur Axmann, IMT files, Ermittlungen der Staatsanwaltschaft
Frankfurt am Main.

hal
 Jochen von Lang 17

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
For his publication on Bormann the author had available to him documents from
the following agencies: the final report of the Frankfurt State Prosecutor filed under
Js 11/61 (GStA Frankfurt am Main) in the ‘prosecution for murder of Martin
Bormann’ dated 4 April 1973. These findings were written by the Senior State
Prosecutor, Joachim Richter, who had been conducting the search for Martin
Bormann for over a decade on behalf of the Frankfurt State Prosecutor’s Office.
Because of his involvement in the clearing up of the Bormann case, the Hesse
Justice Minister, Karl Hemfler granted that the author could be the first to publish
this final report. Apart from archival research, the author’s biography of Bormann
(see below) and this present contribution are based primarily on interviews with
contemporaries. Among others, the author questioned Artur Axmann, Friedrich
Bergold, Adolf Martin Bormann, Albert Bormann, Sepp Dietrich, Karl Donitz,
Alfred E. Frauenfeld, Hans Fritsche, Heinrich Heim, Ilse Hess, Heinrich Hoff-
mann Jr., Karl Kaufmann, Robert M.W. Kempner, Otto Kranzbihler, Wilhelm
Mohnke, Hanni Morell, Werner Naumann, Henry Picker, Karl Jesko von
Puttkamer, Hanna Reitsch, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Gustav Adolf Scheel, Baldur von
Schirach, Henriette von Schirach, Richard Schulze-Kossens, Lutz Graf Schwerin
von Krosigk, Lord Shawcross, Otto Skorzeny, Albert Speer, Felix Steiner, Otto
Strasser, Ehrengard von Treuenfels, Karl Wahl, Walther Wenck, Karl Wolff,
Wilhelm Zander, Hans Severus Ziegler. The Bormann-Sammlung (27 volumes) is
in the author’s private archive. The British historian H.R. Trevor Roper has edited
a book containing Bormann’s letters: The Bormann Letters. The private corre-
spondence between Martin Bormann and his wife [Gerda Bormann] from January
1943 to April 1945 (London, 1945).

Secondary Literature

In 1987 the third, completely revised new edition of the Bormann biography
written by the present author appeared: J.v. Lang, Der Sekretar. Martin Bormann:
Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte (with the collaboration of Claus Sibyll) (Munich/
Berlin). For Bormann see also the two volumes edited by L. Besymenski: Auf den
Spuren von Martin Bormann (Berlin, 1965); Die letzen Notizen von Martin
Bormann. Ein Dokument und sein Verfasser (Stuttgart, 1974). See also the study by
J. Wulf, Martin Bormann-Hitlers Schatten (Gitersloh, 1962).
3 Richard Walther Darré:
The Blood and Soil
Ideologue
Gustavo Cornli

Richard Walther Darré stands out in a number of ways from the other
National Socialist leaders. Firstly he joined Hitler’s Party very late, more
precisely in summer 1930, almost at the same time as he was admitted to
the inner circle of the National Socialist elite. He did not therefore have to
work his way up the Party during the ‘heroic phase’ when it led a marginal
existence, but went straight to the top. Secondly Darré never belonged to
the Fiuhrer’s immediate circle, the entourage which, particularly from the
late thirties onwards, took on the role of a second government and was
able to influence Hitler’s decisions. Darré’s distance from the intrigues of
the ‘court circle’ around Hitler can be explained by his honesty, an under-
developed inclination to flattery and his firm ideological convictions.
Moreover, it is interesting that Darré had a degree of political power
only during the limited period between 1930 and 1936. This period en-
compassed the series of electoral successes, during which Darré was able to
fulfil a decidedly important function, and the consolidation of power, when
he had control of agricultural policy. When the Four Year Plan was
initiated, involving the full militarisation of the Third Reich, Darré’s
political career went into a marked decline. After the outbreak of war he
disappeared for good from the German political scene.
Do these factors justify the thesis that Darré should be classed as a
fellow-traveller, a conservative politician who, as was argued recently,
cannot be regarded as a National Socialist? Or does the eccentric figure of
Darré not simply confirm the complexity and variety of a regime which
history has for too long presented as being all too unified and
homogeneous? In what follows we will attempt to provide a partial answer
to these alternative possibilities.
Born in July 1895 in Belgrano (Argentina), the son of prosperous
parents who had temporarily moved abroad shortly before, Darré
studied until the outbreak of the First World War with the aim of specialis-
ing in colonial agriculture. Like other National Socialist leaders, he served
with distinction in the war. And like them he had considerable difficulty in
the post-war period in taking up his profession, difficulties which were in
stark contrast to his solid middle class background. Nonetheless he suc-
ceeded in completing his studies in agriculture and animal husbandry at the

18
 Gustavo Corni 19

university of Halle, even if he was not able to realise his academic and
scientific ambitions. In the late twenties, when he was engaged in official
government fixed-term contracts in the field of animal breeding, Darré
won distinction with some publications on selective breeding, which be-
came the basis of his subsequent racist anthropological theoretisation. In
complete accord with the agrarian and irrational tendencies of the vdlkisch
(populist ethnic) movement, including H.F.K. Ginther’s theories on the
Nordic race at the end of the decade, Darré produced a coherent theoreti-
cal construct glorifying the peasantry, who were regarded as the racial focus
of the German people. The reorganisation of agriculture, not so much
from the point of view of economics, but more from spiritual and racial
considerations, was for him the decisive precondition for giving back to the
German people its outstanding racial qualities, which had gone into
marked decline as a result of the increasing pace of industrialisation. In this
context Darré coined the expression ‘Blood and Soil’, by which he in-
tended to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between the quality of
the race and the peasant life.
The two volumes Peasantry as the Life Source of the Nordic Race (1929)
and The New Aristocracy of Blood and Soil (1930), in which he presented
his theoretical considerations in a supposedly scientific and unassailable
manner, produced a wide, and for the most part, positive response, which
points to the fact that they slotted entirely and unreservedly into a specific
cultural climate. In the first work Darré intended to show that the fun-
damental difference between the German and the Slav races lay in the
steadfastness and peasant-like nature of the former. In the second book he
deploys an extensive battery of anthropological and philosophical tools in
order to prove that the internal structure of ancient German society in the
mythical era did have class divisions but that they were purely functional.
They did not imply that the peasant was inferior to the aristocrat. Darré
drew practical conclusions from his theorising: the renewal of peasant
society in Germany, by means of reversing the hitherto dominant trend of
industrialisation and, moreover, in the long term, measures for the crea-
tion and selection of a new aristocracy with the best racial qualities, which
would raise the German Reich again to the status of a great power in the
heart of Europe.
The question of racial renewal brought Darré into close contact with
Himmler and the SS. Thus for many years he was the Director of the
Headquarters for Race and Resettlement, which was charged with defining
the selection mechanism which was to make the SS the ‘new aristocracy’ of
the Germanic race. The long term perspective which this implied however
remained vague in Party propaganda, which from 1930 under Darré’s
direction paid particular attention to the rural electorate. It concentrated
on the general glorification of the peasantry and promised to save it by
reversing existing trends. The themes of race and aristocracy on the other
20 Richard Walther Darré

hand were left out, because they might have prompted unfavourable
reactions from the intended audience.
In spite of these prudent tactics it is not possible to disregard the racial
and ideological elements in Darré’s thinking. It would be equally mistaken
to forget that the anti-urban and pro-rural intellectual currents corre-
sponded unreservedly with National Socialist thinking. After an active
period in various groups on the extreme right, among which were the
Artamen and the Stahlhelm, Darré’s political career brought him into
contact with Hitler’s movement. Thanks to the good offices of the architect
Paul Schultze-Naumburg and the degree of renown he had acquired
through his writing, Darré came into contact with Hitler himself in spring
1930. And the Fuhrer spontaneously asked him to take over the direc-
torship of a new section of the Party’s political executive devoted to
peasant affairs. It was only after this, in July of the same year, that Darré
became a card-carrying member of the NSDAP.
From Headquarters in Munich Darré began to build up a network of
specialist advisers who operated across all the states in the Reich and
whose job was to pick ideas from the grass roots and pass them on to
Headquarters. From these a political and ideological programme was to be
worked out which was aimed specifically at the rural population, in whom
the NSDAP had hitherto shown scarcely any interest. The overwhelming
success Hitler’s Party achieved in the following elections in September, an
electoral success which was evident to a marked degree in the countryside
in particular, cannot however be ascribed to Darré’s organisational abili-
ties, because at this time he was involved in efforts to build up his agricul-
tural policy network. The massive success seems to be linked more to the
deep crisis, not exclusively economic, in which rural society found itself. It
must be regarded as a protest vote.
In the following years, up to the seizure of power, Darré’s strategy
evolved along two converging lines. On one hand he launched massive
propaganda campaigns in the countryside, to disseminate soothing mess-
ages of deliverance, and on the other hand he infiltrated the traditional
interest groups from below. In this way he intended to produce a mass
consensus which would serve as a means of pressurising the old ruling
elites. But at the same time he was aware of the significance that these
interest groups had with regard to national agricultural policy. In the case
of the former Darré created an effective and well-integrated propaganda
machine which had the advantage of being spread over almost the entire
country and could therefore address social groups which had hitherto
remained largely excluded from the far-reaching processes by which so-
ciety was being mobilised. Darré’s organisation made use of a network of
publications of varying standards. Over and above this, speakers, suitably
trained by Darré, journeyed tirelessly through the countryside propagating
slogans about the guaranteed deliverance of the peasantry in the coming
 Gustavo Corni 21

‘Third Reich’. It is not easy to tell how far the activities of Darré’s
Organisation won votes and support for the National Socialists. It is not
enough to rely on facts such as the steady increase in votes for the NSDAP
at regional and national elections, the growth in Party membership in the
countryside or the constant successes enjoyed by the National Socialist list
in elections for the executives of various interest groups. For these uncon-
testable facts do not allow us to tell how far National Socialist propaganda
was effective, as against general factors such as the severe economic crisis
and the decline in the preeminence of the rural elites.
In any event the rural population’s contribution to Hitler’s election
successes is undeniable and this was bound to have a direct effect on
Darré’s political role when the new regime was set up. Moreover it is worth
noting that he succeeded in a few years in building up a propaganda
machine which he personally supervised, and in working out a relatively
consistent ideology, in which he was unique among the top members of the
National Socialist elite. Darré’s disappointment must therefore have been
all the greater when Hitler agreed for tactical reasons that in his coalition
government the agriculture ministry Darré prized so greatly should be
entrusted to the leader of the DNVP, Alfred Hugenberg. His disappoint-
ment notwithstanding, Darré completed the process of coordination and
integration begun in the previous years, through which he quickly took
over full control of all the representative bodies in the realm of agriculture.
In this way he laid a secure basis for further progress, at the end of which
he was Minister and undisputed leader of a sphere which included nearly
one third of the total population. Hugenberg’s downfall at the end of June
1933 was in the first instance the consequence of his foreign policy adven-
turism. But the absolute hegemony which Darré had long since achieved in
the agricultural sector may well also have contributed to it. Appointed
Minister at last, Darré got down to implementing his ideology of ‘blood
and soil’ and making it one of the pillars of the Third Reich. The fun-
damental features of this first phase of government, during which Darré
may be considered master of the situation — unharmed even by serious
conflicts — were: the creation of a corporate body encompassing all pro-
ducers and even those associated with agricultural production, then the
drafting of new laws for the inheritance of land, thirdly the revival of land
settlement, above all in the eastern regions and, finally, the regulation of
the domestic market in foodstuffs (including imports).
As regards the first point, the idea of uniting all peasants in a single
group equipped with greater bargaining power was not really new but had
been in the air for some time as a leitmotiv in German rural society.
However Darré undertook to implement it quickly and decisively. From
July until September 1933 he enacted a series of outline measures on which
he based the National Food Corporation. Of course this new organisation
was far removed from the ideals of corporate self-administration, it
22 Richard Walther Darré

adhered to the Fihrer principle and was strictly subordinate to the Party.
The basic idea was not unambitious. For instead of limiting himself to
organising agricultural producers Darré intended to gather together within
the National Food Corporation all those who had something to do with the
provision of foodstuffs: from production via processing to the point of sale.
The principles of self-administration were corrupted in the process of
actual implementation in favour of Darré’s and National Socialism’s pre-
dominant political aims. Within the context of his programme Darré of
necessity came into collision with the interests of other areas, each of which
had its own political representative in the leadership of the Third Reich.
Particularly violent were his disputes with the Gauleiter, who would not
contemplate accepting the existence of organisations at regional level
which were free of their supervision, with Robert Ley’s German Labour
Front, which was attempting to gain control of all German ‘workers’ and
with associations concerned with the interests of youth, women, the retail
trade and so on. In all these disputes Darré succeeded up to a point in
defending the primacy of his own organisation and his personal power
base. However he often engineered a pronouncement in his favour from
Hitler, who quite simply had to have regard for an organisation which
provided and marshalled such an important section of his support. Speak-
ing against an interpretation which explains these confrontations as the
defence of corporate autonomy and therefore sees Darré as the supporter
of self-administration for the peasants is the fact that the National Food
Corporation was hierarchically structured, and that its chief purpose was to
secure the support of the rural population for the regime. The conflicts
mentioned become more comprehensible with reference to the polymorph
and polycratic nature of the Third Reich.
The second pillar of Darré’s policies as Minister and leader of the
peasantry concerned the reform of the laws of inheritance, which were
implemented in the National Entailed Farms Act, enacted on 29 Septem-
ber 1933. The purpose of the law was to put an end to the fragmentation of
land ownership inevitable in a system where land was divided equally
between the various sons of the land owners. By creating a new system of
inheriting farms, whereby they could not be split up and could only be
passed on to one heir — the most deserving one — National Socialism did not
just intend to change forms of inheritance but also to anticipate the concept
of an ideal form of land ownership. The farms were to be self-sufficient
economic units, independent of the vagaries of the market and solely
intended to bring into being again a peasantry which in due course would
be refined by the principles of natural selection and be able to shoulder the
grandiose tasks which Darré intended for it. In fact in his eyes the heredi-
tary farm represented the core of the ‘aristocracy’ theoretically conceived
of years before, which was to form the new leadership group not just in the
agricultural sector but in the Third Reich as a whole. Such principles were
 Gustavo Corni 23

so radically ideological that they were not acceptable to the majority of

peasants, in spite of the advantages that the status of hereditary farmer
afforded them.
The implementation of the law therefore came up against significant
obstructions, beginning with the number of properties which, as against the
overall tally, could be categorised as entailed farms. It was therefore
unavoidable that the special courts which Darré had established to resolve
any possible disputes about the entailed farms relaxed the most stringent
stipulations. They allowed more leeway for regional practices and the
rights of those who were not entitled to inherit (primarily women). Even
those responsible for the National Food Corporation were forced to admit,
in answers to a questionnaire Darré distributed towards the end of 1938,
that the law was failing to achieve its objectives, particularly with regard to
Darré’s ideological plan. In fact it promoted inactivity and opportunism on
the part of the producers instead of emphasising their good points and it
had unfavourable consequences in that it reduced the birth rate.'
One of the most important weaknesses of the law on farm inheritance
concerned the possibilities offered to those sons who did not inherit to
become farmers in their own right, which could have strengthened the
peasantry both qualitatively and quantitatively. These prospects were con-
tained in the third pillar of Darré’s political plan: colonisation, or land
resettlement. Here too, as in the two other areas discussed, the National
Socialists were establishing links with a tradition with deep roots in Ger-
man society: the strengthening of agriculture, above all in the eastern
territories, in order to set up a barrier against the advance of the Slav
nations. There was a further element over and above this in Darré’s plans,
particularly in his idea of a new aristocracy, of enmity towards the class of
estate owners who for centuries had dominated the eastern provinces of
Prussia. Finally it should be remembered how hard the agricultural crisis
of the late twenties had hit precisely those estates in the east which had
made their living from the extensive cultivation of grain. All in all condi-
tions were well suited to dealing a final blow to the moribund aristocracy
and setting up a large number of small farms in the eastern territories. The
resettlement programme launched by Darré was given a new name in-
tended to emphasise the new racial content: the concept of restructuring
the German peasantry was introduced in place of the idea of resettlement.
The policies of this restructuring promised completely to reform the
peasantry by the redistribution of land holdings. In spite of the Minister’s
high-flown declarations — one which especially springs to mind is the
extremely hard-hitting speech delivered on 11 May 1934 in Storkow against
the aristocracy, which in the past had destroyed the peasant’s means of
existence* — in practical terms the implementation of colonisation was
completely unsatisfactory. On average the number and size of the new
settlements did not surpass the results recorded during the years of the
24 Richard Walther Darré

despised Republic. Moreover, considerations of quality prevented the

implementation of the principle according to which two thirds of the new
farmers were to come from the eastern provinces. Finally, colonisation as
implemented by Darré failed totally to achieve its aim of offering new
opportunities for social advancement to men who did not own land, that is
day labourers and those who did not inherit.
What were the reasons for this failure (especially with regard to plan-
ning)? One of the individuals responsible for this planning’ wrote that the
‘general political considerations’ which can be regarded as causes of its
failure consisted essentially of three elements: 1) Hitler’s deep-rooted
conviction that the problems of domestic food shortages and overpopula-
tion could only be solved by an expansion of living space. This idea was
then put into practice during the war by the SS in the occupied eastern
provinces. 2) The fact that it was politically inopportune to damage the
interests of the Prussian aristocracy, which still had strong links with the
officer corps and the bureaucracy. 3) Finally many economic experts,
especially those involved in the Four Year Plan, were concerned that large
estates would be more efficient from the point of view of production and
the creation of strategic reserves than small peasant properties.
In short, all of the points in Darré’s programme for a new agricultural
policy which derived directly from his ideology were implemented only
sketchily and in a manner which must undoubtedly have disappointed him.
The fourth point of the programme, concerning the regulation of the
internal market was less closely linked to his ideological preconceptions,
although Gustav Ruhland, an economist and proponent of the cartelisation
of the agricultural markets active around the turn of the century, was one
of Darré’s treasured ‘spiritual fathers’. In fact, during those years, in the
face of the economic crisis almost all the industrialised states applied forms
of more or less strict economic planning and control in the agricultural
sector. In Germany’s case, thanks to trade barriers against imports, the
type of market order Darré aspired to was able to keep supplies of goods
and prices under control. But even in this context it must be emphasised
that although on the one hand regulation of the market made it possible for
agricultural producers to enjoy relatively stable returns, as years passed it
was increasingly adapted to suit the interests of consumers, whose needs
had to take precedence for the regime in the period of the build-up to war.
Moreover the returns assured to the peasantry paled into insignificance
compared to the considerably more marked improvements in other groups’
incomes. This situation quite soon produced widespread unrest in the
countryside, and Darré was forced to direct despairing appeals to Hitler to
intervene decisively in the looming ‘general agricultural crisis’.* And so the
cornerstones of the peasants’ renaissance Darré had wished to see col-
lapsed one after the other. Moreover since the creation of the administra-
tive machinery for the Four Year Plan, the Minister had seen Herbert
 Gustavo Corni | 25

Backe’s star rise in threatening fashion. Backe had formerly been his chief
deputy and, deriving strength from the support of Goering and Himmler,
Backe put himself forward as a technocrat in open opposition to
the ‘ideologue’ Darré. He quickly succeeded in snatching away a part of
the absolute power Darré had possessed until then. However the change in
the balance of power between the two, which contributed to the hardening
of Darré’s reservations about the ruling elite, should not be regarded as a
radical turning point. The policies which were translated into action there-
after were as much the Minister’s doing as the work of his dangerous rival.
One only has to remember that the fundamental measures taken to inten-
sify the dirigiste supervision of agricultural activities actually originated
during the time when Darré controlled the regime’s agricultural policy: the
law of 26 June 1936 on apportionment, which enabled the state to consoli-
date landholdings which belonged to various owners in order to rationalise
production; or the law of 23 March 1937 (but already formulated in the
previous year), which subordinated the economic interests of individual
landowners to the higher aims of the state. In addition one could cite the
satisfaction with which Darré greeted the appointment of Goering as
Commissioner for the Four Year Plan.°
Darré’s progressive loss of power in the years after 1936 is not echoed
by, for example, a drastic transition from a land policy favourable to the
peasantry to one which ‘militarised’ them, which the decrees quoted above
might lead one to suppose. In fact agricultural policy continued on a
wavering and uncertain course between dirigiste pressures on the one hand
and the maintenance of privileges conceded to the peasants in previous
years on the other. The reasons for this indecision lay in part in Hitler’s
desire not completely to squander the support of a considerable part of the
German population, especially not in the face of the coming war. On the
other hand, thanks to the close trading links with the Balkan countries
which produced agricultural surpluses, it was possible to keep the agri-
cultural economy as it were ‘on hold’ in comparison to the basic course of
economic policy in the Third Reich without fundamentally altering its
precarious balance. Indeed it was possible to import foodstuffs and raw
materials from the Balkan countries and the Danube basin at very favour-
able prices. This allowed the transference abroad of internal contradictions
in the realm of agriculture. And it should be remembered that Darré took
an active part in this policy.
Nevertheless, grounds for dissatisfaction were accumulating in the coun-
tryside and Darré was increasingly powerless in the face of them. The
labour shortage, triggered by the higher wages offered by industry, began
to have worrying consequences: there was a threat that not only would
productivity be reduced but also that the racial characteristics of the
peasantry, so highly valued by the Minister, would be adversely affected,
not least because of the increased workload on women. In view of the deep
26 Richard Walther Darré

crisis in the agricultural economy the concession allowed between 1937 and
1938 of some price increases, in parallel with a decrease in the cost of
fertilisers and machinery, was nothing other than an inadequate sop.
The outbreak of war brought a fundamental change in the situation, for
now the Third Reich could exploit the resources available in the occupied
territories without limit. However Darré’s executive powers had long since
disappeared. In March 1942 the office of Minister was also taken from him.
At this time he began to develop a picture of himself as a ‘victim’ of
National Socialist ‘warmongers’, which he then presented at the trials
brought by the American military administration against a number of
‘minor’ ministers — a picture which in no way represents the problematic
role Darré played for at least three to four years, when he was supervising
agricultural matters and subordinating them to the interests of the regime.
Sentenced to seven years imprisonment for crimes relating to the un-
leashing of the war, he was released early on health grounds. Darré died on
5 September 1953 in embittered isolation, totally engrossed in plans for
‘organic’ agriculture. This gave his defenders both then and now the
opportunity to portray him as a forerunner of the ecological movement,
who during the course of his meteoric political career was solely concerned
for the well-being of the peasantry. But in the light of evidence given here,
however compressed, this hagiographic description has no basis in histori-
cal fact.

NOTES

1. See the extensive correspondence in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK), R16,

vol. 1272.
. See press reports, including the Kd/ner Zeitung of 12 May 1934.
. See the letters from Kurt Kummer in BAK, Nachlass Darré, vol. 56.
WN. See, among other things, Backe’s reports of 24.2.1938 (BAK, R2, vol. 18732)
and Darré’s dated 27.8.1938 (BAK, R43II, vol. 200) and 20.2.1939 (Deutsches
Zentralarchiv Potsdam, 99 US 7, vol. 393).
5. Darré’s letter to Hitler dated 5.8. and to Goering dated 1.11. in: BAK, NS 10,
vol. 103, and Stadtarchiv Goslar, Nachlass Darré, vol. 146, respectively.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Sources for a biography of Darré, which has yet to be written, are relatively
extensive. A considerable archive of papers is available, divided into a section
dealing with the period before 1933, which is held in the Stadtarchiv Goslar, and a
 Gustavo Corni 27

more comprehensive and significant section dealing with his activities in the govern-
ment, which is in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz. Backe’s papers are also held in
Koblenz, and although incomplete, they are nonetheless useful for clarifying the
difficult relations which existed between the two men. The papers on the National
Food Corporation and the Ministry for Food and Agriculture, on the other hand, of
which only fragments survive in Koblenz and in the Zentralarchiv, Potsdam, are
totally inadequate. However it is possible to find sources on Darré’s activities as the
leader of the peasantry in the Third Reich in the collections of other archives: these
include the files of the National Ministry of Finance and the Chancellery in
Koblenz, the Press archive of the National Agricultural League, the Prussian
Ministry of Agriculture in the Zentralarchiv in Merseburg, the files of the Foreign
Office, which are dispersed in Berlin and Potsdam, and those on the membership
files in the Berlin Document Center.

Secondary Literature

There is no complete biography of Darré, although there are two voluminous

studies which deal with him: Horst Gies, R. Walther Darré und die nationalsozialis-
tische Bauernpolitik 1930 bis 1933 (Frankfurt am Main, 1966) and A. Bramwell,
Blood and Soil. Walther Darré and Hitler’s Green Party (Abbotsbrook, 1985) (both
are theses). Gies later published a series of very comprehensive essays, among
which are: ‘Der Reichsnahrstand: Organ berufsstandischer Selbstverwaltung oder
Instrument staatlicher Wirstschaftslenkung?’, in ZAGAS 21 (1973) 216-33; ‘Auf-
gaben und Probleme der nationalsozialistischen Ernahrungswirtschaft’, in VSWG,
22 (1979) 466-99 and ‘Die Rolle des Reichsnahrstandes im Nationalsozialistischen
Herrschaftssystem’, in G. Hirschfeld, L. Kettenacker (eds), Der Fiihrerstaat.
Mythos und Realitat (Stuttgart, 1981) 270-303. Bramwell’s book, which puts for-
ward the thesis that Darré was an outsider in the regime, and fundamentally its
victim, was convincingly attacked by critics.
With regard to the regime’s general agricultural policy there is very little litera-
ture. I can only point to J.E. Farquharson’s study, The Plough and the Swastika:
The NSDAP and Agriculture in Germany (London, 1976), that of F. Grundmann,
Agrarpolitik im Dritten Reich (Hamburg, 1979) and my own book which is cur-
rently at press: G. Corni, Hitler e i contadini. La politica agraria del Terzo Reich
(Milan, 1989).
4 Gottfried Feder: The Failed
Policy-Maker
Albrecht Tyrell

In historical writing about National Socialism the figure of Gottfried Feder

occupies a singularly ill-defined position. General descriptions usually
make do with the observation that the propagandist who coined the slogan
‘the eradication of interest slavery’ and was co-author of the 1920 Party
Programme had been Hitler’s economic and financial adviser, but that his
influence had declined from the end of the twenties onwards when Hitler
turned towards big business. Feder was employed for a time in inconse-
quential posts in the National Executive of the NSDAP and in 1933/34
within the government, before he disappeared into anonymity. It is striking
that even in more specialised treatises on the internal development of the
Party, or Hitler’s links with groups within economic life, the authors never
really succeed in achieving a clear understanding of Feder’s relationship
with Hitler and his part in the Party’s rise to power. It therefore seems
advisable to describe Feder’s attitude to the NSDAP from its beginnings
and to show the circumstances which shaped his political activism. A
discussion of Feder’s aims and his attempts to have his specific programme
adopted in the NSDAP will ultimately give a clearer picture of the precon-
ditions under which ideologues or ‘policy-makers’ were active in the Party.
There is scarcely anything in the first thirty years of Gottfried Feder’s life
which gives any indication of the political idealist who stepped into the
public domain in 1918/19 in Munich. Feder came from Franconia. His
grandfather and his father, privy counsellor and senior government official
respectively, had achieved positions of respect as senior civil servants in the
Kingdom of Bavaria. Feder was born on 27 February 1883 in Wurzburg
and completed his Higher School Leaving Certificate in Ansbach. Up until
1905 he studied building science at the technical institutes in Munich,
Charlottenburg and Zurich, specialising in the promising subject of build-
ing in reinforced concrete. After completing his diploma he spent the time
until 1908 gaining practical experience with a building firm.
In 1901 Feder had joined the renowned ‘Isaria Corps’, an eighty-year old
students’ association of the type which practised duelling. His reputation as
the then ‘best-known swordsman of the Munich student body” leads one to
suspect, as was later confirmed on many occasions, that he had an excitable
temperament and sensitivity, combined with vanity, which led him as a
student into many affairs of honour and later involved him in endlessly

28
 Albrecht Tyrell 29

recurring rows with Party members in the NSDAP. In one duel he suffered
a head injury which made him ineligible for military service.
In 1908 Feder joined the civil engineering firm of Ackermann and Co. as
a partner and director of their Munich branch. In the following years he
built warehouses, bridges and other large buildings in Germany, Italy and
Bulgaria; after the beginning of the war he added munitions stores and
aircraft hangars. Since Feder and his firm only had limited capital of their
own at their disposal, considerable loans were needed to complete each of
their projects. We know from Feder’s later descriptions of the ‘demoralis-
ing’ experiences the young entrepreneur with his ambitious plans had with
foreign money-lenders. That they themselves were partly to blame because
of their own naivety and arrogance can be left to conjecture. Nevertheless
it was some time before he derived universally valid insights from his
experiences with big banks and his observations abroad about the ‘pitiless
iron grip of the impersonal power of money, which first of all offers and
gives the desired credit, but then in each economic crisis acts only in the
self-seeking interests of capital’.
In the first years of the war there were extensive state contracts to be
fulfilled. Moreover the lack of shipping tonnage and steel turned Feder’s
enterprising spirit towards a project of building a reinforced concrete ship,
and he devoted himself energetically to achieving this project at the risk of
his personal fortune. Since he was not called up for military service, the
project left him enough time to think about the social situation in Germany
after the war. In an essay written in 1917, ‘Compensation for German
Soldiers at the Front’, which, significantly, he distributed at once among
the highest authorities, he took up the idea of reducing social tensions with
an enhanced rural setttlement programme and the encouragement of
small-holdings. Feder who was self-taught in these matters began to con-
cern himself with questions of financial theory. The resentment he already
felt was increased by concern about the increasing indebtedness of the
German Reich as a consequence of war loans. But for a long time he
evidently shared with many of his fellow-countrymen the hope for a vic-
torious peace, which would allow the debts to be passed on to the losers. Only
when this self-deception was no longer possible after the unam-
biguous defeat in 1918 does the way to salvation seem to have occurred to
Feder in a flash of ‘intuition’. He ‘suddenly clearly recognised’ the perni-
ciousness of interest payments as the root of all the evil which had befallen
Germany.°

The principle of charging interest on loans is the devilish invention of the

big credit institutions, it alone makes it possible for a minority of power-
ful financiers to live as indolent drones at the expense of the productive
nations and their workforce, it has led to deep, unbridgable conflicts, to
class hatred, from which civil wars and wars between brothers are born.
30 Gottfried Feder

So said the introduction to the ‘Manifesto for the Eradication of Finan-

cial Interest Slavery’, which Feder committed to paper in the days after the
capitulation in November 1918 and published as a pamphlet in 1919.*
An economic theory, at the heart of which is the demand for the
‘eradication of interest slavery’ by means of the abolition of all interest
payments and the nationalisation of banking and the stock exchange,
certainly does not fully do justice to the complexity of its subject-matter.
But one should not overlook the fact that it possessed a certain attraction
in the prevailing revolutionary climate precisely because it offered bearings
in a socio-political landscape which had at a stroke become completely
confused, and as an apparently ingeniously simple, radical solution Feder
was not the only one to be fascinated by it. Members of the middle classes,
who had been badly affected by the lack of goods, price increases, unem-
ployment and other consequences of the war, were barred by their national
and non-proletarian self-image from seeking salvation in the political and
social revolution demanded by the socialist parties. In this context ‘eradica-
tion of interest slavery’ offered itself as the battle cry of a third way
between capitalism and Marxism towards ‘German socialism’.
Feder did not object to capital and private ownership as such, but
wanted to link it to both individual achievement and social obligation and
to give the state priority where the well-being of the whole demanded it.
With a rather artificial distinction, which had been developed decades
before in vdlkisch (populist ethnic), anti-semitic circles, he distinguished
‘rapacious’ capital from ‘creative’ capital. By the first he meant commercial
and finance capital which ‘grew ceaselessly’ from returns on interest, which
was concentrated in the hands of a few ‘power-hungry international pluto-
crats’ — for example the Rothschilds — and subjugated more and more
countries by giving loans of all kinds.°
By contrast, Feder wanted to made money a tool of the economy again,
instead of it being an end in itself. The necessary working funds for
national industrial production, the ‘creative capital’, was in future to be
distributed and controlled by the state itself. In order to make Germany
independent of the ‘financial powers above and beyond the state’, Feder
demanded a strict renunciation of all loans. Even he could see no possi-
bility of escaping the financial burdens which the victorious powers would
inflict on Germany. But when these had been paid, at the latest, Germany
would have to release herself from international interest slavery. A new
beginning at national level by means of declaring the state bankrupt and
nationalising monetary affairs would break the fateful chain and give other
countries a model of how to pull the rug from under the feet of the inter-
national capitalists.
The beneficial effect of the battle for the ‘eradication of interest slavery’
would not only manifest itself in increasing independence from the outside
world, according to Feder, but also in the removal of the internal divide in
 Albrecht Tyrell 31

the nation. In agreement with many who were looking to defuse the class
war by means of ‘German socialism’, Feder proclaimed: ‘Workers and
employers belong together’. Their mutual interest in the output of the
national economy was greater than the differences between them, which
could be solved ‘by means of contractual pay scales and the management of
companies to their mutual satisfaction’.°
Even in his first publication Feder left no doubt that he did not simply
see himself as a financial reformer but as the founder of a new political
doctrine of salvation with a claim to universal validity. The description of
his pamphlet as a ‘manifesto’, and, even more clearly, the linguistic refer-
ences to the ‘Communist Manifesto’ in its closing sentences are character-
istic of his claim to be in competition with Marxism.
Feder’s dissociation from the marxist version of anti-capitalism was
unmistakable. On the other hand anti-semitism played a less distinct role.
Feder did not resist the temptation of presenting ‘the conscious co-
operation of the power-hungry plutocrats of all nations’’ as a component
part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy, if for no other reason than that it
opened up greater prospects of success for his demands. Nonetheless even
in the following period, for Feder the economic aspects of his doctrine
always ranked above the anti-semitic ones. He was more inclined to regard
the Jews as a representative of the evil, but one whose removal would not
bring about any fundamental change. Instead, from 1918/1919 onwards he
held unerringly to the view that only the ‘eradication of interest slavery
would strike at the root of the world’s ills, and the tap root at that.’®
This realisation had the effect of a political awakening for Feder. He
took steps to put it into practice without delay. On 20 November 1918 he
handed his first draft to the new Bavarian government under the indepen-
dent socialist Prime Minister Kurt Eisner, because it seemed to him to be
of vital importance that the issue of interest was tackled immediately.
The shattering of his delusion that he would find some agreement here,
at least in his rejection of high finance, was followed by the discovery that
his public activities were more in tune with the political right. For the time
being Feder fought on his own for publicity, with total personal commit-
ment. In the course of 1919 he retired from his firm. As the head of a
family with three children this was not a step to be taken lightly, in view of
the economic uncertainty which surrounded him, even if one can assume
that his business prospects were now on the gloomy side, given the decline
in foreign and armament contracts. In 1920 he gave up his home in Munich
and moved into a small newly-built country house in Murnau on the
Staffelsee. As time went on, however, Feder’s sense of independence
corresponded less and less to his actual material situation. He was in-
creasingly compelled to link his work publicising his idea with the necessity
of safeguarding his family’s livelihood. The resulting mixture of idealistic
pretensions, criticism of the ‘bigwig’ economy of the republican parties and
32 Gottfried Feder

demands for high fees for the lectures he gave did not always meet with
understanding of his hosts and his later colleagues.
Nonetheless from 1919 on his battle-cry met with considerable interest.
Feder sought to influence the public mainly in two ways. He became very
active as a journalist and made appearances as a speaker when he had the
opportunity. He did not disdain even a small audience. In both cases the
volkisch movement, with its many groupings — in Munich alone there were
more than two dozen of them in 1919/20 — offered a fruitful arena for his
activities. Even before he had published his ‘Manifesto’ and ‘State Bank-
ruptcy — the Way Out’ as separate pamphlets, radical right wing Munich
papers had put their pages at his disposal. He quickly came into contact
with the ‘Thule Society’ and the anti-semitic author Dietrich Eckart, who
both played their parts in the early history of the NSDAP. The news, press
and propaganda division of the Regional Army Command 4 — for the time
being the highest military authority in Bavaria - employed Feder as an
adviser and director of training for the education of personnel who were to
use propaganda to combat socialist tendencies in the provisional army.
The corporal Adolf Hitler, who was among those taking the course in
June, was deeply impressed by Feder’s expositions. Feder’s central idea is
reproduced in the first piece of writing which survives from his early days in
politics, although transposed into the direct incitement to anti-semitism
characteristic of Hitler. In a statement on the Jewish question written on
16 September 1919, Hitler makes an unmistakable link between credit
capital and Jewry, a link Feder had tended to hint at discreetly. ‘His [the
Jew’s| power is the power of money, which effortlessly and endlessly grows
in his hands and forces nations to take on that most dangerous of yokes,
because of its initial golden sheen; a yoke they come to realise is so heavy
in its later sad consequences.”
Four days earlier Feder’s and Hitler’s paths had crossed once again at a
meeting of the German Workers’ Party (DAP), at which Feder was talking
about his ideas. Both subsequently became members. But there the simi-
larities ended. For while Hitler made his political base in the DAP, which
was soon renamed the NSDAP, and quickly became its driving force and
the public face of its propaganda, Feder remained an outsider. In the
following period the Party interested him only in as far as it could be
exploited as a platform for the dissemination of his idea. In 1920/21 his
contact with the Party was limited to occasional speeches at Munich Party
meetings.
Nonetheless the Party’s Twenty-Five Point Programme of 24 February
1920 contained, in points ten and eleven, the demand:

10 The first duty of every state citizen must be to be physically or

intellectually productive. The activity of individuals should not conflict
with the interests of the generality, but must take place within the
 Albrecht Tyrell 33
framework of the whole, and for the benefit of all. Therefore we de-
mand: 11 the abolition of income not generated by effort or labour.
Eradication of interest slavery.

Primarily on the basis of these demands and the correspondence of some

further economic points in the programme with the ideas disseminated by
Feder, it has been suspected that he was the author, or at least the
co-author of the programme along with Hitler and the Party founder
Drexler. Indications that this was the case are however thin on the ground
and do not tip the balance in the face of evidence which argues against his
direct participation.
During the following years Feder went his own way. By 1920 he had
already founded the ‘German Fighting League for the Eradication of
Interest Slavery’, but it had very little influence. In 1920 his speakers took
part in a total of thirty meetings. Feder only had moderate success, too, in
influencing like-minded organisations in Germany and Austria. He came
into direct competition with the NSDAP at the end of 1920 when he
wanted to take over the dead-end newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter,
which was up for sale, and use it for his own ends. However Hitler and
Drexler beat him to it. When Drexler subsequently wrote to Feder that he
hoped ‘that your ideas become ours and our ideas become yours’’® this
clearly reflects the distance between Feder and the NSDAP.
Feder’s attempts to win a wider audience for his ideas by going it alone,
as it were, were without success. However it was inconceivable for him to
give up the fight. So he had no other option than to reactivate his loose, but
never entirely severed links with the NSDAP in the course of 1922 and to
seek support there.
He was always very welcome there as a means of bridging over the weak
spots in the policies of the purely demagogic party. The NSDAP was
enjoying success in this guise in Munich. At the Party Convention in
January 1923, before the guests invited from outside the Party made their
speeches, and immediately after Hitler who elaborated the three fun-
damental philosophies of the future Germany — socialism, nationalism and
anti-semitism — he spoke about National Socialism’s fiscal programme and
set out the ‘nature and goals of the fight for the eradication of interest
slavery’.
In his new role as the economic and fiscal policy spokesman of the
NSDAP Feder continued to play his old role with unbroken self-
confidence. He saw himself as a forerunner of the Nazi movement because
he had entered the public arena earlier than Drexler and Hitler — indeed he
had even up to a point provided the latter with his first basic political
insights, as he subsequently never tired of emphasising. At the same time
he could claim that by his writing he had given substance to the vague
policy profile of the NSDAP on its path towards ‘national revolution’. That
34 Gottfried Feder

was not really the case until he was able to inform Hitler that he had
‘finished the new book, after months of toil . . . a book which undertakes
to describe the entire structure of the coming National Socialist state.’ For
Feder it was a matter of course from the outset that his book The German
State on a National and Socialist Foundation (with the significant sub-title
New Directions in State, Finance and Economy) would be regarded as the
‘authoritative publication for the Party as a whole.’”
Feder realised of course that the NSDAP’s success up until then was
primarily the result of Hitler’s actions, but he believed that the policy-
makers were bound to get their chance, at the latest when the NSDAP
seized political power. Therefore he expressly demanded of Hitler that he
should form an ‘intellectual general staff’ from the most important of his
colleagues and that he should listen to their advice, for, ‘although we are
willing to grant that you are supreme, you are only supreme among those
who are otherwise your equals and independent, in the best old Germanic
tradition’. '*
In a short introduction, which Feder almost had to force out of him,
Hitler did describe the book as the ‘catechism’ of the Nazi movement,!* but
this was as little a clear acknowledgement of Feder’s pretensions as was his
nomination as Minister of Finance on 8 November 1923, or the words
which Hitler found for him in Mein Kampf in 1925, which seem positive
only at first sight. Later, when Feder repeatedly referred to Mein Kampf,
he prudently overlooked the unambiguous reservations which Hitler wrote
into it on him and all theoreticians with narrow pretensions to exclusivity in
the NSDAP:

Every idea, even the best, becomes dangerous when it deludes itself that
it is an end in itself, when in reality they are a means to an end — for me
however, and for all true National Socialists, there is only one doctrine:
Folk and Fatherland. .. . Everything must be measured against this
standard and used or rejected according to its practicality.'*

From Hitler’s point of view the revival of Germany could not be brought
about by devising and proclaiming concrete programmes; instead its basic
precondition was a successful counter-revolutionary campaign against
domestic political enemies, because only that would make concrete
changes possible. He allowed policy-makers like Feder, Rosenberg,
Arthur Dinter and Otto Strasser, to name but a few, to be active in the
NSDAP because they secured supporters and fulfilled other useful func-
tions, mainly in propaganda. For at least as long as they did not prejudice
the Party’s propagandistic impact to an intolerable extent with disputes
over dogma, or publicly put his own position as leader in question, to a
large degree they had a free hand. However without Hitler’s express
support their demands were not officially binding.
 Albrecht Tyrell 35

The distance between Feder and Hitler, rooted in their differing points
of view, and also in mutual personal reservations, determined their rela-
tionship in the following period. Under these circumstances, if Feder
wanted long-term success in the Party, it was vitally important for him to
achieve a position in it which would force Hitler to make his ideas his own,
or at least to give him a free hand. If he did not achieve this by influencing
Hitler directly, then another way remained open for Feder; that of prop-
agating his doctrine so successfully within the NSDAP and among its
sympathisers that the desire to put it into practice became strong enough to
win Hitler over. This second possibility, however, pre-supposed that Feder
was not only an active and successful propagandist, but also required that
he made himself indispensable by means of relatively stable support in the
Party and that he attained a certain amount of independence. The outcome
was already obvious; in spite of all his efforts Feder failed on both counts.
Feder did not receive an official Party post with clearly defined duties
and powers after the re-establishment of the NSDAP in February 1925.
From 1924 (until 1936) however, he was a member of the Reichstag
representing the vdlkisch fraction of the National Socialists and from that
time on he used it as a platform for making speeches and petitions in order
to press forward towards his goal of ‘eradicating interest slavery’ and to
implement measures related to it. Moreover the Reichstag’s Deputies’
allowances and the free travel pass made his propaganda work much
easier. In 1926 alone he spoke at 107 public Party meetings.
At the turn of the year 1925/6 he was also able to demonstrate his value
as an ideological watchdog to Hitler. Feder saw great danger for the
‘internal stability of the movement’’’ in the efforts of Gregor Strasser and
the ‘Study Group of the NSDAP North West’ to define more precisely
National Socialist goals which were only inadequately expressed in the old
Twenty-Five Point Programme. Strasser had his reasons for not involving
Feder in the deliberations. This made the latter all the more determined to
set Hitler against them. Therefore the famous Bamberg Leader’s Confer-
ence of the NSDAP on 14 February 1926, at which Hitler put an end to the
first and only attempt to set up a formal forum within the Party for political
discussion, was entirely due to Feder. To a certain extent it was as a reward
for his watchfulness that Hitler entrusted him in Bamberg with the ‘uphold-
ing of the programmatic fundamentals’ of the NSDAP,’° without however
defining more precisely the extent of this commission, based as it was on
the exigencies of the moment.
In any case Feder described himself from then on as the author of the
movement’s programme and had himself named as such in the Party press
and on posters for meetings.'’ At this stage, in order to achieve a firm
foothold within the leadership of the Party, in the months after Bamberg
he especially advocated the ‘urgent necessity of limiting the authority of
individual Party offices’ of the National Executive.'* However his renewed
 36 Gottfried Feder

call for the ‘formation of a so-called intellectual general staff’ and for
regular Leader’s conferences 4 la Bamberg, which he proposed with the
support of most of the leading Party functionaries at the 1926 Party
Conference,'? was ignored by Hitler. On the other hand he came into his
own with a call for the establishment of an official Party publication series,
the ‘National Socialist Library’, of which he became editor in 1927.
Taken as a whole, the years from 1926 to 1928 may have been the most
satisfactory in Feder’s Party career. The gradual consolidation of the
NSDAP gave him for the first time the prospect of putting his ideas into
practice. He was fully occupied as a speaker; his commentary on the Party
programme, which was published as volume one of the NS Library at the
Party conference at Nuremberg in 1927, went onto its fifth edition in
February 1929. The German State secured an edition of 20 000 copies at
the end of 1928. The demands it made in the field of economic policy met
with a positive response in the Party. Unpleasantness, which resulted
partly from Feder’s inclination on his journeys to intervene in the affairs of
other Party members which had little or nothing to do with him, was kept
within bounds. Disputes with Rosenberg, Otto Strasser and Dietrich Klag-
ges about the concept of National Socialism and the content of individual
points of policy were conducted relatively matter-of-factly.
As Feder knew, his position was by no means secure in the long term.
He still had not found a place in the framework of the Party organisation
around which his close friends could gather and establish themselves. And
there were certainly no executive powers which corresponded to his role as
_ watchdog. For this reason he seized his chance when the opportunity arose
at the end of 1928 for him to take over the publishing house of four south
German Nazi district newspapers. This turned out to be a complete fiasco,
in which Feder even lost in three years what remained of his personal
fortune. Hopes for the post of Gauleiter in Hessen-Darmstadt were dashed
in 1931/32 as were those for a ministerial post in the Free State of Hessen.
Finally Feder received a few posts within the Party leadership during the
organisational expansion of the NSDAP’s National Executive from 1930
onwards; most importantly he became the director of the National Econ-
omic Council in November 1937. This title sounds much more important
than the powers associated with it actually warranted, and once more
Feder proved he was not a man who could protect and extend them on his
Own initiative. In addition, in Otto Wagener, the director of the Economic
Policy Section established at the end of 1930, he faced a competitor who at
least for the time being maintained stronger links with Hitler. Moreover
Feder’s ideas were always completely disregarded in Hitler’s efforts to gain
support from representatives of big business, one of the influential groups
who were to clear the way for him to take over power.
Feder played a lamentable role in the Strasser crisis in December 1932.
First of all he protested in an agitated letter to Hitler against his own
 Albrecht Tyrell 37

sphere of duties also being cut back during the restructuring of Strasser’s
National Organisational Executive, and requested ‘several weeks leave’ —
the following day he took everything back in a devoted declaration of
loyalty to Hitler.
All the rest was simply a postscript. From July 1933 until the take-over of
the National Economics Ministry by Hjalmar Schacht in August 1934,
Feder fulfilled duties there as Secretary of State and along with this held
office for a while as the State Commissioner for the Rural Resettlement
Programme and as the President of the National Socialist League of
German Technology. Then from November 1934 until his death in 1941,
far removed from politics, he was simply Professor of Rural Settlement and
Town Planning in Berlin.

NOTES

1. A.R. Herrmann, Gottfried Feder. Der Mann und sein Werk (Leipzig, 1933)
p. 12.
2. G. Feder, ‘Innere Geschichte der Brechung der Zinsknechtsschaft’, in Volkis-
cher Beobachter no. 72 dated 12.8.1920.
3. Ibid.
4. Diessen by Munich, 1919, p. 5 (reprinted in a shortened form in G. Feder,
Kampf gegen die Hochfinanz (Munich, 1933) p. 51ff.)
5. Feder, Manifest p. 11.
6. Ibid., p. 55f.
7. Ibid., p. 12.
8. Ibid., p. 61.
9. Hitler to A. Gemlich, 16.9.1919 (published in E. Jackel/A. Kuhn (eds), Hitler.
Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924 (Stuttgart, 1980) p. 89).
10. Draft of a letter from Drexler to Feder, 13.2.1921, sent 9.3.1921 (BA, NS26/
76).
11. O.J. Hale, ‘Gottfried Feder calls Hitler to order: an unpublished letter on Nazi
Party affairs’, in Journal of Modern History, 30 (1958) p. 362.
12. Ibid.
13. This preface is missing in the first and second editions, since Hitler kept Feder
waiting for it for a long time.
14. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 504th—S08th edition (Munich, 1940) p. 234.
15. Feder to Hitler 2/3.5.1926 (published in A. Tyrell (ed.), Fiihrer befiehl . . .
(Dusseldorf, 1969) p. 125).
16. Feder to Goebbels, 26.2.1926 (BA, NS 1-338); see also G. Feder, Das Prog-
ramm der NSDAP und seine Weltanschaulichen Grundlagen, 184th/185th edi-
tion (Munich, undated, originally 1927) p. 19.
17. See for example //lustrierter Beobachter series 3, no. 2, dated 28.1.1928, p. 28.
18. Feder to Hitler, 2/3.5.1926 (p. 127).
19. BA, NS 26-389.
38 Gottfried Feder

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
The best survey of Feder’s ideas on economic and financial policy are to be found in
his collection of essays: Kampf gegen die Hochfinanz (Munich, 1933). The sixty-
four page pamphlet: Das Programm der NSDAP und seine weltanschaulichen
Grundgedanken (Munich, 1927) had already been printed by the Party publishers
Eher Nachf. before 1933 in an edition of several hundred thousand copies. Feder’s
town-planning activities, which aimed to ‘. . . establish new country and small
towns as a new form for social existence . . . and to secure the economic base for
their existence’ were given written expression in: Die neue Stadt. Versuch der
Begritindung einer neuen Stadtplanungskunst aus der sozialen Struktur der Bevolker-
ung (Berlin, 1939).

Secondary Literature

Feder’s person, policies and career have only twice been the subject of thorough
academic investigation: A. Tyrell, ‘Gottfried Feder and the NSDAP’, in P.D.
Stachura (ed.), The Shaping of the Nazi State (London, New York, 1978) p. 48-87,
and M. Riebe, Gottfried Feder, Wirtschaftsprogrammatiker Hitlers. Ein biographis-
cher Beitrag zur Vor und Friihgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus, unpublished
thesis from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 1971. A. Barkai, Das Wirt-
schaftssystem des Nationalsozialismus, Der historische und ideologische Hinter-
grund 1933-1936 (Cologne, 1977), is of the opinion that Feder’s basic ideas ‘were
more valid from the point of view of modern economic thinking’ than contempor-
ary criticism of them. For Feder’s role in engineering and construction after 1933
see K.H. Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure im Dritten Reich (Dusseldorf, 1974), and
E. Forndran, Die Stadt- und Industriegriindungen Wolfsburg un Salzgitter (Frank-
furt am Main—New York, 1984).
 5S Hans Frank: Party Jurist
and Governor-General
in Poland
Christoph Klessmann

Hans Frank, the star jurist of the NSDAP and Governor-General of

occupied Poland during the Second World War, is not one of the truly
powerful men in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Nevertheless he was one
_of those chiefly responsible for the bloody German reign of terror in
Poland. This was where Frank played his ‘historic role’, for which he was
condemned to death at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 and hanged. By
comparison his role as jurist in the NSDAP before and after 1933 can be
regarded as peripheral. Yet this first phase of his political biography, too,
shows certain traits and links characteristics of a middle class intellectual
who joined the National Socialists after some prevarication, and made his
career in their Party.
Hans Frank was born on 23 May 1900 in Karlsruhe, the son of a lawyer.
He attended the Grammar School in Munich and from 1916-17 he was for
a while a pupil at a grammar school in Prague. Details about his political
activities after completing his Higher School Leaving Certificate in Munich
in 1918 are confused, but to a certain extent they reflect his problems in
orienting himself politically. In 1918 Frank joined the ‘Konig’ infantry
regiment but was too late to be sent to the front. In 1919 and 1920 he was a
member of the volkisch (populist ethnic) secret association, the ‘Thule
Society’ and took part in the suppression of the Munich Soviet as a
volunteer in the Freikorps Epp. According to the statements of a fellow
pupil Frank was also elected to the Soldiers’ Council in November 1918.
Enthusiastic admiration for Kurt Eisner, at least, emerges from his early
personal diaries. However this enthusiasm was directed entirely to the
person and his admiration was based on a remarkable misunderstanding of
the actual content of Eisner’s socialist programme.
‘Eisner was a hero,’ Frank wrote, after the murder of the revolutionary
leader, ‘. . . he died in the battle for his ideals. Yet what he died for has not
died with him: the flame he fanned and nourished burns on: Socialism!’ In
the eyes of the middle class Hans Frank the goal of this socialism was not to
be class war but the reconciliation of the classes, and it was to be realised
not by the collective action of the masses but by a leader: ‘the man who will
finally remove the curse of classes from humanity. . . People are small and
weak, one man is all!”

39
40 Hans Frank

The way from thoughts like this about a national socialism which would
reconcile the classes, to joining the NSDAP seems to have been mapped
out early in Frank’s life. In September 1923 the student of economics and
jurisprudence joined the SA; one month later he became a member of the
NSDAP. He was an active member during the Hitler Putsch of 9 Novem-
ber 1923, fled afterwards for a short time to Austria, but returned to
Munich in 1924 and in the same year received his doctorate in jurispru-
dence in Kiel.
After leaving the NSDAP for a short time in 1926 because of Hitler’s
attitude to the South Tirol question, Frank’s career as a lawyer in the Party
and within the state system began when he rejoined in 1927 (or 1928). He
defended destitute Party members in countless court proceedings. The
establishment of the National Socialist League of Jurists, the purpose of
which was to coordinate the defence in political trials developed from his
initiative. It later turned into the ‘National Socialist League for Upholding
the Law’. As a result of defending cases for Hitler himself, in particular,
Frank was able to assure himself of a position in the Party. The Leipzig
trial in September 1930 against army officers from Ulm accused of high
treason became particularly famous. Hitler consistently pursued his strat-
egy of strict observance of legality as means of achieving power and Frank
offered him an effective public forum to reinforce this policy under oath.
A degree of trust between Hitler and Frank seems to date from this time.
Of course the latter apparently never realised how much his Fuhrer simply
used the law as part of his political calculations but otherwise despised
jurists and never took Frank’s ideas of ‘a renewal of German justice
according to the ideas of National Socialist philosophy’ very seriously.
However Frank played a relatively substantial role not only in the context
of the legality policy during the seizure of power, but also in the phase of
the consolidation of power after 1933, although his various functions and
offices carried little weight in political terms.
For a short time he was Bavarian Justice Minister and then in 1934 he
brought about the liquidation of the regional state justice systems as ‘State
Commissioner for the Uniformisation of Justice in the Ldnder and the
Renewal of Law and Order.’ He was a member of the national government
as Minister without Portfolio until the end of the Third Reich. According
to his own statements he attempted to resist the encroachments of the
political police in the early thirties, opposed the establishment of the
Dachau concentration camp and protested against the execution without
trial of SA leaders in connection with the so-called ‘R6hm Putsch’ in 1934.7
How far such intervention went and how serious it was can not be deter-
mined. In any event it remained completely unsuccessful and was probably
like the later conflicts of Governor General Frank with the SS, which were
less concerned with justice and morality than with authority and asserting
his own position. In the thirties, after he had played the role of legal
 Christoph Klessmann 41

accomplice for the seizure of power, Frank let himself be pushed aside into
the politically relatively insignificant field of ideological judicature.
In October 1933 he founded the ‘Academy for German Law’, the task of
which was to be the creation of a ‘German Community Law’ to replace
Roman law, as was demanded in the Party manifesto. In addition the
Academy was to instigate and prepare the drawing up of draft laws to
promote and standardise the training of lawyers. In 1937 the Academy had
approximately 300 members and forty-five committees. That Frank him-
self, as President, together with the Director of the Weimar Nietzsche
Archive, directed the jurisprudence committee is a characteristic detail
which reflects Frank’s soaring ambition and actual ineffectiveness. Apart
from a few of the Academy’s activities, which are primarily of interest to a
more specialised history of the discipline of jurisprudence (for example the
National Socialist Handbook for Law and Legislation, 1935; the Year Book
of the Academy for German Law, Iff, 1933ff), this institution is of particu-
lar interest with regard to Frank’s later activities in two respects. Part of
the staff of the Academy was transferred to the occupation administration
in Poland (for example the Chief of Staff of the Government General
(GG), Secretary of State Josef Buhler, district governors Karl Lasch (Ra-
dom), and Ludwig Fischer (Warsaw), Wilhelm Coblitz as the director of
the ‘Institute for German Activities in the East’ among others). Further-
more, within the framework of his Academy, Frank developed contacts
with Poland in the form of a Working Party for Polish-German Legal Links
(1937). The background to this was apparently attempts to form a ‘new
Polish policy’ along the lines of an anti-Bolshevik alliance of the German
state, with Poland as the junior partner, which he unreservedly supported.
However these contacts did not have any demonstrable inherent link
with Frank’s nomination as the leader of the GG in 1939. This has to be
seen more as Hitler’s ‘reward’ for a Party veteran whose loyalty seemed
assured. In any case neither his previous links with Poland nor the idea of a
‘revival of Germanic law’ had any visible influence on Frank’s activity in his
new role as Governor General. Instead, like some of the Gauleiter and
District Chief Executives for the areas of Western Poland annexed into the
German state, he unleashed a reign of terror which put all other forms of
territorial annexation by the National Socialists into the shade and gave
tangible proof of the new character of the ‘ideological war of extermina-
tion’ (Ernst Nolte). ‘Frank is behaving like a megalomaniac pasha’, Ulrich
von Hassell, former ambassador in Rome, noted in his diary on 25 Decem-
ber 1939.° This remained an apt description of Frank during his whole
period of office in Poland.
Only a few details about Frank’s short period as Leader of the Adminis-
tration during the martial rule of General von Rundstedt in September/
October 1939 are available. According to a note added later to the front of
his office diary, on 15 September he received an oral command from Hitler
 42 Hans Frank

‘to take over the entire civil administration in the former Polish territories
as Supreme Head of the administration’.* By decree of the Fuhrer on 12
October he was made Governor General for those parts of Poland not
absorbed into the German state, with effect from 26 October. Two weeks
after the termination of the military administration and the official estab-
lishment of the GG he moved to Cracow, where the Wawel, the old Polish
royal castle, was to be his imposing seat of government. Frank was directly
responsible to Hitler and so formally held a strong position. Later, in
various disputes, he repeatedly referred to the wording of the decree,
without however being able to secure his political position, which in reality
was weak. For the central departments of the German state in Berlin
possessed far-reaching powers, in particular Goering as the President of
the Ministerial Council for the Defence of the Nation and Commissioner
for the Four Year Plan. One of the more serious, lasting disputes came
about as a result of the quasi-independent status of the Supreme SS and
Police Chief in the GG, who was nominated by Himmler in his role as
‘State Commissar for the Consolidation of the German Race’ as his com-
missioner in this territory. This put a huge question mark over the ‘unity of
government’ which was Frank’s aim. Through the commissioner, Himmler
gave orders direct to the district SS and police chiefs, without the head-
quarters of the civil government in the GG having been advised in ad-
vance. “The inherent tendency towards a distinctive territorial regime run
by the SS and Police grievously threatened Frank’s position’.°
One characteristic of the internal structure of the GG, and to a lesser
‘ extent of the Third Reich, was therefore already built into its configuration
when it was established; the ‘departmental polyocracy’ (Martin Broszat),
accurately described by Frank as an ‘anarchy of plenipotentiaries’, which
made the effective exercise of rule impossible. Whether this system formed
a central plank of a strategy of ‘divide et impera’, or was the expression of a
sort of naturally occurring administrative chaos, following from the para-
sitical dismemberment of traditional administrative structures, is debat-
able. In any event Hitler never made any definitive decision on the future
status of the GG or on the personal power structure and so left the field
clear for rivalry and disputes about authority.
Frank’s activities as Governor-General were therefore primarily shaped
by the attempt to assert his function as based on the Fiihrer’s decree of 12
October and to gain compensation for his diminishing authority. His office
diary, kept from 1939-45, is unique of its kind as a source and has been
preserved in its entire thirty-eight volumes. It gives ample evidence of both
of these factors. Conceived of as a document to the vanity of an unstable
power broker who wanted to leave a testimony to his ‘construction work’
for posterity, instead it documents the increasingly ‘marked marginalisa-
tion of and lack of scope’ for the GG. In detail which verges on the
ridiculous, it describes how Frank attempted to model himself into a
 Christoph Klessmann 43

replica of the Fuhrer he idolised and to conceal the fact that his position
was in reality increasingly being undermined by the SS, the economy and
the army, by making long rhetorical speeches and uninhibited public
appearances. To this extent the diary also reflects the pathology of the
person of the Governor General as well as the structurally determined
chaos of his domain.
Until summer 1940 the status of the GG was still undecided, in as far as
plans to create a ‘residual Polish state’ as a factor for bargaining with the
Western powers had not yet been completely shelved. It was only after this
that the administration was consolidated and Poland was economically and
politically more tightly integrated into the Greater German Reich, but
without the GG being tied in to the structure of the German state in the
same way as Other occupied territories in Poland or Czechoslovakia. In this
_ first phase Frank attempted, with some success, to fend off the demands of
the German state authorities and to ensure the autonomy of his administra-
tion. At the same time these first months were distinguished by a policy of
unrestrained plundering and exploitation, and a share of this could only be
obtained on the precondition that the GG functioned not as an integrated
part of the German state but as a reservation and resettlement zone for
expellees. Not only were large sections of the Polish population resettled
here from the ‘annexed territorities’, but initially vague plans to create a
‘Jewish reservation’ in the east also formed part of this nexus of ideas.
At first this development was welcomed and supported by Hans Frank,
the fanatical National Socialist, in spite of the fact that it went against his
ambitions to build up a unified German administration. In the phase of
German Blitzkrieg victories, above all, he had allowed his uninhibited
imagination free rein. The image of the ‘Butcher of the Poles’ was there-
fore taking shape at an early stage. An interview with the Volkischer
Beobachter dated 6 February 1940, in which he discusses the basis of Polish
policy, is among his most infamous statements. In one passage — not
published by the Vélkischer Beobachter — to a question on the differences
between the Government General and the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia, Frank declared:

I can tell you one concrete difference. For example, in Prague big red
posters were put up, on which you could read that seven Czechs had
been shot that day. I said to myself, if I were to put up a poster for every
seven Poles that had been shot, the forests of Poland would not be big
enough to produce the paper for these posters. Yes indeed, we had to
take severe measures.’

Such statements and others like it are not only an indication of the policy
of terror which Frank made possible or helped to initiate, but of his
personality, which Joachim Fest has aptly described as a ‘carbon copy of
44 Hans Frank

a terrorist’. Frank’s attitude to violence always contained unreal, theat-

rical, contrived elements, and his ordinary rhetorical invective, too, was
obviously intended to conceal his psychological instability. However he
was never the pugnacious hero he pretended to be. The desired ideal was
always far in advance of the reality.
The second phase of the development of the Government General was
determined by a change of function during the course of the preparation
and implementation of ‘Operation Barbarossa’ and the restructuring of the
German economy from the Blitzkrieg strategy to a total war economy with
armament in depth. The direct seizure of the resources of the GG by the
various special commissioners of the German state increased. Frank
attempted to do justice to the increased demands of the war economy by
intensifying his methods of exploitation. The resistance of the Polish
population, which initially had been restricted largely to the intellectuals,
inevitably became more widespread because of this, and increasingly en-
compassed the peasantry, who until then had been relatively passive,
politically. The severe demands of the delivery quotas could now only be
enforced by terror, but the terror produced resistance and counter-
violence, which increasingly put into question the ordered administration
to which Frank aspired. In his political goals he was scarcely distinguish-
able from his rivals in the SS and the Party Chancellery. On the other hand
he was evidently not blind to the visible consequences of a policy which was
rigorously enforced according to the maxim that the Poles were to be
treated as a slave nation. Therefore for the purpose of realising the in-
terests of the German state’s war economy he tried to implement a course
which was to some extent more flexible and ultimately more effective.
Because of this he came into even greater conflict with Himmler’s SS.
Various cases of corruption, in which Frank was implicated, gave Himmler
and Bormann welcome excuses to push him into a corner and to strengthen
the position of the Supreme SS and Police Chief in the GG, Friedrich-
Wilhelm Kriger.
In summer 1942 in four lectures at the universities of Berlin, Vienna,
Munich and Heidelberg, Frank took the risk of making a remarkably open
attack against the arbitrary rule of the police state and pleaded for the
‘observance of justice’. Even although, after his previous behaviour in
Poland, Frank was anything but a credible champion of norms of justice —
however these were understood, against the background of his bitter
conflicts with the SS these speeches were provocative. He was therefore
banned from speaking in the German state and lost all his offices in the
state with the exception of his role as Minister without Portfolio. At this
point his political demise seemed to be inevitable, and in the SS they were
already casting about for a successor. In this situation Frank offered Hitler
his resignation in November 1942, but it was refused.
In spite of the consistent weakening of his personal position in the
 Christoph Klessmann 45

National Socialist power structure, by remaining at his post Frank had

gained a starting point for a renewed confrontation with Himmler’s Racial
Policy, which reached a new high-point in autumn 1942 and spring 1943 in
the Zamos¢ campaign. A ring of German settlements was to be created in
the Zamos¢ district in the upper reaches of the Bug in anticipation of the
later Germanisation of the GG. To this end Polish peasants had been
arrested in their thousands from November 1942 onwards, forcibly evacu-
ated and replaced by ethnic German settlers. In the eastern GG the
security position worsened acutely, the Polish resistance movement gained
a spontaneous rush of support and the delivery of quotas declined. In this
situation Frank finally managed to have his way and as far as possible put a
stop to the campaign as well as achieving the removal of his main competi-
tor, the Supreme SS and Police Chief Kriiger and the chief of the SS and
- Police in Lublin district, Odilo Globocnik.
When, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, Propaganda Minister
Goebbels announced his decree ‘regarding the treatment of European
nations, including the eastern nations’, Frank believed he could see an
opportunity for far-reaching policy changes in Poland too. Considerably
overestimating the possibilities of being able to deviate from the previous
political line of total suppression of the Poles, he pleaded in countless
memos to Hitler, some of which were extensive, for better treatment for
the Polish forced labourers because their catastrophic living conditions and
discriminatory work situation in the German state was providing constant
new fodder for the resistance movement in Poland. Over and above this he
recommended an improvement in food rations and a reduction in the
delivery quotas, the reopening of Polish secondary schools and the par-
ticipation of Poles in administration at district level. However open and
courageous some of these petitions look against the background of Polish
policy as it was officially practised, in the final analysis they all have to be
seen as tactically motivated and coming too late; attempts to extricate
himself from a military situation which was becoming increasingly pre-
carious. In Berlin Frank could achieve practically nothing.
Of course the verbal radicalism of the statements in his diary only
reflects one side of Frank’s activities and personality. But he was, and
remained, representative and executor of an occupation policy in Poland
which was fundamentally criminal and politically lacking in foresight. It
was this which left its mark on the image of Hans Frank the National
Socialist. This image can be more clearly defined, although not relativised,
by drawing attention to the ‘other’ Frank, who was not the same as the
criminal and to whom contemporaries who were close to him have also
drawn attention. The Italian author, Curzio Malaparte, who got to know
Frank during his stay in the GG in 1942 and presented his impressions of
this time in his novel Bust, encapsulated this ambivalence in these sen-
tences: ‘Not a man who could be dismissed with a hasty judgement. The
46 Hans Frank

unease I always felt in his company originated precisely from the many
layers apparent in his nature, from the unique mixture of cruel intelligence,
a refined and a vulgar character, of brutal cynicism and exquisite
sensibility.’*
The juxtaposition of cynicism, cold brutality and ‘correctness’ on the
one hand and sentimentality and the middle class intellectual’s avidity
for culture on the other is a well-known pattern for many senior Nazi
functionaries, and is particularly alarming in its ability to combine these
attributes without visible contradiction. The expense of running German
culture, which Frank brought to the GG, with his own state theatre and
symphony orchestra, the ‘Institute for German Activities in the East’ and
his newspapers, the extensive correspondence he conducted with musicians
and intellectuals in the German state and his extravagant need for grand
public appearances therefore in the final analysis complement his image as
the Butcher of the Poles and lend it particularly macabre features.
In this respect Frank remained true to himself until his end on the
gallows in Nuremberg. At the Nuremberg Tribunal he was one of the few
major war criminals who confessed their guilt. When he heard that masses
of Germans were being driven out of the eastern territories and the
Sudetenland, however, he revised his statement of Germany’s ‘thousand
years of guilt’.? The autobiographical reflections he wrote in prison in
Nuremberg, in spite of all attempts at self-criticism, document helpless
excuses for his own role and an attempt to regard Hitler and Himmler as
the only truly guilty ones. Even in his attempts to distance himself from his
Fuhrer he remained enslaved to him.

NOTES

1. Personal diary, entries for 11.12.1918 and 12.4.1919, Bundesarchiv Koblenz,

Nachlass Frank.
2. H. Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens (Munich, 1953) p. 146f, 150ff.
3. U. von Hassell, Vom anderen Deutschland (Zurich, 1946) p. 112.
4. W. Prag, W. Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen General-
gouverneurs in Polen 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1975) p. 45.
. Ibid., p. 26 (Introduction).
. Ibid., p. 29 (Introduction).
. Ibid., p. 104.
. C. Malaparte, Kaputt (Karlsruhe, 1961) p. 143f.
. International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, Der Prozess gegen die Haupt-
OAOrANHAN
skriegsverbrecher, vol. XXII, p. 438.
 Christoph Klessmann 47

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
The most important source for Hans Frank’s role as Governor-General is: W. Prag
W. Jacobmeyer (eds), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in
Polen 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1945). A short sample from the diary, which is basi-
cally identical to the document produced by the Polish representative for the
prosecution at the trial in Nuremberg, USSR-223, is given in S. Piotrowski: Hans
Franks Tagebuch (Warsaw, 1963). Also useful are the transcripts of the proceed-
ings of the Nuremberg trials: /nternationaler Militargerichtshof Nurnberg, Der
Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher, 42 volumes (Nuremberg, 1947-1950),
here: Volume XII, XXII (Verhandlungen gegen Frank). There are revealing
passages about his personality in the document he wrote in prison: /m Angesicht
des Galgens. Deutung Hitlers und seiner Zeit aufgrund eigener Erlebnisse und
Erkenntnisse, edited by O. Schloffer (Munich, 1953). The memoirs of Division
Leader (Innere Verwaltung) in the Government General, F.W. Siebert, were
‘ written as the result of direct observation of Frank: ‘Versuch einer Darstellung der
Personlichkeit Franks’, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Ost-Dok. 13 GG 1a/13.

Secondary Literature

The study by M. Broszat, Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik 1939-1945 (Frankfurt

am Main, 1965) is still the main source, although its section on the GG is very short.
It is complemented by: G. Eisenblatter, Grundlinien der Politik des Reiches
gegentiber dem Generalgouvernement 1939-1945, thesis (Frankfurt am Main,
1969), which contains a great deal of material. The literature on the Polish side is so
vast as to be almost unmanageable. The most important works are: C. Madajczyk,
Die Okkupationspolitik Nazideutschlands in Polen 1939-1945 (Cologne, 1988) (a
more complete Polish version, 1970). The cultural policy context is discussed by
C. Klessmann: Die Selbstbehauptung einer Nation. NS-Kulturpolitik und polnische
Widerstandsbewegung (Dusseldorf, 1971). The conversations of the Nuremberg
prison psychologist G.M. Gilbert give important insights into Frank’s personality:
Niirnberger Tagebuch (Frankfurt am Main, 1962). Portraits which attempt to givea
personal and political description of the lawyer-and Governor General are to be
found in J. Fest: Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches. Profile einer totalitaren Herrschaft
(Munich, 1963) and C. Klessmann: ‘Der Generalgouverneur Hans Frank’, in VfZ
19 (1971) p. 245-60.
 6 Joseph Goebbels:
. The Propagandist
Elke Frohlich

‘Why does fate deny me what it grants to others? How my heart aches.
God, God, why have you abandoned me?’’' — thus went the despairing,
plaintive lamentations of the twenty-eight year old Joseph Goebbels in his
diary at the beginning of his meteoric career. At the end of it, twenty years
later almost exactly to the day, in March 1945, when he would have had
every reason for despair, given the millions of dead and incalculable
devastation, he maintained a posture of fanatical battle-readiness until the
very end. From 1944 he had been promoted to the post of State Plenipo-
tentiary for the Prosecution of Total War, and during this time he wrote in
his diary: ‘In Berlin, at least, the defence continues to be organised, and it
is my firm resolve that, if it comes to it, I will give the enemy such a fight
here that it will be unique in the history of war.’” Like these quotes, all his
diaries bear testimony to the contradictory tensions united in their author:
an inferiority complex along with evangelical self-confidence, a longing for
salvation with a desire for total annihilation, maudlin sentimentality with
calculating cynicism, whingeing self-pity combined with brutal cruelty to
others. Goebbels had a singular effect on his contemporaries and even on
historians; at once repulsive and fascinating. For a long time he was
regarded as — with the exception of Hitler — the most interesting personality
among the prominent National Socialists. The reasons for this were very
varied: because of the aura of the many love affairs which hung about him;
because of the unique position he held for two decades as Hitler’s intimate
and the most effective promoter of the Fuhrer myth; because of the
spectacular end to this loyalty in the form of a family suicide in the Fiihrer’s
bunker at the Reich Chancellery, in which he and his wife Magda, who was
as devoted to Hitler as he was, also involved six thriving children.
Among the leadership of the National Socialists, most of whom were
only moderately gifted, the State Propaganda Minister, seriously disabled
by a club foot, stood out primarily because of his sarcastic intellect and his
polished rhetoric. But his rather ‘latin’ style of intelligence, and the physic-
al disability, so inappropriate to the Nazi ideal of the Germanic man, made
Goebbels an outsider throughout his life.
Joseph Goebbels was born on 29 October 1897 in Rheydt, a small
industrial town on the Lower Rhine. His father had succeeded by dint of
hard work and patience in rising from being a commercial clerk to the chief
clerk in a firm which made wicks. Even though every penny had to count

48
 Elke Frohlich 49

twice in the Goebbels household, there was sufficient to buy a small

terraced house and to educate the children well. The young Goebbels did
not experience social misery, and he could be as certain of the love of his
good Catholic parents as his four siblings. His weak stature and the stigma
of his serious disability even confirmed him as the favourite at home. As
the most gifted of his siblings Joseph not only received piano lessons — a
positive luxury in ‘white collar’ circles — but was also allowed to attend
grammar school. He, for his part, as his diary shows, always had fond
memories of his parental home and still tried to be a ‘good’ son to his
mother, even when he had long since risen to be the famous and notorious
State Propaganda Minister. If his childhood and youth were often joyless,
as he wrote on 1923 in his Reminiscences, * this was primarily because of his
club foot, which gave rise to much spiteful teasing at school and on the
street. Isolated as he was by this, he for his part developed qualities,
especially a tendency to intrigue and to pushiness, which made him un-
popular with the teachers too, although he was a good pupil.
In 1917 he completed his Higher Leaving Certificate. Afterwards, free of
war service because of his disability, he studied German at five universities.
He could not really afford these frequent changes in his place of study,
given his meagre allowance from the parental home and a small loan from
the catholic Albertus Magnus Society. The chief reason for them was his
great and ultimately unhappy love for Anka Stahlherm, whom he had
followed unswervingly from place to place. She was the first of a long series
of women at the fringes of his life. Women were attracted to him even
when he was still unknown and before he had any roles in films to distri-
bute. Conversely he had male friends only during the short time while he
was a Student and up to the beginning of his political career, and then no
more at all. One exception was Richard Flisges, who died young, and for
whom the diary novel Goebbels wrote in 1920 was a memorial. He sac-
rificed his few other friendships to his paramount ambition, which was
above all else to make himself important and have a successful career.
Having attained the degree of PhD in 1921, with a literary dissertation
on the Romantic Wilhelm von Schutz at Heidelberg under the Jewish
Germanist Max von Waldberg, in the future Goebbels set great store by
always adorning his name with the title ‘Doctor’. For the present, however,
the newly-fledged ‘Doctor’ was still financially dependent on his father; the
young man considered himself too good for any uninteresting means of
simply earning a living, having from an early stage believed himself to have
a vocation for a special mission. He only persevered in a job, obtained by
his then girl-friend, in the Dresdner Bank in Cologne, for a few months in
1923. However he was very quickly drawn back again into his attic room in
his parents’ house, devoted to literary endeavours and the constant medita-
tion in his diary. Nonetheless he suffered from his unresolved situation.
The self-confident certainty that he was called to higher things alternated
50 Joseph Goebbels

with outbreaks of the deepest self-doubt, which intensified to the point

where he considered suicide. For the rest, he occupied himself as the man
of letters he considered himself to be. Even as a student he had written
several plays and novels. Stylistically bombastic and banal in content, none
of them was convincing.
Goebbels was late in beginning to take an interest in politics. The First
World War period, the Revolution and the period after the war scarcely
left a trace in his diary. His personal associations with the year 1918, so
catastrophic for the Germans, were of ‘blissful memories’ of his great love
for Anka. The fact that the lame man intended to join up in the last year of
the war was probably mainly an act of pathetic self-stylisation and hardly
intended seriously. In as far as Goebbels took notice of politics at all in this
period, it was in the manner of the resentful philistine of his day: ‘Politics is
sad. In London the rich bankers dispose of Germany’s workforce for the
next forty years. Gently, gentlemen!’”* At that time he could also write:
‘Today I have no interest in anything. Just leave me in peace.”
That changed abruptly with his debut on the political stage. Having been
introduced into various vdlkisch (populist ethnic) circles by a prosperous
friend, Fritz Prang, who had also joined the NSDAP as far back as 1922,
Goebbels experienced his political awakening in summer 1924 on the
occasion of a joint party conference of the Vdlkische and the banned
NSDAP in Weimar. Immediately after his return he became extremely
active politically. The very next day he formed a local branch of the
National Socialists in Ménchengladbach (21.8.1924). At the same time he
discovered his gift for public speaking. Thoughts just flew into his head
while he was speaking, the spark which he was able to fan in his listeners
jumped over to him and gave wings to his rhetorical achievements. He was,
he wrote at that time, proud, but also shocked that he had become a
‘demagogue of the worst sort’.° However as his success quickly became
established, this self-criticism deserted him, never to return. In August
1924 Goebbels was engaged as the editor of the Saturday newspaper
Volkische Freiheit, for which he wrote nearly all the articles himself. His
renown as a political columnist and speaker for the Party grew, and seven
months later, when the NSDAP District Rhineland North was founded in
Eberfeld in March 1925, he was already one of the prominent regional
Party members. Compared with other leading National Socialists, Goeb-
bels had found his way into the Party relatively late and after quite a long
period of political gestation — still without having got to know Hitler.
Not only did he make a favourable impression in the ‘Movement’, but he
was soon known as shrewd, arrogant and scheming. In conservative-vélkisch
circles he was soon denounced as a National Socialist Robespierre. Together
with his friend Karl Kaufmann he intrigued successfully against the other
leader of the District, Axel Ripke, with the result that Kaufmann became
Gauleiter and Goebbels his business manager. He commented bitterly: ‘I
 Elke Frohlich 51

do the work and he is the “‘leader’’’.’ The only close friendship Goebbels
ever had among Party leaders suffered a rift which developed into deadly
enmity. Soon Goebbels was working against Kaufmann, too, — successfully
— and driven by ambition, let the friendship be ruined. It was much the
same with his politically admittedly much more significant relationship with
Gregor Strasser, the powerful leader of the North German NSDAP. For
this ‘magnificent chap’ with his ‘wonderful sense of humour’,* Goebbels
soon became the main mouthpiece of the socialist left of the Party — its
most radical and articulate ‘comrade in arms’. They were primarily united
in their negative judgement of the Munich headquarters as a ‘stinking,
rotten system’.” Goebbels became the most important contributor to the
Nationalsozialistische Briefe, edited by Strasser, probably the most intel-
lectually demanding Nazi newspaper, for which he wrote some of his most
brilliant articles.
For a year and a half Goebbels played a leading role as demagogue and
radical spokesman of the left wing of the NSDAP, which in contrast to the
rival German Volkisch Freedom Party, primarily emphasised the socialist
element in the NSDAP’s programme. Then, however, came his conversion
on the road to Damascus, at the Leader’s Conference at Bamberg in
February 1926, where he met Hitler for the first time and fell under the
sway of his rhetorical powers of suggestion, even though at this conference
Hitler sharply condemned the socialist drift of the Party. From then on for
the Strasser wing of the Party he was the much despised deserter to Hitler.
Goebbels did not by any means give up his radical anti-bourgeois convic-
tions, but he instinctively sensed Hitler’s political superiority to Gregor
Strasser and, to the surprise of his political friends, without much ado he
went over to Hitler’s side. The latter knew how to impress the ‘little doctor’
with the splendour of the Munich Party and win him for himself. Soon
Goebbels was completely under Hitler’s spell. He wrote in his diary at that
time: ‘I bow to the greater man, the political genius’ ,'° ‘Adolf Hitler, I love
you because you are both great and simple.’'' Hitler rewarded Goebbels’
devotion by assigning him to Berlin, where he was to take over the vacant
post of Gauleiter and the particularly difficult duty of reorganising the Party
in the national capital.
In the cosmopolitan metropolis of Berlin there was initially almost no
hope of gaining even a degree of public recognition for the small and
feuding branch of the NSDAP. It took the demagogical inventiveness and
pugnacious temperament of a Joseph Goebbels to gain even a spark of
attention from a city used to sensation. The ambitious young man first of
all purged the squabbling Party rabble with special authority from Hitler,
accepting a further loss of membership in the process, and built up a small
but loyally devoted staff of co-workers. After a few weeks Goebbels was
able to hold his first public meeting. His campaign methods were dis-
tinguished by boldness, aggression and — extreme effectiveness..Right from
Liem Ar aL @F

NATION?
MAG!
52 Joseph Goebbels

the beginning Goebbels made a point of provocatively challenging the

socialist parties which were particularly strong in Berlin (SPD, KPD) by
imitating their own methods.
When he had been in Berlin for just three months, after a short prelimi-
nary skirmish he took the risk of making the attack on his main opponents, the
communists, which has gone down in National Socialist annals as the
‘Battle of the Pharus Rooms’. The new Gauleiter of the NSDAP had
arranged a meeting to attract workers in, of all places, the communists’
traditional public house in the red district of Wedding, which must have
thoroughly enraged them. The ‘Sowing with Blood’, as he later titled one
of his literary products, had begun. The evening ended in a wild meeting-
hall brawl. Goebbels and the NSDAP became the talk of the town. Using
the belligerence of the SA, the ‘backbone of the movement’ as he called it,
Goebbels staked his tactics on terrorism in meeting rooms and on the
street. His SA men fought with Red Front activists and physically molested
Jewish passers-by in the middle of Berlin. Brown terror began to spread.
The energetic leadership of the Prussian Police Headquarters did not of
course let this continue for long. A ban on the NSDAP, long since deman-
ded by the democratic Berlin press, was enacted in May 1927. It lasted
nearly a year, until March 1928, and drastically reduced the Gauleiter’s
newly tested opportunities for agitation. As a consequence Goebbels
moved the battle from the streets to the press. The man who had formerly
been rejected by various newspapers founded his own District newspaper
with the significant title Der Angriff (The Attack). However, by so doing
he was breaking into the Strasser brothers’ territory, and that of Otto
Strasser in particular, whose Kampf Publishers produced a series of re-
gional Nazi news-sheets for north and central Germany. ?
The style and content of Der Angriff were copied from marxist news-
papers: its motto was ‘no information, just agitation’. If the subject was the
Jews Der Angriff was scarcely distinguishable from the notorious Stirmer.
When verbal agitation became vulnerable to legal redress through the Law
for the Protection of the Republic, Mjoelnir (Hans Schweitzer) continued
the infamous attacks in caricatures.
Goebbels did not just try to counter the political lull with prepared
speeches, but also by means of calculated insults and defamation. He was
often convicted and fined, but what did that matter against the gain in
public attention which the criminal proceedings and courts afforded him?
Goebbels did not disport himself on these occasions as the petty accused,
but with the demeanour of the plaintiff, and this assured him of almost
regular headlines in the newspapers. He was often only saved from prison
by the immunity he had acquired in May 1928 by virtue of his seat in
parliament, immunity he mocked quite openly in public secure in the
knowledge that he would receive cheap applause from the many who
despised democracy.
 Elke Frohlich 53

He could also count on applause for his infamous campaign against

influential Jews. His battle against the Jewish Vice President of the Berlin
police, Dr Bernhard Weiss, became a satirical stereotype. He picked out
this man as the representative of the hated ‘system’, branded him ‘Isidor’
and constantly and cleverly tried to make his activities appear ridiculous.
Weiss did win most of the court cases he brought against Goebbels, but
these also kept the nickname ‘Isidor’ in circulation and provided Goebbels
with a long-running source of effective demagogy, which Berlin laughed
about for months.
In September 1928 Goebbels held a successful mass rally in Berlin’s
Palace of Sport, which held over 15 000 people: a ‘historic hour’; from then
on this venue was the preferred location for large-scale National Socialist
events in the national capital until the end of the Third Reich. The series of
Party conventions, political rallies and speeches, each following hard on
the heels of the last, began in the summer of 1929. The NSDAP, for the
first time since the Hitler Putsch of 1923, had the opportunity of participat-
ing in an issue of national importance within the context of emerging
radical right-wing opposition to the Republic, in the campaign for a nation-
al referendum on the American Young Plan for restructuring German
reparation payments. Further opportunities to exploit the unease over the
incipient agricultural and economic crisis were afforded by the regional
elections in Thuringia (December 1929) and Saxony (June 1930), commu-
nal elections in November 1929 and above all the elections to the Reichstag
in September 1930, which brought the decisive breakthrough for the
National Socialists — even in Berlin. If Goebbels could be content with the
Berlin communal elections, for he had raised the vote for the NSDAP from
something over one hundred to far in excess of 100 000 in three years — for
one year of which he was almost excluded from the struggle because of the
ban, the result of the Reichstag elections was a political sensation. One of
the smallest splinter parties (1928: 2.6 per cent) had become the second
strongest party in the Reichstag. Without doubt Goebbels, who was nomi-
nated National Propaganda Director of the NSDAP in spring 1930 had, by
means of his electoral strategy and his tireless application, played a con-
siderable part in the success.
1930 became a milestone for Goebbels in another respect. Fortified by
his success in ‘red Berlin’, a special NSDAP initiative to ‘conquer the
factories’ was set in train under Goebbels’ supervision and it became the
model for a later nation-wide Party trade union organisation. Goebbels
made the young SA leader Horst Wessel, who had been shot by a commu-
nist, the symbol of heroic sacrificial death in the fight against the communist
movement. Although the murder had had personal motives and Wessel’s
disreputable life style was well known, Goebbels was able to stylise him as
a national hero and the chief martyr of the ‘movement’. The Horst Wessel
song ‘Die Fahne hoch’ (‘Fly the banner high’), originally an SA marching
54 Joseph Goebbels

song, became the National Socialist national anthem after 1933, alongside
the official anthem.
During this phase of the struggle for power Goebbels was a stronger
advocate of the revolutionary road to power than Hitler, who often hesi-
tated and relied on a tactic of formal legality. For all his admiration of
Hitler he nonetheless expressed some forthright criticism and concern in
his diary. He described Hitler as a magician and idler who, instead of
working, sat in coffee houses with his philistine Munich entourage and
asked anxiously what would happen ‘if he had to play the dictator in
Germany?’'* However much Hitler disappointed him, Goebbels, who had
proved his capacity for disloyalty to others, remained unconditionally true
to Hitler.
Goebbels ended the successful year of 1930 with an unseemly political
racket on the occasion of the Berlin premiere of Ernst Maria Remarque’s
pacifist film ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. With disguised SA men and
Party officials he organised a so-called spontaneous eruption of popular
anger, which prevented any further showing of the film. The spectacle not
only enhanced the popularity of the ‘Chief Bandit of Berlin’, as he liked to
call himself, seizing on one of his opponents’ insults, but also provided
proof that his methods enabled him to have his way against the Berlin
police. He wrote jubilantly in his diary: ‘National Socialism on the streets
dictates the government’s actions’.'?
If it had not been for quarrels with the SA, the Gauleiter could have been
content. However his style of fighting meant that the main burden of the
struggle fell on the strong-arm troops of the SA. They were the revolution-
ary potential of the movement and therefore Goebbels was on their side.
But Hitler, who was primarily courting the bourgeois members of society
and who did not want to be pushed again into a coup d’état as he was in
Munich in 1923, was not willing to meet the demands of the SA for greater
concessions. In order to give these demands more weight the SA twice
stormed the District office of the Berlin NSDAP — in August 1930 and
April 1931 — significantly on both occasions during the absence of the
Gauleiter. Hitler saved the politically and psychologically wounded
Goebbels, thereby making him even more dependent.
Goebbels’ marriage at the end of 1931 to Magda, a beautiful and rich
woman of the world, also led to a strengthening of his relationship with
Hitler. The years of material and social starvation were now finally at an
end for Goebbels. He moved into his wife’s apartment and she, adored
by Hitler, became a guarantee of greater closeness between the two men.
The Goebbels’ well-kept home and their charming children attracted Hit-
ler again and again, and offered a substitute for the family he himself did
not have.
Even the many crises in the Party could not shake Goebbels’ conviction
that the National Socialists under Hitler’s leadership would soon gain
 Elke Frohlich 55

power. In early 1932 Hitler and Goebbels discussed the distribution of

government posts, as if they already held power. After the July elections in
1932, when the NSDAP had become the strongest Party in the country,
Hitler demanded, among other things, seven ministerial posts and the
Chancellorship for himself, in his negotiations with General von
Schleicher, the influential adviser of President von Hindenburg. Goebbels,
who was marked down for the posts of Prussian Minister for Cultural
Affairs and National Minister for Education, wrote in his diary: “What it
means is — total power or nothing! That’s as it should be. Just don’t let’s
think small. . . .'* We will never give up power again, they'll have to carry
out our corpses’.!° He was to be right, he had only got the timing wrong.
Hindenburg still did not want to concede the ‘Bohemian corporal’ anything
more than the Vice-Chancellorship. When Hitler was then finally nomi-
nated as Chancellor on 30 January there was at first no post in the
government for Goebbels. His bitter disappointment about this is express-
ed bluntly in his diary: ‘Magda is very unhappy. Because I’m not making
any headway. I’m being frozen out. Now Rust is getting the Culture job.
I’m whistling in the dark.’'® And three days later: ‘Hitler is scarcely helping
me. I have lost heart. The reactionaries lay down the law — the Third
Reich!’'’ Always slightly irritable and quickly thrown off balance, Goeb-
bels was nonetheless wrong. Hitler continued to be dependent on his most
talented propagandist. After Goebbels had delivered yet another masterly
example of his demagogic skills during the preparations for the national
elections on 5 March 1933 he did not remain unrewarded. Two days after
the election Hitler informed his astonished ministerial colleagues that there
was to be a Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. On
13 March the President signed the decree appointing Goebbels. In the
autumn of 1924 the then hounded pauper had confided to his diary: ‘I
will continue on an upwards path. I hereby make that solemn, sacred
vow. Upwards! To the stars!’'* In less than a decade he had achieved his
goal. From now until the destruction of the Third Reich he remained,
after Hitler and Goering, one of the great stars in the brown firmament.
He established the new Ministry, as befitted its status, in the Leopold
Palace, built by Schinkel on the Wilhelmsplatz, and set to work with total
‘joy and devotion’.'? With great inventiveness he attempted to retain at
least a few aspects of cultural and intellectual brilliance for the system of
compulsion and anti-intellectualism, but in his refined way he contributed
all the more to the repression of intellectual freedom. With the establish-
ment of the National Chamber of Culture in the autumn of 1933, he
prepared the decisive blow against any free artistic or journalistic activity.
The National Chamber for Culture, with its sub-departments for creative
art, music, theatre, film, radio, writing and the press decided who was in
the future to be permitted to practise their profession in the field of culture.
The doors of the Chamber of Culture remained forever shut to non-
56 Joseph Goebbels

Arians, incorrigible anti-fascists and many other non-conformists. If any-

one did not conform politically they were thrown out and lost the right to
continue practising their profession. Book-burnings and blacklists contri-
buted to the denuding of the National Socialist cultural landscape.
Although Goebbels had retained a certain feeling for modern trends, for
example for expressionist art, and knew too, what a damaging effect the
negative selection process was having on cultural life, he pressed on with
the outlawing of modern art, partly in order to continue to endear himself
to Hitler. His was the plan for the ‘Exhibition to Discredit Corrupt Art’,
and he refused to be prevented from opening the exhibition of cultural
‘degeneracy’ in summer 1937, even though Hitler reserved for himself the
actual programmatic speech, in which he proclaimed a ‘merciless purge’ of
modernism.
His name is associated above all with the nature of National Socialist
propaganda. As early as August 1932 he wrote pithily in his diary; “The
national education of the German people is being put in my hands. I will
master it.’*° Two days after his appointment as Minister he announced in
public that as he understood it this meant the total standardisation of
thought and feeling in the population. He explained to the press that
people must be ‘worked on’ until they ‘fell under the sway’ of National
Socialism. His particular form of Nazi propaganda consisted less of philo-
sophical indoctrination than in the use of suggestion to mobilise euphoric
Or aggressive emotions, and in this he was a master. There were soon
(1937) 1000 civil servants and clerks devoted to the manipulation of the
German population in the fast expanding Ministry. In the field of propa-
ganda Goebbels had unlimited supremacy over other leaders of the Nazi
regime. He remained second only to Hitler in this sphere, — albeit an
uncommonly talented and inventive second. Hitler established the basic
features of propaganda, large-scale plans and events were always discussed
jointly, but their execution was in Goebbels’ hands. His ingeniousness in
the concoction of propaganda slogans and events seemed unlimited and
scarcely any other leading National Socialist caught the mood of the people
as well as he did. Among the most successful vehicles for propaganda were
the national holidays he organised. The holiday calendar of the National
Socialist year, modelled on the stations of the Catholic Church, scarcely
gave Germans a chance to come to their senses. The Day of the Seizure of
Power, the Fuhrer’s Birthday, National Labour Day, the Biickeburg
Peasants’ convention, the Nuremberg National Party Rally, the Day of
Remembrance for the March to the Feldherrnhalle and others provided a
round of suggestive and imposing images of society as a national com-
munity (one people, one state, one leader), which were conveyed by radio,
the press and the weekly cinema news into every District in the country and
were far more effective than ideological evening classes. Events staged on
the grand scale, like the Olympic Games in 1936 or the state visit of
 Elke Frohlich 57

Mussolini in 1937 even sparked off enthusiasm abroad. In the realm of

music, theatre and above all film, Goebbels succeeded to an amazing
degree in Overcoming the cultural haemorrhaging which had arisen
through the demonisation of modernism and the emigration of many very
talented Jewish authors and artists, with a superficially glittering facade.
But even in the defamation and denunciation of opponents and so-called
enemies of the people he showed a diabolic virtuosity which had been
well-tested during the ‘Era of Struggle’. One of his first ‘official acts’ as
Propaganda Minister was the call for a boycott of Jewish businesses on 1
April 1933. In a shameless distortion of cause and effect the boycott was
presented as a ‘response’ to the so-called’ Jewish demands for a boycott [of
Germany|’, that is to the criticism which flared up all over the world of the
new regime’s anti-semitic measures after the seizure of power. The cam-
paign proved a mistake; the majority of the population rejected it and
distanced themselves from it. Further campaigns which had already been
announced were therefore called off.
Goebbels was behind the repulsive Priests’ Trials too. The Nazi lead-
ership staged these as a reaction to pronouncements critical of the regime,
primarily from the Catholic Church, in the years 1937 and 1938, in order to
stigmatise Catholic priests and monks with political crimes (for example
against the foreign exchange laws) and above all with offences against
morality. But here too Goebbels utterly failed to achieve his propagan-
distic aim. Precisely because of the repulsive methods designed to reveal
these short-comings the smear campaign of the Priests’ Trials led to great
anger among Catholic church-goers and actually had the effect of intensify-
ing the criticism of the regime. For this reason Hitler had the campaign
stopped in 1938.
In the same year however Goebbels tried again with another spectacular
campaign. The occasion for it was the assassination attempt by a young Jew
on a diplomat in the German Embassy in Paris at the beginning of Novem-
ber 1938. When it became known, on the evening of 9 November, on the
occasion of the traditional celebration by veterans of the Hitler Putsch in
Munich’s old town hall, that the German Secretary to the Legation had
died of his wounds, Goebbels took the floor in front of the assembled party
leaders to make an ingenious, inflammatory speech, which made clear in
barely disguised terms that the SA and the Party were to initiate a nation-
wide pogrom against the Jews that very night. The result was the devastat-
ing events of the so-called Reichskristallnacht, in the course of which
countless synagogues were set on fire, thousands of Jewish businesses
and apartments demolished and looted, Jewish cemeteries desecrated
and Jewish citizens murdered.
Goebbels probably intended to win Hitler’s personal approbation with
this action, for at this time his relationship with Hitler was not at its best.
Goebbels had fallen seriously in love with a Czech film actress. His wife,
58 Joseph Goebbels

who had generously overlooked many of her husband’s other affairs, now
wanted a divorce. But Hitler, who could not afford any new scandal within
the leadership of the regime, after the embarrassing marriage of the
Minister for the Army, General Field Marshall von Blomberg to a lady of
the night at the beginning of the same year, forced Goebbels to drop his
mistress and continue to live with Magda. In the inner circle of the Nazi
leadership Goebbels’ rating at this stage was at zero. Rosenberg, cordial
enemy of the Propaganda Minister, discussed the affair with various people
and recorded the following observation in his diary about Hitler’s attitude:
‘He (Hitler) has kept on Dr Goebbels for reasons of state, but personally
he has had enough of him. He knows that he supports him at the expense
of his own standing.’ And Rosenberg commented: ‘We see every day that
our revolution has a running sore which is infecting the healthy blood. Dr
G. has no friends, no comrades, and as for his lackeys, they too, are
abusing him.’*!
In autumn 1938, in order to win back Hitler’s favour, Goebbels began to
write a hagiographical study of Adolf Hitler. After a few months, thanks to
his propagandistic virtuosity, he finally succeeded in regaining Hitler’s
respect. The grandiose stage-management of Hitler’s fiftieth birthday on 20
April 1939 evidently contributed effectively to this. In fact none of the
leading figures of the Third Reich was able to spread and enhance the
Hitler myth with such pseudo-religious intensity as Joseph Goebbels. He
was probably only able to do this so effectively and credibly because Hitler
had for a long time been a kind of political god for Goebbels himself, on
whom ‘the little doctor’ had become totally dependent, even in his per-
sonal life and in his capacity for judgement. In view of the considerable
intellectual ability Goebbels possessed, this growing enslavement to Hitler
is an astonishing phenomenon, of which there is much evidence in the
Goebbels diaries.
Without Hitler’s favour, which he always regained, Goebbels could only
with great difficulty have remained so unchallenged within the inner circle
of power until the end of the regime. However he was in a permanent state
of conflict, not only with Rosenberg but with nearly all his ministerial
colleagues. This could partly be adduced by the fact that the Propaganda
Ministry, as a completely new establishment, was almost bound to come
into conflict with other ministries and Nazi authorities already in existence,
who were in their own way attempting to disseminate propaganda for
themselves and the Nazi regime. Particular friction arose with the Minister
for Science, Education and Popular Training, Rust, and also with the
Foreign Office, where propaganda for foreign consumption remained a
bone of contention until the end of the regime. In Rosenberg, Goebbels
Saw a rival in the field of culture, in particular writing, in Goering a
competitor in the sphere of art, Dr Dietrich in press matters. In addition,
Goebbels was not highly regarded by his ministerial colleagues and com-
 Elke Frohlich 59

rades in the Party leadership because of his scheming personality, even if

his achievements in propaganda had to be acknowledged. He found real
support in the leading Nazi clique from Hitler alone.
When the war began, however, Goebbels did noticeably seem to lose
influence. He was not a party to the decisive consultations and decisions on
foreign and military policy. Goebbels the civilian, who was only allowed to
fight out his Blitzkrieg in the press, seemed to have been banished to the
second rank of the leadership élite. But when the first military defeats
began, after the great initial successes, the second great ‘Era of Struggle’
began for Goebbels. If his combattive powers had visibly atrophied during
the period of the consolidation of power, now he won back the ground he
had lost. Now too, he won back to a great degree the trust of those who
had been badly disappointed by the generals. The war, which became more
difficult from 1941 onwards, demanded a new form and a new tone of
propaganda, which Goebbels was able to make all the more intense since
Hitler now only seldom spoke to ‘his people’. Goebbels initiated a large-
scale offensive against the population’s illusions that the war would end
quickly, as well as against the decline in the political will for the war. One
of his ‘new ideas’ was a call for the collection of items of winter clothing to
equip the soldiers at the front in 1941. He reached the apogee of his new
manipulation of hearts and minds in the speech he gave after the capitula-
tion of Stalingrad at the Palace of Sport on 18 February 1943, in which he
wrung emphatic approval for total war from the German people and its
Nazi representatives, a master-stroke, as he himself called it.
Goebbels gave this speech knowing that political leadership was lacking,
perhaps knowing there was a leadership crisis. He was convinced that the
total mobilisation of all available resources had not by any means been
fully realised and that therefore the war might be lost. The Palace of Sport
speech was intended to be a turning point. In order to take the defence of
the nation away from the court camarilla around Hitler and secure it in his
own hands, he came to an understanding with Speer, Funk, Ley and
Goering, but ultimately without success. His attempt to seize the office of
Foreign Minister, too, was unsuccessful.
His popularity, on the other hand, was increasing. If Hitler, and, as yet,
Goering, had been highest in the esteem of the German population until
the catastrophe of Stalingrad, Goebbels gained respect as the war became
more difficult and imposed greater and greater sacrifices and burdens, by
virtue of the solemnity and frankness of the tone with which he appealed to
the willingness of the people to make sacrifices, and with which he offered
comfort. He was also one of those at the top of the Party who did not hide
away after defeats, but were always there when the first relief measures
had to be set in train in a town afflicted by large-scale bombing raids, and
comfort given to the relatives of the victims. After the attempt on Hitler’s
life on 20 July 1944 Goebbels was appointed State Commissar for the
60 Joseph Goebbels

Implementation of Total War. The more Hitler’s star went into decline,
the more Goebbels tried to maintain the collapsing regime by his powers of
Suggestion and persuasion.
At times of conflict and crisis Goebbels and Hitler were magnetically
attracted to each other. So it was not without an inner logic that, when the
Red Army closed in on Berlin and the war began to draw to a close,
Goebbels and his family joined Hitler in the Bunker. He was the only one
there who followed Hitler’s example and, after having been Hitler’s succes-
sor as Chancellor for one day, took his own life.

NOTES

. Goebbels Diaries, entry dated 27.3.1925.

. Ibid., entry dated 28.3.1945.
Ibid., Erinnerungsblatter, p. 2.
. Ibid., entry dated 21.7.1924.
. Ibid., entry dated 29.8.1924.
. Ibid., entry dated 4.9.1924.
. Ibid., entry dated 28.9.1925.
. Ibid., entry dated 21.8.1925.
. Ibid., entry dated 21.8.1925.
10. Ibid., entry dated 13.4.1926.
11. Ibid., entry dated 19.4.1926.
12. Ibid., entry dated 28.3.1930.
13. Ibid., entry dated 10.12.1930.
14. Ibid., entry dated 5.8.1932.
15. Ibid., entry dated 7.8.1932.
16. Ibid., entry dated 3.2.1933.
17. Ibid., entry dated 6.2.1933.
18. Ibid., entry dated 3.10.1924.
19. Ibid., entry dated 12.3.1932.
20. Ibid., entry dated 9.8.1932.
21. Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs, edited by H.G. Seraphim
(Munich, 1964) p. 80, entry dated 6.2.1939.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
The basic source for research on Goebbels is his extensive diaries: Die Tagebiicher
von Joseph Goebbels. Samtliche Fragmente, edited by E. Frohlich, Part I 192441
(Munich, 1987). Part Two is in preparation. Fragments of the entries in the diaries
from the years 1942-S have been published in: Goebbels Tagebiicher aus den
Jahren 1942-43. Mit anderen Dokumenten, edited by L.P. Lochner (Zurich, 1948);
 Elke Fréhlich 61

Joseph Goebbels, Tagebiicher 1945. With an introduction by R. Hochhuth (Ber-

gisch Gladbach, 1980). A comprehensive bibliography of Goebbels’ essays and
books can be found in Barsch (see below). The articles published in Angriff and in
Reich are of particular interest. The propaganda minister’s speeches have been
collected in: Goebbels-Reden 1932-1939, vol. 1, edited by H. Heiber (Dusseldorf,
1971); Goebbels-Reden 1939-1945, vol. II, edited by H. Heiber (Dusseldorf, 1972).

Secondary Literature

There are numerous biographical studies of Goebbels. The one which is still the
best was reprinted in 1988: H. Heiber, Joseph Goebbels (Berlin, 1962), The
following should also be mentioned: C. Riess, Joseph Goebbels (Baden-Baden,
1950); H. Fraenkel/R. Manvell, Goebbels (Cologne, 1960); C.-E. Barsch, Erlosung
und Vernichtung (Munich, 1987). In the realm of propaganda the reader is referred
to the work by E.K. Bramsted: Goebbels und die nationalsozialistische Propaganda
1925-1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1971).
7 Hermann Goering: Second
Man in the Third Reich
Alfred Kube

Given the increasingly sophisticated formulation of historical issues and

the use of structuralist approaches to research as a basis for examining the
long term causes which made the Third Reich and its system of rule
possible, an analysis of the role of Hermann Goering acquires particular
importance. Between 1933 and 1939 Goering was the ‘number two’ in the
Third Reich. During this period he played an extremely active political
role, because after 1933 Hitler did not allow any other politician as much
free play. At the same time Goering’s position within the National Socialist
leadership was not uncontroversial. Party comrades were often irritated,
not only by his political views, which were often idiosyncratic, but also by
his glittering life style and self-satisfied demeanour. His contradictory
nature provoked contradictory assessments of him. Many contemporaries
described him as the ‘iron man’, others saw him as a ‘paper tiger’. However
Goering was undoubtedly popular with the population, and even Hitler
accepted Goering’s extravagances, unwillingly, but without fuss. He
appointed Goering as his deputy and successor at an early stage, underlin-
ing Goering’s political importance in the Third Reich.
In the following study, section one will sketch the social and ideological
preconditions for Goering’s advancement. Section two offers a chronolo-
gical outline of five stages of Goering’s career, since Goering’s position in
the Nazi state changed with the realignment of the internal balance of
power during the course of the Third Reich. The third section describes
Goering’s relationship with Hitler and with the NSDAP and analyses
Goering’s function in the Nazi system of government.

Hermann Wilhelm Goering was born on 12 January 1893 at the Marienbad

Clinic in Rosenheim, and given a Protestant baptism. Even in his youth he
developed a domineering, egocentric character, which led his mother to
remark: ‘Hermann will either be a great man or a great criminal’.' His
father, Dr Heinrich Ernst Goering, who came from Westphalia, was a
senior Official in the Wilhelmine colonial service. He was the first to make
his mark on his son’s basic philosophy, passing on to him his nationalistic,

62
 Alfred Kube 63

economic imperialist ideology, along with unconditional loyalty to the

Greater German Fatherland.
The military colleges in Karlsruhe and Grosslichterfelde in Berlin,
which Goering attended with enthusiasm and distinction from 1905 to
1911, underpinned his Prussian identity with the consciousness of being a
soldier. Although he was born in Upper Bavaria Goering always con-
sidered himself to be a Prussian, and first and foremost a Prussian soldier.
The First World War laid the basis of Goering’s fame as a notable fighter
pilot. With the rank of First Lieutenant, he was decorated on 2 June 1918
with one of the highest orders, the ‘Pour le Mérite’, for outstanding
bravery. Goering’s place in the ranks of the best known World War One
fighter pilots was secured not only by this rare distinction, but by his
promotion, which followed shortly afterwards, to Commander of the
famous ‘Manfred Baron von Richthofen’ fighter squadron.
The Wilhelmine influences of his parental home, his education as a
Prussian officer and the comradeship among flyers in the First World War
fundamentally shaped Goering’s early outlook on life. During this time
basic political concepts were emerging which constantly recurred during his
later speeches: ‘loyalty’, ‘comradeship’, ‘Prussian virtues’, ‘love of the
Fatherland’ and ‘the strong state’ were concepts which derived from the
political repertoire of a status-conscious Prussian officer of the younger
generation.” |
The end of World War One and discharge from the army precipitated
Goering into a personal and professional crisis. After fleeting contacts with
paramilitary leagues and the Freikorps, Goering earned his keep in Den-
mark and Sweden by means of a series of jobs in the air travel business.
On 3 February 1922 he married a Swede, Carin von Kantzow, with whom
he moved to Munich. Here, at the end of 1922, a certain Adolf Hitler
conferred a new task on him, one which appealed to his qualities as an
officer.

Il

Goering’s political career is characterised by distinct periods. Five stages

can be discerned, each of which has very differing characteristics and are
closely linked with the changing power relationships within the Nazi State.
The first stage encompasses the years 1922 to 1924 and represents Goer-
ing’s first attempt to win a new sphere of action for himself as a profession-
al politician.
At the end of 1922 Goering came into contact with Adolf Hitler at a
political rally in Munich, and decided shortly afterwards to work in Hitler’s
party. His order ‘Pour le Mérite’ was demonstrably the decisive factor in
64 Hermann Goering

leading Hitler to assign to Goering the organisation and leadership of the

party’s Storm Troopers. Goering’s enthusiasm for the philosophical goals
of Hitler’s NSDAP was not unlimited. It seems rather that it was more by
chance that the unemployed officer sought a new area of employment
specifically in Hitler’s party.
As a self-confident representative of the Prussian officer school, Goering
soon came intd conflict with the Bavarian core of the NSDAP, whom he
despised as a ‘crowd of rucksack-wearing beer drinkers with narrow minds
and provincial horizons’.* In view of his many disputes with Party agencies
it is not surprising that Goering became isolated after the NSDAP’s failed
Munich putsch attempt in November 1923.
During the ‘March on the Feldherrnhalle’ Goering had suffered a poten-
tially fatal gunshot wound to his hip. He escaped political pursuit by fleeing
via Austria to Italy, where he tried to make contact with the Italian fascists.
In the spring of 1925 he returned with his wife to Sweden. Here he was com-
pelled to make several visits to a clinic for nervous disorders to be cured of
the addiction to medical morphine he had acquired during his flight.
From his exile in Stockholm, Goering complained bitterly about the
Party members who had in the meantime actually had his name deleted
from the membership list and were refusing to allow him to be granted
support. In Goering’s opinion ‘loyalty’ and ‘comradeship’ were just ‘hollow
words” in Party circles. Goering’s first attempt to make a career as a
professional politician had failed at the first hurdle. He had aroused Hit-
ler’s interest but had not succeeded in establishing himself in the NSDAP.
The second stage in Goering’s political development encompasses the
period from the end of 1927 until 1934 and is marked by Goering’s battle
for power and his successful rise to power with Hitler. After his return to
Germany in 1927, Goering established himself in Berlin as the representa-
tive of a supply company to the up-and-coming air transport industry in
Berlin. Only when he had achieved this economically secure position did
he make contact with Hitler again. Goering became an NSDAP candidate
for the Reichstag and had been elected by May 1928.
The distinctive feature of Goering’s renewed political activity was that
he only felt himself under obligation to Hitler personally, but not to the
Party. The greater the likelihood of Hitler entering into talks on coalition
with other parties via influential mediators, the more valuable Goering’s
extensive social contacts became to him. The former war hero contributed
decisively to National Socialism’s growing acceptability in ‘polite society’
and to its entrée into the higher reaches of political society.
Goering suffered a personal set-back with the death in Stockholm on 17
October 1931 of his wife Carin, who had been ill for some time. Goering
seemed to want to compensate for the loss of the wife he had so cherished
by increased political involvement. A visit to Mussolini, innumerable poli-
tical negotiations with the German Nationalists and leaders of the Srahi-
 Alfred Kube 65
helm in the winter of 1931/2 and finally his election as President of the
Reichstag after the elections of 31 July 1932 all added to his political
contribution to the rise of the NSDAP. “ |
On 30 January 1933 Goering reaped the reward of his efforts. Alongside
Hitler and Frick he was the third National Socialist in the coalition govern-
ment. He was however simply Minister without Portfolio, National Com-
missioner for Air Traffic and National Commissar for the Prussian Ministry
of the Interior. His ministerial position in the Cabinet was therefore of
dubious value.
As a result of his own efforts Goering was named Minister For Air
Transport on 5 May 1933 and promoted to Infantry General on 30 August
1933. At the same time he campaigned ruthlessly for a break-through by
the NSDAP in domestic politics. His infamous firearms decree of 17
February 1933 ordered the Prussian military police to proceed against
political opponents with all available force, without regard to the conse-
quences of the use of firearms. In the same way he used the Reichstag fire
on 27 February 1933 to get rid of his political opponents. However Goering
had nothing to do with starting the fire, directly or indirectly.
After some skilful manoeuvring, Goering was named by Hitler, after
some hesitation, as Prussian Prime Minister and Prussian Minister of the
Interior. The Prussian State Government now became Goering’s private
organisational headquarters. Here he could call on his own circle of col-
leagues, who were brought together not through membership of the
National Socialist Party, but by their personal oath of allegiance to
Goering.
His participation in the elimination of the old SA leadership marked a
key episode in Goering’s consolidation of political power within the
National Socialist system of government. Goering’s police force, which was
outside the Party and built around the State Secret Police, (the Gestap
which he had created, played a central part in the murders and arrest:
July 1934. After the purge of the SA leadership, Hitler and
presented themselves to the aaa as comrades bound by oath:F
rewarded his ‘most loyal Palladin’? by making Goering ‘his deputy in a
aspects of national government’, in the event of his being prevented from
carrying out his duties.° This was accomplished in a decree dated 7 Decem-
ber 1934 which has barely been considered by researchers. The ‘law con-
cerning the successor to the Fuhrer and Chancellor’ of 13 December 1934 is
almost equally unknown. In this, Hitler nominated Goering as his succes-
sor with the words: ‘Immediately after my death he is to take an oath of
personal allegiance from the members of the national government, the
army and SA and SS units.’’ With this act Goering was already secretly
installed as the designated successor to Hitler by the end of 1934.
Thus a new departure in his political career began for Goering in 1935.
In this third stage, which extends to the end of 1938, in terms of his power
66 Hermann Goering

Goering can easily be described as ‘the state within the state’. He now gave
up his role as Hitler’s Minister for Police and on 20 November 1934 he
officially handed over the leadership of the Gestapo to Heinrich Himmler.
Before this, by way of compensation, Goering had received the office of
National Director of Hunting and Forestry, which ranked as one of the
senior state agencies. Goering now sought to achieve a role as Hitler’s
diplomat and as political representative of the nation. His marriage to
actress Emmy Sonnemann on 11 April 1935 contributed materially to the
image he was making for himself. The ‘wedding of the year’ attracted
international interest and secured the role of the nation’s ‘First Lady’ for
Goering’s wife. On 2 June 1938, Goering’s only child, his daughter Edda,
was born.
In 1935 Goering also succeeded in making a breakthrough in military
politics. As a result of lobbying he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of
the newly formed Air Force on 1 March, in addition to being Minister for
Air Transport. In this way Goering became a prime force in military
politics and, following the Italian example, he presented the Air Force for
the first time as an independent third arm of national defence alongside the
Army and the Navy.
From the time of Goering’s involvement in armament issues concerning
the Air Force, economic goals were also given greater consideration in his
politics. Accordingly he insinuated himself into the realm of economic
policy decision-making. One important staging post in this was his nomina-
tion as Commissioner for Currency and Raw Materials on 4 April 1936.
The concept which Hitler and Goering devised together of a ‘Four Year
Plan’ to secure the economic dimension of rearmament, was the lever
Goering wanted to make himself the German ‘economic dictator’. This was
followed on 18 October 1936 by his nomination as Commissioner for the
Implementation of the Four Year Plan.
With this Goering had succeeded in taking control of economic policy-
making in the Third Reich. Forcing the face of rearmament and a privi-
leged status for the Air Force were his most important aims in this
sphere. Goering’s temporary take-over of the Economics Ministry (from
November 1937 until February 1938) essentially allowed the Ministry to be
transformed into an executive agency of the Four Year Plan. The growth
of the ‘Hermann Goering Works’ from July 1937 into the biggest steel
enterprise in Europe demonstrated Goering’s personal economic power.
In the mid-thirties Hitler often praised Goering as his ‘best man’. For-
eign opinion agreed, regarding him as the most powerful man after Hitler.
His important position made it easier for Goering to gain entry to the
sphere of foreign affairs. He was Hitler’s foreign affairs ‘Special Plenipo-
tentiary’ for Italy and tried to implement imperialist economic expansion-
ary policies in south east Europe in the manner of Stresemann’s central
European policies. Goering’s plans for south east Europe were rounded off
 Alfred Kube 67

to the north east by an active policy towards Poland, which he was trying to
win for an anti-bolshevik alliance.
Until the Second World War, Goering regarded east and south east
European policies as his very own foreign policy domain. His ideas about
the scope and possibilities of economic penetration of neighbouring coun-
tries were as vague and flexible as his overall vision of foreign policy.
However his concept of a large economic block was clearly different in its
essentials from Hitler’s idea of ‘living space’.
At the beginning of March 1938 Goering’s first big foreign policy project
became reality: the annexation of Austria into the German state. Goering
had made a considerable contribution to this and later described himself
with a degree of justification as the ‘organiser of the annexation’.® With the
realisation of the Munich Agreement in September of the same year.
Goering had proved his success on the diplomatic stage. He played a
fundamental role in the preparatory talks for the agreement.
With the signing of the Munich Agreement, however, it became appar-
ent that Goering’s foreign policy agenda no longer coincided to the same
extent as before with Hitler’s policy of rapid expansion. The Sudeten crisis
~ was the first time Goering urged a solution which did not satisfy Hitler. The
‘cowardly generals’ and Goering, too, were later heaped with invective
by Hitler.
While Goering believed until the summer of 1939 that Hitler would return
to a non-military policy of blackmail, the latter paid no more attention to
Goering’s moderate political line from the beginning of 1939. During the
occupation of Prague in March 1939 Goering was no longer taking any part in
policy-making. His place was now taken by Ribbentrop, who was less hesitant
that Goering and considered the risks of a localised war to be calculable. In
this he was in agreement with Hitler’s political judgement.
At the beginning of 1939, therefore, Goering entered the fourth stage of
his varying position of influence in the Third Reich. His political retreat
and his gradual displacement from the centre of political decision-making
were complete by the end of 1941. Goering reacted to the beginning of war
in the same way as the majority of the conservative elite in leading
positions in Germany: their loyalty to Hitler and the mechanisms of the
Nazi leadership structure outweighed their own political traditions and
fundamental political beliefs. It was in keeping with Goering’s political
philosophy that he should blindly follow ‘his leader’ at this time of conflict,
with a soldier’s allegiance to ‘the very end’.”
However from the beginning of the war it became impossible to over-
look the fact that Goering’s attitude was basically pessimistic. He was fully
informed about the armaments situation and thought it was inadequate for
a long war. The trauma of losing the First World War was still clear in his
mind. But Goering did not dare to present these worries bluntly to Hitler
and instead tried to avoid everything which would discredit him with the
68 Hermann Goering

Fiihrer. Goering only experienced one temporary, uncritical bout of

euphoric belief in victory, thanks to the successful campaign in France. In
his opinion all that was needed now were a few targetted air attacks on the
British Isles, in order to force the British government to come to the
negotiating table. However, after the failure of the Battle of Britain,
Hitler’s doubts about Goering’s capabilities as Chief of the Air Force
increased. This not only led to an even greater loss of prestige with Hitler,
but from now on Goering was increasingly pushed into a minor role in
shaping military policy.
Goering followed the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 with little
interest. Even before the Soviet counter-attack in December 1941 Hitler
indulged in several outbursts of anger against Goering on account of the
ostensible failure of the Air Force. When Hitler took over the Supreme
Command of the army on 19 December 1941 the Air Force was down-
graded to an auxiliary arm of the Army.
In 1942 the fifth and /ast stage in Goering’s political career began. From
1942 the circle around Goering noticed that the Reich Marshall was in-
creasingly lethargic and took little pleasure in his work. From the turn of
the year 1942/3, Goering was evidently convinced that the war could no
longer be won. In the period that followed he flew as often as possible to
his hunting lodge ‘Karinhall’ or relived the romanticism of his youth at
Burg Veldenstein. His chief concern now was collecting art treasures from
all over Europe.
At the beginning of 1943 there was an open breach between Hitler and
Goering. The British air offensive on the Ruhr in March turned Hitler’s full
fury on Goering. However although Hitler did not balk at sacking a whole
series of other officers for supposed incompetence, he still retained Goer-
ing. Hitler rejected demands to replace Goering with a more capable air
force chief with the words: ‘I cannot do that for reasons of state’.’° But it
was primarily Goering’s continued intense popularity with the population
and Hitler’s fear of the negative consequences for the prestige of his
leadership cadre in world opinion which prevented Goering’s dismissal. It
was not until the hopeless situation of the last few days of the war that
Hitler expelled Goering from the NSDAP and relieved him of all duties, in
his so-called ‘Political Testament’ of 29 April 1945."
From March 1946 onwards Goering had to answer to the Allied Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg. Cured of a drug addiction, Goering had regained
some of his original vitality and quick-wittedness. He did not present
himself as the humble loser, but worked on his own memorial in grandilo-
quent manner. On 1 October 1946 the court found Goering guilty on all
four counts on which he was accused and sentenced him to death by
hanging. On 15 October 1946, during the night before the planned execu-
tion of the sentence, Goering escaped the judge’s writ by committing
suicide in his cell, by means of a poison pill.
 Alfred Kube 69

Il

Goering’s political rise and fall reflects the changing political situation in the
Third Reich and thus also reflects the progressive radicalisation of National
Socialist politics. In this context Goering’s supposed political affinities with
National Socialism are representative of large sections of the pan-German,
economic imperialist inclined elite, whose political identity gradually dis-
solved in the face of the increasing consolidation of Hitler’s power.
Until the end of 1938, in the realm of politics a series of short-term
revisionist nationalistic goals provided sufficient basis for an expedient,
opportunistic alliance between the late imperialist Goering and the racist
political proponent of ‘living space’, Hitler. Goering did know Hitler’s
book, Mein Kampf, but thought that Hitler’s programmatic exposition,
explaining his policies, was irrelevant.'*
Although Goering did little to try to prevent the increasing brutality of
the anti-Jewish measures, he was not the motive force behind them. He
was basically only interested in the economic aspect of the ‘Jewish ques-
tion’. The central opponent in Goering’s philosophy was not Jewry, but
communism. In his foreign policy deliberations and negotiations during the
thirties, the formation of a Central European Bloc as a buffer against the
Soviet Union, which was to extend from Poland to the Balkans, is men-
tioned again and again. In the longer term, he saw Europe threatened by
the ‘bolshevik menace’ and considered that a war against Russia during the
forties was inevitable.’
It may have suited Goering that Hitler’s programme, freshened up from
time to time in confidential monologues, was much more radical. In the
context of this alliance between National Socialists and national conserva-
tives Goering was a capable intermediary, and Hitler’s radicalism was
ideally suited for demonstrating the resoluteness which would help Ger-
many to attain a new significance in the world.
In his perception of the relationship between the NSDAP and the state,
too, Goering was fundamentally at odds with Hitler and the other Party
leaders, among whom the view prevailed that the state was to be gradually
demolished. In Goering’s political ideology, on the other hand, the state
clearly played the leading role vis a vis the Party. Goering supported the
idea of the ‘state as a militant entity’'* and made use of state powers and
organisations to build up his power base.
Because it was rooted like this in rather conservative, authoritarian
philosophical categories, Goering’s political ideology was based on dif-
ferent fundamentals from those of the Party theoreticians. His confronta-
tions with Goebbels, Hess, Himmler and Rosenberg on questions of power
politics and ideology even caused comment abroad. Goering made no
secret of the fact that he had no time for politics based on racist social
Darwinism.
70 Hermann Goering

Goering’s role in the Nazi leadership structure has one fundamental

distinguishing feature, which differentiates him from other national con-
servative politicians who entered into an alliance with Hitler. Goering was
so useful to Hitler because his position in power politics straddled the four
pillars of the state: the Party, armed forces, the economy and the
bureaucracy. Goering’s exceptional status in the Third Reich rested on the
fact that in terms of power politics he belonged to both the military and
the Party, the economic leadership as well as the bureaucracy. However it
is characteristic that in spite of this he was not the representative of these
individual pillars of power, but united something of all of them. The
antagonism of these power blocs characterised Goering’s specific position
in the Nazi state. Goering moved between four poles like a magnetic
needle.
In the initial phase of their collaboration Goering was a useful tool for
Hitler on his road to power, because of his contacts and skilled conduct of
negotiations. Later, because of his independent position, between the
power blocs, Goering became an important instrument for the exercise of
dominion and the integration of all the separate elements which made up
the Third Reich. In many areas he could be appointed as Hitler’s ‘right
hand man’ and implement decisions which Hitler himself tried to avoid in
his policy of ‘divide et impera’.
Goering, for his part, profited from his exceptional position between the
extremes of power politics. He could intervene in several areas of national
politics and often quote quite ominous directives from Hitler in his sup-
port. This not only secured for Goering his own sphere of dominion but
also created for him considerable room for political manoeuvre.
One important precondition for Goering’s relatively independent power
base was that he did not need to fall back on NSDAP leadership cadres for
the recruitment of personnel. His conduct of his staff office, his own press
and intelligence agency, the internal administration of Prussia, the direc-
torship of the air force and the Four Year Plan were not as a rule in the
hands of Party functionaries. The leaders in Goering’s entourage consisted
of former war-time colleagues, personal friends from the time before the
seizure of power or specialists not linked with the Party from the adminis-
tration, the economy and industry.
However Hitler always took care that none of Goering’s power bases
became so big that they could present a potential threat. When Goering
was hoping to take over Blomberg’s office as Minister of War in 1938,
Hitler resisted his request. The firmness with which he turned Goering
down in this matter proves that Hitler was aware of the potential danger
posed by his designated successor’s great powers.
However Goering’s political role in the Third Reich and his dominant
position in individual areas within the Nazi leadership structure demon-
strate that up to 1938 it was perfectly possible to combine old-style im-
 Alfred Kube 71

perialistic, or at least revisionist, politics and radical expansionary politics

based on social Darwinism. The implementation of Hitler’s reckless racial-
biological ‘concept’ went hand in hand with the gradual process of remov-
ing power from the national conservative elites, which led from Papen by
way of Hugenberg, Schmitt, Schacht, Neurath, Blomberg and Fritsch to
Goering and even Ribbentrop.
As the last significant representative of the late imperialist revisionist
politicians, Goering was excluded from the centres of decision-making at
the beginning of 1939. From then on his political significance in the state
was reduced to a role as figure head and rallying point in the realm of
propaganda. The ‘Fuhrer State’ had now also become reality in the heart of
government.

NOTES

1. Comment by Franziska Goering in: G.M. Gilbert, ‘Hermann Goering. Ami-

able Psychopath’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 43 (1948)
211-29, 213. ics
2. For Goering’s idea of the state see his speech dated 26 October 1935 in:
H. Goering, Reden und Aufsatze, edited by E. Gritzbach (Munich, 1938) p.
208, and especially Goering’s speech in Potsdam of 10 March 1934 in Nacht- —
Ausgabe des deutschen Nachrichtenbiros, no. 518, Politisches Archiv des
Auswartigen Amtes, Bonn, Biro RM/18~1, vol. 20, sheet 414.
3. Goering’s remark in E. Hanfstaengl, Hitler. The Missing Years (London, 1957)
p. 72.
4. Goering’s note to Lahr dated 26 June 1925, Geheimes Preussisches
Staatsarchiv/Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Dahlem, Rep. 90 B/No.
286.
5. Goering’s ‘paladin’ comment in a speech dated 18 May 1933 in: Ursachen und
Folgen. Vom deutschen Zusammenbruch 1918 und 1945 bis zur staatlichen
Neuordnung Deutschlands in der Gegenwart. Eine Urkunden- und Doku-
mentensammlung zur Zeitgeschichte, edited by H. Michaelis, E. Schraepfier
and G. Scheel, vol. [X (Berlin, 1968) p. 114.
6. Hitler Decree of 7 December 1934, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, R43II/1660, B1.26.
7. Nuremberg document NG-1206(2), Archiv des Instituts fiir Zeitgeschichte,
Munich, MA-5(2).
8. Goering’s remark of 14 March 1946 in: Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsver-
brecher vor dem Internationalen Militarsgerichtshof Ntirnberg, 14 November
1945 bis 1 Oktober 1946 (Nuremberg, 1947) vol. 9, p. 333f.
9. Goering’s closing remarks at the sitting of the Reichstag on 30 January 1939,
in: M. Domarus, Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932-45. Kommentiert von
einem deutschen Zeitgenossen (Munich, 1965) vol. 2, p. 1067.
10. Hitler's comment in: H. Guderian, Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (Heidelberg,
1951) p. 405.
11. Hitler’s Political Testament dated 29 April 1945, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, NS20/
hoy, IT.
72 Hermann Goering

12. Goering’s statement in: Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher, vol. 9,
p. 297f, and in E. Bross, Gespréche mit Hermann Goering wahrend des Nurn-
berger Prozesses (Flensburg, 1950) p. 110.
13. Goering’s speech of 28 October 1933 in H. Goering, Reden und Aufsatze, 96;
memo on file about a meeting of the senior air force officers with Goering on
2 December 1936 in Ursachen und Folgen, vol. XI, p. 453f.
14. Statement by SS General Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff dated 7/8 September 1952,
Archiv des Instituts fiir Zeitgeschichte, Munich, ZS317, B1.1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Because of difficulties with sources, scholarly research on Goering did not start
until about ten years ago. There is no file of documents which gives a detailed
account of Goering’s activities. Instead the many written testimonies to his policies
have been dispersed among nearly all the German historical archives. Part of
Goering’s missing political archive was found by me in the National Archives in
Washington. Personal notebooks found at the same time contain hardly any politi-
cal comment.
Published sources are in short supply. The work edited by Th. R. Emessen, Aus
Goering’s Schreibtisch. Ein Dokumentenfund (Berlin, 1947) is barely worth men-
tioning. There are some published speeches and essays which can be consulted on
his political ideology: Aufbau einer Nation, 2nd edition (Berlin, 1934); ‘Der Kampf
gegen Marxismus und Separatismus’ in W. Kube (ed.), Almanach der national-
sozialistischen Revolution (Berlin, 1934) 155-60; Reden und Aufsdtze, edited by
E. Gritzbach (Munich, 1938).
Contemporary propaganda biographies give an indication of how Goering saw
himself: J. Matthias, ‘Der Flieger Hermann Goering’, in Unter Flatternden Fahnen,
vol. 4 (Berlin, 1935) 55-90; M.H. Sommerfeldt, Goering, was fallt Ihnen ein!
Lebensskizze (Berlin, 1932); E. Gritzbach, Hermann Goering. Werk und Mensch
(Munich, 1937).
Goering’s comments at the time of the Nuremberg trials are comparatively well
documented: Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen
Militarsgerichtshof Niirnberg, 14 November 1945 bis 1. Oktober 1946 (Nuremberg,
1947) vol. 9; P.M. Bleibtreu, Hermann Goering: Ich werde nichts verschweigen . . .
(Vienna, 1950); W. Bross, Gesprdche mit Hermann Goering wahrend des Niirnber-
ger Prozesses (Flensburg, 1950); G.M. Gilbert, ‘Hermann Goering. Amiable
Psychopath’, in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 43 (1948) 211-29.
The memoirs of Goering’s second wife give scarcely any information on his
politics: F. Goering, An der Seite meines Mannes. Begebenheiten und Bekenntnisse
(Géttingen, 1967).

Secondary Literature

The first studies of Goering to appear after the war came predominantly from the
pen of journalists. Without any claim to scholarly exactitude, they largely consisted
of rumours and anecdotes about Goering, for example; E. Lange, Der Reichsmar-
schall im Kriege. Ein Bericht in Wort und Bild (Stuttgart, 1950); E. Butler and
 Alfred Kube 73

G. Young, Marshal without Glory. The Troubled Life of Hermann Goering (London,
1951); W. Frischauer, Goering. Ein Marschallstab zerbrach (Ulm, 1951); Ch.
Bewley, Hermann Goering (Gottingen, 1956); L. Mosley, Goering. Eine Biogra-
phie (Munich, 1975). H. Fraenkel and R. Manvell, Hermann Goering (Hannover,
1964) are an exception, since they do base their work on source material, albeit a
limited range.
More recent works show that the journalists’ rumours about Goering’s way of
life still have greater attractions than scientific objectivity: G. Boéddeker and
R. Winter, Die Kapsel. Das Geheimnis um Goerings Tod (Munich, 1983); W. Paul,
Wer war Hermann Goering? Biographie (Esslingen, 1983). This is in many respects
also true of the comprehensive work by D. Irving, Goering (Munich, 1987) which
presents a series of mistakes and doubtful judgements in the form of a historical
novel.
Richard Overy was one of the first historians to come to grips with Goering as a
whole, but without, however, being able to free himself from many of the clichées
in his assessment of Goering, since the study was not adequately based on source
material: R. Overy, Goering, The ‘Iron Man’ (London, 1984).
At the same time, but independently of each other, Martens and I published
our works on Goering’s role in the ‘Third Reich’: S. Martens, Hermann Goering.
‘Erster Paladin des Fiihrers’ und ‘Zweiter Mann im Reich’ (Paderborn, 1985);
A. Kube, Pour le merite und Hakenkreuz. Hermann Goering im Dritten Reich, 2nd.
edition (Munich, 1987). Both these works evaluate unpublished material for the
first time. The interpretations do not diverge greatly; Martens lays greater emph-
asis On an examination of Goering’s foreign policy, while my work attempts to take
account of several of the domestic policy areas Goering was involved in. Both
combine biographical and structuralist history.
Single aspects of Goering’s politics are dealt with in: H. Boog, Die deutsche
Luftwaffenfiihrung 1935-1945. Fiihrungsprobleme, Spitzengliederung, Generalsta-
bausbildung (Stuttgart, 1982) (until now the only reliable study of Goering’s work
in the Air Force); A. Kube, ‘Aussenpolitik und ‘‘Grossraum-wirtschaft’’. Die
deutsche Politik zur wirtschaftlichen Integration Siidosteuropas 1933 bis 1939’ in
H. Berding (ed.), Wirtschaftliche und politische Integration in Europa im 19. und 20.
Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1984) 185-211 (on Goering’s ‘large-scale economy’ plan-
ning); S. Martens, ‘Die Rolle Hermann Goerings in der deutschen Aussenpolitik
1937/38’, in F. Knipping and K.-J. Miller (eds), Machtbewusstsein in Deutschland
am Vorabend des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Paderborn, 1984) 74-92 (on Goering’s
efforts in foreign policy 1937/38).
8 Rudolf Hess:
Deputy Fuhrer
Dietrich Orlow

Our picture of Rudolf Hess is still characterised by vagueness and contra-

dictoriness. Hitler’s private secretary in the ‘Era of Struggle’, in the Third
Reich Hess became Minister of State and the Fuhrer’s deputy for Party
affairs. At the beginning of the Second World War Hitler put him in second
place, after Goering, in the list of his successors. In spite of this prolifera-
tion of offices and honours, historians are by and large in agreement that
Hess only had slight influence on the political decision-making process
before and after 1933. This is particularly true of foreign policy. In spite of
this, his name is probably still most firmly linked with the spectacular
(although of course senseless) foreign policy mission he undertook in
person.
So who was this man? At first sight Hess appears to be a National
Socialist of the first order. Like several of the leading ‘old warriors’ he was
born abroad, in his case on 26 April 1894 in Alexandria (Egypt): his father
had been living there for several years as the representative of various
German firms. On his father’s side the family belonged to the upper middle
class; his mother came from a more petty-bourgeois milieu. Both parents
had their homes in Wurttemberg.
Hess’s youth was shaped by a sustained conflict with his father. Although
the boy showed an early interest in the natural sciences, his father wanted
him to enter a commercial career. Hess did submit to his father’s will for a
while, but at the beginning of the First World War he broke off his
commercial training and volunteered for military service. Like Hitler he
was an enthusiastic and bold soldier. At the end of the war he was a
lieutenant in the Air Force.
After the defeat, Hess, like thousands of his comrades, found himself
without a job or a future. He became a student at Munich University,
probably for want of anything better to do. Hess attended lectures by
the political geographer Karl Haushofer. His geographical-determinist
teachings provided an answer to Hess’s search for a theoretical way out of
Germany’s shame, but Hess was also personally on good terms with his
teacher. As a student he also got to know his future wife, Ilse Préhl. The
marriage they contracted in 1927 was a completely happy relationship.
Hess was always thought of as a difficult, inscrutable man. He was one of
the few leaders of the Third Reich who did not use his position as a means
of enriching himself or fostering adulation. To all outward appearances,

74
 Dietrich Orlow 75

and probably in his own estimation, too, he remained a ‘simple Party

member’. Other important Nazis, like Joseph Goebbels, however, re-
garded him for precisely this reason as boring and weak.
Hess’s moral and aesthetic thinking had its roots in the bourgeoisie of
the Wilhelmine era. His views on art and culture, women and his personal
taste, too, were those of a typical member of the bourgeois middle classes.
Goebbels and Hitler, who after 1933 developed a preference for a gran-
diose style of furnishing their living quarters, made fun of the Deputy’s
lack of ‘taste for grandeur’ in his interior decorations.'
Hess was an out-and-out loner. His obsessive concern for his health
points to certain deep-seated psychological problems; he was a confirmed
hypochondriac. He tried to assuage what were often pschosomatic ailments
with a range of alternative cures. Among these were obscure diets. “The
food was quite dreadful,’ Goebbels noted in his diary after a visit to the
Hess family.?
Rudolf Hess became politically active at an early age. Soon after his
arrival in Munich he plunged into the turmoil of extreme right wing
associations. He joined the Thule Society and the Freikorps Epp. Accord-
ing to all available witnesses he was a rabid anti-semite even before he got
to know Hitler and accepted unconditionally the theory of an ‘Internation-
al Jewish Conspiracy’.
Nonetheless Hess was not a typical ‘old warrior’. His attitude to Nazi
doctrine and especially to the ‘Teacher’ was stamped to greater extent than
in the case of other Nazi leaders with quasi-religious feelings. Hess re-
garded National Socialism as a signpost pointing towards a utopian age and
Hitler as an infallible prophet. Again and again, contemporaries remarked
that he did not talk in his speeches, he preached. His pathetic proclama-
tion: ‘Fuhrer, my leader, my faith, my light’, was not play-acting, but
expressed the content of the relationship between Hitler and his Deputy.
His first meeting with Hitler took place at an early NSDAP meeting and
was a key experience for Hess. He fell into ecstasy and immediately saw in
Hitler not just the dictator the extreme right wing had been waiting for
with such longing, but also a religious Messiah.
Soon after this first meeting Hess was a member of the group around the
future leader. After the failure of the Hitler Putsch, in which Hess had
taken an active part, he was sentenced to a short time in jail, which he
served at Hitler’s side in the fortress of Landsberg. Hess more and more
took on the role of Hitler’s secretary.
After his release from prison, Hess became one of the Party leader’s
constant companions. A restless personality, Hitler loved to surround
himself with a small group of colleagues, to whom he delivered endless
monologues on philosophical and political themes, as he was to do later
with his nightly supper guests. Hess and Hitler also had contact in their
private lives. In 1927 Hitler was a witness at Hess’s marriage to Ilse Prohl,
76 Rudolf Hess

while Hess took touching care of Hitler when the latter was plunged into a
serious nervous crisis after the suicide of his niece, Geli Raubal, in 1931.
As Hitler’s private secretary Hess increasingly became the man the
junior leaders of the movement had to speak to. He was conscious of his
role as Hitler’s mouthpiece and spoke of himself as the ‘Hagen’ of the
Party. In an analogy to the later ‘If the Fuhrer knew that’ syndrome, junior
Party leaders blamed Hess for decisions which undoubtedly emanated
from Hitler himself. In addition, Hess propagated the Hitler cult within the
Party. It was primarily he who elevated the statement that the Fuhrer ‘was
always right and always would be’ to the level of a Party maxim.
The Nazi seizure of power, which for Hess was the fulfilment of his
personal faith, predestined by fate and willed by God, brought the Private
Secretary power and honours, but also distanced him increasingly from his
idol. From 1935 on he had less personal contact with Hitler; sometimes
months passed before he was allowed a personal audience with his Fuhrer.
This alienation did not lead to any change in his relations with the
dictator. Hess remained a believer. However Hitler’s relationship with his
Deputy raises considerably more questions. What did Hitler think of the
man who had been among his closest colleagues for more than a decade
and whom he made his Deputy for Party Affairs? Hitler was only capable
of one-sided relationships. A relationship based on mutual equality and
inclination was impossible for him. Beyond a doubt he valued Hess’s
absolute devotion and the stage-management of the Hitler cult. Above and
beyond this Hess embodied something akin to the early ‘idealism’ in the
Party, which Hitler remembered sorrowfully, especially in the years of the
defeats during the Second World War. Hess almost shed tears when his
wife informed him in Spandau that during the war Hitler had put forward
the view that he was the only idealist in the Party. But there are other wit-
nesses according to whom Hitler was increasingly disappointed in his Deputy.
Goebbels took a certain amount of satisfaction in recording Hitler’s critic-
ism of Hess’s petty-bourgeois manner and his lack of assertiveness.
In the final analysis, Hess, like all the dictator’s colleagues, was only the
means to an end. In the ‘Era of Struggle’ Hess played an important role as
Hitler’s mouth-piece and tamer of the Party radicals. Later, when Hitler
was increasingly preoccupied with plans for his war of aggression, Hess’s
constant reminders of the ‘ideals’ of National Socialism became a nuisance
and Hess himself became increasingly dispensable. He had done his duty.
For almost a decade Hess was the highest ranking functionary in the
NSDAP. He was responsible for matters of Party administration, from the
selection of the NSDAP’s body of functionaries to their installment in
the machinery of state. On paper at least he was something of the order of
a General Secretary of the NSDAP. In reality of course nothing in the
Third Reich was as it appeared on paper. In practice plenary powers had
little meaning.
 Dietrich Orlow 77

Of particular interest is in how Hess came to office and what influence he

had in the Third Reich. There is no doubt that Hess had an emotional
relationship with the Party; he was an enthusiastic and convinced Party
comrade. One of his speeches, which even the hypercritical Goebbels
described as ‘gripping’ was a memorial address Hess delivered at the
beginning of 1941 on the occasion of the state memorial service for the ‘old
warrior’, Hermann Kriebel. (Like Hess and Hitler, Kriebel had been
imprisoned for a while in Landsberg.) Beyond this, Hess, convinced that
Hitler thought as he did, regarded the Party as an elite organisation for
shaping the coming National Socialist age which was to replace the rotten,
mendacious bourgeois world.
However, none of this predestined him for an established career in the
Third Reich.* Hess had neither a personal nor territorial power base. The
beginning of his spectacular rise was without a doubt the Strasser crisis in
December 1932.
As always in a crisis, Hitler attacked rather than retreated, and
announced that in future he would direct the Party administration himself.
This of course was a fiction. The greater part of Strasser’s duties were
taken over by his deputy, Robert Ley. He now had the title of ‘Director of
Staff of the Political Organisation of the NSDAP’ (PO). However Hitler
evidently had reservations about conferring all of Strasser’s powers on Ley.
For this reason he gave orders for the establishment of a Political Central
Commission (PCC) and appointed Hess as its director. The duties of the
PCC in the first instance were negative. It was to prevent the PO develop-
ing a taste for independence. Hitler regarded Hess, who was entirely
devoted to him, as the suitable leader for this purpose.
Supposing that they could now issue orders to state and society, im-
mediately after the seizure of power the Party organs interfered more or
less at will in the various spheres from public administration to the econ-
omy. In the late spring of 1933 the situation was getting increasingly out
of control. To prevent threatened anarchy Hitler conferred on Hess the
newly created office of Deputy Fuhrer. To begin with Hess again had
negative duties to carry out: he circulated a ruling to all Party authorities
that they were not to initiate any intervention in state or society without his
prior approval and this was supposed to keep the ambitious Party organs
within bounds. But Hess and his colleagues developed far-reaching plans
for the future too. They understood the office of Deputy Fiihrer as a kind
of general staff for the development of the future Third Reich.
Now there were many such plans and ideas in Hitler’s Reich. They all
came to grief, not just because of their programmatic inadequacies and the
aggressive intentions of the regime, but also because of Hitler’s basic
administrative principle: “divide et impera’. Hess fared no differently from
his rivals. His title notwithstanding, he was by no means senior to the other
Party leaders. In practice he was only one of sixteen national directors,
78 Rudolf Hess

who all, like the Gauleiter, had direct access to Hitler. As Hitler had
presumably intended, this resulted in constant friction between the
office of the Deputy Fiihrer and other Party organs. In his efforts to
restrain his rivals among the national directors, mainly Ley and his fast-
growing empire, the Deputy gave the Gauleiter a great deal of freedom to
manoeuvrey
Any discussion of the role Hess played as the senior Party functionary in
the Third Reich is made more difficult by the person and function of his
most important colleague, Chief of Staff Martin Bormann. In the
Bormann-Hess-Hitler triangle Hess progressively lost influence. By 1935 at
the latest the Deputy was increasingly pushed into the background. But
Bormann’s growing shadow also makes it difficult for the historian to
differentiate between Hess’s institutional role and his personal influence.
In the second half of the thirties in particular, when Hess had to stay at
home for weeks in far-off Harlaching with stomach pain (probably psycho-
somatic in origin), Bormann probably took decisions in the name of, but
without the knowledge of his superior. However this state of affairs is not
true for the early stage of the Nazi regime. In at least one key event Hess’s
personal help was decisive for Hitler’s actions.
The matter in case was the so-called R6hm affair. Here Hess was one of
the driving forces who pushed Hitler into taking action against the sup-
posed shortcomings of the SA leader. He had both personal and political
reasons for this. In contrast to Hitler, who regarded the personal affairs of
his lieutenants primarily from the point of view of their net contribution to
his rule, Hess evidently really was morally outraged about the widespread
homosexuality among SA leaders. What is more, he was convinced that
R6hm’s ambitions to secure the role of the SA as the political and military
elite of the Third Reich could seriously endanger the position of the
political functionaries. In the end Hitler’s decision to sentence people to
death without reference to the law or the courts accorded with Hess’s idea
of a dictator behaving responsibly.
According to Hess’s understanding of the matter, the office of Deputy
Fihrer formed the intersection between state and Party in the ‘dual state’
of the Third Reich. Its public duties were secured in law. In December
1933 Hess (along with RO6hm) was appointed Minister of State without
Portfolio. At the same time Hitler determined that all ministries were to
present copies of laws and decrees to the office of the Deputy Fihrer
before they were published or issued. Over and above this Hess’s office
received consultative rights in all personnel matters affecting the senior
civil servants. In practice, however, the department experienced consider-
able difficulty in asserting its consultative rights in legislation and personnel
matters. Both Hess and Bormann were soon forced to acknowledge that
political fanaticism and a racially impeccable family tree could not replace
expertise and practical ability.
 Dietrich Orlow 79

However in the area of legislation on the Jews the department was to a

large extent able to realise its ambitions. It played a decisive role in the
formulation of the so-called Nuremberg laws of September 1935, which
among other things deprived the German Jews of their civic rights. Here, it
must be said, Hess’s personal influence is more difficult to prove than in the
R6hm affair, but it can probably be assumed that as a fanatical anti-semite
he fully welcomed the attacks the Party initiated against the German Jews.
In the implementation of these laws, too, his department again and again
demanded the most severe treatment possible.
If Hess’s influence on domestic policy gradually decreased, this is even
more true of foreign policy. There is no indication that Hess influenced
Hitler’s foreign policy decisions. After the outbreak of World War Two
Hess was pushed into an even more marginal role. It is doubtful whether
he was informed at all about the details of German plans of attack from the
invasion of Poland up to the Russian campaign. The Norwegian campaign,
for example, came as a complete surprise to him.
Remarkably, after a series of years during which he was often ill and
depressed, at the end of 1940, not least as a result of the victorious French
campaigns, he seems to have been completely in touch again. Goebbels,
who in past years had often complained about Hess’s personnel policies
and the lack of decisiveness in his department, noted on 16 October after a
meeting with the Deputy Fuhrer: ‘He is now completely cured. A good
dependable man. Hess made the best possible impression on me: he is
calm, rational, communicative and very trusting’.*
In the early evening of 10 May 1941 Rudolf Hess took off in an ME 262
aircraft which had been specially converted for him personally, on course
for Britain. A few hours later, after a flight which is still regarded today as
a masterpiece of flying, he landed by parachute in Scotland. The aircraft
crashed to the ground. The longest and most insignificant period of his life
had begun.
This sensational flight still preoccupies historians and contemporaries
today. What is especially disputed is his motivation. Hess’s own statements
seem too contradictory to be credible. Of particular interest is the question
of whether and to what extent Hitler was aware of his deputy’s intentions.
Hess himself, as well as the official propaganda of the Third Reich, denied
that Hitler had any knowledge of his actions. On the other hand, Ernst
Bohle, the director of the NSDAP’s Foreign Affairs Organisation, and
Hess’s brother were convinced at least until the official denial, that Hess
had flown to Britain with a secret peace proposal from Hitler.
A closer examination of the circumstances appears to exclude Hitler’s
participation. Hitler's outrage at Hess’s initiative was genuine, because at
this point he was bound to be afraid that any such action would be
interpreted as weakness. The conviction of the leaders of the Soviet Union
(which they maintained until his death), that Hess flew to Britain to secure
80 Rudolf Hess

British participation in Hitler’s planned attack on the Soviet Union is

equally incorrect. Everything points away from this interpretation. In the
first case, it is by no means clear whether Hess had any knowledge of
Operation Barbarossa, for in the months before his flight he had very little
contact with Hitler and the other leaders of the Third Reich. Moreover
there is no indication in the British transcripts of his interrogation that
Hess even mentioned the Soviet Union.
The solution to the riddle is found in Hess’s relationship with Hitler and
the latter’s vision of a global balance of power among the ‘Germanic’
peoples. In short the Deputy Fuhrer flew to Britain in order to make an
offer to the ‘peace faction’ there, an act he was convinced both corre-
sponded with Hitler’s intentions and was in Britain’s interest. Such a ‘peace
offer’ could not be made through diplomatic contacts, because — according
to Hitler’s frequently expressed conviction — Winston Churchill and the
British ‘war faction’ would prevent serious discussion of it. Hitler believed
that the ‘peace faction’, which in his estimation included parts of the
British aristocracy and possibly even members of the Royal Family among
its members, had been deprived of political power by Winston Churchill
and his supporters.” In reality of course there was no such gulf between the
peace and war factions in the British ruling classes, but then Hess never
doubted Hitler’s brilliant powers of judgement.
With this spectacular course of action Hess hoped to find his way directly
to the ‘peace faction’. His unsuspecting middle man was Albrecht
Haushofer, the son of his old teacher Karl Haushofer. Haushofer worked
in the Foreign Office and before the war he had had close links with a
number of British aristocrats, including the Duke of Hamilton. Hess flew
for Hamilton’s estate, hoping to be able to use him to contact the real
leader of the supposed ‘peace party’.
Hitler’s assessment of Britain and its military prospects were a decisive
factor in Hess’s decision. Goebbels repeatedly noted in his diaries Hitler’s
conviction that Britain had lost the war, but that he, Hitler, was nonethe-
less ready to make a fair peace offer to his opponent. The proposals which
Hess presented to his British audience were identical to Hitler’s ideas. The
German dictator only demanded two conditions for a peace agreement
between Britain and Germany: Germany demanded undisputed hegemony
on the continent and the return of the German colonies. These colonies
were however, as a punishment as it were for Versailles, to be ‘rounded up’
somewhat. Iraq, for example, was ‘of course’ to pass into German hands.
Understandably the British showed little interest in Hitler’s/Hess’s
generous offer. After they had established into the bargain that Hess could
not reveal any military secrets, silence fell after a few days around the
prominent prisoner. The British decision to play down the Hess affair
coincided with the intentions of the Nazi leadership. For Goebbels, Hess’s
flight was a propaganda nightmare which he wanted to be rid of as quickly
 Dietrich Orlow 81

as possible. The Propaganda Minister declared on the spot that Hess was
mentally confused, a version of events which moreover Hess himself had
suggested in the event of his mission failing, by his letter of farewell to
Hitler.°
During his imprisonment in Britain Hess’s hypochondria increased and
he displayed a series of psychopathic symptoms. He suffered from paranoia
and claimed his guards were trying to poison him. He also complained of
loss of memory. However Hess later wrote that he had only been pretend-
ing to suffer from these conditions in order to make the British send him
back to Germany as a mental patient. But the British thwarted these plans
and did not repatriate him. At the end of the Second World War they
transferred the former Deputy Fuhrer to Germany as one of the twenty-
two accused in the Nuremberg Trials. The order of seniority in the dock
was exactly the same as it had been in the Third Reich: Hess sat beside
Hermann Goering. He faced the court on four charges: conspiracy and
crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Hess regarded the entire judicial proceedings as a farce. He did not show
a trace of repentance, as for example Speer or Schirach did, but did not
attempt either to justify his behaviour. He appears to have had two reasons
for his (pretended?) apathy. Firstly, he regarded the trial as victor’s justice
staged by the Jews, although he was by no means alone in this among the
accused. His belief that the Western Allies, too, regarded their participa-
tion in the Inter-Allied Military Tribunal at Nuremberg as a public rela-
tions exercise, however, was probably his alone. In a macabre continuation
of Hitler’s delusions in his bunker. Hess, too, was persuaded that the
Western Allies would either sentence him to death or entrust him with the
political leadership of the three western zones of occupation. The Deputy
still regarded himself as Hitler’s legitimate successor. In his final speech
before the passing of his sentence, he emphasised that he still remained
true to his idol, Hitler, in spite of everything. In the course of lengthy and
very confused statements he declared: ‘I was privileged to work for many
years under the greatest son my people has produced in its thousand year
history. I have no regrets. If I had to start again I would act as I have done,
even if I knew that at the end a funeral pyre would be burning for me’.’
The court found Hess guilty on two of the four counts (conspiracy and
crimes against peace) and sentenced him to life imprisonment (the Rus-
sians appealed for the death sentence). Hess did not react to the judge-
ment; in fact he wrote that it did not affect him at all. True to his belief,
that he would soon resume a leading role in politics, he spent the months
between being sentenced and being transferred to Spandau incessantly
preparing documents for his future role in the three western zones. Hess
thought of everything: the preparation of office accommodation in Munich,
his speech on the occasion of the first meeting of the Reichstag, guards of
honour for the graves of the accused executed at Nuremberg and his own
82 Rudolf Hess

title. To begin with Hess intended to do without the title ‘Fuhrer’. This was
to be reserved for Hitler.
Rudolf Hess spent forty-one years of his life as a prisoner in the Military
Prison in Spandau, the last twenty-one of these as the sole occupant of the
huge complex.* Guarded by a squad selected monthly from each of the
four Allied powers, he became the most expensive prisoner in the world.
What sort of person was he during this time, which comprised almost half
of his life? In fact little about him changed. The letters to his wife and son
as well as the memories of the French prison chaplain and the American
commander show a well-read, by no means unsympathetic person with
wide-ranging interests. But other less positive characteristics are still evi-
dent too. Hess was still a hypochondriac and, as far as can be achieved in
prison life, a loner. There were weeks when he scarcely said a word to his
fellow prisoners. Above all, however, he remained a political fanatic. In
contrast to the other prisoners Hess refused for years to agree to visits from
his wife and son, because in his opinion this would amount to a recognition
of the judgement of the victorious Allies. It was only on Christmas Eve
1969, when he was genuinely seriously ill and had to undergo a stomach
operation in the British Military Hospital in Berlin that he agreed to a visit
from his family. It was to be the only time he saw them again in his life.
Although the Western Allies were ready to pardon him in the final years
of his imprisonment, the Soviets refused to release the old man. At the
end, however, Hess succeeded in evading the attention of his guards for a
short time. A few weeks after his ninety-third birthday, on 17 August 1987,
he strangled himself with the electric cable of a heater which the prison
administration had had built into a summerhouse in the garden, to make it
more pleasant for the aged prisoner to stay out in the open. The announce-
ment from the Allied powers which had been formulated years earlier,
stating that Hess had died of natural causes in Spandau, had to be revised.
Hess’s significance in history? He himself was probably convinced right
up to the end of his life that he would be a symbol of the renaissance of
National Socialism if he left prison alive, a martyr uniting the generations
after his death. He would have been deeply disappointed by the reality. A
few Neo-Nazis demonstrated in Spandau and in various locations in the
Federal Republic after his death had been announced, but the general
public in Germany certainly did not mark the death of this last representa-
tive of a past era in the manner he may have dreamed of. Hess overesti-
mated his place in history, because he overestimated the long-term
influence of his idol Adolf Hitler. As the actual onginator of the Fuhrer cult
Hess literally saw National Socialism and the person of Adolf Hitler as one
and the same thing. Paradoxically by so doing he achieved the opposite of
what he had intended. The exclusive identification of the Nazi regime and
its ideology with the person of Hitler was decisive in National Socialism’s
loss of appeal, when it became obvious that Hitler would not only fail to
 Dietrich Orlow 83

achieve his aims, but was also personally driving Germany into the abyss.
And with the downfall of Hitler, Hess had also lost the place he hoped for
in history.

NOTES

1. Die Tagebiicher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil 1: Aufzeichnungen 1924-1941, ed. by

E. Frohlich (Munich, 1987) vol. 2, p. 694 (6.10.1936).
. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 283 (30.9.1937).
rh.
Ww On Hess’s role in the Third Reich see: P. Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im
Dritten Reich (Munich, 1969); D. Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party 1933-
1945 (Pittsburgh, 1973).
4. Goebbels-Tagebiicher, as above, vol. 4, p. 366ff. (16.10.1940).
5. Ibid., p. 121 (21.4.1940), p. 126 (25.4.1940), p. 218f. (26.6.1940), p. 236f.
(11.7.1940).
. Ibid., p. 638-49 (10.5.1941-20.5.1941).
sO. Hess’s ‘Final word’ is repeatedly quoted in the literature, more or less in its
complete form. See: J.C. Fest, ‘Rudolf Hess oder die Verlegenheit der
Freiheit’, in J.C. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches (Munich, 1964) p. 269; I.
Hess (ed.), Ein Schicksal in Briefen (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1971) p. 112;
E.K. Bird, Prisoner No. 7: Rudolf Hess (New York, 1984) p. 55, contains a
selection of Hess’s ‘decrees’ and ‘proclamations’ in English translation.
8. For the ‘Spandau Years’ see: Bird, as above, and the memoirs of the French
chaplain in Spandau, C. Gabel (Paris, 1987).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Unfortunately we only have a few primary sources which enable us to gain an
insight into the life and character of Hess. He did not keep a diary, and there are no
large files of internal documents from his time as Hitler’s private secretary. The
correspondence edited by his wife and his son aims unambiguously at apologism: I.
Hess (ed.), Ein Schicksal in Briefen (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1971); W.R. Hess,
Rudolf Hess, Briefe 1908-1933 (Munich, 1987). The Goebbels Diaries tower above
the memoirs and journals of his contemporaries. Goebbels had frequent contact
with Hess before and after 1933 and was a very shrewd observer. However it is
generally true of his diaries that the reader must be aware of his efforts to giv
himself prominence. On the subject of Hess as a minister and Deputy Fihrer the
following editions of sources should be consulted: Akten der Reichskanzlei. Die
Regierung Hitler, Teil I, 1933/34, 2 vols ed. by K.H. Minuth (Boppard am Rhein,
1983); Akten der Reichskanzlei, ed. by Institut fir Zeitgeschichte, 4 vols (Munich,
1983ff). However when using these sources one must always be aware of the
difficulty of distinguishing Hess’s views and decisions from those of Bormann and
other colleagues.
84 Rudolf Hess

Secondary Literature

There has, up till now, been no satisfactory academic study of Hess’s life. W.
Schwarzwaller, Der Stellvertreter des Fiihrers. Rudolf Hess, der Mann in Spandau
(Vienna, 1974) is somewhat extreme in style. A more balanced analysis, although
less comprehensive, is to be found in: J.C. Fest, ‘Rudolf Hess oder die Ver-
legenheit vor der Freiheit, in Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches (Munich, 1964)
p. 257-70. Hess’s spectacular flight to Britain has caused many British authors to
take an interest in the person of Hess. Of these, J.R. Rees (ed.), The Case of Rudolf
Hess. A Problem in Diagnosis and Forensic Psychiatry (London, 1947) is something
of an exception. It deals with the medical and psychiatric aspects of the Hess case.
The author of Motive for a Mission. The Story behind Rudolf Hess’s Secret Flight to
Britain (New York, 1987) is J. Douglas-Hamilton, the son of the man Hess wanted
to reach by his flight. The most recent biography comes from the pen of the ‘enfant
terrible’ of modern historians; D. Irving, Hess. The Missing Years (London, 1988).
Like all the works of this author, this book too contains a wealth of interesting
details, but its apologist tendency is problematic. Finally, the contribution of H.
Hohne, Mordsache Réhm (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1984) should be mentioned.
H6hne’s book contains what is probably the best description of Hess’s role in the
Rohm affair.
9 Reinhard Heydrich:
Security Technocrat
’ Giinther Deschner

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a child of music. He was born in

Halle on Saale on 7 March 1904. His mother called him Reinhard (good
counsellor) after a hero in one of her husband’s operas. His father, a
composer and director of the Conservatory in Halle, called him Tristan,
after the opera by Richard Wagner. And thirdly, and finally, the boy was
named Eugen (well born) after his grandfather on his mother’s side, who, as
the founder of the world-famous Conservatory in Dresden, had achieved the
greatest musical renown the Heydrich family had known up till then.
But Heydrich’s Fates were to be wrong: his life had nothing to do with
music. He did learn to play the violin, so that it brought tears to the eyes of
his listeners; as well as grammar school he attended classes at the Con-
servatory in piano, cello and composition — but after taking his Higher
Leaving Certificate the eighteen-year-old school leaver fled his unremit-
tingly musical and eternally pious parental home — his parents had been
converted to Catholicism — to enter his first career: he became a sea cadet
in the first post-war crew in the navy of the Weimar Republic. For nearly
ten years he dreamed of being an admiral. Then the navy, concerned for its
reputation, dismissed him on account of trouble with a girl, a trifling
matter, even by the standards of honour of those times. In April 1931, at
the height of the world economic crisis, Sublieutenant Heydrich was dis-
honourably discharged. He was unemployed.
His second career went into vertical take-off. It made history. At the age
of twenty-seven (1931), he became Chief of the Security Service (SD) of
the Reichsfiihrer — SS. After the seizure of power, the twenty-nine year old
went first to the Bavarian Political Police; at the age of thirty-two he was in
charge of the Secret State Police and the entire Criminal Police and at the
beginning of the war the National Security Head Office in Berlin, a gigantic
security apparatus, was created specially for him. Using the policy of the
carrot and the stick, he succeeded in a few months in transforming the rape
of the Czechs into a seduction. For this reason the Czech government in
exile had him assassinated in May 1942 by two agents flown from London
and dropped by parachute. Along with all his other duties Heydrich was
also put in charge of the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’, which he
organised from the emigration phase up to the extermination stage in the
policy. He became a manifestation of the SS State like no other.

85
86 Reinhard Heydrich

It is hard to assess the sum total of his life. Some saw him as the driving
force behind the extermination of the Jews, others spun a yarn that he
himself had a Jewish grandmother. For his whole life his voice was that of
an adolescent boy, but he sent thousands to concentration camps with a
single signature. He was an exceptional and competitive sportsman, de-
cathlete, fencer and bold fighter pilot, who took leave to go to the front
and found it a form of recreation.
No wonder that such a figure has long eluded the usual attempts to come
to terms with Nazism during the post-war period. After 1945 the vultures
picking over the remains of the Third Reich joined forces with those who
had served him in prominent positions. They made Heydrich globally
responsible for all stages of the Nazi reign of terror, the former by per-
petuating Allied war-time propaganda, the latter rushing to find alibis in
order to cleanse themselves of blame. Many of the accused and witnesses
at the Nuremberg Tribunal had, for example, come to an agreement to
‘push as much blame as possible on to Heydrich — after all he’s already
dead’.' Soon every evil the Third Reich had produced seemed to have
originated in Heydrich’s demonic mind. Quite absurdly, he was made
responsible for events he only became aware of after they had happened.
In the meantime it has become common knowledge that he was not behind
the assassination attempt on Hitler in the Birgerbrau Keller, nor did he
orchestrate the so-called Kristallnacht — even though these claims will
feature in ‘standard’ works for a long time to come.
Wiser observers saw, in Heydrich’s lifetime as well as in later historical
reflections, the inner contradictions which opened up in him, between
brutality and sensitivity, between sober power political considerations and
romanticism. Both contemporaries and post-war authors built a narrow
bridge by which they hoped to cross this gulf. For them, Heydrich’s was a
totally fractured personality: ‘he recognised his secret fears and regarded
himself as being constantly plagued by tensions, bitterness and feelings of
self-loathing.’? However this approach to Heydrich could only work if the
strut provided by the legend of the supposed Jewish origins of the divided
hero was left in place. But these stories, mainly gossip, have in the
meantime been consigned to the realm of fairy-tale. Heydrich, the master
of all security in the Third Reich, was by no means ‘afflicted with an
indelible stain and in a condition of mortal sin’. He had no Jewish
ancestors he would have had to hide from his superiors and he was neither
melancholic nor capable of being blackmailed on account of such an
accusation of a lack of racial purity, as was claimed by Himmler’s masseur,
Felix Kersten, who was consulted by historians for a long time.
One is compelled to accept the exact opposite as the true sum of his life:
instead of being marked out by an indelible flaw, Heydrich was indis-
tinguishable from the portrait National Socialism liked to paint of itself. He
possessed the quality of worldly impressiveness which was the primary
 Giinther Deschner 87

requirement in the image of National Socialist man. Even in his external

appearance: if National Socialism had looked into a mirror, Reinhard
Heydrich would have looked back out of it. The historical vision of a
racially-defined geographical heartland, which can be regarded as the
engapsulation of the National Socialists’ view of a future utopia, had at its
core the selection of a human type whose external appearance has best
been described by the racial theorist of the Third Reich, Hans F.K.
Giinther, as blond and tall, with a long head and a narrow face, ‘a
pronounced chin, a narrow nose with a high bridge, soft fair hair, deep-set
pale eyes and rosy skin-colouring’.* The minimal extent to which leading
National Socialists conformed to this ideal led to curious contortions in
public relations in the Third Reich. Popular humour quickly and precisely
summed up the facts in the lines ‘blond like Hitler, tall like Goebbels, slim
like Goering and able to hold their drink like Ley.’ Countless of the leading
representatives of the Third Reich were, as Ernst Nolte put it, ‘non-
conformist in their conformity’.
Heydrich was one of the exceptions: the SS newspaper Das Schwarze
Korps (The Black Corps) celebrated him in an obituary in June 1942 as ‘a
man without defects’. ‘Even in his external appearance he was the kind of
SS man the public expected’.° As the ideal prescribed, Heydrich was tall,
fair-skinned and blond, an exceptionally successful competitive sportsman,
combining high intelligence with that metallic trait in his personality which
was taken to be the proof of particular racial endowment. For all their
criticism of their boss’s disagreeable or repulsive characteristics, his early
colleagues were agreed in their judgement of his personal lifestyle. It
corresponded without qualification to the checklist of the ideal Nazi. The
historian of the SD, Spengler, summed it up: ‘All that he demanded of his
men in the way of achievements, tenacity and endurance, ceaseless self
improvement, cleanliness and simplicity in their personal life, Heydrich
had not only demanded of himself, but had achieved in exemplary
manner.”°
However, the magical coincidence of the general with the particular
which Burckhardt spoke of was expressed in Heydrich far more in his
deeper characteristics than on the surface. Here we find what Ernst Nolte
felt was lacking in most of the fascist movements of the era: all the
historical and structural elements of fascism were represented in Naval
Sublieutenant Heydrich (retd). Giovanni Zibordi, an incisive critic of
Italian fascism had stated as early as 1922 in his study ‘Critica socialista del
fascismo’, that fascism was primarily the ‘violent revolution of declassé
soldiers’.’ His theory was scarcely more true of any of the leading National
Socialists than of Heydrich. It was the loss of his officer’s uniform alone,
which, after his initial rejection of it, made National Socialism and the SS
seem a desirable vehicle for the self-fulfilment of a declassé soldier.
The fact that Heydrich’s gigantic police organisation, beginning with the
88 Reinhard Heydrich

SD and ending with the National Security Headquarters, was so heavily

militarised has its origins not least in Heydrich’s love of the soldier’s life,
which had been so ignominiously rewarded and to which he could now
finally devote himself again in National Socialism. It is not a coincidence,
either, that he did not reach the height of his power in peace time, but in
the midst of war. ‘War was its real element’, as Ernst Schiiddekopf wrote,
not about Heydrich, but about fascism.*® The condition of nationhood was
conceived of as being one of permanent crisis. This naturally had conse-
quences for domestic policy and policing: the idea of a pre-emptive police
force which in due course rendered harmless all conceivable categories of
‘undesirable elements’, of a criminal as well as political kind, was de-
veloped by Heydrich to the height of perfection and translated into fact.
Heydrich had found his way into the Security Service of the National
Leader of the SS thanks to the social decomposition of the German
bourgeoisie after the defeat in the First World War, and he gathered round
him the most intelligent men National Socialism was ever able to employ.
They were the rear-guard of a bourgeoisie whose values, minted before the
First World War, they were no longer able to share.
They left the values of this declassé bourgeoisie behind them without any
great soul-searching. This abandonment of past values was even more
marked in Heydrich because of the conventional negative attitude of the
average officer to politics, his formal abstinence from them, perfectly
compatible with an anti-democratic state of mind; Heydrich fully shared
this dominant characteristic of the Seeckt era during the first years of his SS
career. With the fragments of ideology he found within the SS, mostly
based on a romanticised vision of the past, he combined the principle of
effectiveness — in this he resembled to a great extent present-day value-free
technocratic managers — and he made this combination into an unmistak-
able amalgam.
Heydrich utilised the methods of left-wing revolution and the technology
of the machine age for the purpose of revolutionary upheaval and the
National Socialist state. This is part of the reason for the giddy ascent of
Heydrich’s star, and with it Himmler’s, in the Third Reich. After a difficult
initial period, in which he was fobbed off with subordinate posts, the
turning point came for Heydrich with his flawless adoption of the modern.
In the years during which the Nazi state was being consolidated, which
were marked by the events surrounding the RO6hm Putsch, Heydrich set his
wagon on the right track. Thereafter it arrived at its goal of its own accord,
its course being identical to the overall direction of the Third Reich.
Unlike the squarely-built go-getter Ernst R6hm, unlike the SA, which
after the seizure of power, as Heydrich mockingly said, faded into ‘sense-
less, directionless, personal illegality’,”the Heydrich-Himmler team silently
occupied the most important key positions within the police and admin-
istration. In his consistent pursuit of this technocratic administrative
 Guinther Deschner 89

policy, Heydrich, acting quietly in the background, was revolutionary in a

far more modern sense than the revolutionary fetishist Ernst Rohm. Heyd-
rich understood that the only thing that mattered in a revolution in highly
developed central Europe in the middle of the twentieth century was to
occupy the institutional structures. Whoever conquered them held power.
The effects of this were felt first by the political opponents of National
Socialism, then ROhm and the SA, and finally even other National Social-
ists themselves, like Frick, the Minister of the Interior, for whom, although
he was nominally Heydrich’s superior, littlke more remained than a thin
cast-off shell, while the institutional structures had long since been inte-
grated into Heydrich’s network of power.
However much one or another element of National Socialist philosophy,
within the context of which Heydrich had to implement his policy, may
have derived from the nineteenth century, he himself was more rooted in
the twentieth century and its technocratic spirit, indeed he represented it.
He himself had no roots in the past. In Karl Kraus’s 1933 definition of
fascism, he embodied ‘the contemporaneousness of everything that is and
is no more’. It was beyond doubt: of all the leading National Socialists,
Heydrich at least ‘conformed to the ideal’.
This raises the question of whether Heydrich had any roots, and where
they were, if not in the past. He was evidently not at home in any of the
philosophies produced by the Judaeo-Christian world. The religions of
divine revelation remained inaccessible to him, in spite of, or perhaps
because of his bigoted upbringing in an atmosphere of false religiosity,
often found in families of converts. For class reasons he felt no affinity with
Marxism, a surrogate religion, the repulsive features of which he came
across during the Weimar period; after he had had to get to know it after
1933 in the SD he rejected it for intellectual reasons. He openly confessed
his contempt for all possible ‘Christianities’ and strands of belief from
Moses and Christ up to Marx, just as Mussolini had done after his electoral
defeat in 1919, mocking all the red, white and black charlatans and soon
frowning on the brown ones. Encyclicals, he informed the officers of his
SD, were now issued by two Vaticans: one in Rome and the other in
Moscow. ‘We are the heretics in both these religions’.'° Ultimately he was
not only against the church, but against Christianity too.
In him and many other National Socialists, there was a type of person
who had not experienced the current primary values which held the West
together. They had come to power and, in the search for ‘secondary links’
consciously dispensed with those which formed the basis of questioning
throughout their century: the classical view of mankind, the Judaeo-
Christian west and the liberal democracy of previous centuries. He was,
however, receptive to ideas about the coming of the biological age, of
‘heroic vitality’, of which the SS itself was such an eloquent symbol. The
individual human being became uninteresting and the object of racial or
90 Reinhard Heydrich

national calculations which gave a new definition to the principle of raison

d’état. Heydrich was never ‘pious’ his whole life long; he never searched for
the unknown God who would have set a goal and given direction to his
vitality. The main motive forces of life, as D.H. Lawrence saw them,
passion and the desire for power, were Heydrich’s law. A certain arrogant
racism, the symbolism of death and the veneration of war were an inherent
part of him.
These characteristics practically destined him for success in the black-
shirted SS: in their catechism, too, biological notions of vitality, the hero-
worship of war and the hard-headed dogma of raison d’état had fused
together into ‘a dynamic fundamentally without doctrines, a technology of
domination’, as Héhne attested for the SS.'’ His dynamism, which drove
him on, and the restlessness which possessed Heydrich, his urge and
ambition to achieve, which would tolerate no rival at fencing, the decath-
lon, the flights to the front line — things which no-one had demanded of
him, in his intelligence-gathering stratagems, all these testify that for
Heydrich the decisive factor was not the NSDAP’s programme but the
vitality and élan of the modern philosophy of life, activism and finally the
unscrupulous use of force.
Another of his decisive motivating forces was by no means at odds with
this: his existential fear, linked in Heydrich with a specific fear of the
future. ‘If we don’t do it, who will? We must do it’.!* Those who have
studied fascism have come to suspect that these fears are then transmuted
into violence and terror against real or only imaginary enemies. The
suppressed themselves become the suppressors, the tormented the tormen-
tors. For Heydrich power of itself became a new moral norm, it became the
duty of the new elite, who were to make the dream of the new state into a
lasting reality.
In Heydrich’s eyes this goal had to be commensurate with ‘unpre-
cedented’ brutality (‘unprecedented’ was his favourite word). Despite that
aspect of his personality which people like to describe as metallic, the
brutality he preached was not in fact always forthcoming, since his person-
ality tended towards sensitivity rather than stoicism, as has been attested
to by Carl Jacob Burckhardt, after several long conversations with Heyd-
rich. Burckhardt, who in his capacity as League of Nations Commissioner
had demanded from Heydrich a visitor’s permit for the German concentra-
tion camps and had received it after some prevarication, reports that the
latter stood in front of him during the conversation about political de-
tainees in the concentration camps and ‘looking over my left shoulder he
said in a choked voice, ‘“They think we’re bloodhounds, abroad, don’t
they?” and then, “‘It is almost too hard for one person, but we have to be as
hard as granite, otherwise the work of our Fuhrer will be destroyed. In
the distant future they will thank us for what we have taken upon
ourselves’’’.'°
 Giinther Deschner 9]

This obligation to be brutal was a fundamental element of the elite to

which Heydrich belonged. In their self-image they were an elite in two
senses: elite by birth on the basis of racial selection and elite in functional
terms because of their claims to high achievement, ability and discipline.
Heydrich himself demanded of the true SS man in his essay Wandlungen
unseres Kampfes (The Course of our Struggle) that he should be the best in
all spheres. The new order of the Third Reich, which Heydrich was
prepared to secure, was to reflect the spirit of these elitist principles in its
internal structure and in its representatives. This drove Heydrich to be
disdainful and sometimes sharply negative in his attitude to the Party,
where primitive lust for power and opportunism were gaining ground. The
‘peacock type’, more than any of the political opponents of the new system
became an object of deep antipathy to him.
Heydrich the technocrat got on much better with the technological
functionaries, who, in spite of the key positions they might hold in the
National Socialist state, only had a superficial veneer of Nazi ideology.
That was particularly true of the Secretary of State in the Ministry of
Agriculture, Herbert Backe, who injected cold rationality into all the wild
fantasies of his boss, Darré, and secured the country’s food supply even
under the most difficult circumstances by his outstanding achievements in
the planning and administration of his department. Heydrich was a friend
of his and many times they had occasion to debate on the philosophical
fads of their respective superiors, Darré and Himmler.
This also applied to Hitler’s Armaments Minister, Albert Speer. Heyd-
rich: ‘He is good. He knows what he is doing’.'* This evaluation was
entirely mutual. Speer remembered his first conversation with Heydrich:
the chief of the security police and of the SD had been preceeded by his
reputation for being ‘cruel and unpredictable’. But Speer was pleasantly
surprised. He had not been able to detect any of this odiousness during the
conversation. Heydrich had been ‘very polite, his manner was not arrogant
and above all very assured and matter-of-fact’. Speer was most impressed
by his matter-of-factness:

He was not at all like these Gauleiter or other potentates, who on other
occasions have clung to idées fixes, to something which was architectural-
ly or technically impossible, perhaps to a dream from their youth or one
of their wife’s wild notions and then doggedly insisted on it... . By
contrast Heydrich was uncomplicated, he had only a few objections to
my suggestions, which taken as a whole showed that he was considering
the problems intelligently. If his objections were technically unfounded
then he could be persuaded of this at once.’

Research has indicated that Hitler would soon have had problems with
the young SS, which was imbued with the spirit represented by Heydrich.
92 Reinhard Heydrich

The gulf which had opened up between the sober, rational, technocratic
coldness of Heydrich, his squad of intellectuals at the SD on one hand, and
the endlessly swaggering resentful Party bosses on the other, between pure
intellect and mere prejudice, was probably only covered up and prevented
from becoming a historical fact by the outbreak and course of the war.
All of Heydrich was visible in the way in which, for example, he
approached the solution to the ‘Czech question’ in the autumn of 1941, a
problem which had become intractable for everyone else. Xenophobia or
hatred of the Slavs was not an issue for him. The words with which he
introduced himself as the new State Protector in a secret speech to German
officials in Prague probably had many a dyed-in-the-wool Party member
doubting the time of day: nothing was of interest to him here except that
the area was made peaceful and useful to the German war economy. He
would, therefore, cooperate with all Germans who worked towards this
aim and he would dispose of all those who put obstacles in its way. And
then, ‘What is essential is that we proceed with all severity against those
things which are not acceptable. For there is no purpose in beating up the
Czechs and using a great deal of effort and police pressure to force them to
go to work if they are not actually getting what they need.’’®
The ‘elite of central Europe’, as Heydrich understood it, a mixture of the
engineer with the figure of the soldier, as he was described in Ernst
Jiinger’s ‘Stahlgewitter’ (Storm of Steel) — intelligent and cunning, strong
and decisive, pitiless towards himself and others, a completely new race —
could not of course be reproduced at will in the required numbers. And
moreover: not all of his SD intellectuals could stand it for long in the frigid
zones into which Heydrich had advanced in the course of his rise to power,
mainly because of the radicalisation of war, which became progressively
more extensive. The Gestapo lawyer, Dr Werner Best, was forced out of
office after difficulties with Heydrich. Although he was a passionate
National Socialist and SS leader from the ‘Era of Struggle’, Dr Best had
insisted that the requirements of state security should not completely
liquidate the integrity of the law, that there were outer limits which
Heydrich’s soulless perfectionism and rigorousness had to respect. Scruples
like these were alien to Heydrich. He completed the tasks allotted to
him by any means which seemed suitable. For him the continued existence
of the state justified measures of every kind. The question ‘did the move-
ment make him or did he provide the drive for the movement?’ is super-
fluous: Heydrich and National Socialism had looked for and found each
other. In spite of his ‘conformity to the ideal’, which was uncommon in the
leadership of the Third Reich, Heydrich was, and remained, a loner. His
colleague Best stated simply: ‘Heydrich cannot be type-cast’. ‘He em-
bodied elemental characteristics which made him seem more like a natural
phenomenon than a political and social one.’'’ Heydrich was filled with
‘boundless vitality’ in Best’s judgement, which surged out into his sur-
 Giinther Deschner 93

roundings, constantly looking for new activity and acknowledgement. In

this constant surging advance everything he did and achieved was only a
means to even more distant goals.
Even his appearance gave an initial indication of his disposition. As his
colleagues and subordinates all said, the look in his close-set blue eyes ‘was
usually cold, enquiring and mistrustful and their flickering restlessness was
often irritating.’'® His appearance and the look in his eye alone unsettled
many people, subordinates and superiors alike. Right from the outset, his
abrupt, hasty manner of speaking, combined with his domineering, lordly,
challenging gestures revealed an attitude which placed an uncommon
emphasis on the will. Best had the impression that ‘he suggested his ideas
and intentions at the outset with a forcefulness which caught one unawares,
and by this means he forced the other into a position where he either had to
comply or mount a counter-attack’.'? Thus, Heydrich forced his own rules
of engagement on to every partner from the outset and forced him to take
up a position as friend or foe.
In the selection of his colleagues his own instinct was more important
than the evaluations of past careers which were presented to him. His
instinct chose those characteristics he was looking for and valued, that is a
soldier’s bearing, aggressiveness, intelligence and, to a lesser extent,
racial appearance and possibly also sporting inclinations. ‘Candidates who
impressed with their subjective personality also appealed to Heydrich’s
subjectivism and were accepted’
,”° even, we are told, when their contradic-
toriness later revealed them to be ‘uncomfortable’ subordinates. This
contrariness was one of the main factors in rationalising Heydrich’s entour-
age during his rapid rise to power. The lawyer Best, who thought along
conventional lines, left Heydrich’s service; the young, impressionable and
‘subjective’ Walter Schellenberg, similar to Heydrich in many ways, was
discovered.
What this subjectively-defined Heydrich sought was power, more and
more power. But he did not seek it like the opportunists of all political
systems, in order to achieve material gains and the limelight, but in order
to confirm his own identity and the nature of his own personality. This
impetuous striving found expression not only in his political and police
career; his very body demanded success. This is one of the reasons for his
passion for sport; fencing, shooting and the decathlon. He tried to succeed
in horse-riding too, but that was bound to fail — no apes reacts to the
alternative of friend or foe.
In his intelligence Heydrich had a tool suited to his personality, which
paralleled his physical vitality. It was the intelligence of a conqueror and
hunter. He made a clear assessment of situations and problems right at the
beginning. Where others were still thinking about technical problems,
Heydrich ‘went into another gear’ — that was his own expression for it — at
once, that is he examined the significance of the matter for his own
94 Reinhard Heydrich

purposes. This analysis of utility was linked to such an extent with his quick
comprehension of the matter itself that he almost always had a head start
on any others from the outset.
In the full enjoyment of his own dynamic powers Heydrich had little
need of the companionship of other people. A colleague testified: ‘People
were either obstacles on his path or means to his ends’.*’ Those who denied
him his desired success and full recognition he regarded as obstacles: parts
of the Party, the bureaucracy and the army. His means were his superiors
and his subordinates. He barely had any personal hatred for the enemies of
the state, whom he fought with the tools at hand and largely eliminated as a
political factor; instead he hated those who threatened his rise to power.
Best believed that even when he took over the commission for the ‘final
solution to the Jewish question’, he scarcely thought of hating the Jews,
‘but only considered the extent of the task, which stretched over many
countries, and the necessity of proving his energy and skill in fulfilling it.’
He would expend zeal and intelligence on a task like that. It led him first
of all to the idea of defining the ‘final solution’ as emigration, by a
systematic harrying of the Jews out of Germany. Then when the war made
this impossible, came deportation to destinations which were constantly
changing and alongside this, and systematically from 1942, extermination.
There is much to indicate that he accomplished this phase of his task with
very mixed feelings. He saddled subaltern subordinates like Adolf Eich-
mann with its planning and implementation. While he took on the detailed
work inherent in his intelligence-gathering intrigues with loving care, the
‘final solution’ was everyone’s responsibility. The terminology which was
supposed to keep the business of genocide secret came from him.
He was of course ruled by complete indifference to the inviolability of
human life — including his own. That was a characteristic of both revolu-
tionaries and technocrats. Death by means of a shot in the back of the neck
was for him as normal as death in a bomb explosion and not less abnormal
than death by pneumonia or cancer. But cunning suited him more than
brutality and an opponent’s unsuspecting step into a skilfully-built trap
gave him a satisfaction he never experienced from an act of direct brutality.
This even lends credibility to Himmler’s remark about Heydrich’s
scruples about organised genocide, to be found in his memorial speech on
the occasion of the state ceremony for the ‘God of Death’ (Carl Jacob
Burckhardt) after he was assassinated. ‘From countless conversations with
Heydrich,’ Himmler said, ‘I know how this man, who had to be outwardly
so hard and severe, often suffered and wrestled in his heart and what it
often cost him, nonetheless, to shape his decisions and actions again and
again according to the law of the SS, by which we are duty bound to spare
neither our own blood nor the blood of others, when the life of the nation
demands it’.*°
Heydrich had for the first time in history developed for the national
 Gitinther Deschner 95

leadership, by dint of much hard work, a unified national police force and a
comprehensive political intelligence service, which overcame the fragment-
ing effect of state and territorial traditions. These pursued an entirely new
set of goals, and were constantly at the ready — effective, reliable, objective
and extensive tools.
But again and again the tasks which were imposed on him, precisely
because of his — in Nazi terms — successful police reforms, caused him inner
conflicts. His role in the liquidation of R6hm, the only man in the Party to
whom he had offered friendship, and the murders committed by his task
forces and finally his function as the executor of the ‘final solution’ all made
him aware of the profound incompatibility of means and end. He com-
plained cynically that he was sometimes only the ‘chief rubbish collector of
the German Reich’. ‘It is remarkable,’ his widow stated, ‘that he was fully
aware of his work as executioner and even had a ready justification for it’.
He thought of his work as being like a deed which involved great
personal sacrifices and burdens, which he felt he had to accomplish for the
sake of the matter in hand, for the future of the Reich. ‘I feel that I am free
of all guilt,’ Heydrich regularly concluded after wrestling with his con-
science. ‘It is my job to make myself available and it is for others to pursue
egotistical goals’. A comparison with Saint-Just, the revolutionary tri-
bune of 1789 is obvious. It is said of him that he held his head high, like a
sacred vessel, as he demanded one head after the other. Heydrich’s atti-
tude was similar and in his approach he was a revolutionary. The combina-
tion of cold rationality with efforts to achieve technical perfection, the
longing for a life which was — in the vitalistic sense — heroic and dangerous a
la Saint Just, ‘between mortal dangers and immortality’, and a ridge-walk
of the soul which accepted the existence of the deepest abysses: that is what
Heydrich was.

NOTES

. The author’s interview with Bruno Streckenbach on 21.5.73 and with Lina
Ss

Heydrich on 20—23.3.1973.
. J.C. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches (Munich, 1963) p. 142.
F. Kersten, Totenkopf und Treue (Hamburg, 1952) p. 128.
H.F.K. Gunther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Munich, 1922) p. 34.
‘Das Schwarze Korps’, Berlin, dated 11.6.1942.
DANS
WN. W. Spengler, ‘Reinhard Heydrich — Wesen und Werk’ in, Boéhmen und
Mahren, 5/6 (Prague, 1943) p. 23.
. G. Zibordi, Critica socialista del fascismo (Milan, 1922) p. 15.
. O.-E. Schiiddekopf, Bis alles in Scherben fallt (Giitersloh, 1973) p. 101.
. R. Heydrich, Wandlungen unseres Kampfes (Berlin, 1936) p. 4.
a|
oa. Interview
oh?
i with Streckenbach.
96 Reinhard Heydrich

11. H. Héhne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf (Gitersloh, 1967) p. 196.
12. Interview with Lina Heydrich.
13. C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939 (Munich, 1960) p. 97.
14. Interview with Lina Heydrich.
15. The author’s interview with Albert Speer on 19.1.1972.
16. Secret speech by Heydrich on 2.10.1941, published in Die Vergangenheit warnt
(Prague, 1960).
17. W. Best, Notes on Reinhard Heydrich dated 1.9.1949, Copenhagen.
18. The author’s interview with Walter Wannemacher on 21.3.1972.
19. Best, as above.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Heinrich Himmler, Memorial Speech, dated 9.6.1942 in: R. Heydrich, Ein
Leben der Tat (Prague, 1944) p. 64.
24. Interview with Lina Heydrich.
25. Lina Heydrich, Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher (Pfaffenhofen, 1976) p. 48.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Sources which are central to an investigation of Heydrich are to be found in the files
of the Hauptarchiv der NSDAP, Hoover Collection (Stanford) as well as in the
files of the Personal Staff of the National Leader of the SS and the Chief of
the German Police in the National Archive (Washington). Also of importance are the
unpublished sketches of Heydrich by Werner Best (1.9.1949) and Karl von Eber-
stein (15.10.1965). Of Heydrich’s own publications, the following should be men-
tioned: R. Heydrich, ‘Der Anteil der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD an den
Ordnungsmassnahmen im mitteleuropdischen Raum’, in, Bo6hmen und Mdhren,
5/1941 (Prague, 1941); ‘Die Bekampfung der Staatsfeinde’ in, Die deutsche Rechts-
wissenschaft, vol. 1, no. 2 (1936) and ‘VB’ dated 28.4.1936; Ein Leben der Tat
(Prague, 1944); Gedenkschnft der RHSA (Berlin, no year); speech, ‘Die Wenzels-
tradition’ in, Reinhard Heydrich, Ein Leben der Tat (Prague, 1944); speeches
dated 2.10.1941 and 4.2.1942 in, Die Vergangenheit warnt (Prague, 1960); ‘Rede
zum Tag der deutschen Polizei’, published in Reinhard Heydrich, RHSA, no year;
Wandlungen unseres Kampfes (Berlin, 1936). Himmler’s memorial speech on
Heydrich’s death is published in R. Heydrich, Ein Leben der Tat (Prague, 1944).

Secondary Literature

For a long time history has only been interested in Heydrich in an eclectic way. The
historical person has been fragmented into countless essays, chapters or footnotes,
scattered across numerous monographs about the SS and the Gestapo, the German
secret service, twentieth century spying, the persecution of the European Jews. In
the memoirs of former National Socialists published after the war, by Heydrich’s
colleagues or other contemporary witnesses, the reports frequently consist simply
of office gossip with no value to researchers. Sometimes misleading information
 Gtinther Deschner 97

about Heydrich’s supposed Jewish background is given. That is true for example
of: W. Hagen (Hottl), Die geheime Front (Linz, 1950); F. Kersten, Totenkopf und
Treue (Hamburg, 1952); W. Schellenberg, Memoiren (Cologne, 1956); O. Strasser,
Hitler und ich (Constance, 1948).
The first attempt at a biography of Heydrich was published twenty years after his
death: C. Wighton, Heydrich — Hitler’s Most Evil Henchman (London, 1962).
Wighton’s study is unsatisfactory not just because of the lack of accessible source
material at that time, but more especially because the line the author takes still
relies entirely on Allied war propaganda. Only when access to original files had
become easier was it possible to make a serious study of aspects of Heydrich’s
biography. Thus U.D. Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Dusseldorf, 1972) was
the first to give a comprehensive scholarly analysis of the various, competing or
chronologically consecutive attempts to devise a ‘final solution’, and in the process
he shed light on Heydrich’s role. An Israeli historian has described the first years of
Heydrich’s SS career (up to 1934) in a convincing juxtaposition of archive material
and ‘oral history’ and his work contains a great deal of material: S. Aronson,
Reinhard Heydrich und die Friihgeschichte von Gestapo und SD (Stuttgart, 1971).
Having temporarily gained access to files held in Czechoslovakia, D. Brandes was
able to deal in detail with the background to and course of Heydrich’s activities in
Prague: D. Brandes, Die Tschechen unter deutschem Protektorat, Teil I: Besatzung-
spolitik, Kollaboration und Widerstand im Protektorat Bohmen und Mahren bis
Heydrichs Tod. 1939-1942 (Oldenburg, 1969). It was not only the work of ‘pro-
fessional historians’ which led during these years to convincing studies, derived not
from political and propagandistic premises, but from a precise study of the source
material. The work of a journalist, too, has proved valuable right up to the present
day. He was the first to correct the idea of the monolithic ‘Fuhrer state’ and to point
out that the Jewish policies of the Third Reich should not be interpreted a
posteriori: H. Hohne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf (Giitersloh, 1967). The
present author used this work as a tool for his own biography of Heydrich. He was
also the first to evaluate newly accessible files, the entire body of secondary
literature and interviewed contemporary witnesses who had been close to Heyd-
rich: G. Deschner, Reinhard Heydrich — Statthalter der totalen Macht (Munich,
1978). The memoirs of Heydrich’s widow include useful details on the human side
of Heydrich’s personality, but they are teeming with historical misjudgements,
wrong dates and a desire to show him in a more positive light: L. Heydrich, Leben
mit einem Kriegsverbrecher. Mit Kommentaren von W. Maser (Pfaffenhofen, 1976).
That history, which has become considerably more dispassionate and ‘unideologic-
al’ in the last twenty years, also provides a way back to the clichées of the
anti-fascist leagues of the former anti-Hitler coalition, is demonstrated by the most
recent book on Heydrich: E. Calic, Reinhard Heydrich — Schliisselfigur des Dritten
Reiches (Dusseldorf, 1982). Here, as was already the case in the first edition of
E. Kogon’s SS-Staat, Heydrich is given an omnipotence capable of determining the
course of history, an interpretation for which there is not the slightest support in
the sources. Moreover the political and personal peculiarities of this author are
revealed in, K.-H. Janssen, ‘Calics Erzahlungen’, in U. Backes et al., Reichstags-
brand. Aufkldrung einer historischen Legende (Munich, 1987) p. 216-37 (this also
contains a critical reference to Calic’s biography of Heydrich.) After this no-one
can any longer take Calic seriously as a historian.
10 Heinrich Himmler:
Reichsfuhrer — SS
Josef Ackermann

It remained a mystery to many of those who knew Heinrich Himmler how

this man, timid and indecisive at heart, could have attained a position of
extraordinary power in the Third Reich. ‘I had the impression,’ reports the
chief of the Armaments Ministry, Hans Kehrl, ‘that he was a small man,
not a personality in the grand, let alone diabolical style. Both his influence
and the fear of him, which was probably deliberately encouraged, were a
mystery to me’.' Albert Speer does not claim either that he had any
outstanding abilities or characteristics which predestined him for the role
he actually played in the Third Reich. He saw in him ‘a completely
insignificant person, who in some inexplicable way has risen to a prominent
position’.*
Himmler’s career as the ‘Grand Inquisitor’ of the Third Reich is also a
mystery to his former classmates from his school-days in Munich and
Landshut. ‘It’s impossible. ... , it’s impossible,’ shouted the German
American historian George W.F. Hallgarten, for example, in the common
room of the history department at Munich University in 1948, when he
identified Himmler, the ‘monstrous servant of a dictator’ as his classmate
and school friend from the Munich school-days they spent together. He
remembered him as the personification of ‘the gentlest lamb you could
imagine, a boy who would not hurt a fly’.*
Did Himmler’s character therefore undergo a total transformation for
the worse or did people fail to recognise a hidden side to his nature already
present in his earliest youth? What role did his parental home play in his
spiritual development, in an age in which the structure of society had long
since begun to destabilise? These questions can only be answered with
difficulty.
Heinrich Himmler was born on 7 October 1900 in Munich. He had two
brothers, of whom Gebhard was two years older and Ernst a few years
younger. He received his Christian names from his godfather, Prince
Heinrich of Bavaria, to whom Heinrich Himmler’s father was tutor from
1893 to 1897. In a letter dated 13.10.1900 to his ‘dearest Prince Heinrich’
his father, Gebhard Himmler, informed the former of the date of Hein-
rich’s baptism and asked the Prince for the ‘great honour of offering him a
glass of champagne’ after the baptism.*
The Himmler family’s connection with Prince Heinrich was maintained

98
 Josef Ackermann 99

by both sides until the time of the First World War, and when the latter was
killed in 1916 at the age of thirty-two, his mother remained in contact with
the Himmler family thereafter. On 11 June 1917 a cheque to the amount of
1000 Reich Marks in war bonds was sent by the dowager princess’s court
administration; in the letter to Gebhard Himmler it said: ‘Please accept
this sum for your son Heinrich as a present from his late godfather, His
Royal Highness, the late Prince Heinrich of Bavaria’.°
In contrast to the picture Alfred Andersch paints of Heinrich Himmler’s
father in his account ‘The Father of a Murderer’, the latter seems, at least
in his earlier years, to have been universally well-liked. Joseph Bernhardt,
one of Gebhard Himmler’s former pupils from the time before the turn of
the century, gives a very positive assessment of his former teacher: ‘We felt
that the refined aura which emanated from him was benificent. He was
supple, of medium build and kept his class’s attention without a word of
rebuke by the strict, but kind, look in his eyes, behind his gold pince-nez.
Stroking his small reddish beard, he was prepared to wait quietly until a
pupil had found an answer’.®
The father seems to have had a strong influence on the intellectual
development of his children. In particular he accompanied them through
their school-days with benign understanding and encouraging interest. As
he did for his elder son, he also prepared a short sketch for Heinrich of his
first four years at school in Munich. In it we read:

On 4 September 1906 Heinrich was enrolled in the first class of the

Cathedral School (Salvatorplatz) (at our request, instead of the Ama-
lienschule). On 6 September lessons began with an entirely new syllabus
(Kerchenstein). . . . Heinrich was often ill (glandular fever, measles,
pneumonia, mumps) 160 absences, but caught up everything by lessons
with Miss Rudelt and passed with grade of II, total marks 25. Holidays in
Oberaudorf. . . .’

That Heinrich’s health was not in a very good state is not only demon-
strated in these notes, but also in information available from later years.
With discipline Heinrich overcame his weak physical constitution, from
which he suffered all his life, and which gave his masseur Felix Kersten
astonishing influence on him during the Second World War. This is prob-
ably also the source of his keen interest in his own sporting achievements,
for which he set himself standards he was barely capable of achieving.
As early as the end of the second year of primary school Heinrich
Himmler was constantly changed from school to school, which made
learning difficult for him. After only two years at the Cathedral School in
Munich he moved in 1908 to the Amalienschule, which he attended until
the end of the fourth year and then in 1910 he went to the King William
100 Heinrich Himmler

Grammar School. In 1913 he followed his father, who was transferred to be

deputy headmaster of the grammar school there, to Landshut, the regional
capital of Lower Bavaria.
Alfred Andersch considers it worthy of reflection that Heinrich Himmler
‘did not grow up, like the man to whose hypnotism he succumbed, in the
lower working class, but in a family from the old bourgeoisie educated in
the humanities.’ This leads him to ask sadly: ‘Do the humanities then not
protect us from anything? This question is capable of throwing one into
despair’.*
What is certain is that the upbringing and education which Himmler
enjoyed to such a great extent in the grammar schools in Munich and
Landshut, more than almost any other leader in the National Socialist
regime, are not an unconditional guarantee of a secure system of humane
values, do not necessarily provide a bulwark against political manipulation
and being led ideologically astray. This then poses the question as to which
intellectual and ideological influences Heinrich Himmler, a model pupil in
every respect, was exposed to at grammar school, and, since his father
himself represented part of this institution, in his parental home as well.
The type of grammar school which Himmler attended in both Munich
and Landshut, was the normal and most common form of secondary school
at the time in Bavaria. It emphasised the study of the language and
literature of classical antiquity, religious and moral education and the
‘cultivation of the German mother tongue’. A single uniform educational
goal had been formulated for ‘secondary schools’ in general — that is ‘to
raise children to be morally upstanding on the basis of religion, . . . . to
provide a higher general education imbued with a patriotic spirit, . . . . and
to enable them to think independently’.’
Harry Graf Kessler has accurately pin-pointed the ‘basic failing’ of the
grammar schools at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of
the twentieth: ‘From the ideal of the humanistic being, carrying the whole
of humanity and its culture in his head and heart . . . there remained only
the enormous hard work necessary to take in the vast amount of
material’.'°
In the intellectual currents, tensions and battles of the age, the school
was also the ideological stage for the interpretation of German history and
for the ‘rightful claim’ to German greatness and economic prosperity. The
combative nature of the movement for German unity and the desire to be a
world power, were, as was taught in history and German lessons, the basis
for, and characteristic of, the enormous vitality of the German Nation.
Where was there any room here for political humanity? Prominence was
not accorded to what European peoples had in common, but what divided
them; they did not teach the senselessness of war, but war as an ind:spens-
able element of progress and national self-affirmation.
Heinrich Himmler’s father did not see war, any more than his son
 Josef Ackermann 101

Heinrich did, as contradictory to the refining and spiritualisation of cul-

tured life and of Christian humanity. The father called on all his contacts in
his vigorous support of his son Heinrich’s desire for a career as an officer,
for which he was, in fact, still too young. Gebhard Himmler was even
ready to set aside his son’s schooling to this end. In a questionnaire on his
son’s application for entry into the officer corps the father made the
following remark on June 1917: ‘The father of the applicant would prefer
that his son completed his education at grammar school before entering the
army, with a place reserved in the regiment. But if it should not be possible
to continue his studies after reaching the age of seventeen (because of the
continuance of the war or auxiliary service), then he would rather his son
entered the army at once.’ He adds as an explanation for the request for
admission: ‘My son Heinrich has a strong desire to make a life-long career
as an infantry officer’.'’ In some respects, his agreeing to his son pursuing a
military career is also a logical consequence of his activities up till then at
the school at which he was headmaster and which his son attended. As can
be seen from the chronicle of the grammar school in Landshut, in the
school year 1914/15 alone he gave eight lectures, the purpose of which was
to make the hearts and minds of the pupils more aware of ‘the great events
of the age’. Even in 1929 he was talking of the First World War as a ‘Holy
War’.”?
There is scarcely any doubt that Heinrich Himmler absorbed this false
pathos about the nature and necessity of war, which was nonetheless
perfectly normal at the beginning of World War One, from both the school
and his father, and adopted the glorifying attitude to war which is so hard
for us to understand today. From the age of fourteen until the end of his
life Himmler tried to endow conflict and war with a higher meaning and to
see the plan of God’s providence in them.
This can be proved beyond any doubt from the diaries he kept sporadi-
cally and from his notes on the books he read: war as the ‘greatest time of
maturation’ and battle as a ‘general principle of life’ become for Himmler
fixed points in his philosophy of life, interwoven into his Social Darwinist
ideology. At an SS initiation ceremony in 1936 he reflected on the meaning
of battle for his SS: ‘Many regard us SS men... as a hard-hearted
company’, said Himmler, referring to the reputation his SS had as a
terrorist organisation. ‘That is right. We are a hard-hearted community;
for we emerged from battle and we exist solely for battle, not just today,
but as is our belief and will, for centuries and perhaps for millenia’.'°
Sadly Himmler mourns the fact that, although he did complete the cadet
training course in 1918, he did not take any active part in the events of the
war and therefore could not now gather any experience at the front.
Instead he offered his services to various paramilitary leagues which were
fighting against a ‘Marxist dictatorship’, democracy and the ‘disgraceful
Treaty of Versailles’. He finally ended up in the Reichskriegsflagge league
102 Heinrich Himmler

and became its standard bearer. His later appointment by Hitler as the
commander in chief of the replacement army, and of the Upper Rhine
army groups in particular, in autumn 1944, fulfilled Himmler’s dream of a
lifetime. It came as no surprise to long-serving officers in Hitler’s army that
he was a total failure in this office, because they had cast doubt, probably
correctly, on Himmler’s military competence from the outset.
We should return, however, to Himmler’s youth, during which the
foundations of his ideology were presumably laid down. What were the
positive norms of behaviour which Gebhard Himmler wanted to inculcate
into his son, which characteristics did he intend to develop in him? An
answer to this question can only be gained indirectly from pronouncements
made by Gerhard Himmler about people he was close to. In an obituary he
wrote for a league comrade he singled out his outstanding intellect and his
principled, distinguished, pleasant nature, his sensitive soul, his wide read-
ing, philanthropy and helpfulness. ‘But above all else he loved his German
Fatherland,’ Gebhard Himmler wrote:

The youth often spoke enthusiastically with us, his friends, about its
greatness, might and magnificence; the man was often fearful for its
growth, blossoming and prosperity; for this Fatherland alone he hurled
himself again and again into the battle against petty-bourgeois dullness
and philistinism, in order to awaken in German youth a sense of under-
standing of their political duties and tasks, and then, when his Father-
land was under threat, he went forth into the Holy Fight, he wept for his
Fatherland’s misfortune, but he died on a bed of suffering with an
unshakable belief in a revival of Germany’s might — a true, a whole
German man; a model for us all but especially for our youth!’*

This bombastic patriotism may be scarcely surprising from the mouth of

a former tutor to a prince. But it is worth establishing that there were no
anti-semitic undertones among Himmler’s system of ideas, feelings, charac-
ter traits and values — even as late as the year 1929. His son Heinrich’s
anti-semitic attitude certainly did not grow from the intellectual soil of his
parents’ house, but was inflamed later among like-minded German-
volkisch (populist ethnic) comrades. It is possible to follow the path along
which he developed into an anti-semite in Heinrich Himmler’s reading list,
which he kept from 1919 until 1934 and embellished with copious commen-
taries; initially he was very moderate, later however he became more and
more radical.'°
A desire to regard Heinrich Himmler as a stupid, stolid person fits the
clichéd view of him which is often invoked but is nonetheless incorrect.
‘In spite of his somewhat tangled impenetrability, Himmler had a powerful
intellect’, as Hallgarten says of his school friend.'® Himmler the school-boy
was always among the best in the class. A grade of ‘very good’ was often
 Josef Ackermann 103

found in his reports. He was particularly interested in history, but he also

brought home very good grades in German and the classical languages,
Greek and Latin. In the school year 1913-14 his class teacher at the
grammar school in Landshut, Professor Hillgartner, entered the following
comment about him in the ‘confidential school report’: ‘Apparently a very
gifted pupil, who by dint of tireless hard work, burning ambition and lively
participation in lessons, achieved the best results in the class’.’’ His Leaving
Certificate, which was awarded on 15 July 1919, from the grammar school
in Landshut, is adorned by the comment: ‘During his time in this institu-
tion he has always displayed good manners and showed conscientiousness
and diligence’. He was assessed with a grade of ‘very good’ in religious
education, German, Latin, Greek and history and ‘good’ in mathematics
and physics.'* He passed the final diploma exams in agriculture, too, which
he sat at the end of the summer term 1922 at the Technical High School in
Munich, where he had been studying agriculture since 18 October 1919,
with an overall mark of 1.7 — ‘very good’. The reports on his practical
classes in the various branches of agriculture stress his enthusiasm, dili-
gence, conscientiousness, enterprise and pleasant personality.’
His attempts to enter active politics at the beginning of the twenties, too,
show him to be a zealous enthusiast, who could not get over the fact that
the political order under which he had grown up had finally come to an
end. We know from his brother Gebhard that the ‘stab in the back legend’,
according to which the victorious German army was betrayed by the
Marxists, had a place in his world of ideas.*° In the various paramilitary
leagues he gradually assumed a more and more radical position. He took
part in the 1923 Hitler Putsch as the standard bearer of the Reichskriegs-
flagge league, which had the task of occupying the entrance to the Bavarian
War Ministry.
A short time later, on 25 January 1924, he wrote to a friend, “The future
is of course One great big question mark, but I am optimistic that we will
fight through and reach a quiet place, somewhere a man can build the
foundations of his life, even though we will all as a rule be fighters, then as
now’.*) Himmler’s professional situation was anything but rosy in those
years. He could not find a suitable permanent job and was consequently
thinking of accepting a job abroad.
On 23 November 1921 he noted in his diary: “Today I cut an article about
emigration to Peru out of the paper. Where will I be driven to go — Spain,
Turkey, the Baltic, Russia, Peru? I often think about it. In two years I will
no longer be in Germany, if God wills it, unless there is conflict and war
again and I am a soldier.’
How greatly circumstances had brought about a change in Himmler’s
ideas from his earlier attitudes is demonstrated in a passage from the letter
of 25.1.1924 already quoted, in which he conjured up the images of the
enemy against whom he and people who thought like him wanted to fight
104 Heinrich Himmler

‘as soldiers and confident supporters of the vdlkisch cause’, that is ‘against
the hydra of the black and red International, of Jews and Ultramontanism,
of freemasons and Jesuits, of the spirit of commerce and cowardly bougo-
sie [sic]’.*°
Even before Himmler got to know Hitler personally he was already in
contact with Ernst R6hm. A meeting with him in January 1922 is noted in
Himmler’s diary. Himmler gave his first speech for the Party on 24 Febru-
ary 1924 for the ‘National Socialist Freedom Movement’ in a village in
Lower Bavaria near Kelheim. He was discovered as a ‘Party speaker’ by
Heinrich Gartner, leader of the Party branch at Schleissheim. Himmler
was one of the first to buy Hitler’s Mein Kampf. After reading the first
volume he ascertained ‘there’s an incredible amount of truth in it’. But that
he was at this point still very critical of Hitler is shown in a further comment:
‘The first chapters on his own youth contain many weak points’.~
He was active in the National Socialist Party from 1925. He became
Gregor Strasser’s secretary, deputy Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria and
Oberpfalz and in 1926 deputy Gauleiter of Upper Bavaria and Swabia and
deputy National Director for Propaganda. In 1927 Hitler nominated him
Deputy Leader of the SS and in 1929 Reichsfiihrer — SS. In this function he
was subordinate to the Chief of Staff of the SA, Ernst Rohm, until the
latter was brutally eliminated; a process in which Himmler was massively
involved. On the basis of its service in the suppression of the ‘Ro6hm
Putsch’ the SS was elevated on 20 July 1934 to the status of an independent
organisation within the NSDAP, which meant an extraordinary upgrading
of Himmler’s position.
The real history of the SS began when it was taken over by Heinrich
Himmler in January 1929. Himmler wanted to build up an organisation
which would fuse together into a single political and philosophical entity an
Order based on race, a new ‘aristocracy of blood and soil’. The aim was to
create a ‘new type of human being by means of education and selection’,
who would be capable of ‘mastering all the great tasks of the future’.* That
meant the ruthless, brutal extermination of the Jews, torturing and killing
in the concentration camps and death camps, the brutal persecution of
dissidents and those who to his mind did not resist the superior enemy
forces strongly enough. ‘Everything that opens its mouth’, Himmler wrote
in 1944, ‘must be shot without compunction’.*° Himmler implanted new
norms of behaviour into the young SS men, which robbed them of their
moral powers of judgement and replaced them with coldheartedness,
cruelty, impatience and an excessive, narrow group egoism. ‘I know,’ he
said in a speech in 1935, referring to the fear of the SS, ‘that there are many
people in Germany who feel unwell at the sight of this black tunic; we
understand this and do not expect to be loved by all that many’.?’ Pride
instead of shame at the unpopularity of his troops is evident from Himm-
 Josef Ackermann 105

ler’s speech. He practically announces it publicly: ‘We are brave enough to

be unpopular, we are brave enough to be hard-hearted and unfeeling!’
‘Who,’ writes Nietzsche, ‘will ever achieve anything, if he does not feel
within himself the power and the will to inflict great pain? To be able to
suffer is the least of it: weak women and slaves often achieve mastery in
this. But not to be defeated by inner distress and uncertainty if you inflict
great suffering and hear the cry of this suffering — that is great, that is
part of greatness.’ This questionable aphorism could also have been in
Himmler’s speech, for this was precisely the mental attitude he wanted to
inculcate in his SS.** How could his SS members have committed mass
murders of such unimaginable dimensions without this consciousness of
being an elite, indeed without feeling that they were acting ‘on the orders
of providence’.
This mentality is also revealed in Himmler’s speech at Posen in October
1943: ‘The extermination of the Jewish people’, he explained to his SS
generals:

is one of those things which is easily said .. . . ‘the Jewish people is

being exterminated’, some Party member says. . . . Of all those who
speak like that, none has watched, none has seen it through. Most of you
will know what it is like to see a hundred corpses lying together, or 500
or 1000. To have seen this through, and, if we disregard exceptional
cases of human weakness, to have remained decent, that has made us
hard. This is a glorious page of our history which never has been and
never will be written. . . .7°

This document is monstrous not only because of the statements it con-

tains, but also in the way it strips the mask from the mental attitude of
those who gave the orders in the Third Reich and also of those who obeyed
them. None of those present saw any need to object to Himmler’s speech
or found the courage to do so. And these were SS generals who could have
risked saying something. However one should not underestimate the de-
gree of degradation and perversion of thought which had already been
achieved in the SS by means of constantly hammering home doctrines with
pseudo-priestly authority. The SS Order’s total claim on its members left
no room for individual philosophies. “The guideline for us in our struggle is
neither the Old or the New Testament in the Bible, but the political
testament of Adolf Hitler.’*°
Himmler consciously chose the religiously loaded term ‘Order’ for his
community, at the centre of which was Hitler, the new ‘saviour’. From his
initial reservations about Hitler, Himmler built up an image of him during
the course of the years, which bore all the marks of a mystical elevation.
The altars of the SS were copied from those of the catholic church in their
106 Heinrich Himmler

external form only. At their centre however was not Christ, but Hitler, not
the cross but the swastika. The christian cross of exaggerated proportions
which had hung in Himmler’s parents’ apartment, and under which
Himmler had grown up, was now declared an enemy symbol. ‘We must
finish with Christianity’, Himmler proclaimed, copying his ‘god’, Hitler.
‘This great plague which might attack us at some stage in our history.”*
The new faith under the sign of the swastika showed all the signs of being
on the opposite pole from Christianity. ‘Whoever has the swastika burning
in his heart hates all other crosses,’ wrote S. Sebecker.**
Himmler wanted to replace Christianity with a ‘proper religion and
morality’ which was to be derived from the ‘Germanic inheritance’. Ances-
tor worship, belief in immortality, the ‘blood and soil’ myth and the belief
in an omnipotent god were elements of the new belief. Ritualised holidays,
like that on the thousandth anniversary of the death of King Henry I, held
in Quedlinburg Cathedral in 1936, show the importance attached to his-
torical personalities and history in general, in Himmler’s new paganism.
Himmler himself probably felt that he was a reincarnation of Henry I.*°
Many of Hitler’s comments demonstrate that he did not share Himmler’s
mystical urges. He disowned efforts to ‘imitate a religion, in this idiotic,
ritualised way’ and pointed out that National Socialism was a ‘scientific
doctrine’.** He poured scorn on Himmler’s mystical ‘fantasies’: ‘What
nonsense! We have finally arrived in an era which has dispensed with all
mysticism, and now he’s starting at the beginning again. We might as well
have stayed with the church. To think I might one day be made an SS saint.
Just imagine it! I would turn in my grave.”*°
Rainer Zitelmann was right to conclude in his latest study on Hitler that
the latter’s philosophy can not, as is claimed in the literature, be seen as
‘antimodernism’. This is not only true of his conception of history, his
opinion of religion and its replacement by a neo-pagan cult, but also of his
ideology on ‘living space’ and race. For him, ‘living space’ was an economic
requirement; in his concept of race he believed that he ‘was on the firm
ground of assured ideological cognition’. In this sense Hitler must be
regarded — by his own lights — as being ‘entirely modern’.*°
This cannot be said at all of Himmler, whose ideology was to a large
extent shaped by irrationality. The ‘eternal marching orders’ he gave his SS
are an impressive example of this:

We have set off and are marching according to irrevocable laws along
that road into a distant future, as a National Socialist, soldierly order of
men selected for their Nordic antecedents, and as a sworn brotherhood
of that tribe, and we wish and believe that we will not merely be the
grandchildren who fought better, but, over and above that, the antece-
dents of the final dynasty necessary for the eternal life of the German.
Teutonic people.*’
 Josef Ackermann 107

Himmler reduced what SS members had to absorb down to a few points.

The most important of them was without doubt the National Socialist racial
doctrine. Nonetheless Himmler’s dictatorial onslaught on racial doctrine
met with universal derision. Even in the twenties he had followed the
publications of pseudo-scientific racial researchers with increasing interest,
like for example those of H.F.K. Gunther, which according to Himmler
strick up the ‘hymn of praise-to glorious Nordic blood’.*® The noblest thing
in the world for them was the Nordic race, for it alone was capable of
producing culture. Mixing of races and the drying-up of Nordic blood led
inevitably to the death of a people. Apparently this danger was increasing-
ly threatening the German people. This threat could only be avoided by
improving the Nordic substance of the race by means of a planned ‘breed-
ing programme’. Himmler: I hope we haven’t come too late!’*?
He went about improving the stock and taking in hand human ‘breeding’
with missionary zeal. He had been intensively concerned with breeding and
heredity as a student of agriculture, and so he firmly believed that the
methods which ensured success in plant and animal breeding would be
applicable to breeding humans. The SS supplied Himmler with his ‘human
material’. In a much-quoted speech from 1935 he describes the first,
exploratory steps in this unlikely terrain. ‘First of all, we, like a seedsman
who wants to develop a pure strain of a good old type which has been
hybridised and weakened, must first go over the field to select his stock, as
it is called; we began to sift out the humans who, according to their
external characteristics, were not considered to be of use in building up the
SS."*° He assigned the ‘selection process’ to a racial commission of the
Race and Settlement Headquarters (SS). Represented on the commission
were SS officers, experts on race and doctors. According to a catalogue of
criteria, the SS applicants were divided into five categories, which ex-
tended from the ‘pure Nordic’ group down to the group which was of
‘mixed race of non-European origin’. Only applicants in the first three
categories could be accepted. Alongside eye and hair colouring, a particu-
lar role in the selection of candidates for the SS was played by height and
the phenotypical measure of the degree of Nordic blood. Only those who
were at least 1.70m could guarantee to Himmler that they possessed
Nordic blood. The commission also gave marks for symmetry of build. In
addition, a proof of ancestry had to be provided: for an SS man as far back
as at least the year 1800, for an SS officer back to 1750.
By Himmler’s lights it would have been nonsensical to collect the ‘good
blood’ of men in his SS without making it bear fruit for future generations
in a breeding programme. To this end he issued an ‘Engagement and
Marriage order’ on 31 December 1931, according to which an SS man was
only allowed to marry if the Reichsftihrer — SS gave his consent. The
allocation of marriage permits was however dependent on an evaluation of
the racial and hereditary health characteristics of the marriage partner,
108 Heinrich Himmler

which was decided in the Race and Settlement Headquarters (SS). Himm-
ler knew, naturally, that he was exposing himself to ridicule with this
order. Nonetheless, imbued with the idea of having to save the Germanic
world from degeneration and destruction, he added prophetically: “The SS
is aware that it has taken a step of great significance with this decree.
Mockery, scorn and misunderstanding cannot touch us; the future belongs
to us.”*!
On 1.11.1935 he gave Hitler his precise ideas on the future form of the
SS. The document is interesting not just for its fanatical content but also
for the servility he showed towards Hitler:

I conveyed to the Fuhrer... my ideas that the SS should one day

become the German Samurai, by means of the planned procedure for
accepting new admissions: that at any time half or two thirds of those
newly admitted could be sons of SS families, in order to achieve a
filtering process, and at least one third must be from non SS families, so
that no good blood, destined for leadership, ever existed among this
people and was not utilised. The Fiihrer expressed his total agreement
and approval for the ideas sketched here. I also put the question from
the 100 Tenets to the Fiihrer: What is the SS? — The SS is a National
Socialist Order of men selected for their Nordic characteristics and a
sworn blood brotherhood. The Fihrer was also satisfied with this
formulation.**

The social revolution of the qualified agriculturalist and former district

leader of the Artam League, Heinrich Himmler, therefore began when he
became Reichsfiihrer — SS with a bundle of abstruse ideas derived from a
romanticised vision of history and a false interpretation of biology,
opposed to democracy, liberalism and religion, glorifying the Fuhrer prin-
ciple and a mercenary mentality, with a brutal hatred of the Jews and
finally with a dream of Arian Germanic world domination under the
leadership of a new caste of aristocrats. The aim of the Artam league was
to lead people out of the towns back onto the land, since the ‘racial
hygienists’ believed they detected a biological degeneration in city dwel-
lers. ‘Finding roots for people in the soil again’ was seen as a means of
restoring the nation to health and therefore the peasant’ lifestyle was put
forward as a prerequisite for the renewal and preservation of the nation.
These ideas, which Himmler adopted in full, led him to a ‘people
without space’ ideology. From this were derived the demands for ‘seizure
of land’ and colonial settlements in the East, which had as their conse-
quence the expulsion, enslavement and extermination of the resident popula-
tion. The sole justification for this, for Himmler as for Hitler, lay in the
principle that ‘might is right’. Himmler saw a basic law of nature in the
 Josef Ackermann 109

‘battle for existence’, and this also found its way into the philosophy of his
order. The meaning of such a battle was the destruction of everything weak
and inferior. Human beings were also subjected to this law of nature.
Within the meshes of the biological system man was to see himself again as
a beast of prey, who firmly rejected the tinsel of refined civilisation and the
intellect in order not to fall prey to degeneration. Sympathy cannot be
expected in a world like this, the threshold of inhibition about killing has
become lower. This is particularly clear in an observation Himmler made
on a trip to Kiev in 1942: ‘The Reichsftihrer — SS said that the social
question can only be solved by killing the other man, so that you get his
fields.’*°
By means of so-called racial sifting, Himmler wanted to select from the
subjected eastern lands those people who demonstrated the supposed
‘good blood’, that is to say ‘Germanic racial components’, in their heredity;
the other sections of the population were graded as inferior, even classified
as sub-human. The rules and regulations for the treatment of alien nations
in the East which he gave to his SS generals on the occasion of an SS
generals’ conference in Posen on 4 October 1943 show Himmler as a coldly
determined, evil, fanatical ideologue:

.. . Take care,’ he said to his SS generals, ‘that these sub-humans always

respect you, always have to look their superiors in the eye. It is the same
with animals. As long as it is looking its tamer in the eye, it does nothing.
With this approach we will always be dominant over the Slavs, with this
approach will be able to exploit the Russians. But not by any other
method.“

In agreement with Hitler he decreed that the people in the occupied

eastern territories had to be suppressed to the lowest level of culture. The
liberally educated Himmler, who had read Goethe and Schiller in his spare
time in the Twenties and had learnt Klopstock’s Odes by heart, had an
illustrated brochure produced in an edition of about four million copies
titled Der Untermensch (The Sub-Human). In it human thoughts and
feelings were brutally violated, by radically denying a large group of people
their humanity, their membership of the human race. ‘The sub-human,’ it
stated:

that creation of nature which is apparently identical biologically, with

hands, feet and a kind of brain, with eyes and a mouth, is in fact a quite
different, frightful creature, is only a stone’s throw away from humanity,
with human-looking features, but mentally, spiritually it is lower than
any animal; sub-human, nothing else! For not everything with a human
face is the same — woe to whoever forgets it!*
110 Heinrich Himmler

This pamphlet, which could be bought at every newsstand and was

translated into fourteen languages was corrected at least six times by
Himmler in his own hand. One may therefore conclude that the content by
and large corresponded to his own views and intentions.
The East was to be ‘cleared’ in order to create a colonial territory of
enormous size for the Germanic race. The outlines of this ‘teutonic,
pan-German Reich’ were described by Himmler thus: ‘After the Greater
German Reich comes the Germanic Reich, then the Germano-Gothic
Reich as far as the Urals and perhaps then even the Franco-Gothic Caro-
lingian Reich.’*°
There was repeated speculation about Hitler’s successor, after Hermann
Goering had largely lost his standing. Towards the end of the war this
debate reached an acute stage. Himmler seemed to be the potential succes-
sor with the best prospects, since, as was widely assumed, he stood highest
in his Fuhrer’s favour. Added to this was the fact that in comparison to
other competitors he had the largest power base at his disposal. At this
time he was, among other things, Chief of the SS and the Police, Minister
of the Interior and Commander of the Reserve Army. During a briefing at
the headquarters of the Military High Command on 27 Apnil 1945 Himm-
ler took Hitler’s place as a matter of course.
However Hitler construed his unauthorised offer of negotiations for a
cease-fire with the Western Allies as treason, expelled him from the Party
and relieved him of all his offices of state. His astonishing career had taken
Himmler to within a hairsbreadth of the highest office of state. His down-
fall was abrupt and, for him, a total surprise. ‘A traitor shall never succeed
me as Fihrer’, Hitler determined shortly before his death.*’
Hitler’s most ardent follower, who wore the motto ‘my honour is loyalty’
on his belt buckle, survived Hitler and his ‘betrayal’ of him by only about
three weeks. In a British prison he, like his Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, commit-
ted suicide.

NOTES

— . H. Kehrl, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich, (Dusseldorf, 1973) p. 361.

2. A. Speer, Der Sklavenstaat. Meine Auseinandersetzung mit der SS (Stuttgart,
1981) p.47.
3. G.W.F. Hallgarten, ‘Mein Mitschiiler Heinrich Himmler’, Germania Judaica.
1 (1960/61) part 2, p. 4.
4. Letter from G. Himmler dated 13.10.1900, BA, Nachlass Himmler.
5. Letter from the court administration Arnulf von Bayern dated 11.6.1917, BA,
Nachlass Himmler.
. J. Bernhardt, ‘Aus meiner Jugend’, Hochland, 53/6 (1961) p. 550f.
a . Personal, undated note by G. Himmler, BA, Nachlass Himmler.
 Josef Ackermann 111

. A. Andersch, Der Vater eines Mérders. Eine Schulgeschichte (Zurich, 1980) p.

136.
. M. Spindler, Bayerische Geschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich,
1974/75) p. 972 and 977f.
. Quoted in P.E. Schramm, Neun Generationen, vol. II (Gottingen, 1964) p.
448.
. Questionnaire dated 26.6.1917, BA, Nachlass Himmler.
. Philisterzeitung der Studentenbindung Apollo, Miinchen, 53/2 (1929).
. Himmler’s speech at the marriage of SS Major Deutsch, 2 April 1936, BA, NS
19/1092.
. Philisterzeitung, as above.
. J. Ackermann, Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe (Gottingen, 1970) p. 25ff.
. G.W.F. Hallgarten, as above, p. 6.
. A. Beckembauer, ‘Musterschtiler und Massenmorder’ Verhandlungen des His-
torischen Vereins fiir Niederbayern, 95 (1969) p. 102.
. Himmler’s Higher School Leaving Certificate is published in: ibid., p. 97.
. Copies of certificates in BA, Nachlass Himmler.
. G. Himmler, Skizzen und Materialen zu einem Lebensbild Heinrich Himmlers,
typescript, 14.3.1954 (Privately owned).
. Copy of a letter from Himmler dated 25.1.1924, BA, NS26/1222.
. Himmler’s diary, BA.
. Ibid.
. Himmler’s reading list, 1919 to 1934, BA, Nachlass Himmler.
. J. Ackermann, as above, p. 104.
. H. Heiber, Reichsfiihrer! Briefe an und von Himmler (Stuttgart, 1968) p. 274.
. H. Himmler, Die Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation
(Munich, 1936) p. 29.
. J. Ackermann, as above, p. 123ff.
. Himmler’s speech at the SS generals’ conference in Posen, 4.10.1943, IMT,
vol. XXIX, p. 148.
. J. Ackermann, Himmler, as above, p. 40ff.
. Himmler’s speech at the Haus der Flieger, Berlin, in: B.F. Smith, A.F.
Peterson, Heinrich Himmler. Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945 pneictury a. M.,
1974) p. 159.
. Quoted in J. Neuhausel, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz (Munich, 1946) p. 10.
. J. Ackermann, Hininler. as above, 60ff.
. R. Zitelmann, Hitler. Selbstverstindnis eines Revolutionars (Stuttgart, 1987)
p.339.
. Speer, Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1969) p. 108.
. R. Zitelmann, Hitler, as above, p. 342.
. H. Himmler, Die Schutzstaffel, as above, p. 531.
. See especially the commentary in Himmler’s reading list, as above.
. Ibid.
. H. Himmler, Die Schutzstaffel, as above, p. 31.
. J. Ackermann, Himmler, as above, p. 262f.
. Himmler’s note, 1.11.1935, in the author’s private archive.
. J. Ackermann, Himmler, as above, p. 273.
. Himmler’s speech in Posen, as above, p. 124.
. Der Reichsfiihrer SS, SS Headquarters, Der Untermensch (Berlin, 1942).
. Filed comment of R. Brandt on Himmler’s conversation at the lunch table,
13.9.1943, BA, NS19/441.
. J. von Lang, Der Sekretdr. Martin Bormann: Der Mann, der Hitler beherrschte
(Stuttgart, 1977) p. 334.
112 Heinrich Himmler

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Of all the abundant source material about Heinrich Himmler, the most important
holdings are in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz. The ‘Nachlass Himmler’ and the file on
the ‘Persénlicher Stab Reichsfiihrer-SS’ are particularly useful. Alongside the
sources scattered in countless court-files (especially in the Nuremberg Trials, some
of which have been published) and other publications, there are only a few books
of published documents specialising in Himmler. Among these are H. Heiber (ed.),
Briefwechsel. Briefe an und von Himmler (Stuttgart, 1968), which has a well-chosen
sample of letters which Himmler wrote or received. B.F. Smith and A.F. Peterson
(eds), Heinrich Himmler. Geheimreden 1933 bis 1945 und andere Ansprachen
(Frankfurt a.M., 1974) is a worthwhile publication containing Himmler’s important
speeches. J.C. Fest wrote the very informative foreword. Of the books which
appeared before 1945, the following are especially illuminating: H. Himmler, Die
Schutzstaffel als antibolschewistische Kampforganisation (Munich, 1936); by the
same author, Rede des Reichsftihrers im Dom zu Quedlinburg am 2. Juli 1936
(Berlin, 1936). The pamphlet published by the SS Headquarters of the
Reichsfiihrer-SS, Der Untermensch (Berlin, 1942) is a basic source for research on
Himmler.

Secondary Literature

Although Himmler was a central figure in the Third Reich, there is still no
comprehensive biography of him which meets academic standards. The account by
H. Fraenkel and R. Manvell, Himmler. Kleinbiirger und Massenmorder (Frankfurt
a.M., 1965) is easy to read, reliable and intended for a wide audience. It is based on
studies of primary sources and interviews with contemporary witnesses and comes
to a balanced conclusion about Himmler and his policies. J. Ackermann, Himmler
als Ideologe (Gottingen, 1970) discusses Himmler’s ideology and how it translated
into policy. In the process it touches on strands from intellectual history which give
access to Himmlér’s philosophy. A documentary appendix contains a series of basic
sources for Himmler’s ideology. Himmler’s childhood and youth are the subject of
B.F. Smith’s book: Heinrich Himmler 1900-1926. Sein Weg in den deutschen
Faschismus (Munich, 1979). Among other things he assesses Himmler’s diaries.
The following are indispensable for any work on Himmler; the detailed studies by
H. Hohne, Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf. Die Geschichte der SS (Gutersloh,
1967); E. Kogon, Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager
(Frankfurt a.M., 1946) and B. Wegener, Hitlers Politische Soldaten: Die Waffen-SS
1933-1945 (Paderborn, 1988), which also deals intensively with Himmler.
F. Kersten, Totenkopf und Treue. Heinrich Himmler ohne Uniform (Hamburg,
no date) and A. Besgen, Der stille Befehl. Medizinalrat Kersten, Himmler und das
Dritte Reich (Munich, 1960) give an interesting insight into Himmler’s everyday life
and into his thinking during the time of the Second World War. The book by A.
Wykes, Reichsfiihrer SS Himmler (Munich, 1981), in the ‘Moewig Dokumentation’
series, is of no academic value because of the dubious and/ or false claims it makes.
11 Adolf Hitler: The Fuhrer
Rainer Zitelmann

Is ‘National Socialism without Hitler’ Possible, or could Hitler have been

replaced by any other great man? Would the World War and The ‘Final
Solution’ have happened, we might ask, if Hitler had been assassinated in
1938 and Goering had succeeded him? Or is it completely impossible to
conceive of the ‘polycratic’ system of the Third Reich without the unifying
figure of Hitler at its centre? These and other similar questions have often
been asked, but the answers remain speculative, regardless of whether they
judge Hitler’s role in the Third Reich to be prominent or more limited. Of
course, no-one knows what course history would have taken without
Hitler. A historian cannot make reliable statements about how (different)
it might have been; he can only attempt to reconstruct the actual events.
If we confine ourselves to this, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that Hitler had a position of overwhelming power in the Third Reich and
the Nazi movement. Although after the liquidation of the SA leadership
and the leaders of the conservative opposition on 30 June 1934, Hitler
united more powers in his own hands than almost any other state leader in
modern times, and although in formal terms, after the unification of the
offices of President and Chancellor, there was literally no longer any office
which Hitler was legally obliged to answer to, nonetheless he did not really
rule alone, any more than any other dictator.
His rule was based on the suppression of political opposition by terror-
ism and on the support of an overwhelming majority of Germans. Over
and above this, it was also built on the rivalries between the leaders of the
Third Reich and the institutions they represented. The ‘polycratic’ struc-
ture of the Third Reich on one hand, and the ‘monocratic’ character of
Hitler’s rule on the other, were two sides of the same coin: the permanent
conflict between the leaders of the Nazi system made it possible for the
Fuhrer to play his role as a universally accepted unifying figure and final
authority. Of course his power was also limited by this ‘institutional anar-
chy’, but even more by the circumstance that he had to depend to a large
extent for his support on the old elites, which he had set out to abolish.
Added to this was Hitler’s own specific conception of the role of leader,
and his highly contradictory personality, which often made him avoid
decisions. This has even led some historians to describe Hitler as ‘in many
respects a weak dictator’ (Hans Mommsen). However he remained indis-
putably the final arbiter. And above all else: power and influence in the
Fiihrer’s state were derived not least from access to Hitler, and whether
one was able to get a hearing from him and win his favour. Simply having

113
114 Adolf Hitler
access to Hitler was often of greater importance than formal positions of
power, which were often in any case imprecisely defined or overlapped
with the powers of others. Conversely: if one ever incurred Hitler’s dis-
pleasure this resulted in a rapid loss of power and influence. The careers of
prominent Nazis described in this book give emphatic proof of this.
As these introductory remarks demonstrate, it is not possible to give a
single meaningful response to the question of Hitler’s importance to
National Socialism. Theoretical constructs and generalised pronounce-
ments will not take us any further forward; this is better achieved through
the observation of concrete instances of decision-making. Over and above
this it is always necessary to keep the importance of Hitler’s philosophical
ideas in view, the content and premises of which were seen not just by him,
but also by many National Socialists, as binding rules for their actions.
So who was this man, whose name is, for posterity as it was for his
contemporaries, a synonym for National Socialism?
Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in the small Austrian town of
Braunau am Inn. If we accept his own reminiscences in Mein Kampf and
later in Table Talk, his childhood and youth were shaped by violent
conflicts with authority figures. He fought with his father, because he — a
customs official — wanted his son to become a civil servant too. Adolf,
however, dreamed of the carefree life of an artist. He found the idea of not
being able to be in control of his own time and of ‘ever having to sit in an
office like a serf’’ unbearable. The conflict with his father continued at
school. Hitler told later of heated confrontations with his teachers, whom
he embroiled in arguments during lessons.
After the death of his father (in 1903 at the age of sixty-five) Hitler
applied twice for admission to the Academy of Arts in Vienna, but was
turned down. Hitler lived in Vienna from 1908 until 1913. He reports that
it was here that the basis of his later philosophy evolved, a philosophy
characterised by a hatred of Marxists, Jews and the bourgeoisie. In May
1913 Hitler left Vienna and moved in Munich. He was there when the First
World War broke out. Although he had avoided military service in the
Austrian Army, he now came forward as a volunteer. Like so many of his
contemporaries, he too was shaped by the experience of the ‘popular
community in the trenches’, where there were apparently no longer any
distinctions of class, and the personal bravery of individuals was all that
mattered.
After being blinded by poison gas he was taken to a military field
hospital in Pasewalk. It was there that he heard of the revolution and the
proclamation of the republic. Hitler looked for those responsible for the
defeat. The anti-semitism and anti-marxism he had already developed in
Vienna made him receptive to the accusations of guilt widespread in
Germany at that time: the Jews and the ‘November criminals’, so it was
said, were responsible for the defeat.
 Rainer Zitelmann 115

Characteristic of Hitler were, first of all, the radicalism and exclusivity

with which he put forward all his opinions, and then, secondly, the way he
attempted to find a ‘rational’ basis for his views and shape them into a
self-contained, coherent view of life, offering solutions to all its problems.
Feelings which only caused unease in other people drove him to despair.
Hitler took a more radical view than many of his contemporaries of real or
imagined grievances. And even his prejudices, which to us appear to be
highly irrational, were concrete truths for him, or at the very least they
appeared to be reliable insights and incontrovertible truths. In Hitler’s
earliest surviving political document these characteristics are clear. In a
letter written on 16 September 1919 he stressed that anti-semitism as a
political movement should not be driven by ‘moments of emotion, but by
the recognition of facts’. Anti-semitism based on emotions would lead in
the end to pogroms, while ‘rational anti-semitism’ must lead to a planned
and legal battle against the ‘privileges of the Jews’ and their abolition. ‘But
its final aim,’ Hitler wrote, ‘must steadfastly remain the complete removal
of the Jews’.
When Hitler wrote these lines he was still an intelligence agent in an
‘educational section’ in the German army. In this capacity he was entrusted
on 12 September with the task of visiting the convention of a group calling
itself the German Workers’ Party (DAP) and later the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party. The DAP was a small insignificant splinter group.
As delegates demanded the secession of Bavaria from the German state,
Hitler took the floor and violently attacked the previous speaker. The
party chairman, Drexler, was enthusiastic about Hitler’s rhetorical abili-
ties. A few weeks later Hitler joined the party and was soon its most
important propaganda spokesman.
The polemics in Hitler’s speeches were directed against the Treaty of
Versailles, which muzzled Germany in foreign affairs, and he also casti-
gated the ‘November criminals’ who had thrown Germany into a state of
misery. The views Hitler expressed to his small, but constantly growing
audience, were not unusual for that time. He was putting into words what
many people thought and felt.
But much of what he said also sounded new and many contemporaries
were unsure of what to make of this man and his National Socialist Party.
Many did not take him at all seriously. Others thought he was a capitalist
lackey, a reactionary or a monarchist. However they were wrong. Hitler
was always violently opposed to the right-wing reactionaries, whose main
slogan was the restoration of the monarchy; ‘One should not imagine that
Nationalism is given expression by demanding or wishing that the old flags
should fly again, that the old authoritarian state should be resurrected, that
the monarchy should be reinstated or that the old circumstances should
return in any way.”
Hitler’s antipathy to the November revolution had absolutely nothing to
116 Adolf Hitler

do with the fact that it had sealed the fate of the monarchy in Germany.
From his later remarks as ‘Fihrer’ we know that in many respects he
actually regarded the ‘men of November’, whom he had abused, in a
positive light.
Even in his early speeches it is noticeable that his violent, hard-line
position is not simply directed against Jews and Communists, but above all
against bourgeois forces. Hitler accused the bourgeoisie of antisocial atti-
tudes, greed for profit and dull materialism. By opposing the justified
demands of the workers, he said, the bourgeoisie had driven the working
class into the arms of the marxist parties. Proletarian class consciousness
was simply an understandable reaction to bourgeois class arrogance. The
bourgeoisie had falsified and discredited the idea of the nation by falsely
identifying its own egoistical class interests with national interests.
Hitler did not see himself as either a right or left wing politician. In an
account of a speech delivered in October 1920 it is stated:

Now Hitler turned on the right and the left. The Nationalists on the right
lacked social awareness, the socialists on the left lacked national aware-
ness. He appealed to right wing parties — If you want to be national
parties, then come down to the level of the people and away with all your
class arrogance! To the left he called —- You, who are true revolutionar-
ies, come over to us and fight with us for all of our people!*

Hitler proclaimed his ambition of abolishing the extremes of bourgeois

nationalism and proletarian socialism in a new movement, which ‘in oppos-
ing the two extremes was itself the most extreme’.° In September 1922 he
said, “The disinherited of the left and right must come together in the ranks
of us National Socialists.’° In his speeches Hitler turned violently against
the bourgeois parties and their slogan of ‘law and order’. ‘Our party must
be revolutionary in character, for the condition of law and order only
means that we continue to preserve the existing pig-sty.’’
Hitler refused to participate in elections, since he feared that the party
might lose its character as a revolutionary movement by doing so. When in
the summer of 1921 some of the leaders were conducting talks about
alliances with like-minded groups, Hitler pointedly left the party and
issued an ultimatum, making his return dependent on its acceptance. In his
letter of resignation he stated: ‘I hereby give an explanation of the reason
which made me take this step. The National Socialist Workers’ Party, as
far as I understand it, was originally formed as a revolutionary national
movement. Accordingly it is based on extreme vdlkisch [populist ethnic]
principles and rejects all parliamentary tactics .. .’.° These and other
principles had been violated — for example the unalterability of its policies.
Hitler demanded the position of senior chairman ‘with dictatorial powers’
 Rainer Zitelmann 117

for himself. His conditions were accepted at an extraordinary meeting of

members of the NSDAP on 29 July. |
Hitler’s biographers have interpreted this action as an expression of his
unquenchable thirst for power. Against this interpretation is the fact that
Hitler had already been offered the chairmanship of the party on a number
of occasions, but he had turned it down. But nonetheless there is already a
mode of behaviour evident here which determined Hitler’s actions in many
later crises within the Party and in domestic politics. Confronted by a
situation which he felt to be dangerous or complex, again and again the
expansion of his own power base seemed to him to provide the only
escape. The fact that he succeeded in overcoming difficult problems in this
way increased his confidence in this specific means of crisis management.
In most cases these crises were not started by Hitler, far less were they part
of a long-term plan, even if the end result, which was always the expansion
of his personal power, might suggest this.
The tactic of violent revolution, which Hitler had fought for so vehe-
mently in the crisis of July 1921, was in ruins two years later. When tension
between Bavaria and the German state intensified in autumn 1923, Hitler
attempted to exploit the situation and to win power by means of a coup.
On 8 November he proclaimed ‘the national revolution’ in the Munich
Burgerbraukeller and declared the government to be deposed. But his
putsch quickly collapsed. Hitler had to face charges of high treason and
was sentenced to five years imprisonment. In prison he wrote the first
volume of his political manifesto, Mein Kampf, in which he systemised his
philosophy and set down its goal with astonishing openness.
Hitler’s ideas were shaped by the concept of the ‘eternal struggle’, which
was based on Social Darwinism. According to this, nature, but also society
and relationships between peoples, was dominated by a constant conflict
between the strong and the weak, in which the bold and courageous had to
win and the cowardly and weak were defeated. Starting from this Social
Darwinist philosophy, Hitler developed his view of history, which was
based on the following considerations: the course of history was deter-
mined by the eternal opposition between (limited) living space (Lebens-
raum) and the (increasing) numbers of people. At a certain stage of
development an imbalance between these factors would come about. Both
emigration and birth control, and an economic policy based on exports,
which aimed to import food and raw materials of which there were short-
ages in exchange for manufactured goods, were attempts to resolve this
contradiction which in the long term were condemned to failure.
Above all, Hitler took issue with the strategy of the ‘peaceful economic
conquest of the world’. He considered this possibility to be illusionary,
because competition with other countries caused by increases in exports
would finally lead to war, as the First World War had demonstrated. In
118 Adolf Hitler

common with many of his contemporaries he regarded Anglo-German

trade rivalry, triggered by German economic expansion, as the real cause
of the war. ‘It was worse than senseless to be provoked by it — but it was
entirely in keeping with our own harmlessness — that Britain one day took
the liberty of countering our peaceful activities with the brutality of a
violent egoist’, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf.’
In addition there was a narrowly delimited policy of economic expan-
sion, since the industrialisation of hitherto underdeveloped countries
would lead to a decline in Germany’s export markets. In a speech delivered
on 6 August 1927, in which Hitler developed his theory of the contradiction
between the number of people and the base for feeding them, he discussed
the various possibilities for bringing the two factors back into balance.

For there is still one possibility, and that is the export of goods.
However this possibility is deceptive, for this industrialisation is not just
happening in Germany. Germany is not alone in being forced to indus-
trialise — it is just the same in Britain, France and Italy. And recently
America has joined the ranks of these éompetitors, and the most difficult
part is not the so-called increases in production, as people are always
saying here, the most difficult part is increasing sales. That is the prob-
lem in the world today, with everyone industrialising and competing for
markets.

Germany’s economic difficulties were bound to keep getting worse:

firstly because world competition increases from year to year and

secondly because the remaining states to whom we previously exported
goods are themselves industrialising and because the shortage of raw
materials puts us in a less and less favourable position at the outset, as
against other states and peoples on this earth.'°

This argument is of fundamental importance for understanding Hitler’s

philosophy. For it was from the impossibility of solving the contradiction
between ‘living space’ and population by means of an economic policy
directed towards exports that Hitler derived the demand that the German
people must fight to conquer new ‘living space’. The reasons for his
demand, as set out above, remained the same in later years and are found
unchanged in his talks to leading members of the armed forces in the
thirties as well as in the speeches and essays of the ‘Era of Struggle’.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that it was not simply a question of getting
rid of the Treaty of Versailles and restoring the 1914 borders, since that
would not solve the problem of ‘living space’. He also rejected the con-
tinuation of colonial policy. Germany must wage war against Russia to
conquer new ‘living space’. Hitler did not accept any moral reservations
 Rainer Zitelmann 119

about such a policy: state boundaries were in any case only the expression
of current relative strength in the struggle between nations. He regarded
wars as being fundamentally justified if they were necessary to remove an
imbalance between ‘living space’ and population. In his Second Book,
published in 1928, Hitler writes:

People on impossible pieces of land, as long as they have sound lead-

ership, will basically always feel the need to expand their area of land,
and hence their ‘living space’. Later, unmotivated wars of conquest
developed out of this attempt to match ‘living space’ with the population
increase — the response to this is pacifism. The latter will disappear again
once war has stopped being an instrument of individuals or peoples
greedy for power or plunder, and once it has again become the weapon
of last resort with which a nation fights for its daily bread."

In Mein Kampf and the Second Book Hitler developed a concept of

alliances which were to create the foreign policy constellation which made
a war for the conquest of ‘living space’ in Russia possible. After the
experiences of World War One he wanted to avoid a repetition of war on
two fronts at all costs. Therefore he demanded that Germany should ally
itself with Britain and Italy and forget old differences and difficulties with
these countries. Hitler was especially keen for an alliance with Britain.
From the end of 1922 or the beginning of 1923 the idea of Anglo-German
cooperation was central to the alliance plans of his foreign policy.
However while Hitler was developing these ideas about the future direc-
tion of German foreign policy scarcely anyone was taking him seriously any
more. His political career seemed to have come to an end with the debacle
of 8 and 9 November. When he was released early from prison on proba-
tion on 20 December 1924, the Weimar Republic had entered the, phase
which today we call the ‘golden years’ and had taken the ground from
under the propaganda of the Communists. and National Socialists. The
NSDAP, which had been banned after the Putsch, was legalised again at
the beginning of 1925 and re-established by Hitler, but the internal state of
the Party was in chaos. Hitler’s first success was in purging the chaotic
situation within the Party and enforcing his claim to leadership, even if it
was not to remain undisputed in the years to come.
Hitler had learned a lesson from his failed Putsch: he was now in favour
of participation in elections, which he had so violently rejected before. He
considered that a violent revolution had no prospect of success, especially
in view of the evident stability of the political system. Hitler now declared
that democracy would have to be defeated by its own weapons.
The first Reichstag elections in which the NSDAP took part (on 20 May
1928) brought it 2.6 per cent of the vote and twelve seats in the Reichstag,
a result which Hitler judged a success but which nonetheless underlined the
120 Adolf Hitler
NSDAP’s character as an insignificant splinter party. The breakthrough
came with the Reichstag elections two years later, under the shadow of the
steadily deepening economic crisis. The NSDAP became the second big-
gest faction, winning 107 seats in the Reichstag.
By the time of this electoral success, at the latest, Hitler’s propaganda
had changed. If his early speeches and writings had been characterised by
violent anti-semitic slogans and aggressive demands for new ‘living space’,
these themes now retreated completely into the background. This was not
because Hitler had deviated from these goals, but resulted from his realisa-
tion that he would only win minority support with such radical policies.
Hitler wanted majority support. However although the NSDAP managed
to win over 13.7 million voters at the Reichstag elections of 31 July 1932,
more than any other party before in the Weimar Republic, Hitler was
forced to admit that he alone could not take power. However he rejected a
coalition in which he was the inferior party. After Hindenburg had refused
to make him Chancellor and Papen only offered him the office of Vice
Chancellor, Hitler may well have thought of giving up the so-called legality
tactic and taking the path of violent revolution. At the very least Hinden-
burg was to be forced, by the blatant deployment of the SA (Storm
Section), and rumours of a coup, to hand over the powers of government
to him. However, after the experiences of 1923, and taking the army into
consideration, Hitler held firm to the legality tactic.
Hitler finally came to power in January 1933, in coalition with the
conservative elements around Papen and Hugenberg. However this
alliance was by no means based on mutual affection. The conservative
forces, who lacked Hitler’s influence on the masses, wanted to harness him
for their own purposes, while Hitler had precisely the opposite intention.
He had judged the intentions and hidden motives of his coalition partners
quite correctly. In the autumn of 1932 he described their ideas as follows:

‘The power is there’, they are saying. ‘How would it be if we harnessed

ourselves behind it.’ They are gradually realising that we National
Socialists are a movement to be reckoned with, that I am a born tub-
thumper, whom they can make good use of. Why should this brilliant
movement, they think, with its drummer-boy, not also have brilliant
field-marshalls. This drummer-boy is the only one who can drum up
support; they themselves are the only ones who are capable of govern-
ment. They all have ‘von’ in front of their names, the best proof of their
capabilities. '*

But Hitler no longer intended to be satisfied with the role of ‘drummer-

boy’. Again and again in his speeches he had declared that he wanted
power in its entirety, undivided. And once in possession of power he would
not give it up again. For many observers at home and abroad it seemed at
 Rainer Zitelmann 121

first as if there had simply been a change of government, the more so since
only three National Socialists were presented in the cabinet formed on 30
January. But appearances were deceptive, since Hitler was quickly able to
minimise the influence of his conservative coalition partners. Soon the talk
was not of a ‘national uprising’ but, characteristically, of the ‘National
Socialist revolution’. For Hitler the seizure of power on 30 January only
marked the beginning of a long-drawn-out revolutionary transformation,
which was by no means to be confined to the political sphere, but over and
above this was to encompass the spheres of the economy, law, culture and
intellectual life.
First of all, however, Hitler took action against the communists, whom
he feared more than any other political party. This fear was the obverse
side of his admiration. For in contrast to bourgeois elements, whom he
perceived as cowardly, weak and opportunistic, he regarded the commu-
nists as worthy opponents. Even in the ‘Era of Struggle’ he had copied many
of their battle tactics and propaganda methods, which he considered to be
extraordinarily effective. Again and again he had stressed approvingly that
the communists possessed a philosophy for which they were ready to fight
‘fanatically’. So it is altogether possible that Hitler himself believed on the
evening of 27 February 1933 that the communists had set fire to the
Reichstag, thereby lighting a torch for the uprising. In fact it was the deed
of an individual, the Dutch anarchist van der Lubbe. The Reichstag fire
decrees enacted as a result of this repealed important basic rights, made
possible arbitrary police ‘preventive custody’ without supervision by the
judiciary and laid the basis for a permanent state of emergency. This was
the first and decisive step on the path to dictatorship.
Nonetheless, SA terrorism, the ‘voluntary dissolution’ or the destruction
of parties and trades unions, the establishment of concentration camps and
the ‘integration’ (Gleichschaltung) of political and social institutions was
only one of the bases of Hitler’s power. Hitler emphasised on various
occasions that coercion and violence were insufficient as a basis for rule. ‘It
is like this: in the long term it is impossible to maintain a regime merely by
using the police, machine guns and rubber truncheons. You need some-
thing else as well. Some sort of pious idea about the philosophical necessity
of maintaining the regime.’’’
It was characteristic of Hitler’s dual strategy that he firstly declared the
first of May 1933 to be a legal holiday, something the working class
movement had fought long and hard for without success, and then on the
following day ordered that trade union offices should be occupied. The
unions, which Hitler regarded as agents of Marxism, were replaced by
the German Workers’ Front (DAF). It was not, of course, a trade union in
the traditional sense, but nonetheless safeguarded many of the unions’
traditional roles, and in the Third Reich it successfully represented work-
ing class interests. It was not just the removal of unemployment which won
122 Adolf Hitler ir
Hitler approval in wide circles of the working class. At least as important as
this was the fact that he gave the working class the feeling that they were a
recognised social group whose approval he sought. The ideological re-
valuation of ‘manual labour’ was combined with a social policy which in
many areas achieved clear improvements over the Weimar period.
Hitler was a supporter of the idea of elites, but when he talked about
‘elites’ he did not mean the traditional social groups who dominated
society. Instead he was concerned to bring into being a new ‘historical
minority’, which was to be recruited precisely from the working class.
Hitler advocated improving possibilities of advancement for members of
socially disadvantaged groups, above all workers. For while he despised
the bourgeoisie as ‘cowardly’ ‘weak’ and ‘apathetic’, he saw the working
class as the embodiment of ‘fighting spirit’, ‘courage’ and ‘energy’.
Otto Dietrich, Hitler’s National Press Officer from 1933-45, writes in his
memoirs:

Hitler wanted this ‘classless state of People and Leader’, produced by

the revolution, to be secured for all time by means of a functional system
of selecting the permanent leadership. To this end all barriers of birth
and ownership were to be eliminated for the broad masses of people
aspiring to leadership. In this state only one monopoly, was to rule:
achievement! Unceasingly and unconstrained, the best and eternally
young elements were to emerge from the people and take their place in
the leadership and the vibrant life of the nation — in order to safeguard
not only the stability of the state, but also to guarantee its constant
advance and the greatest possible degree of development.’*

However this was only for the members of the ‘German national com-
munity’ as Hitler understood it. Those who did not belong to this ‘national
community’ experienced a quite different version of reality in the Third
Reich: not more equality and opportunity but exclusion, persecution,
humiliation and oppression. Those affected were political opponents and
racial inferiors such as gipsies, those with a hereditary illness, asocial
elements and other groups, but most of all the Jews.
Soon after the seizure of power came the first ‘measures’: the ‘boycott of
Jews’ on 1 April 1933, the so-called ‘Professional Civil Service Law’ and
then later the Nuremberg decrees (1935), ‘Arianisation’ and finally on 9
November 1938 the so-called Reichskristallnacht. There is disagreement
about Hitler’s part in the individual steps, about the question of whether he
instigated them or tried to limit their impact, about whether the National
Jewish policies are to be regarded primarily as the realisation of his
philosophy or whether they were the expression of a process of radicalisa-
tion which created its own momentum.
Hitler’s role in the historical origins of the holocaust has not yet been
 Rainer Zitelmann 123

explained. Until well into the Seventies it was regarded, at least in serious
research, as an uncontroversial fact that Hitler was the initiator of the ‘final
solution’ and that the mass murder of the Jews can be traced back to his
orders. But since no written orders of Hitler’s exist for the mass murder of
the Jews (comparable for example with the so-called Euthanasia Decree
dated 1 September 1939, which provided the basis for the murder of
60-100 000 mentally ill and disabled people) and there is no secure proof
that he issued a corresponding oral order for the murders, some historians
developed a theory that the holocaust probably did not have its basis in an
order of Hitler’s, but should instead be interpreted as the outcome of a
cumulative process of radicalisation which created its own momentum.
Critics of this ‘functionalist’ thesis point to the decisive importance of
Hitler’s philosophy, in which the demand for the ‘removal of the Jews’
played a central role. The events were inconceivable without a clear order
from the dictator. A balanced discussion of this controversial explanatory
model is not possible here, nonetheless it should be pointed out that the
proponents of both theories can both present a large body of circumstantial
evidence to support their explanation. However neither one nor other of
the theories can be proved. In the author’s opinion the so-called ‘func-
tionalist’ interpretation has a higher degree of plausibility in this area than
it deserves as an explanation of National Socialist foreign policy.
An interpretation which explains the radicalisation of National Socialist
foreign policy as the consequence of a dynamic resulting from the rivalry
between competing holders of power fails to appreciate Hitler’s decisive
role and that of the foreign policy manifesto he formulated in the twenties,
to which he still felt bound even after the seizure of power. At the same
time, the impression that in matters of foreign policy ‘Hitler was an
improviser, experimenter, given to flashes of inspiration’ (Hans Momm-
sen), is not entirely incorrect. Nonetheless this description can only really
be applied to the specific way in which Hitler attempted to realise his goals,
not to the goals themselves, which for him had been ‘immoveable’ since the
twenties.
In a speech to commanders of potential front-line troops in Berlin on 10
February 1939, Hitler described his foreign policy in these terms:

. none of the individual decisions which have been put into effect since
1933 are the result of momentary deliberations, but represent the imple-
mentation of an existing plan, although perhaps not according to the
anticipated timetable, that is to say, in 1933, for example, it was natural-
ly not quite clear when we would leave the League of Nations. What was
clear was that leaving must be the first step to German renewal. And it
was also clear that the first suitable moment for this step had to be taken.
It was planned from the beginning that the next step would then have to
be internal rearmament, only it was naturally not possible to predict the
124 Adolf Hitler

timescale precisely from the first moment, or, shall we say, to keep track
of the precise extent of rearmament. It was further obvious that after a
certain period, after a specific point in time in this rearmament process
Germany would take the great risk of proclaiming its right to rearm to
the world.
The actual timing of this step could naturally not be foreseen at the
beginning. And finally it was also obvious that each further step forward
must bring about the remilitarisation of the Rhineland. Here too, the
timetable was set for a year later; I had in mind not to implement this
until 1937. Circumstances at the time seemed to indicate that this step
should be taken in 1936. In the same way it was quite clear that in order
further to secure Germany’s political future, and particularly its military-
political position, the Austrian and Czechoslovakian problems would
have to be solved... . And therefore these decisions have not been
ideas put into effect the moment they were thought up, but they were
long-standing plans, which I was resolved in advance to implement at the
precise moment at which I thought that the general circumstances would
be favourable.’°

Although Hitler overstates the planned nature of his activity, this de-
scription is basically apt. It would be an exaggeration to say that Hitler had
a previously worked out foreign policy ‘plan’, especially as he had initially
not developed any firm ideas about how, and in what manner, he could
realise his goals. But the example of his attitude to Britain demonstrates
the great extent to which he considered himself bound by the foreign policy
scheme he developed in the early twenties.
Countless of Hitler’s comments show that the idea of an Anglo-German
alliance underpinning the conquest of ‘living space’ he sought in the East
remained the central pillar of his foreign policy. Two months after the
conclusion of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which Hitler regarded
as a Step in this direction, Goebbels made a note of the outcome of a
conversation with Hitler, in which the latter gave a sketch of his future
foreign policy goals: with Britain he aimed for a ‘permanent alliance’, as
against ‘expansion in the East’.'° However Hitler increasingly had to
recognise that Britain was not ready for an agreement on the basis he laid
down. ‘The Fuhrer is complaining bitterly about Britain’, Goebbels wrote
in his diary on 13 November 1936. ‘First they will and then they won’t.
Their leadership has no flair.’’’ The difficulties in the way of the alliance
with Britain led Hitler to consider alternative ideas of how he could put his
manifesto into effect, if necessary without Britain. For a time he came
under the influence of Ribbentrop, who had developed an anti-British
alternative to Hitler’s policy. However he still clung to the hope that the
British would finally see the light and agree to his idea of a division of the
world. This is also demonstrated by the proposals he submitted to Britain
 Rainer Zitelmann 125

in the final days before the attack on Poland, in which he declared himself
prepared to guarantee British overseas possessions if the British gave him a
free hand in the East in exchange.
When Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September
1939, two days after Hitler’s attack on Poland, the failure of Hitler’s
foreign policy became obvious. He had been deceived in his hope that he
would succeed in isolating Poland and keeping the Western powers out of
the conflict. Hitler found himself at war with his desired ally, Britain, and
had had to ally himself with Russia, which he really aimed to conquer. But
Hitler did not give up hope for the emergence of an Anglo-German
alliance even after the outbreak of war. The offers of peace directed to
Britain after the end of the Polish campaign and once again after the
victory over France were intended quite seriously. On 1 November 1939
Rosenberg noted the results of a talk with Hitler:

The Fiihrer remarked on several occasions that he still thought an

Anglo-German agreement was the correct solution, particularly in the
long term, . . . that we had done everything possible but that they were
in the grip of an insane minority led by Jews. Chamberlain was a weak
old man and it looked as if they would not see sense before they had had
a fearful beating. He said he did not understand what they actually
wanted. Even if the British did actually win, the real victors would be the
United States, Japan and Russia. Britain would be in tatters at the end of
a war, to say nothing of what it would be like if it was militarily
defeated.'®

Goebbels, too, reports in his diary that Hitler declared after the victory
over France that he believed the British Empire must be preserved, if at all
possible. The Fuhrer still had a ‘very positive attitude’ to Britain, ‘in spite
of everything’, and wanted to give it ‘one last chance’.!°
After Britain had indicated that it was not willing to enter into an
alliance, a plan to attack the Soviet Union began to take shape in Hitler’s
mind. He justified this by saying he must anticipate Stalin’s plans for
expansion and at the same time knock the ‘continental dagger’ out of
Britain’s hand. It may be that Hitler had convinced himself and others that
war against Russia was inevitable for these reasons. But the attack on
Russia was primarily the expression of his long-established ‘living space’
plans, which he now believed he could tackle, even though the political
alliances which were its preconditions were not in place.
Operation Barbarossa differed from the outset from the war against the
western powers. Hitler’s infamous ‘commission order’, in which he gave
orders that the Red Army was all, without exception, to be shot, if taken in
battle or when resisting, proves, as do the murderous activities of the ‘task
forces’, to whom about one million Jews fell victim, that Hitler planned
126 Adolf Hitler
and directed the war against Russia from the outset as an ideological
campaign of annihilation.
At the high point of his power, when he could hope to win the war
against Russia, he revealed his future plans to his close advisers. He was
indifferent to the fate of the people in the ‘living space’ he conquered.

There is only one task: to set about the Germanisation of the land by
bringing in Germans and to regard the original inhabitants as Red
Indians. . . . I am approaching this matter with ice-cold resolve. I feel
that I am the executor of the will of history. What people think of me for
the moment is completely immaterial to me.” . . . According to the
eternal law of nature, rights to land belong to whoever conquers it,
because their old borders do not offer enough space for population
growth.*!

Hitler’s interest in Russian territory was primarily in exploiting it econ-

omically. The newly-won territory was to be used to settle farmers, and
over and above this Russia’s immeasurable supplies of raw materials and
energy were to form the basis of a self-supporting supranational economy
and make possible a huge expansion in German industry.
The view that Hitler linked the conquest of Russia to renewed agrarian-
ism in German society is not correct. He admired the technical and indus-
trial achievements of the United States and wanted to make Germany into
a modern, highly industrialised state. However the model of the private,
capitalist economy of the USA did not seem to him to be worth copying.
He did value the principle of economic competition, which he interpreted
as a manifestation of the Social Darwinist process of selection, but he was
increasingly sceptical about the system of the ‘free market economy’.
Conflicts with industry about the so-called ‘Four Year Plan’ (1936) and the
successful use of the tool of state intervention in the economy made him
more and more of a convinced critic of the private enterprise economic
system. He even admired the planned economy of the Soviet Union and
was convinced of its superiority to a capitalist economic system. In a
discussion on 27.7.1942 he declared that Stalin’s economic planning was so
comprehensive ‘that it is probably only bettered by our Four Year Plans.’
For him it was beyond any doubt that there had been no unemployment in
the USSR, in contrast to capitalist states, like for example the USA.”
His attitude to Stalin and the Soviet Union changed fundamentally
during the Russian campaign. Where he had spoken earlier of ‘Jewish
Bolshevism’ and of Stalin as the representative of international Jewry, now
he had arrived at the view that Stalin was conducting a Russian nationalist
policy in the manner of Peter the Great and had freed Russia from Jewish
influence. Wilhelm Scheidt reports:
 Rainer Zitelmann 127

Hitler began to have a secret admiration for Stalin. From then on his
hatred was shaped by envy... . He clung to the hope that he could
defeat Bolshevism with its own methods if he copied it in Germany and
the occupied territories. More and more frequently he pointed to the
Russian method as a model for his colleagues. ‘We cannot conduct this
battle for our existence without their toughness and ruthlessness.’ He
rejected all objections as bourgeois.”*

After the failed coup attempt of 20 July 1944, in which military leaders
from the aristocracy in particular took a leading role, Hitler even regretted
that he had not liquidated the old elites, as Stalin had done. In addition it
was now becoming clear that Hitler’s evaluation of the traditional
bourgeois and aristocratic elites had been wrong, when he had thought that
they were weak, cowardly and incapable of real resistence. At a conven-
tion of National and District leaders on 24 February 1945 he said, ‘We have
liquidated the left wing class warriors, but unfortunately in so doing we
forgot to strike out to the right as well. That is our greatest sin of
omission.’** In the face of defeat Hitler looked for reasons and for those
responsible for his failure.

In the absence of an elite as we envisaged it we had to make do with

the human material to hand. And this is the result! Because the intellec-
tual concept could not be wedded to a practical and practicable im-
plementation of the idea, the war policy of a revolutionary state like
the Third Reich necessarily became the policy of reactionary petty
bourgeois.”

In terms of foreign policy he saw the reasons for his failure in the policy
of the British, who had not taken up his offer of alliances, a policy which
for him was incomprehensible. He accused Churchill of having conducted
the traditional British ‘balance of power’ policy, in spite of the fact that in
its old form it no longer conformed to the requirements of the time.

It is not possible simply to copy the successful theories of times gone

by. Today’s reality, which has changed the face of the world, is the
existence of two colossi, the United States of America and the Soviet
Union. The Britain of the great Pitt was able to hold the world in balance
by preventing the emergence of a hegemonial state in Europe. Present
day reality ought to have forced Churchill to agree to the unification of
Europe in order to secure the political balance of the world of the
twentieth century.~°
128 Adolf Hitler

At the end of his life Hitler was forced to concede the failure of his entire
plan for internal and foreign alliances. It has been said that a decisive
factor in Hitler’s domestic and foreign policy successes was that his enemies
in Germany and abroad underestimated him. Papen’s idea of ‘taming’ him,
and the British policy of appeasement are given as examples of this
misjudgement. It is equally justifiable to say that Hitler’s failure was a
consequence of his misjudgement of those who underestimated him. He
did succeed in his domestic policy in restraining the influence of the
conservatives who wanted to ‘box him in’ and ‘tame’ him. But nonetheless
he was still forced to rely to a great extent on the old elites in the
bureaucracy, the economy and the military. These were only National
Socialist to a slight degree. In some spheres and stages of his policies they
joined in because they agreed with Hitler. In other spheres however they
had an inhibiting influence on the implementation of National Socialist
ideology. And leading men in the German resistance were recruited from
the ranks of the conservative elites, and from 1938 onwards they made very
serious preparations for an assassination and coup. In the face of defeat
Hitler’s judgement was that:

our generals and our diplomats are with few exceptions yesterday’s men
who are conducting the policies and a war of times gone by. This is as
true of the sincere ones as it is for the others. Some fail because of lack of
ability or enthusiasm, the others fully intend to sabotage us.”’

In terms of foreign policy Hitler had succeeded with his policy of ‘accom-
plished facts’ in scoring a series of triumphant successes and in forcing the
Western powers into making decisive concessions. But Britain was never
prepared to play the part Hitler intended for it. This caused aus entire
policy of alliances to collapse. |
Would the course of history have been different without these mutual
misjudgements? Would another ‘Fuhrer’ have followed similar policies and
would he have been underestimated in the same way? Doubt is admissable,
there is no definite answer.

NOTES

1. Hitler, Mein Kampf,p

2. Hitler’s letter to Adolt Gomiich dated 16.9.1919, Sadmtliche Aufzeichnungen,
p. 88ff.
. Ibid., p. 1014, speech dated 16.9.1923.
: Ibid. p. 250, speech dated 26.10.1920.
WwW
&
nn . [bid., p. 912, speech dated 24.4.1923.
 Rainer Zitelmann 129

6. Ibid., p. 698, speech dated 28.9.1922.

7. Ibid., p. 247, speech dated 18.10.1920.
8. Ibid., p. 436, Hitler to the committee of the NSDAP, 14.7.1921.
9. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 157.
10. BA/NS26/52, Bl. 14ff, speech dated 6.8.1927.
ll. Hitler, Zweites Buch, p. 80.
12. Preiss, p. 189, speech dated 4.9.1932.
13. Hitler’s essay, published in J//lustrierter Beobachter, edition 5, no. 6, dated
8.2.1930, p. 85.
14. Otto Dietrich, Zwolf Jahre mit Hitler (Cologne 1955) p. 126.
15. Hitler’s speech dated 10.2.1939 to commanders of active service units in Berlin,
BAJ/NS 11/28, now also published in: K.-J. Miiller, Armee und Drittes Reich
1933-1939 (Paderborn, 1987) here p. 365f.
16. Goebbels — Tagebticher, Sdmtliche Fragmente, vol. II, entry dated 19.8.1935,
. 504.
17. ibid... p. 724, entry dated 13.11.1936.
18. Das politische Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs 1934/35 und 1939/40, edited by
H.-G. Seraphim (Gottingen, 1956) p. 85, entry dated 1.11.1939.
19. Goebbels-Tagebiicher, Samtliche Fragmente, vol. IV, p. 218 (25.6.1940), p. 234
(9.7.1940), p. 225 (3.7.1940).
20. Monologe, p. 91, entry: 17.10.1941.
21. Ibid., p. 242, entry: 28/29.1.1942.
22. Picker, p. 452, entry: 22.7.1942.
23. Captain (retd) Dr W. Scheidt, Nachkriegsaufzeichnungen, vol. IV. IfZ
Munich, Sammlung Irving.
24. As it appears in N. von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937-45 (Mainz, 1980)
p. 403.
25. Bormann-Diktate, p. 73, entry dated 14.2.1945.
26. Ibid., p. 42f. entry dated 4.2.1945.
27. Ibid., p. 73, entry dated 14.2.1945.

a er

Primary Sources
Hitler’s early speeches and essays have been most fully documented in E. Jackel/A.
Kuhn (eds), Hitler. Samtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924 (Stuttgart, 1980) referred
to as: Samtliche Aufzeichnungen). There is no comparable collection for the later
years. Neither is there, unfortunately, any critical edition of the book Hitler wrote
in 1925/27, Mein Kampf (quoted here in the 419th-423rd edition (Munich, 1939)).
The essays he wrote for the //lustrierter Beobachter have seldom been published,
nor have the many speeches dating from the years 1925-32. Some speeches from
this period are published in H. Preiss (ed.), Adolf Hitler in Franken, Reden aus der
Kampfzeit (Nuremberg, 1939). The book Hitler wrote in 1928, Zweites Buch, was
never published in his lifetime: Hitlers Zweites Buch. Ein Dokument aus dem Jahre
1928, edited and with a commentary by G.L. Weinberg (Stuttgart, 1961). For the
years 1933-45 scholars often resort to the collection edited by Domarus. Some of
the speeches by Hitler collected there have been arbitrarily edited; the editor’s
commentary is more annoying than helpful: M. Domarus, Hitler, Reden und
Proklamationen 1932-1945. Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen (Wies-
130 Adolf Hitler

baden, 1973). Many of the speeches which are only represented by excerpts in
Domarus were published as pamphlets by Eher-Verlag (Munich). P. Bouhler
compiled an indispensable collection of speeches from the years 1939-42: Der
grossdeutsche Freiheitskampf. Reden Adolf Hitlers, vol. I/II: 1.9.39-16.3.1941, vol.
III; 16.3.1941-15.3.1942 (Munich, 1940-3). Some of Hitler’s so-called ‘secret
speeches’ can be found in H. Kotze/H. Krausnick (eds), ‘Es spricht der Fuhrer’. 7
exemplarische Hitler-Reden (Gitersloh, 1966). One of the most important sources
for the study of Hitler is the Goebbels diaries (see the chapter on Goebbels in this
book). Also useful, although with some reservations, are Wagener’s memoirs. He
held numerous conversations with Hitler in the period 1929-32: O. Wagener, Hitler
aus ndchster Nahe. Aufzeichnungen eines Vertrauten 1929-1932. Edited by H.A.
Turner (Frankfurt am Main-Berlin-Vienna, 1978). The memoirs of the former
president of the Danzig Senate are controversial: H. Rauschning, Gesprdache mit
Hitler (Zurich, 1940). In contrast to Th. Schieder, Hermann Rauschnings ‘Ges-
prache mit Hitler’ als Geschichtsquelle (Opladen, 1972), F. Tobias and W. Hanel
are sceptical of its usefulness as a source: F. Tobias, ‘Auch Falschungen haben
lange Beine. Des Senatsprasidenten Rauschnings ““Gesprache mit Hitler”’, in K.
Corino (ed.), Gefalscht. Betrug in Literatur, Kunst, Musik, Wissenschaft und Poli-
tik (Nordlingen, 1988) pp. 91-105; W. Hanel, Hermann Rauschnings ‘Gesprdache
mit Hitler’ — eine Geschichtsfalschung (Ingolstadt, 1984). The Hitler-Breiting con-
versations, which were originally regarded by many historians as an important
source, have in the meantime proved to be forgeries: E. Calic (ed.), Ohne Maske.
Hitler-Breiting-Geheimgesprahe 1931 (Frankfurt am Main, 1968). See also K.-H.
Janssen, ‘Calics Erzahlungen’, in U. Backes et al., Reichstagsbrand. Aufkldrung
einer historischen Legende (Munich, 1987) pp. 216-38. The much-quoted, pre-
sumed record of conversations between Hitler and Otto Strasser on 21/22 May 1930
(in O. Strasser, Mein Kampf (Frankfurt am Main, 1969) pp. 50-68) can only be
used with great reservations. On the other hand the record of Hitler’s conversa-
tions with statesmen and diplomats in the war years is an important, indispensable
source: A. Hillgruber (ed.), Staatsmanner und Diplomaten bei Hitler. Vertrauliche
Aufzeichnungen tiber Unterredungen mit Vertretern des Auslandes 1939-1944, 2
vols (Frankfurt am Main, 1967 and 1970). Hitler’s ‘Tischgesprache’ give a valuable
insight into Hitler’s thinking. While the so-called ‘Koeppen-Vermerke’ are access-
ible in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (R/6/34a, Fol. 1-82), the records of Heim and
Picker have been published: Monologe im Fiihrer-hauptquartier 1941-1944. Die
Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims, edited by W. Jochmann (Hamburg, 1980) (re-
ferred to as Monologe); Hitlers Tischgesprache im Ftihrerhauptquartier 194]—42
(Wiesbaden, 1973) (referred to as Picker). Finally, the so-called Bormann-Diktate
should be mentioned: Hitlers Politisches Testament. Die Bormann-Diktate vom
Februar und April 1945 (Hamburg, 1981).

Secondary Literature

The best survey of research on Hitler is by G. Schreiber, Hitler. Interpretationen

1923-83, 2nd., revised edition, with an annotated bibliography for the years 1984—7
(Darmstadt, 1988). There is also an excellent survey of the controversies of Hitler
research in K. Hildebrand, Das Dritte Reich (Munich, 1987). However the reader
of W. Wippermann (ed.), Kontroversen um Hitler (Frankfurt am Main, 1986)
learns less about Hitler than about theories on fascism and totalitarianism. I.
Kershaw’s book Der NS-Staat. Geschichtsinterpretationen und Kontroversen im
 Rainer Zitelmann 131

Uberblick (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1988) is useful for the chapters dealing with the
controversies about Hitler’s role in Nazi policy on Jews and foreign policy, but
other parts of the book are problematical.
Biographies of Hitler are now so numerous as to be almost unmanageable. We
can name only K. Heiden, Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie. Vol. I: Das Zeitalter der
Verantwortungslosigkeit, vol. Il: Ein Mann gegen Europa (Zurich, 1936/37); W.
Gorlitz/H.A. Quint, Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie (Stuttgart, 1952); A. Bullock,
Hitler. A Study in Tyranny (London, 1951), new German edition 1967; E. Deuer-
lein, Hitler. Eine politische Biographie (Munich, 1969); J.C. Fest, Hitler. Eine
Biographie (Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, 1973). Although Fest’s study is less firmly
rooted in original source studies, it is a milestone in National Socialist historiogra-
phy, because it marks out a convincing interpretative framework and at the same
time integrates its results with those of contemporary research. David Irving, in his
biographical study, Hitler’s War (London, Sydney, 1977), examined countless new
sources, but the book has to be viewed with some scepticism, especially those
sections dealing with Hitler’s role in the ‘final solution’. Irving deals with the years
1933-9 in Hitlers Weg zum Krieg (Munich-Berlin, 1979). Anyone with an interest in
the personal details of Hitler’s life should look at the biographies by Maser and
Toland, although these contribute little, if anything to our understanding of Hitler
the politician: W. Maser, Adolf Hitler. Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit (Munich,
1974); J. Toland, Adolf Hitler (Bergisch Gladbach, 1981). A. Tyrell, Vom ‘Trom-
mler’ zum ‘Fuhrer’. Der Wandel von Hitlers Selbstverstandnis zwischen 1919 und
1924 und die Entwicklung der NSDAP (Munich, 1975) is essential for an under-
standing of Hitler’s early years in politics. R. Zitelmann, Adolf Hitler. Eine
politische Biographie (GOttingen-Zurich, 1989) is based on the author’s more
comprehensive work (see below). In this biography the Goebbels diaries are for the
first time extensively consulted, as befits their importance. More concerned with
the ‘image’ than the person is I. Kershaw, Der Hitler-Mythos. Volksmeinung und
Propaganda im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1980).
On the subject of Hitler’s philosophy, we should mention E. Jackel, Hitlers
Weltanschauung (Stuttgart, 1969, new, revised and expanded edition, Stuttgart,
1981). However it is important not to read this work uncritically, since Jackel gives
a very one-sided view of the dictator’s philosophy, reduced to its racial and foreign
policy components. Before Jackel, E. Nolte had pointed to the consistent nature of
Hitler’s ideology: Der Fachismus in seiner Epoche. Action Frangaise, Italienischer
Fachismus, Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1963). At the forefront of the author’s
work on Hitler are Hitler’s social, economic and domestic goals: R. Zitelmann,
Hitler. Selbstverstandnis eines Revolutionadrs, 2nd revised and expanded edition
(Stuttgart, 1989). An important aspect of Hitler’s philosophy is dealt with in V.
Tallgren, Hitler und die Helden. Heroismus und Weltanschauung (Helsinki, 1981).
Hitler’s long-term foreign policy goals are the subject of countless studies; A.
Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie. Politik und Kriegfithrung 1940-1941 (Frankfurt am
Main, 1965); K. Hildebrand, Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1939-1945. Kalkiil oder Dog-
ma? (Stuttgart-Berlin, 1980); J. Thies, Architekt der Weltherrschaft. Die ‘Endziele’
Hitlers (Dusseldorf, 1977). In contrast to these works, which come to an under-
standing of Hitler’s ‘final goal’ as world domination, G. Stoakes, like E. Jackel (see
above), regards Hitler’s goals as being ‘limited’ to the conquest of a continental
empire with the annexation of ‘living space’ in the East: G. Stoakes, Hitler and the
Quest for World Dominion. Nazi Ideology and Foreign Policy in the 1920s
(Leamington Spa, Hamburg, New York, 1986). A.J.P. Taylor reaches a conclusion
on Hitler’s foreign policy which differs from all the authors mentioned in his
‘revisionist’ study: Die Urspriinge des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Giitersloh, 1962). The
132 Adolf Hitler

following collections of articles contain countless essential contributions about

Hitler’s foreign policy: W. Michalka (ed.), Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik
(Darmstadt, 1978); G. Niedhart (ed.), Kriegsbeginn 1939. Entfesselung oder
Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkrieges? (Darmstadt, 1976); M. Funke (ed.), Hitler,
Deutschland und die Machte. Materialien zur Aussenpolitik des Dritten Reiches
(Kronberg i. Ts., 1978); K. Malettke (ed.), Der Nationalsozialismus an der Macht
(Gottingen, 1984).
On the subject of the early history of the holocaust, only sketched in the present
contribution: E. Jackel/J. Rohwer (eds), Der Mord an den Juden im Zweiten
Weltkrieg. Entschlussbildung und Verwirklichung (Stuttgart, 1985). The ‘inten-
tionalist’ explanatory model is very vigorously represented by E. Jackel, Hitlers
Herrschaft. Vollzug einer Weltanschauung (Stuttgart, 1986). For the ‘functionalist’
explanatory model see M. Broszat, ‘Hitler und die Genesis der “‘Endlosung’’.
Aus Anlass der Thesen von David Irving’, now in H. Graml/K.D. Henke (eds),
Nach Hitler. Der Schwierige Umgang mit unserer Geschichte (Munich, 1986) pp.
187-229; H. Mommsen, ‘Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die “‘Endlosung der
Judenfrage”’ im ‘“‘Dritten Reich’’’ in W. Wippermann (see above) pp. 248-98.
On Hitler’s economic theories, which have only recently become the subject of
intensive research, see: H.A. Turner, ‘Hitler’s Einstellung zu Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft vor 1933’, in Geschichte und Gesellschaft (GuG), 1976, pp. 87-117.
For a criticism of this which the present author finds convincing: A. Barkai,
‘Sozialdarwinismus und Antiliberalismus in Hitlers Wirtschaftskonzept’, in GuG,
1977, pp. 406-17. The fundamentally important article by P. Kriiger, ‘Zu Hitlers
‘“nationalsozialistischen Wirtschaftserkenntnissen”’, in GuG, 1980, pp. 263-82,
should also be mentioned. See also L. Herbst, Der totale Krieg und die Ordnung
der Wirtschaft. Die Kriegswirtschaft im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Ideologie und
Propaganda 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1982) which is also concerned on pp. 84-92 with
Hitler’s economic policies. A chapter about Hitler and foreign trade ‘Hitler und
Aussenhandel’ (pp. 206-17) is contained in E. Teichert, Autarkie und Grossraum-
wirtschaft in Deutschland 1930-1939. Aussenwirtschaftspolitische Konzeptionen
zwischen Wirtschaftskrise und Zweitem Weltkrieg (Munich, 1984). The view of
Hitler’s ‘National6konomie’ which H.A. Turner had already developed in other
places is now contained in one chapter of his work: Die Grossaufnehmer und der
Aufstieg Hitlers (Berlin, 1985). However Turner overestimates the agrarian compo-
nent in Hitler’s economic theories.
12 Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
Chief of Reich Security
Main Office
Peter Black

It is well known that Hitler valued ambitious colleagues whose private and
public interests were identical. One such individual was Ernst Kaltenbrun-
ner, the last chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). This
fanatical supporter of Nazi ideology, a single-minded pragmatist within the
organisational chaos of the Third Reich, advanced within a few years to
one of the most important key positions.
The reasons for Kaltenbrunner clinging so rigidly to Nazi principles such
as ‘racial purity’, the need ‘to conquer living space’ and the ‘Fuhrer state’
can probably be traced back to the state of near pathological fear in which
many members of the middle classes in German Austria had lived through
the final decades of the Habsburg monarchy. A good many German
Austrians responded to the constant demands of other nationalities for
equal rights in politics, the language issue and the prolonged battles for
reasonable proportionality, both in the civil service and in education, with
an even more pronounced longing for dependency on the German Reich,
even to the extent of having visions of a future ‘Greater German Reich’,
encompassing all people of German race. Based on social Darwinist
theories of inequality or of the eternal struggle between ‘races’, the
‘German-minded’ extremists of the Habsburg monarchy even then wanted
to do away with what they called their ‘Cohen-nationals’ (by which they
meant Jews, nearly all of whom were fully assimilated) and if possible all
other non-German fellow citizens, on the grounds that they were biologi-
cally and culturally inferior. Anyone who opposed their endeavours — from
Catholic priests and liberals, whom they regarded as being far too tolerant,
to orthodox Marxists, from Hungarian separatists to those who were
pro-Slav or pan-Slavist, up to and including the Zionists, whose movement
was then in its early stages — was declared their mortal enemy.
Nowhere in Austria did this ‘greater German’ chauvinism have such
zealous supporters as among the members of the German nationalist student
fraternities at the universities. In these duelling societies any ‘compromises’
were regarded as a betrayal of the ‘idea’. The strict rules and the rituals
practised in the fraternities (such as duelling and the questioning of honor that
permitted one to challenge or accept a challenge to a duel) encouraged a
specific mental disposition in their members: severity towards oneself and an

133
134 Ernst Kaltenbrunner

arrogant and contemptuous attitude to ‘unworthy’ people were regarded as

virtues. From 1893 to 1898, Kaltenbrunner’s father was one of the active
members of the German nationalist students’ fraternity called ‘Arminia’ at
Graz University. This association had long since barred Jews from mem-
bership, took part in anti-Slav demonstrations and supported the policies of
Georg von Schénerer, the well-known forerunner of Hitler.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner was born on 4 October 1903, the son of a senior
lawyer in Ried in the Inn district. He spent his childhood and youth in
Raab (Upper Austria) and Linz and received the stamp of his German
nationalism primarily from his parental home. His father, who played a full
part in society and who was comfortably off by the standards of the day,
was also a passionate supporter of union with Germany. Both in Raab and
in Linz he confined his contacts with local Jews to what was professionally
unavoidable. As a convinced anti-cleric he was annoyed when his son took
part in religious services at school as an altar boy. But the father’s concern
that his son might come under too great clerical influence was to prove
unfounded. Even during his high school days in Linz (1913-21), Ernst was
a member of the pronouncedly anti-clerical schoolboys’ association called
‘Hohenstaufen’, and not just as a mere fellow traveller.'
From 1921 to 1926, Kaltenbrunner junior studied law in Graz, where he
joined the same students’ fraternity as his father. Taking a leading role at
local and regional level as a representative of the association, along with
others he organised not only demonstrations and boycotts directed against
Jewish students and professors, but also events directed against the
Catholic-monarchist association ‘Carolina’ and various foreign students’
associations. The populist ethnic (vé/kisch) philosophy of the pre-war era
and the enemies associated with it had scarcely changed, but the circum-
stances under which Kaltenbrunner’s ‘Arminia’ believed they had to fight
for them probably had. The lost war and the revolution seemed to many of
them to be the realisation of the nightmare which had haunted them for
half a century: a coalition of churchmen and Marxists seemed to rule over
the mutilated remains of Austria, the union of which with Germany had
been expressly forbidden by the victorious powers.
Kaltenbrunner and his friends suspected that the real puppet-masters
behind the successor states to the Austrian Empire, which feared for their
very existence, and behind the governments in Rome, Paris, London,
Moscow and Washington were the Jews. They suspected the Jews not only
of having incited the Western powers to prevent the German states from
joining together by means of the peace treaties, and of holding back the
losers economically by means of the unrealistic reparations payments, but
also of nurturing in domestic politics the centrifugal forces of social col-
lapse in order further to weaken Austria and render a revival of German
Austria impossible. In view of these circumstances, particular mistrust was
aroused by all the measures taken by the government in Vienna in favour
 Peter Black 135

of the Jews of rump Austria. These measures were not interpreted by

dyed-in-the-wool anti-semites alone as an indication of the continued
favour given to a minority who, it was said, had made no particular
contribution to the common good; in anti-semitic circles, however, they
were also represented as direct incitement to ‘cultural subjugation’ and the
‘sexual enslavement of the host people’ — as it was called in their inflamma-
tory jargon. Kaltenbrunner himself, for example, decades later took no
little pride in the fact that, even as a young member of a students’ associa-
tion, he had traced ‘alien influences, detrimental to morality and culture’
back to their ‘originators’ and ‘in his readiness to fight the Jews’ had not
only denounced them but doggedly ‘fought against them’.”
So, sure as fate, Kaltenbrunner ended up in 1930 in the NSDAP and in
1933 in the SS. In his case economic factors only played a limited role. In
1929, the probationary lawyer from Linz-Urfahr had joined Prince
Starhemberg’s ‘Heimatschutz’ (Home Guard). After Starhemberg’s un-
successful negotiations with the National Socialists, Mussolini and the
Christian Social Party, Kaltenbrunner, disappointed with Starhemberg’s
indecision and the drift of the Heimatschutz into clerical issues, made a
clear decision to join the NSDAP.? His joining the elitist SS can probably
largely be explained by the ‘anti-proletarian’ tradition of the students’
fraternities.
Neither the Party’s wavering course during the time when it was pro-
scribed, nor his being left out in the cold as Secretary of State for Security
or as senior Police and SS Chief in Vienna (1938-43) made him doubt his
political convictions. He achieved his desired goal on 30 January 1943,
when Himmler appointed him as successor to Heydrich as chief of the
Reich Security Main Office, which had been created in 1939 and encom-
passed the Gestapo, the criminal police and the SD.
His prime aim was, as ever, a united, ‘racially pure’ Reich. Jews, Slavs,
communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, Catholic clerics, Centre
Party supporters, Freemasons, ‘serious students of the Bible’ and others
who would not submit to Nazi ideology were still persecuted as ‘enemies of
the state’. Things were more complicated in the occupied territories; the
course of the war compelled more and more ‘deviations’ from the former
hard line. But even in 1943-4, for as long as the balance of power seemed
to permit it, the RSHA was careful not to enter into any agreements with
‘sub-humans’ simply for the sake of tactical advantage.
The RSHA was least open to making concessions, under Kaltenbrun-
ner’s aegis as before, in the ‘Jewish question’, the solution to which
Kaltenbrunner sometimes saw as an even greater priority than did his
immediate superior, Heinrich Himmler. When Kaltenbrunner suggested
‘reducing the overcrowding’ in the ‘old people’s ghetto’, Theresienstadt, by
transporting 5000 elderly, infirm Jews to Auschwitz, he was rebuffed by the
Reichsfiihrer — SS.* As a lawyer, Kaltenbrunner was always interested in
 136 Ernst Kaltenbrunner

formal legal regulations, even for Jews who were to be deported or had
already been deported. Although the Justice Ministry and the Ministry of
the Interior already regarded such regulations as partially obsolete in 1943,
Kaltenbrunner insisted, for example, on special decrees to permit the
property of deported Jews being passed to the state on their death, which
put foreign Jews on German-controlled territory on the same legal footing
as home Jews, so that those who had foreign passports could be included in
the annihilation programme and other similar measures.
When the occupation of Hungary in March 1944 seemed to make it possible
to seize Hungarian Jews and deport them to Auschwitz, Kaltenbrunner
traveled personally to Budapest to discuss the guidelines for seizing and
deporting Jews with the ‘Jewish experts’ in the new government. That he was
not simply acting out of opportunism, but was really convinced that the Jews
were Germany’s most important opponents, is proved by a statement he
made after the war, during his interrogation in the course of the Nuremberg
trials, according to which the Jews were not only supposed to be the chief
representatives of bolshevik philosophy, but the central pillar of every
oppositional act; the more so since the Jews were almost the only intellectuals,
in exclusive control of all business and ‘therefore in general terms the class in
society which was sufficiently intellectualised to give the enemy the necessary
agent for the implementation of his plans’.°
Kaltenbrunner also proceeded against other opponents of National
Socialism with the same rigour and ruthlessness. On 5 November 1942, the
RSHA had promulgated a decree according to which, with immediate
: vast not the justiciary but the police force alone was to deal with crimes
: umitted by Poles and Soviet Russians. The justification for this was that
Peedi and racially inferior people’ presented a particular danger to the
German people.° In an ordinance of 30 June 1943, Kaltenbrunner added in
an appendix that during the processing of these criminal cases it was to be
borne in mind that Poles and Russians simply by the fact of their presence
in lands ruled by Germans presented a threat to German ‘racial order’, for
which reason it was ‘not so important’ to find a suitable punishment for the
crimes they had committed as to prevent them from ‘further endanger-
ing . . . German ‘racial order’.’ ~y
Kaltenbrunner showed little understanding for the German national
conservative opponents of the Nazi regime, not only because he thought he
knew the type particularly well from his own experience, but also because
he criticised them for not having become National Socialists, in spite of
their undoubtedly ‘racial suitability’. For him, National Socialism was the
‘eternal religion’ of his own people.* For this reason the head of the
RSHA, who on other occasions often seemed taciturn, frequently clearly
showed his disappointment, which in the case of officers could amount to
what was almost pathological hatred, if they, in spite of the oath they had
taken to Hitler personally, refused to show loyalty to the Nazi regime, even
 Peter Black 137

if only on certain points. He pursued the resistance centred around Canaris

to the death, and not just out of duty or professional envy. Kaltenbrunner
also followed the announcements relating to the assassination attempt of
20 July 1944 with great interest. He not only used them as a pretext to draw
Hitler’s attention to the many inadequacies and defects in the Nazi lead-
ership, some of which the SD had been aware of for some time,’ but also
took advantage of the opportunity to warn the ‘Fihrer’ persistently about
the dangerous attitude of certain ‘reactionary’ circles, primarily in the
officer corps. In one of the relevant reports, dated October 1944, on the
supposed politically incorrect attitude of certain ‘mere soldiers’, the RSHA
even went so far as to claim that a certain portion of the officer corps felt
itself ‘in no way’ emotionally bound to the National Socialist Reich and its
Fuhrer: the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler was regarded no differently
from that to Ebert in its day.'°
His bitterness towards German reactionaries even showed itself before
the International Tribunal in Nuremberg. Defended by a Catholic lawyer
who felt himself obliged to admit his client’s guilt, on one occasion an
enraged Kaltenbrunner attacked the defence lawyer for the SS, saying the
accused and their ‘followers’ had tried to ‘build a dam against the flood
from the east . . . with blood and living bodies’. As the outcome showed,
this had not been successful. ‘We were still too soft. People like you slipped
past us and escaped.’"' At the end of his life, Kaltenbrunner really seems to
have been convinced that he had not acted quickly enough or thoroughly
enough in implementing his purge. He drilled into his children that there
had been ‘so much treachery and shoddiness’ that now even ‘those who
were completely unqualified’ felt they could talk of ‘degenerate’ National
Socialism. In reality only a few people had failed and no-one had been
there ‘to see to them in time’.
It was probably his firm conviction that the ‘idea’ could not be contra-
dicted by the course of external events which enabled Kaltenbrunner to
maintain this attitude until his execution on 16 October 1946. He once
remarked to his defence lawyer that he did not take ‘words spoken today’
terribly seriously. All that mattered for him was to believe in eternity and
to express his convictions.'* He held firm to his principles, as he always had
done. Until the very last he professed the view that the political and
religious contradictions in Germany could be resolved by National Social-
ism alone, taking ‘race’ as its fundamental value. There was no other way
of achieving a genuine ‘national community’. In his view only National
Socialism was capable of reversing the processes of intellectual and social
fragmentation and disintegration set in motion by the French Revolution.
There was for him no other way of realising the sense of social responsi-
bility and striving for a ‘higher community’ which would overcome
individualism.'* Typical of Kaltenbrunner’s ideological fervor was the wish
he derived from these ideas that his own children should only gather those
138 Ernst Kaltenbrunner

around them who had been taught ‘love of others’ by National Socialism.”
Of course political orthodoxy was not enough to achieve political power.
In the bureaucratic confusion of a system which was so finely tuned to the
leadership requirements of its dictator, there was certainly no small degree
of skill involved in coordinating the implementation of the measures Hitler
considered essential with the directing of one’s own career. While he was
being promoted through the Austrian SS, Kaltenbrunner placed total
reliance on his personal loyalty to Himmler. In addition he knew how to
interpret the fluctuations in Austrian domestic politics in conformity with
the changing interests of his SS superiors ‘by being prescient’. Under the
influence of the Austrian Nazi State Peasants’ Leader, Reinthaller, whom
he had got to know well in the Kaisersteinbruch Internment Camp (near
Neusiedl am See),'® Kaltenbrunner recognised relatively early that Doll-
fuss and Schuschnigg could not be toppled by terror, propaganda or a
coup. There seemed to be more prospect of success in the gradual weakening
of the machinery of state by means of infiltrating individuals who were
‘emphatically national’, like Seyss-Inquart. Even before the unsuccessful
coup d’état of 25 July 1934, in which Kaltenbrunner did not take part,
Reinthaller had used all his influence with the Nazi sympathizers in the
‘national’ camp to retrieve at least a degree of scope for political activity
again for the NSDAP, which had been banned since May 1933, and which
had of course, while illegal, persevered in proselytising among its most
promising target groups.
It is possible that Kaltenbrunner first got to know Himmler and Heyd-
rich through Reinthaller, by way of Darré. In any case it was through
Heydrich that Kaltenbrunner first came into close contact with the ‘Carin-
thians’ who took the helm of the Party after the July coup (Rainer,
Globocnik, Klausener).'’ As the leader of the SS Regiment 37 (Linz) from
1934, Kaltenbrunner exploited every chance he got, especially in 1936-7,
to make himself indispensable to the leading actors. In association with
Upper Austrian government offices and under the protection of ‘National-
ists’ like Seyss-Inquart and Glaise-Horstenau, who were confidants of the
Austrian Chancellor, he took care, while rebuilding the Upper Austrian
SS, that where possible there was no violence and no deviation from the
course of an evolutionary policy of union with Germany. This was in line
with Hitler’s new Austrian policy, as expressed in the treaty of 11 July 1936
and in the relevant decrees from Himmler. And in some respects it also
fitted in with the Schuschnigg regime, which was manifestly only concerned
with maintaining a facade of ‘law and order’.
Against the resistance of Josef Leopold, the Gauleiter of Lower Austria,
Kaltenbrunner was at great pains to make Seyss-Inquart fit to appear ‘at
court’ in Berlin (Rainer and Globocnik were also trying to use him as a
trojan horse in their dealings with Schuschnigg). When this tactic produced
its first successes, in 1937, it was not only the Reichsfiihrer — SS who
 Peter Black 139

credited Kaltenbrunner with the success. Rainer and Globocnik also

acknowledged Kaltenbrunner’s services by providing him with more in-
formation On internal Party matters and therefore indirectly increased his
value to Berlin as an expert on Austria. Kaltenbrunner had many trusted
contacts in the Austrian state apparatus and was also constantly kept
informed by a small SD formation in Vienna, so that it was not difficult for
him to supply Hitler’s plenipotentiary for Austrian affairs, the SS General
Keppler, ‘at least twice a day via Salzburg’ with all the latest news.'®
Because of his firm control of SS Regiment 37 and the strict observance
of the treaty of 11 July 1936, Himmler made Kaltenbrunner the leader of
the whole Austrian SS in January 1937, while his predecessor, the SS
Oberfiihrer Karl Taus, was ordered never to return to Austria. Even
in Nuremberg Seyss-Inquart dubbed Kaltenbrunner the ‘policeman of
11 July’, referring to his role as guarantor of the treaty.'?
Kaltenbrunner probably owed his later promotion to head of the RSHA,
apart from his loyalty to Himmler, whom he revered as more than a
father,”° chiefly to his reputation for being an excellent source of intelli-
gence. Although Heydrich had attempted to a large degree to keep him out
of security affairs in Vienna, Kaltenbrunner had always been committed to
representing the interests of the SS and the police as opposed to those of
the army, Party and state and energetically promoted the cause of the
amalgamation of the SS and police in his area, something Himmler had
wanted and which did not go unnoticed in Berlin.*1 The question of
Heydrich’s successor was originally to have been settled in a different way.
As late as October 1942, Himmler had suggested sending Kaltenbrunner as
Reich Commissar to Belgium and Northern France. One can only surmise
why, after much hesitation, Kaltenbrunner was chosen in preference to an
in-house candidate. Did Himmler prefer a weaker man because he would
have had more to fear from rivals like Streckenbach, Nebe or Miller? Why
did he not bring in people with proven experience in the east, like Priitz-
mann or Jeckeln, instead of an alert, diplomatically skilled Austrian, who
had spent the entire war in Vienna and therefore had not even acquired
any front-line or partisan warfare experience in the Balkans - still the
preferred area for Austrian strategies and politicians practising the princi-
ple of ‘divide et impera’? What role was played in this context by the
‘exemplary’ conduct of the ‘final solution’ in Kaltenbrunner’s Austria?
The only thing which appears to be certain is that Kaltenbrunner was
regarded as an absolutely reliable supporter of Nazi ideology and a particu-
larly loyal follower of Himmler, who was hardly likely to endanger the
latter’s position. Significantly, Himmler expressly pointed out during Kal-
tenbrunner’s inauguration that he thought that ‘a long training period in
illegality’ was ‘always’ a ‘good school’, ‘but particularly for a Head of the
State Security Office’.** So the right-hand man of the Reichsfiihrer — SS and
Chief of the German Police’ ought not to be a dogmatic ‘good civil
140 Ernst Kaltenbrunner

servant’, but a flexible, dynamic activist, a pioneer of the Nazi movement,

who was not afraid of responsibility, and was sufficiently well trained,
where necessary, to ‘take the lead’ on his own initiative in the spirit of his
highest superiors, without being confined by regulations, never resorting to
excuses.~”
As chief of the RSHA, Kaltenbrunner basically only had to continue
what others had already started in the field of security and criminal polic-
ing. The duties of the SD, which Himmler wanted to be extended, were
more controversial. Kaltenbrunner decisively asserted the right of Office
VI (SD-Foreign Affairs) to independent reporting in the face of opposition
from Ribbentrop’s Foreign Office, and with corresponding consequences
for Schellenberg’s expanding activities abroad. The investigation of ‘break-
downs’ in the Auslands/Abwehr Office of the OKW under Canaris ended
in 1944 with the SD largely taking over the military intelligence service. In
Nuremberg Kaltenbrunner’s ‘sole source of pride’ is supposed to have been
a remark by Jodl, chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, that Kaltenbrunner
did his job better than his predecessor, Canaris, although Canaris had been
an admiral and had thirty years’ more experience.”
-Kaltenbrunner had less success in his struggle with the Party Chancellery
over the monopoly of intelligence gathering for the Party at home and over
control of Party discipline. Of course even Bormann could appreciate the
detailed reports on the conspirators of 20 July 1944, but he had made many
objections to the relatively forthright series of briefings produced by Office
III (SD-Internal Affairs) under Otto Ohlendorf, not just when the SD over
and over again, with relish, spread news of corruption scandals and sen-
sational mistakes in eadership made by some megalomaniac prominent
member of the Party in the provinces.*°
Kaltenbrunner defended himself in vain against the expansion in the
authority of the Gauleiter, who, as Reich Defense Commissars, were, for
example, to take over even certain police functions with regard to foreign
workers. However the RSHA tried to avoid open controversies with the
Party Chancellery, especially since Kaltenbrunner was dependent on Bor-
mann’s goodwill if he wanted direct contact with Hitler. Himmler’s under-
standable misgivings about taking severe measures against Canaris pro-
vided opportunities for such contact. The Reichsfiihrer — SS (Himmler) was
not someone who would enjoy approaching Hitler with unpleasant news.
But he was all the more ready to bask in the warmth of Hitler’s favour
when there was any spectacular success to report — something many of his
subordinates did not find very fair. A conjuror who profited from the
initiatives of his subordinates, who tried to cash in on all the successes and
in the case of failures only gave thought to whom he could send out into the
wilderness this time as a punishment, must have been a sore trial to the
patience of even the most obliging of subordinates. As a practical intriguer,
of course, Kaltenbrunner knew ways and means of emancipating oneself
 Peter Black 141

from such an uncongenial superior without arousing any suspicion that one
was blatantly going behind his back. Why should a man like Kaltenbrun-
ner, as head of the RSHA, deny himself what even his departmental head
in Office VI (Schellenberg) took the liberty of doing, namely of sending
important intelligence direct to the Fuhrer’s headquarters? Since when was
it forbidden to nurture contacts in the antechambers of power?
In order to be able to direct reports to Hitler without Himmler’s permis-
sion, Kaltenbrunner used the support of Walter Hewel, Ribbentrop’s
contact in the Fuhrer’s headquarters, and later of Hermann Fegelein,
Himmler’s own liaison officer. Naturally Kaltenbrunner was not to be
deprived of accompanying his subordinate Skorzeny to make the
announcement to Hitler of Mussolini’s ‘liberation’ in September 1943; he
even sat down at the table with them while Skorzeny reported on the
course of events in full detail in the presence of Mussolini.
However the close cooperation he nurtured with Bormann in the early
summer of 1943 was even more significant. Bormann is said to have always
arranged matters so that Kaltenbrunner was called directly to Hitler.
According to Schellenberg, this went so far that even Himmler himself
lived in constant fear, especially after Himmler’s ‘peace feelers’ of 1944-5.
It appears, however, that Kaltenbrunner hardly had any secrets from
Himmler to justify such fears. In any case, according to Wilhelm Hottl, it
was not possible to speak of any dimming in the trust between Himmler
and Kaltenbrunner.”°
From 1944 to 1945, Kaltenbrunner was beyond any doubt among the
most powerful men in the Third Reich. He achieved this position of power
not only as a consequence of his ideological links to the Fuhrer and the
National Socialist philosophy of racial community. His rise was also a
consequence of his resoluteness and above all his ability to recognise and
realise Hitler’s ideological aims and intentions — in spite of all resistance
and bureaucratic impediments. In this respect he was the prototype of
Hitler’s ideal Nazi leader.

NOTES

1. Interview with Dr Werner Kaltenbrunner, Voécklabruck, dated 25.3.1977; a

note from Wilhelm Péschl to the author dated 24.5.1977; Kaltenbrunner’s
‘Memoiren’, written for his children in July/August 1946, p. 14, 17f., in Kalten-
brunner’s papers.
. Memoiren (see note 1) p. 32.
. Ibid., p. 38.
>
Wh. Kaltenbrunner to Himmler, Feb. 1943 and the reply dated 16.2.1943, RG-242,
T-175/22/2527353-56, National Archives (NA), Washington.
142 Ernst Kaltenbrunner

. Interrogation of Kaltenbrunner dated 19.9.1946, in the archive of the /nstitut

fiir Zeitgeschichte (Munich), ZS-673/II.
. RSHA-express letter dated 5.11.1942, RG-238, L-316, NA.
. RSHA-circular dated 30.6.1943 in the Allgemeine Erlass-Sammlung of the
RSHA, part 2 A IIIf., p. 131, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BA) RD 19/3.
. Kaltenbrunner’s speech on the occasion of his inauguration as chief of the
security police and of the SD on 30.1.1943, Kaltenbrunner IRR files, RG-319,
XE000440, NA.
. Kaltenbrunner to Bormann, dated 30.8.1944 and 16.10.1944 in K.H. Peter
(ed.), Spiegelbild einer Verschworung: die Kaltenbrunner-Berichte an Bormann
und Hitler tiber das Attentat vom 20. Juli 1944 (Stuttgart, 1961) pp. 325, 447f.;
for the SD reports see H. Boberach (ed.), Meldungen aus dem Reich. Die
geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes des SS 1938-1945, 17 vols (Herr-
sching, 1984).
10. A secret memo from Kaltenbrunner dated 24.10.1944 with an enclosure titled
‘Der unpolitische Offizier —- Der ‘“‘Nur-Soldat’’, RG-242, T-175/281/2774921-39,
NA.
11. Carl Haensel, Das Gericht vertagt sich (Hamburg, 1950) p. 166.
12. Kaltenbrunner, ‘Memoiren’, p. 41.
LS. Kaltenbrunner to Kauffmann dated 24.6.1946, in Kaltenbrunner’s papers.
14. Ibid.
iS. Memoiren, p. 17.
16. Reinthaller is also said to have introduced Kaltenbrunner to Franz Langoth of
the Grossdeutsche Volkspartei, the security chief for Upper Austria, Peter
Count Revertera, the military historian Glaise-Horstenau and the Viennese
lawyer Seyss-Inquart.
lf. Kaltenbrunner had probably met Friedrich Rainer while he was studying law at
Graz, since they were the same age.
18. Kaltenbrunner to Keppler, dated 3.9.1937, RG-242, T-120/751/344888, NA.
19. IMT, vol. xvi, p. 78.
20. See the speech mentioned above in note 8.
al, See, for example, Himmler’s memo to Kaltenbrunner dated 28.1.1941 in
Kaltenbrunner’s personal file in the Berlin Document Center.
22. Speech by Himmler dated 30.1.1943, RG-319, Kaltenbrunner IRR files,
XE0004400, NA.
23. On encouraging SS members to act on their own initiative, see for example, B.
Wegner, Hitlers politische Soldaten: Die Waffen-SS 1939-1945, Studien zu
Leitbild, Struktur und Funktion einer Nationalsozialistische Elite (Paderborn,
_ 1982) and R.B. Birn, Die Héheren SS- und Polizeifiihrer (Dusseldorf, 1986).
24. Kaltenbrunner, ‘Memoiren’, p. 41.
a. See Boberach’s sources, note 9.
26. Interrogation of Schellenberg on 13.11.1945, RG-242, NG-4728, NA; inter-
views with Hottl in Bad Aussee on 14/15.4.1977.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
The Kaltenbrunner Reports on the conspiracy of 20 July 1944 were first edited by
K.H. Peter: Spiegelbild einer Verschworung (Stuttgart, 1961). They are now avail-
 Peter Black 143

able in a two-volume edition, with a comprehensive documentary appendix by

H.-A. Jacobsen. The memoirs of W. Schellenberg are undoubtedly worth reading:
Aufzeichnungen des letzten Geheimdienstchefs unter Hitler, with a commentary by
Gerald Fleming (Munich, 1981), as are those of W. H6ttl, the former section chief
in the SD (Foreign Affairs) office: Die geheime Front (Linz, 1950); Unternehmen
Bernhard (Wels, 1955). Further references to primary sources can be found in the
author’s monograph on Kaltenbrunner (see below).

Secondary Literature

There has been some writing on Kaltenbrunner from the point of view of the
Nuremberg trials: for example, E. Davidson, The Trial of the Germans (New York,
1972). Essays giving psychological profiles are contained in G.M. Gilbert, Nuirnber-
ger Tagebuch (Frankfurt am Main, 1962); F. Miale/M. Selzer, The Nuremberg
Mind (New York, 1975). R.W. Houston’s work is also worth mentioning: Ernst
Kaltenbrunner. A Study of an Austrian SS and Police Leader, diss., Rice Univer-
sity, Houston (Texas) 1972. However this study does not give sufficient weight to
vélkisch (populist ethnic) ideology and other links with tradition. For this see the
author’s work: P. Black, Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Ideological Soldier of the Third
Reich (Princeton, 1984). For other aspects of the subject see also: G. Cerwinka,
‘Ernst Kaltenbrunner und Siidtirol’, in Blatter fiir Heimatkunde 50/4 (1976) pp.
173-7; R. Luza, Osterreich und die grossdeutsche Idee in der NS-Zeit (Vienna,
1977); W. Rosar, Seyss-Inquart und der Anschluss (Vienna, 1971); B.F. Pauley,
Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis (Chapel Hill, 1981); P. Black, ‘Ernst Kaltenbrunner
and the Final Solution’, in R.L. Braham (ed.), Contemporary Views of the Holo-
caust (Boston, 1983).

Note
This chapter is the sole responsibility of the author and should not be regarded as
the official view of the United States Department of Justice.
13 Robert Ley: The Brown
Collectivist
Ronald Smelser

On 25 October 1945, while he has awaiting trial as one of the major Nazi
war criminals, Robert Ley committed suicide in his cell. As a result, he
never was brought to trial, the documentation of his behaviour was rel-
egated to the files and the full story of his activities on behalf of Adolf
Hitler and the Nazi movement, before and after the seizure of power, did
not, until recently, receive adequate scrutiny.
Ley was a prototypical Nazi in one of the most powerful positions in the
Third Reich. The social chaos of the immediate post-World War One
period, combined with his own psychological traumas to bring Ley early to
Hitler and National Socialism. He embraced the movement with a religious
fervour; regarded Hitler as the German messiah and remained one of the
most fanatical — and successful — agitators as Gauleiter of the Rhineland
during the late 1920s and early 1930s. His specialty was rabble-rousing and
Jew-baiting, something at which he excelled. He was also a Hitler loyalist,
something the Fiihrer appreciated highly and rewarded. After the Strasser
affair of December, 1932, Hitler replaced the defector with Ley, but did
not give him the great power in the party structure which Strasser had
enjoyed. Much of Ley’s subsequent career during the Third Reich would
be devoted to restoring the power of the Reichsorganisationsleiter and
using it to fulfil his dream of the party as educator and Betreuer. His
activities in this area took a variety of forms, such as trying to control
organisational deployment, in-service training and personnel in the Nazi
Party. Some of his successes included organising the elite training schools,
the Ordensburgen, as well as supervising the annual Nuremberg Parteitag.
This represented, however, only one of Ley’s functions during the Third
Reich. Like other Nazi leaders he collected many jurisdictions to augment
his growing bureaucratic empire. The most important of these would be
the German Labour Front — gigantic bureaucratic edifice encompassing the
vast majority of employees and employers, which Ley put in place in May
1933 to replace the smashed trade unions. This Labour Front would
become a major power-political contender during the Third Reich, chal-
lenging government ministries and industry in its striving to become a kind
of Nazi ‘superagency’ in the socio-economic realm. It would also be the
major vehicle designed to keep the workers under control through a
combination of carrot and stick. Perhaps most importantly, it would de-
velop within its complex structure the ideas and means by which Ley and

144
 Ronald Smelser 145

Hitler meant to completely restructure German society according to their

vision of a modern, prosperous, racially-pure Volksgemeinschaft in which
every German might achieve his dream of upward mobility on the backs of
subjugated and exploited ‘inferior’ races.
Robert Ley was born on 15 February 1890 at Niederbreidenbach in the
Bergisch Land east of Cologne. The seventh of eleven children, Ley
started out his life with some promise, for his parents were solid farm
people who had received a generous legacy. His father, however, did not
handle money well with the result that he was convicted of committing
arson for insurance and briefly imprisoned. This episode, which plunged
young Robert and his family into poverty and disgrace was a major life-
shaping trauma in the life of the six-year-old. It left him with a vast social
insecurity and a vaulting ambition to become ‘somebody’. That ambition
took the form of pursuing a doctorate in chemistry during the years just
before the First World War. By dint of hard work and support from family
and teachers Ley had succeeded by 1914 in using the climate of upward
mobility during the autumn years of the Kaiserreich to aspire to a degree in
food chemistry at the University of Miinster. That aspiration was inter-
rupted in August 1914 for Ley — and for his generation — by the outbreak of
the First World War. Ley joined hundreds of thousands of young Germans
in immediately volunteering for service in that conflict. And like all the
others soon discovered the horrors of industrial war. For him the war
would add another long-term trauma to the one he had experienced as a
boy. As a soldier in the artillery, he participated in a number of the battles
of attrition on the Western and Eastern fronts, including Verdun and the
Somme. In 1917 Ley transferred to the flying corps and that summer went
into action as an artillery spotter. On 29 July 1917, Ley was shot down and
fell into French captivity. He had been seriously injured in the crash,
sustaining a broken leg which required several operations to save, as well
as frontal lobe damage to his brain. This latter injury was important for his
future for it left him with a pronounced stutter as well as a predilection for
alcohol. In January 1920, Ley finally returned home, deeply affected by the
stress of combat, injury, imprisonment and repeated surgical invasion.
The Germany to which he returned was also in shock — that of unex-
pected defeat and disgrace, of revolution, of political and economic chaos.
Ley seemed initially to be able to integrate himself back into civilian life:
he completed his degree and secured a well-paying position with Bayer (a
branch of the huge IG Farben combine) at Leverkusen. But appearances
were deceiving. Ley was unable psychologically to find his way in the
kaleidoscopic political and social landscape of Weimar. By 1924, inspired
by the story of the Hitler putsch in Munich, Ley gradually disengaged
himself from normal bourgeois life and became what he would remain to
his dying day — a fanatical National Socialist. For him the movement
became a religion, its leader a German messiah. The party gave him valued
146 Robert Ley

social and political tasks to perform; the brown shirt provided a sense of
community in a chaotic world. The psychologically labile and socially
insecure man was drawn to Nazism like iron filings to a magnet. As he
himself put it many years later to his psychiatrist at Nuremberg: ‘An inner
voice drove me forward like hunted game. Though my mind told different-
ly and my wife and family repeatedly told me to stop my activities and
return to civil and normal life, the voice inside me commanded “‘you must;
you must’’’.'
Ley soon demonstrated characteristics which propelled him to lead-
ership in the Gau Rheinland-South. He was a superb rabble-rouser; one of
Hitler’s valued Reichsredner, he tirelessly agitated for the movement in
town and countryside. He was also a fanatic Jew baiter, who did not
hesitate to play on popular atavistic fears of Jewish plots and blood libel.
Nor did he eschew violence, whether against the Jews, against political
opponents or against the officials of the Weimar Republic. Above all he
was unshakeably loyal to Hitler, as he demonstrated time and again,
whether against the rebellion of Goebbels and the northern Nazis in 1925;
against the NSBO agitators in 1929 or, above all, during the Strasser crisis
of 1932. Hitler prized Ley’s loyalty quite highly and therefore overlooked
many of the less salutary aspects of Ley’s political life. These were many
and included his disastrous press operation, the Westdeutscher Beobachter;
his chronic financial difficulties; the arbitrariness and highhandedness with
which he dealt with members of the party; his verbal public excesses which
constantly landed him in court and in jail; and his often scandalous private
life, which tended to focus on the over-consumption of alcohol.
Being a successful Gauleiter in the Rheinland was no easy job. Much of
the area remained under foreign occupation, which tended to put a crimp
in Ley’s ebullient style. Moreover, the social groups which comprised the
Gau tended to be those most resistant to the Nazi message. The northern
part had a fairly large working-class population which naturally leaned
toward the Socialist and Communist parties, while the small town and rural
areas were heavily Catholic and therefore strongly under the influence of
the Centre Party. Moreover, the years after Ley joined the party were the
brief ‘good years’ of the Weimar Republic, which witnessed currency
reform, a revived prosperity and increased political stability. Under these
circumstances Ley had his work cut out for him and he responded ac-
cordingly, and in doing so revealed the later Robert Ley, Hitler’s powerful
paladin during the Third Reich. He was constantly organising and reorga-
nising his Gau, as he would the DAF in later years. He was also constantly
on the go, making speeches on a daily basis, a custom he would continue
during the Third Reich, even though he had a large bureaucratic empire to
administer. He gathered around him loyal cronies, men like Claus Selzner,
Rudolf Schmeer, Otto Marrenbach, men he would later call upon to
occupy leadership positions in the DAF. His concept of what the move-
 Ronald Smelser 147

ment was all about — a tool to reach the masses through propaganda,
reeducation and Betreuung — would later become the conceptual model for
the Labour Front. His proclivity in organising special, entertaining kinds of
events would later reappear in the myriad activities of the DAF, while the
SA soup kitchens in Bonn and Cologne foreshadowed the lavish social
benefits Ley intended to shower on the German worker via the DAF. And
his disastrous experience with a Rhenish publishing empire anticipated the
gigantomania Ley would later reveal when he had virtually unlimited funds
at his disposal. Already the all-encompassing ‘brown collectivism’ which
lay at the heart of Ley’s Labour Front empire after 1933 was apparent in a
revealing remark to his financial patron, the Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe
in 1928: ‘Dear Prince, stick with me. Ill make my Rhineland into a social
state which the world will scarcely find possible. Through my measures
here Ill become so beloved that some day they’ll call me the Duke of the
Rhineland and everyone will find that completely natural.’ There would
be, then, an important element of continuity which linked the Kampfzeit
with the Third Reich.
The coming of the Great Depression and the ensuing paralysis of par-
liamentary democracy in Germany made Ley’s task easier, as more and
more desperate, unemployed or economically ruined Germans listened to
the radical message of Hitler’s agitators. The stunning victory of the Nazis
in the September 1930 elections gave renewed impetus to Ley and his
activities. His Gau had not performed as well as some others, but the
returns both in the northern electoral district (Cologne-Aachen) and the
southern (Koblenz-Trier) — which showed the Nazi Party outpolling both
Socialist and Communist, although still far behind the Centre — demon-
strated the effectiveness of Ley’s agitation. But even as the Depression
deepened the following year, all Ley’s work seemed threatened by a crisis
of success: Gregor Strasser, the powerful Reichsorganisationsleiter decided
to divide Ley’s Gau in two, reflecting the two electoral districts which
comprised it. The move was a rational one, but the prospect left Ley briefly
a threatened and frightened man. His correspondence with Strasser only
underscored the importance of his role in the Party to his own psychologi-
cal and social well-being; to divide the Gau was to ‘demote’ him, to pull the
rug out from under the legitimising activity which had saved him from
social uselessness and chaos.
But Ley need not have worried. His master had a place for him. Conse-
quently, in the fall of 1931, as his Gau was transformed into two, Ley was
brought to Munich and made first a ‘Reichsorganisations-Inspekteur’ and
then — in one of Strasser’s last reorganisations of the Party in summer 1932
— one of two Reichsinspekteur of the Party. In both cases, the scope of
Ley’s duties was not entirely clear and in the crucial, decisive election year
of 1932 he appears, not unlike Stalin during the Bolshevik revolution, as a
‘grey blur’. Shorn of his Gau he also lacked an independent power base.
148 Robert Ley

Likely, Hitler used the loyal Ley as his eyes and ears in the Strasser-
dominated organisational structure of the NSDAP. If so, the position was
important to Ley’s subsequent rise. The crucial opportunity came with
Strasser’s defection in December 1932, just on the eve of Hitler’s coming to
power. The defection was a devastating blow to Hitler, for it might easily
have meant the splitting of the party and an end to the Fuehrer’s life’s
work. Indeed, during the night of 8-9 December, as everything seemed to
be unravelling, Hitler contemplated suicide. But buoyed up by his loyalists
Goebbels and Ley on the scene, Hitler snapped out of his despair and
rescued the situation. In the subsequent election in Schaumburg-Lippe-
Oetmold on 15 January 1933, in which Ley was particularly active, the Nazis
regained their momentum. After complex behind-the-scenes negotiations,
President von Hindenburg named Hitler Chancellor on January 30.
The weeks which ensued were hectic and confusing, punctuated by a
series of events which would solidify the Nazis’ hold on power, including
the Reichstag fire and subsequent emergency decree, the Day at Potsdam
and the passing of the Enabling Act, which sounded the final death knell
for the Weimar Republic. But one of the most decisive acts in the process
which came to be known as Gleichschaltung was the smashing of the trade
unions on 2 May 1933. The political representation of the German workers
had already been eliminated, but the trade unions had remained as the
economic arm of labour. It was now that Ley came into his own; for Hitler
chose him to preside over the crushing of the unions and to set up whatever
Nazi organisation might take their place. This was Ley’s big opportunity to
build himself an independent power base, one of those castles which would
dot the political landscape of the Third Reich. He already had a base of
sorts — he had inherited Strasser’s title as Reichsorganisationsleiter — but
very little of the power which Strasser once held. Ley would not abandon
this legacy — indeed, tried to expand his powers as time went on against his
chief rivals in the party — the Hess-Bormann team. But his real power base,
one which, in a sense, would become the tail wagging the dog — was the
Labour Front. That Hitler chose Ley for this role was apparent: Ley was
completely loyal; had had a profession which would tend to predispose him
to favour business over labour; and, so ROL he controlled the organisation
best designed to cope with the trade unions and envision a Nazi successor —
the NSBO. Although the action against the unions was well-planned, it
was, typically for the Third Reich, in a larger sense ad hoc in nature, in that
Ley really had no idea initially as to what he would set up in place of
organised labour. As he put it: ‘I arrived as a bloody layman, and I believe
that I myself was most mystified as to why I was entrusted with this task. It
was not the case that we had a completed plan which we could haul out and
on the basis of this plan build up the Labour Front.’
The ensuing half year after the Labour front had been proclaimed in
May was quite confusing. A number of competing concepts vied with one
 Ronald Smelser 149

another. The radicals in the NSBO who dreamed of a large umbrella Nazi
trade union were strongly represented in the DAF. A number of others
saw in the DAF an opportunity to realise the corporativist ideas (Stande-
staat) that were quite current in Germany. The organisational structure of
the early DAF, indeed, reflected these rivalling concepts. Ley himself,
initially confused, toyed with a number of these ideas, but, supported by
his own loyalists, gradually evolved in his thinking in the direction of a
totalitarian mass organisation which both employers and employees would
join on an individual basis. By the end of 1933 Ley had mollified his critics
in government and business sufficiently to gain their reluctant acceptance
of the DAF as the Nazi organisation which would bring together business
and labour and end the class struggle which had bedeviled Germany for
decades. The ROhm putsch of June 1934 gave Ley the opportunity to purge
his organisation of many of the NSBO radicals and to cement his control.
In October 1934, Ley wrested from Hitler a decree on which, from that
point on, Ley would base his claim to ‘totality’ for his DAF. Now he could
go on to give shape to his ideological dreams.
The DAF empire which emerged after 1933 was partly shaped by Ley’s
vision of an all-embracing ‘superagency’ which would educate and ‘take
care of (betreuen) the Germans; partly by the omnijurisdictional imperial-
ism typical of all such bureaucratic empires in the Third Reich and, in part,
by the limitations set by the competitive resistance of economic, state and
party rivals.
Ley’s vision revealed a combination of idealism and social fear. He really
did want to integrate the worker into the nation, to provide opportunities
for upward mobility and social reconciliation. Fearing a renewed ‘stab-in-
the-back’ to the regime, he also aimed at creating a totalitarian, conflict-
free society which would end the chaos of political pluralism and class
antagonism precisely by creating a ‘brown collectivism’ which would
embrace every German from cradle to grave and allow for a completely
private existence only in the realm of sleep.
Like a metastacising cancer the DAF continually grew, changed shape
and encroached on the jurisdictional turf of government, business and the
party. It quickly became a huge bureaucracy with over 44 000 paid func-
tionaries and several hundred thousand part-timers. Many of these men
were young careerists who provided much of the dynamic of the organisa-
tion. The DAF with its millions of dues-paying members was also bloated
with wealth, which enabled it to only to be a powerful party affiliate, but an
enormous business conglomerate as well, with holdings in banking, pub-
lishing, insurance, construction, automobiles, retailing and leisure travel.
With this political, financial and economic base the DAF began to arrogate
unto itself the functions of both industry and government -— in fact, to
become a giant superagency. As such, Ley staked out a number of ideo-
logically and socially independent areas for DAF ‘imperialism’, includ-
150 Robert Ley

ing vocational education, housing and settlement, social services and public
insurance, and, in a broader sense, sought definitive powers in broad socio-
economic areas of jurisdiction such as wage policy and labour conditions.
As threatening to business and government as these activities on the part
of Ley were, even more distressing was the fact that the DAF, despite all
denials to the contrary, also began more and more to be an advocate in
many ways for its labour clientele. It did so in order to legitimise itself in
the eyes of workers and to begin the task of integrating them into the Nazi
system. Part of this advocacy procedure did result in concrete benefits. For
example, the Schénheit der Arbeit program did do much to improve the
milieu in which workers performed their jobs. The vocational education
programme linked up with competition programmes such as the Reichsber-
ufswettkampf and the Leistungskampf der deutschen Betriebe both to im-
prove productivity as well as provide opportunities for advancement and
upward mobility to individual workers. The DAF also disbursed emerg-
ency funds for unemployed, sick and injured workers. Perhaps most im-
portant — and most popular — were the Strength Through Joy programmes,
which provided unprecedented leisure-time activities to workers, in many
cases — as with sea cruises, skiing trips tennis lessons — activities which had
hitherto been reserved for the middle and upper classes. Ley, anxious that
Germans should not have time to ruminate about the deficiencies of the
system, announced: ‘We must fashion all free time after work into a
gigantic undertaking. It will perhaps be the greatest thing that this revolu-
tion produces.”* And through it all, the DAF bureaucracy itself, especially
at the lower levels and through Ley’s notorious ‘labour committees’, pro-
duced a tremendous populist dynamic, as DAF-Walter put pressure on
businessmen to provide higher wages, longer vacations, better working
conditions, longer notice of termination periods and many other benefits
for their personnel. No wonder one industry spokesman said that the DAF
represented ‘the threat of a union of massive force’.°
A balanced assessment of Ley’s DAF must also, however, point out that
these many steps toward labour advocacy really represented the velvet
glove which clothed the iron fist. Many other DAF activities in the plants
really represented only the sham of labour advocacy as well as a method to
practice surveillance and control over the German workers. (We must
remember that employers were also DAF members.) These included Ley’s
ideological factory militia, the Werkscharen, as well as the so-called ‘Ver-
trauensrate’, ‘Ehrengerichte’ and ‘Rechtsberatungsstellen’. Nor did Ley neg-
lect, as part of the widespread surveillance system, to cultivate his ties with
Himmler and the Gestapo.
Ley’s myriad activities and vaulting ambition soon conjured up the
resistance not only of important party leaders, especially Hess-Bormann,
but also business and government. In particular the Ministries of Labour
and Economics were objects of Ley’s growing encroachment and many
 Ronald Smelser 151

battles royal ensued between him and ministers Franz Seldte and Hjalmar
Schacht. These struggles, typical of the large-scale turf battles of the Third
Reich, were not just personal ones, but of great importance to the subse-
quent development of German fascism. For Ley’s gigantomania really
embodied the jurisdictional omnicompetence, the normlessness and the
apocalyptic visions of the National Socialist revolution. Implicit in Ley’s
dreams and schemes was the Nazi vision of the future — a politically driven
economic system located between Communism and traditional Capitalism,
a new Nazi common law system which would have replaced the traditional
juridical system as well as a massive welfare state based on the backs of
peoples to be enslaved. |
The massive populist thrust of the DAF produced initiatives on so many
fronts at once that business and government could scarcely keep track of
them. And Ley was the driving force. As he put it:

There is the Skills Competition, the Performance Competition, the

Performance Medals, and so on. . . . Scarcely has one taken place and
the new one is already there. Yes, we don’t let anyone rest. Where there
is life, there must be action, movement, there must be activity. There-
fore, the Skills and Performance Competition.°

Ley’s ambitions and the DAF populist dynamism peaked in 1938 — the
last full peacetime year. It was early in this year that Ley produced the
drafts of several laws, which, had they been enacted, would have made
the DAF by far the most powerful entity in Germany, overshadowing the
Nazi party and even the government itself. As Himmler, one opponent,
put it, Ley’s plans would give the DAF ‘the fulness of power which
previously state and party have had. ... The state in the form of its
ministries will be downgraded to a handmaiden of the Labour Front, while
the party does not even have this helping function.’’ In the end, only the
combined resistance of government ministries, industry and party leaders
defeated Ley’s exaggerated ambitions.
Ley’s grandiose dreams of power were mirrored in his lifestyle as Nazi
Bonze His driving ambition to be ‘somebody’ combined with his access to
virtually unlimited sums of money to produce a princely style of living. He
owned a number of villas throughout Germany, all of them in fashionable
neighbourhoods. When he travelled, which was frequently, he had the
choice of several expensive cars or a specially refitted railroad car. He
dressed expensively, drank the best brandy, smoked choice cigars. No-
where did his desire to emulate a feudal style of life appear more clearly in
his estate near Cologne which he named Rottland. Here he hoped to found
a dynasty, to be a representative of the new racial aristocracy, to be
‘somebody’. The result was the Third Reich en miniatur: a grandiose
enterprise marred by corruption, criminality and bad taste.
152 Robert Ley

The war reinvigorated Ley’s quasi-religious commitment to National

Socialism. Now the great struggle against Jewish-Bolshevism and Jewish-
inspired plutocracy could be engaged on a global basis. Ironically, how-
ever, the exigencies of war undermined much of what Ley had struggled
for during the peacetime years. His grandiose social schemes had to be
temporarily shelved; what was needed was commitment and efficiency, not
welfare. The grass-roots dynamic of the DAF waned, as its younger func-
tionaries were called en masse to the colours. Labour advocacy gave way to
draconian controls as the war made increasing demands on the German
industrial plant. The same DAF which once fought for a shorter work week
now found itself enforcing 72-hour working weeks. Emphasis on Betreuung
gave way to efforts to raise productivity. KdF cruise ships now became
floating hospitals.
Ley, however, did not forsake his vaulting ambition. His quest for ever
more jurisdictions went on unabated. He was even able to win a few
victories. Along with a gift of one million RM Hitler gave Ley the im-
portant responsibility of formulating the post-war Nazi social agenda for
Germany. The resulting Sozialwerk des deutschen Volkes, had it ever
achieved reality, would have given a post-war DAF and Ley control over
extending the Nazi revolution into such crucial areas as social security,
national health, housing, vocational education as well as wage and labour
policy. Ley would have realised his dream of creating a ‘superagency’.
Already, early in the war, Ley suceeded in pushing Seldte to the wall in
several of these jurisdictions. Hitler also gave Ley specific powers during
the war: especially the authority as Reichswohnungskomissar, to control
housing in Germany. These victories turned out, however, to be pyrric,
while Ley’s defeats were real. Setting post-war policy depended on victory,
and, after Stalingrad that prospect became increasingly bleak. As the
demands of the war became more pressing, Ley was ordered to shelve his
grandiose social plans for the duration. As for his specific task as Housing
Czar, here again Ley suffered defeat. A combination of economic bottle-
necks, mounting destruction by bombing and administative ineptness
led to his failure to restore any more than a tiny fraction of the housing
Germans were losing. Other defeats were more ignominious. The appoint-
ment of Fritz Sauckel as Plenipotentiary for Labour Mobilisation in 1942
came as an embarassing blow to the man who had specialised for years in
dealing with German workers. And Bormann’s success in acting as Hitler’s
‘gatekeeper’ prevented Ley from exploiting Hess’ flight to England in May
1941 to successfully reassert his authority as ROL. But all these old
struggles became moot as the Allies closed in on Germany in late 1944 and
early 1945. Ley, the true believer, never gave up his faith in ultimate
victory, and, right up to the end, was concocting schemes to further the
Endsieg. These included urging Hitler to use deadly Tabun gas, and to
form fanatic fighting units like the ‘Adolf Hitler Freikorps’ and the ‘Wer-
 Ronald Smelser 153

wolf’. But nothing would stave off defeat. Ley, who fled southward in the
last days of the war was captured by American troops near Berchtesgaden.
He remained an implacable Nazi. His words to his captors were: ‘Life
doesn’t mean a damn thing to me; you can torture me or beat me or impale
me, but I will never doubt Hitler’s acts.’* Incarcerated with other top
Nazis, Ley was scheduled to be tried as one of the major war criminals. In
the end, though, the destruction of his belief system combined with the
spectre of incarceration for criminality, with its concomitant social disgrace
— a terrifying re-enactment of his father’s fate and the trauma of his
childhood — proved too much. Before the Nuremberg trials could begin,
Ley committed suicide. He had embodied, more than many other Hitler
henchmen, the National Socialist revolution — its apocalyptic quasi-
religious spirit, its social idealism, its racist and imperialist core, and its
flawed and criminal nature. His dreams showed clearly where it would
have gone had Hitler won the war. His restless ambition embodied its
dynamism. His venality its corrupt nature. His failures its administrative
inadequacy.

NOTES

1. See Douglas Kelley, Twenty Two Cells at Nuremberg (New York, Greenberg,
1947), p. 153.
2. Schaumburg-Lippe, Friedrich Christian Prinz zu, Verdammte Pflicht und Schul-
digkeit. Wet und Erlebnis 1914-1933. (Leoni, Druffel, 1966), p. 170.
3. In a speech given at the Nuremberg Party Day celebration in September 1937.
See Offizieller Bericht tiber den Verlauf des Reichsparteitages mit sdmtlichen
KongreBreden (Munich, 1938), p. 265.
4. In a speech to NSBO functionaries on 20 November 1933. See Bundesarchiv
Koblenz (BAK), NS51/vorl. 256, p. 21.
5. See von der Goltz to Lammers, 26 October 1934 in BAK, R43 II/530.
6. Quoted from H.J. Reichhardt, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des nationalsozialis-
tischen Deutschlands und zur Struktur des totalitateren Herrschaftssystems,
Diss., FU Berlin 1956, S. 149.
7. In a letter to Hess of 17 February 1938 in BAK, R43II. 529, p. 51.
8. New York Herald Tribune, 18 May 1945.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The only full biographical treatment of Robert Ley, one which focuses on his role
in the German Labour Front is Ronald Smelser, Robert Ley. Hitler’s Labor Front
Leader (Oxford, Berg Publishers, 1988); important contributions which shed light
on Ley as Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP are Dietrich Orlow, The History
154 Robert Ley

of the Nazi Party, 1933-1945 (Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh University Press, 1969); also
Peter Diehl-Thiele, Partei und Staat im Dritten Reich: Untersuchungen zum
Verhdaltmis von NSDAP und allgemeiner inneren Staatsverwaltung (Munich, Beck,
1971); crucial to understanding social policy during the Third Reich both as analysis
and as source are Timothy Mason’s Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich. Arbeiterklasse
und Volksgemeinschaft 2nd. ed. and Arbeiterklasse und Volksgemeinschaft.
Dokumente und Materialien zur deutschen Arbeiterpolitik 1936-1939 both
(Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975). For the wartime period very important is
Marie Luise Recker, Nationalsozialistische Sozialpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg
(Munich, Oldenbourg, 1985); on the smashing of the trade unions and the emerg-
ence of the DAF see Hans-Gerd Schumann, Nationalsozialismus und Gewerk-
schaftsbewegung (Hannover, Frankfurt, Norddeutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1958); also
Dieter von Lolhoffel, ‘Die Umwandlung der Gewerkschaften in eine nationalso-
zialistische Zwangsorganisation’ in Ingeborg Eisenwein-Rothe (ed.) Die Wirt-
schaftsverbande von 1933 bis 1945 (Berlin, Duncker und Humblot, 1965),
p. 1-184; old but still very useful is Hans Joachim Reichardt, ‘Die deutsche Arbeits-
front. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des nationalsozialistischen Deutschlands und zur
Struktur des totalitaren Herrschaftssystems’ unpublished dissertation, FU Berlin,
1956; several important recent studies which illuminate DAF activities are Detlef
Peukert and Jurgen Reulecke (eds.), Die Reihen fast geschlossen. Beitrdge zur
Geschichte des Alltags unterm Nationalsozialismus (Wuppertal, Peter Hammer,
1981); Carole Sachse, et al. Angst, Belohnung, Zucht und Ordnung (Opladen,
Westdeutscher Verlag, 1982).
14 Otto Ohlendorf:
Non-conformist,
SS Leader and
Economic Functionary
Hanno Sowade

Otto Ohlendorf, born as the youngest of the four children of a well-to-do

farmer on 4 February 1907 in Hoheneggelsen near Hannover, was in-
terested in politics from his earliest days.’ His initial inclination, influenced
by his father, towards the traditional bourgeois conservative camp (the
DNVP), was soon replaced by a more radical orientation. In 1925, while he
was still at grammar school, Ohlendorf joined the SA, from where he was
transferred to the SS in 1927 (membership number 880). He became a
member of the NSDAP with the membership number 6531 (receiving the
Party’s Golden Badge of Honour). Thereafter he actively dedicated him-
self to the dissemination of National Socialism. Even while he was still at
school, at the Andreanum Grammar School in Hildesheim (1917-28),
Ohlendorf helped to build up the local Party organisation in Ho-
heneggelsen. He abandoned this particular activity when he started to
study law and political science at the Universities of Leipzig and Gottingen
(1928-31), and initially became involved in the Nazi Student Association
and the Party branch in Leipzig. Since he did not find the political activity
there satisfactory, he moved to Gottingen after only two semesters. Here,
greater political possibilities were open to Ohlendorf. From the summer of
1929 he was given the task of winning the. District of Northeim for the
Party. Ohlendorf was so successful that the NSDAP was able to win an
absolute majority in the election, for the first time at District level, in the
Region of Hannover South. Following his qualifying exams in law in the
summer of 1931, Ohlendorf received a scholarship, for which the Professor
of Economics, Jens Peter Jessen, had put his name forward, to go to Italy
for about a year, to the University of Pavia. This stay, which was to enable
him to study political science and fascist corporatist institutions, as well as
to prepare him for an academic career, left a considerable mark on the
future course of Ohlendorf’s life. He became a convinced opponent of
Italian fascism. His main criticism was directed towards what he saw as the
authoritarian, autocratic features of the fascist state institutions, and
against corporatism. According to Ohlendorf’s ideas, the ‘community of
the people’, as he put it, should be at the centre and take an active part

155
156 Otto Ohlendorf

through ‘representatives of the people’s consciousness’. He rejected the

rule of individuals, which he later also regarded as existing in the ‘Fuhrer
state’ of the Third Reich. Ohlendorf took National Socialism’s claim to
embody a particular philosophy very seriously and developed his own,
highly individual philosophy, particularly in the sphere of economics. By so
doing he not only came into conflict with the official Party political line on
various points, but occasionally even subjected it to quite bold criticism.
This willingess to criticise, however, must not be allowed to conceal the
fact that Ohlendorf was a convinced National Socialist who gave
wholehearted support to fundamental tenets of the Nazi philosophy, like
for example its racism.?
Alongside his political studies, Ohlendorf had intended to use the stay in
Italy as a starting point for his ‘lifetime’s work’, as he put it. By this he
obviously meant rapid progress in an academic career at a German uni-
versity. The scholarship was therefore to form the basis of his doctorate.
Ohlendorf was also toying with the idea of a post-doctoral qualification as
well. Neither came about. In the summer of 1932 he returned to Germany
without having achieved his objects and, initially, proceeded with his
lawyer’s training. He was saved from this unwanted career by an offer from
his tutor, Jessen, who in the autumn of 1933 gave him the opportunity of
becoming assistant director of the Institute for International Economics in
Kiel. However teacher and pupil soon came in to conflict with the local
Party office and the student body. The disagreement became so serious
that Jessen was finally forced to leave Kiel in the summer of 1934. Ohlen-
dorf followed him to Berlin at the end of 1934, where he took up the post
of departmental head at the Institute for Applied Economics. But in the
national capital, too, Jessen and Ohlendorf failed to realise their plans —
they wanted to establish a National Socialist University College of Econ-
omics. As in Kiel the failure probably had its roots less in practical than in
political opposition. Be that as it may, for Ohlendorf the failure meant the
final end of his hopes for an academic career.°
At this time there was no indication that this moderately talented, but
ambitious ‘intellectual’ would succeed in the Third Reich. His personal
ambition might have pointed to success, but his insistence on his own
philosophy made it seem less likely. Nonetheless in 1936 Ohlendorf suc-
ceeded in taking the step which was to be decisive for his later career:
through the intervention of Professor Jessen — and by reactivating his
membership of the SS, which he had as good as suspended until then — he
joined the SD as director of Department II/23 (Economy). He was fasci-
nated by the aims the SD pursued: the establishment of an intelligence
agency, which, in a system of government not accountable to public
opinion, was to act as a corrective on the state leadership. As he saw it, this
offered a unique opportunity, in close contact with the people, to indicate
where the development of Nazi philosophy and the conduct of government
 Hanno Sowade 157

had gone wrong, and at the same time to realise his own somewhat
convoluted plan to influence the process of development of National
Socialist philosophy, for which he believed himself to be particularly pre-
destined by his studies of the ‘model’ of Italian fascism. During the subse-
quent period he played an influential part in building up the office for
researching public opinion and advanced to be section leader of the entire
Central Division. However he only held this office for a short time. He
attracted the enmity of Ley and Darré with his ‘uncompromisingly critical’
reports about the threat posed to the middle classes by the Four Year Plan
and his opposition to the National Food Corporation.
For all practical purposes he was ‘left out in the cold’ in the SD. In order
nonetheless to realise his ideas of a Nazi middle class policy, Ohlendorf
looked for a job in the economy and applied to be released from his SD
duties. Heydrich did not give permission for his request to be granted but
did finally agree to reducing his work in the SD to ‘honorary duties’. In
June 1938 Ohlendorf joined the National Trade Group and created a new
platform there for his middle-class oriented economic ideology, which he
was again putting forward in latent opposition to the official Party line, to
the DAF and to the National Food Corporation. Within a short time he
won the admiration of the majority of his colleagues and in November 1939
he was promoted to Chief Secretary of the National Trade Group. Ohlen-
dorf probably had the imminent war to thank for the fact that Heydrich
recalled him for duties in the SD in June 1939 and remembered his
organisational abilities: he conferred substantial tasks in the reorganisation
of the higher SS bureaucracy on him, and in September 1939 appointed
him Director of Office III (German-settled areas). Thus Ohlendorf was
made responsible for all research into public opinion within Germany.
It has to be asked why Heydrich catapulted Ohlendorf of all people,
troublesome in many respects, into this position. One reason will in-
doubtedly have been the lack of economic experts in the SS. Ohlendorf
probably commanded quite a reputation as an expert because of his study
of political science and his close contact with the renowned economist
Jessen. His ‘economic policy’, too, which aimed to preserve the middle
class, may have recommended him to the National Trade Group. The
middle class was ultimately a very important group for the NSDAP. Large
sections of the membership and supporters of the Party came from it and
during the years of forced rearmament they had had to endure one dis-
appointment after another. The lofty promises the regime had made to the
middle class when it seized power had all too often been reversed. It was of
importance therefore to make sure of the loyalty of a man who had gained
great trust among the middle class. In this context it is remarkable that
Ohlendorf retained his duties at the National Trade Group and continued
to perform both of his other two offices, that in the Supreme National
Security Office (RHSA) and that in economic administration.
158 Otto Ohlendorf

Ohlendorf will also have recommended himself to a certain extent by his

non-conformism; for if the public opinion reports were really to operate as
an early warning system — and this was the intention of the security plan of
the SS leadership — they had to be handled by a man who dared to
articulate disagreeable matters. In this the regime had completely over-
reached itself, as was soon to become clear. By the time the difficult initial
phase of the war was over, at the very latest, critical voices did not seem at
all suited to the mood of victory and soon his superiors focused more on
Ohlendorf as a presumptious ideologue than as the economic expert and
organiser. In short: Ohlendorf was in trouble again. His relationship with
Himmler, especially, became worse and worse. The National Director of
the SS (RFSS), who himself had high ideological pretensions, disliked
Ohlendorf’s ‘sense of mission’, which he regarded as presumptuous. Per-
sonal antipathy will also have played a part. In Himmler’s eyes Ohlendorf
appeared as the ‘insufferable, humourless Prussian’, as a ‘defeatist’ and
‘pessimist’ and as a consequence of his unwavering ideological stand, as the
‘keeper of the Holy Grail of National Socialism’. The disagreements never
went so far, however, that Ohlendorf was forced to leave the SS. In due
course his career there made steady progress, leading him to the position of
SS General and Lieutenant-General of the Police.*
In the minds of a wider public, Ohlendorf is known less for his work on
security or economic policy than for his involvement in the ideological war
against the USSR. From June 1941 until July 1942 he was Leader of Task
Force D, in the area of the 11th Army, which, under his command,
murdered over 90 000 people. According to his own accounts Ohlendorf
resisted this mission, which he traced back to an initiative by Heydrich.
The Chief of the Security Office (RHSA) probably intended to force the
‘unsoldierly, soft intellectual, who lacked a soldier’s hardness and political
clarity’, into unconditional loyalty to National Socialism by involving him
in mass destruction and, under the motto ‘we’re all in the same boat’, to
deprive him of the opportunity of opposition as well as making him a docile
tool of the RHSA. Possibly the ‘other-worldly’ theoretician was also to be
confronted by ‘practice’, as cruel as it was dirty. By all appearances
Heydrich not only had Himmler’s support in this but was also strengthened
by the vote of Bormann, the Director of the Party Chancellery, who also
disliked Ohlendorf’s unorthodox inclination to anthroposophism. Ohlen-
dorf evidently attempted to evade the assignment to Russia on several
occasions by pointing out his reserved occupation at the National Trade
Group. But it is questionable whether he did this to avoid becoming
entangled in the planned mass destruction in Russia, about which he had
information through his work in the RHSA. It is possible he was also held
back by his concern for the fate of the middle class and his work in the
National Trade Group. Nevertheless in the end he was no longer able to
avoid the assignment.
 Hanno Sowade 159

Contrary to what might have been supposed from his initial refusal, on
his own evidence Ohlendorf endeavoured ‘to fulfil all the tasks he was
given in Russia... honestly, to the best of his ability and with a clear
conscience’. For the National Socialist Ohlendorf this meant that he put
part of the core of his ideology into practice and tried to destroy life which
according to Nazi ideology had no right to existence. He actively strove to
deploy his Task Force as ‘effectively as possible’. To this end he made
efforts, for example, to improve its relationship with the High Command of
the 11th Army (AOK 11), which had been bad at the beginning of the
campaign, in order to expand his unit’s field of action, which was severely
restricted by the AOK 11 on the basis of an agreement between the overall
Supreme Command of the Army (OKW) and the RFSS, which had been
laid down by army officialdom. In addition to Ohlendorf’s intervention,
the increasing threat from partisans finally made the AOK 11 deploy to the
full all the resources at its disposal, and thereby also gave Task Force D
more freedom to operate. This step was taken by AOK 11 in the full
knowledge of the Task Forces’s activities. They had been informed about
them from the beginning of the campaign by reports from Ohlendorf and
his unit commanders as well as those of their own local commanders. After
the initial disputes had been settled, general harmony and cooperation
prevailed between Ohlendorf and his outfit and the 11th Army, which had
been under the command of Manstein since September 1941. Task Force
D’s increasing freedom of movement is reflected in a macabre way in the
‘Report on Events in the USSR’; that is the collected reports of the Task
Forces, which form the basis of our own figures. While about 400 persons
were murdered in the first two months, the number doubled for the period
from mid-August until mid-September 1941 and reached its high point in
the last two weeks of September 1941 with approximately 22 500 victims.
In total, from 22 June 1941 until March 1942, Ohlendorf and his men killed
around 91 000 Jews, gypsies, communists and members of persecuted
groups. Ohlendorf, who by his own account made efforts to minimise the
moral burden on his subordinates, did not entertain any doubts about the
‘legality’ of his activity. He consciously stayed on longer as chief of a task
force than any of his colleagues in office who had taken up their duties at
the same time as him. In his own words, to begin with, in the summer of
1941, he had been glad no longer to be exposed to the disputes and the
inimical surroundings of Berlin. The real reason for his long stay in Russia
was that as a convinced National Socialist, he believed in the necessity of
the policy of mass extermination. Ohlendorf’s racism was ‘differentiated’
enough to make distinctions which allowed him to recruit units of Crimean
Tartars and use them as support troops. But this does not change the fact
that Ohlendorf emphatically refused an early recall from Russia, since he
was convinced, by his own account, that he could achieve more for National
Socialism by his ‘activities on population policy’ than in office work for
160 Otto Ohlendorf

the National Trade Group. Moreover according to Ohlendorf, the ac-

complishment of the ‘task’ gave him a feeling of being right. He had several
opportunities, over the entire duration of his assignment, to return early to
Berlin, under ‘dishonourable’ or ‘honourable’ circumstances.”
He was finally brought back from Russia in the summer of 1942 by the
circles which had banished him there a year earlier. To all appearances,
Himmler had need of the services of his uncomfortable but tried and tested
opinion researcher, Ohlendorf, on account of the smouldering crisis of
confidence after the first winter of the war against Russia and after the
assassination of Heydrich. The attempt to make him more docile by
involving him in mass murder in the USSR had failed. Ohlendorf remained
the committed and critical ideologue and his position had been additionally
strengthened by having passed the ‘test’. His readiness to criticise must not
however be seen in the same light as the opposition to Hitler and the
NSDAP which increased towards the end of the Third Reich. It was not
Ohlendorf’s intention to bring down the existing order, but to stabilise the
system by pointing out what were in his opinion existing abuses and
working against them. Even his old teacher, Professor Jessen, who was a
member of the group involved in the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944,
was to discover this. Since in Ohlendorf’s eyes Jessen might have betrayed
National Socialism, he did not use his influence to help him; it is a matter
for conjecture whether or not he could have prevented the execution.
The results of the opinion research conducted by the SD Internal
Affairs, which Ohlendorf directed until the end of the war, had consider-
able influence on the leadership of the Third Reich. Concrete measures
used to stabilise the system, ranging from the deployment of the Gestapo
to Hitler’s speeches, can be traced back to SD reports. Nonetheless,
without the criteria and orientation of the public opinion research being
put into question, the ‘Reports from the Reich’ increasingly attracted
criticism from leading National Socialists. The reason for this is probably
that, along with the growing loss of confidence in the face of the threatened
defeat, the reports also became more critical and admonitory and this was
perceived as defeatism by various people who heard them and who did not
know the facts. Since the truth and the exposure of their own mistakes
were unacceptable, an attempt was made to keep them from the public. In
summer 1943 (after the intervention of Goebbels, who had objected to the
manner of the report of his ‘Palace of Sport’ speech of 18 February 1943) it
reached the point where the ‘Reports’ were replaced by ‘SD Reports on
Domestic Matters’, which were only available to a substantially smaller
audience. After further protests in summer 1944 Bormann and Ley pro-
hibited Party and DAF officials from cooperating with the SD. In Ohlen-
dorf’s opinion this meant that the duty of the interior intelligence service,
to make available reports on the mood of the population at short notice,
could no longer be fulfilled. The reports were reduced from the summer of
 Hanno Sowade 161

1944 to reports on single items, with the exception of the reaction to 20 July
1944. Nevertheless the SD-Internal Affairs continued to function until the
spring of 1945 and during this time the reporting on, for example, the
mood of the workers, reveals the secret fears of the regime as clearly as
Office III of the RHSA. Ohlendorf continued to be a convinced believer in
the concept of opinion research, and in May 1945 he made an offer to the
last functioning government of the Reich to establish a new ‘intelligence
service on domestic affairs, covering different aspects of life’.°
Even after his return from Russia Ohlendorf retained his close links with
the economic sphere. In the summer of 1942, Secretary of State Landfried,
as the representative of a group within the Ministry of Economics which
opposed Speer’s economic policy, was already attempting to win Ohlen-
dorf for the Ministry, since he was a proven proponent of policies favour-
able to the middle class and — as Section Head in the RHSA, a member of
the powerful SS. This attempt failed primarily because of Himmler’s
opposition. He did not want a member of the SS to expound on economic
policy in opposition to Speer, thereby allowing any set-backs in the war
economy to be put at the door of the SS. One year later, in November
1943, Ohlendorf was allowed to join the Economics Ministry as a Minis-
terial Director and deputy to the Secretary of State, Dr Hayler, who was
newly appointed at the same time. The reason he was now available
stemmed from the fact that Himmler, who had taken over the Ministry of
the Interior in August 1943, planned to expand his comprehensive plan for
state security by attaining potential influence in the Ministry of Economics
while at the same time pursuing his ambitions in the realm of internal
security. In contrast to the summer of 1942 there were now no obstacles in
his way, since after the ‘Fuhrer’s Decree on the concentration of the war
economy’ of 2 September 1943, the Ministry of Economics was released
from duties relating to the armaments sector of the economy and was
responsible for ‘fundamental matters of economic policy’ and maintaining
supplies to the population. There were many indications that Himmler’s
expectations were primarily supposed to be fulfilled by Dr Hayler, who was
among Himmler’s personal friends and who had received the post of
Secretary of State. Ohlendorf should be regarded more as a ‘second string’,
in view of the personal differences which existed with Himmler, although
these were not so great as to prevent his release for duty. However because
of Hayler’s deteriorating health and weak leadership by the Economics
Minister Funk, the restructuring of the Economics Ministry, which began
at the end of 1943, was to be basically taken in hand by Ohlendorf. The
‘new direction’ at the Economics Ministry amounted to the attempt of a
group (which aside from Ohlendorf, Himmler, Funk and Hayler, included
other leading National Socialists) to find an answer to the crisis of confi-
dence which beset the regime in 1943 after Stalingrad, and which was com-
pounded by the dissent the ‘shake-out of personnel’ and the closure of
162 Otto Ohlendorf

non-essential plant had aroused in the middle class. In Ohlendorf’s view the
prime cause was Speer and the ‘un-National-Socialist’ armaments policy he
was conducting at the time, which was inimical to the middle class.
The aims and duties which were now devolved on the Ministry of
Economics consisted on one hand in securing the provision of supplies to
the population, undoubtedly important as a means of stabilising the sys-
tem. Alongside this, however, the Ministry of Economics was to take over
the leading role in the conduct of the economy, which meant in concrete
terms preserving the possibility of a National Socialist-style economy in the
future and developing the basis for the inception of an internal security
policy. By his own account Ohlendorf intended to support Speer’s econ-
omic order during the war — up to a point — since changing it during the fifth
year of the war would have led to great set-backs in armament production.
At the same time he regarded Speer’s ideas as a short-term solution and
planned to replace them in the future, that is after the war, by a ‘National
Socialist economic order’. Until that time the initial phases of this Nazi
economic order were to be disseminated by propaganda, for the purpose of
stabilising the regime only. The problem for Ohlendorf was that in his view
no such Nazi economic order existed, since its theoretical development had
been neglected before the seizure of power and this had not been made up
for afterwards. In order to correct this Ohlendorf created a kind of ‘think
tank’ to assist him in the Ministry of Economics. In it he gathered col-
leagues whom he selected on the basis of their achievements, independent
of Party membership, and provided them generously with resources.
In spite of his origins on a farm, Ohlendorf’s idea of a Nazi economic
order was not determined by the agrarian romanticism then widespread,
since he regarded industry as necessary for the survival of the Nazi state.
He rejected the idea of transferring sovereign state functions to econ-
omists, as Speer had done, just as he rejected a planned economy. Ohlen-
dorf saw the basis of the post-war economic structure in private ownership
and initiatives by private enterprise. This did not mean a ‘free market
economy’, since the state was to act as a coordinator and purveyor of
contracts, without intervening with competition or in the organisational
structure of businesses. Towards the end of the war as defeat drew nearer,
Ohlendorf came into contact with the post-war planning in industrial
circles, since the Ministry of Economics was the agency responsible for
internal security measures. In this role he proved himself to be an impor-
tant mediator and coordinator for the various sections within industry, and
in addition was uniquely suited by his office as Chief of the SD-Internal
Affairs to give a degree of superficial cover to these illegal actions. For its
part, the Ministry of Economics, by virtue of Ohlendorf’s commitment,
could, for example, share in the results of the work of Ludwig Erhard. In
spite of these contacts with the post-war planning of the private sector, in
which each side sought to influence the other, and Ohlendorf’s intensive
 Hanno Sowade 163

efforts to create a Nazi economic system for the future, his work in this
area was denied long-lasting success.’
On 23 May 1945, Ohlendorf, who had heard of the end of the war while
in the service of the last functioning national government, gave himself up
as a prisoner to the allies. Within the context of the trial of the SS Task
Forces (Case 9), he astonished the court by the open manner in which he
gave an account of himself. Even now, Ohlendorf was irremediably con-
vinced of the justice of his philosophy and therefore of his deeds. The court
could not fully make up its mind about this ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ as the
chairman of the Military Tribunal called him — the loyally devoted family
man, the correct economist and civil servant, who had fought selflessly
for the interests of the middle classes, and the mass murderer all in the per-
son of Ohlendorf. According to the relevant guidelines it condemned
‘Mr Hyde’ to death on 10 April 1948. Otto Ohlendorf was executed on 7
June 1951 in Landsberg/Lech.®

NOTES

These references must confine themselves to a few selected facts — some of them are
short summaries. Readers are referred to the extensive references in the quoted
literature, and especially Herbst (economics) and Krausnick; Wilhelm (Task
Force), as well as to the recommended sources as a whole. The overall source for
the entire biography is: United States Military Police (USMP) Case 9, Interroga-
tion of Ohlendorf, dated 8.10.1947, University Library Gottingen.
1. For the dates of Ohlendorf’s life: Ohlendorf’s curriculum vitae dated 26.4.1936,
BA NS 20 119-27 B1.106f.; Ohlendorf to Hohn, dated 18.5.1936, ibid.,
B1.119ff.; affidavit of SS-Brigade Leader Ohlendorf: Personal notes dated
1.4.1947, IfZ NO-2857; draft of a curriculum vitae by Ohlendorf, dated 3.1947,
Nachlass Ohlendorf (Na01).
2. Ohlendorf to his brother Heinz, dated 3.7.1932, Na01; numerous other letters to
family members in Na01.
3. USMP, Case 9, Dokumentenbuch I der Verteidigung (Dok. Buch I), Dok. 1,
la, 36, Na01; Ohlendorf to his fiancee K. Wolpers, dated 25.11.1933, Na01.
They married on 10.6.1934 and had five children.
. Dok. Buch I, Dok 2-4, 14-18, 20f., 26.
&.
Nn Ohlendorf, letters from Russia Nr. 7, 11, 14, 40, 43, 46 to his wife, Na01;
USMP, Case 9, Eidesstattliche Erklarung Dr Braune, Na01; much other ma-
terial in Na01, for example ‘Wie kam es zu meinem Russland-einsatz’ (How did
I come to be sent to Russia?); ‘Der Ablauf meines Einsatzes in Russland’ (The
course of my deployment in Russia); ‘Historische Tatsachen zur Aufstellung,
Aufgabe und Tatigkeit der EGr. im Russlandfeldzug’ (Historical facts about the
setting-up, duties and activities of the Task Forces in the Russian campaign) — all
undated (within the time scale of the court case!)
6. Dok. Buch I, Dok. £f., 11, 25; USMP, Case 9, Eidesstattliche Erklarung von Dr
Bohmer, Na01; Ohlendorf to Schwerin von Krosigk in May 1945, IfZ MA 660.
164 Otto Ohlendorf

7. Ohlendorf to Himmler dated 16.10.1942, IfZ MA 331; marginal note by Himm-

ler dated 21.10.1943, ibid.; Ohlendorf to his wife dated 3.12.1943, Na01; Dok.
Buch I, Dok. 1a, 11, 15, 19, 30; Ohlendorf’s lecture on 19.4.1944 at the
Convention of the Agricultural Councils, Na01; Ohlendorf’s lecture to the Chief
Advisory Council for Industry, 4.7.1944, ibid.
8. Das Urteil im Einsatzgruppenprozess, K. Leszczynski (ed.) p. 145ff.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Fall 9. Das Urteil im Einsatzgruppen prozess, gefallt am 10. April 1948 in Nurnberg
vom Militargerichtshof der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, edited by K. Lesz-
czynski (Berlin, 1963); F. Kersten, Totenkopf und Treue. Heinrich Himmler ohne
Uniform (Hamburg, undated) p. 247ff; Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsver-
brecher vor dem Internationalen Militadrsgerichtshof Nurnberg, 14.11.1945-
1.10.1946, 42 vols (Nuremberg, 1947ff); Prozessakten Fall IX, University Library,
Gottingen; Nachlass Ohlendorf, in the possession of Mrs K. Ohlendorf.

Secondary Literature

There is still no comprehensive scholarly biography of Ohlendorf, but some parts of

his life have been covered by studies devoted to broader themes. These can be
grouped under the following headings: SS Activities: H. Hohne, Der Orden unter
dem Totenkopf. Die Geschichte der SS (Gitersloh, 1967); SD Activities: S. Aron-
son, Reinhard Heydrich und die Friihgeschichte von Gestapo und SD (Stuttgart,
1971); Meldungen aus dem Reich 1938-1945. Die geheimen Lageberichte des
Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, edited by H. Boberach, 17 vols (Herrsching, 1984);
A. Ramme, Der Sicherheitsdienst der SS. Zu seiner Funktion im faschistischen
Machtapparat und im Besatzungsregime des sogennanten Generalgouvernements
Polen (Berlin, 1970); A. Smith, ‘Life in Wartime Germany. Colonel Ohlendorf’s
Opinion Service’, in The Public Opinion Quarterly, 36 (1972) p. 2ff; The Task
Forces: H. Krausnick and H.-H. Wilhelm, Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges.
Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938-1942 (Stuttgart, 1981);
the Economy: W.A. Boelke, Die deutsche Wirtschaft 1930-1945. Interna des Reich-
swirtschaftsministeriums (Dusseldorf, 1983); L. Herbst, Der Totale krieg und die
Ordnung der Wirtschaft. Die Kriegswirtschaft im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Ideolo-
gie und Propaganda 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1982). This work contains the most
comprehensive attempt so far at an evaluation of Ohlendorf’s life and gives a
detailed account of his work in the field of political economy as one of its central
themes. This present biography takes up many of the points it makes in the field of
economics. The Trial: F. Bayle, Psychologie et Ethique du National-Socialisme
(Paris, 1953) p. 33ff, 462ff; R.M.W. Kempner, SS im Kreuzverhor (Munich, 1964).
 15 Joachim von Ribbentrop:
From Wine Merchant to
Foreign Minister
Wolfgang Michalka

The crisis of national identity, brought about not least by two world wars
and their devastating consequences, has caused historians to become inten-
sively involved with questions of continuity and/or discontinuity in recent
German history. Discussion has centred above all on whether, and to what
extent, Hitler’s policy, which aimed unambiguously at war, was a more or
less direct successor of traditional German foreign policy, so that it is
possible to speak of an unbroken line from the Wilhelmine Empire to the
Third Reich, or whether National Socialist policy represented a completely
new direction, forming a clear break in the pattern of German (foreign)
policy.
In confronting this complex of problems, attention inevitably turned to
the political and economic elites who were at Hitler’s side during the
planning and execution of his policy, who attempted to influence and even
constrain the ‘Fuhrer’ in his almost omnipotent role as arbiter and leader.
The following study attempts to describe Joachim von Ribbentrop as a
person, his political career, the aims he developed and pursued in foreign
policy and finally his role in the decision making process in the Third
Reich. He was of course not one of the ‘old warriors’ of the NSDAP, or
one of those personalities who were particularly close to Hitler, like his
favourite architect Albert Speer. Nor was he able to achieve the popularity
of Hermann Goering or the power of Heinrich Himmler. Instead, Ribben-
trop has been regarded until the present day as incompetent and arrogant,
moody and unpredictable, entirely Hitler's man and thus completely de-
pendent on him. In short Ribbentrop personifies the cliché of a faceless but
malevolent politician.
But precisely because of this negative picture it is all the more aston-
ishing that Ribbentrop himself had such an astonishing career, even if it
was of ‘almost quixotic incompetence’ (Joachim C. Fest), which saw him
advance in a few years from being a wine merchant to Hitler’s foreign
policy adviser and finally to Foreign Minister.
Joachim (von) Ribbentrop was born on 30 April 1893 in Wesel in the
Rhineland. His father was a professional soldier who made no secret of his
admiration for Bismarck’s policies and his own increasing distance from
the ‘new regime’ of Kaiser Wilhelm II and resigned in 1908. Numerous

165
166 Joachim von Ribbentrop

periods abroad — in French Switzerland, Britain and Canada — gave Rib-

bentrop, who attended school to higher secondary level, a good knowledge
of languages and many contacts. When the First World War broke out he
was in Canada, where he had various jobs from 1910-14. After an adven-
turous return to Germany he volunteered for war service with the 12th
Torgau Hussars. He fought on the eastern and western fronts, was
wounded and decorated with the Iron Cross and finally was sent in 1918 as
adjutant to the plenipotentiary of the Prussian War Ministry to Constanti-
nople. After the cessation of hostilities he was assigned to the staff of
General von Wrisberg to prepare for the peace conference.
In 1919 Ribbentrop left the army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Bearing in mind the abilities he had as a businessman and his contacts
abroad, he joined a Berlin firm which imported cotton, but soon trans-
ferred to the spirits trade. One reason for this change was his marriage to
Annelies Henkell, the daughter of the famous producer of Sekt, who was
well known even in those days. His first - economic — career was taking its
course. In a few years he had achieved considerable prosperity, com-
plemented too by social prestige: in exchange for a monthly payment
Ribbentrop had himself adopted by a distant aunt in order to give his name
the ‘von’ it still lacked. No wonder that Joseph Goebbels later spitefully
said of him, ‘he bought his name, married his money and got his public
office by a swindle’.'
As for most of his contemporaries, for Ribbentrop too the First World
War and the defeat of the German Empire in 1918 were the decisive part of
his life. He thought the Treaty of Versailles was unjust, did not think much
of parliamentary democracy and feared communism. He originally sympath-
ised with the revisionist policies of Gustav Stresemann, but during the course
of the Great Depression he moved closer to the NSDAP, which he welcomed
as the sole means of salvation from the supposed danger of communism.
He got to know Hitler in the summer of 1932. At the end of 1932 and the
beginning of 1933, as a member of the influential Berlin Herrenclub,
Ribbentrop played the part of intermediary. On one side were conserva-
tive groups around the ex-Chancellor, Franz von Papen, who thought that
the crisis management of Papen’s successor as Chancellor, General von
Schleicher, held out little prospect of success. On the other were National
Socialists around Goering, Himmler and Keppler, who were all convinced
that only a coalition cabinet ‘rallying nationalist forces’ made up of
National Socialists and conservatives could overcome the political and
economic crisis in Germany.
Ribbentrop was not in fact directly rewarded for his offices as an in-
termediary with an influential political post — he wanted that of Secretary
of State in the Foreign Office — but he was soon serving Hitler, who had
come to value him as a linguistically gifted, well-travelled man of the
world, as a special emissary to France and also especially to Britain. The
 Wolfgang Michalka 167

mutual ground on which Hitler and Ribbentrop met consisted of anti-

communism and a desire for the revision of the Treaty of Versailles.
In order to assert himself against the ‘old warriors’, as a newcomer to the
Party, and especially to hold his own against competitors with similar
ambitions, who like him were courting Hitler’s favour, Ribbentrop, having
correctly assessed the leadership struggles in the Fuhrer State, built up his
own personal political power base. His so-called ‘Ribbentrop Office’,
which in a short time numbered over 150 members, was an organisation
comparable to Rosenberg’s bureau, to the foreign affairs organisation and
other National Socialist leaders’ feudal-style institutions. This meant that
the foreign policy of the Third Reich was increasingly characterised by a
system of parallel competing institutions and special plenipotentiaries, in
which the Foreign Office did have the largest and most effective machinery
at its disposal, but little trust among the political leadership. Hitler was
entirely of the opinion that the ‘company of conspirators’ in the Wilhelm-
strasse hindered rather than promoted dynamic National Socialist foreign
policy, so he assigned important diplomatic tasks to special commissioners
— and this in turn further promoted the confusion of authority and the wild
proliferation of Party political institutions which were beginning to play a
significant role in Hitler’s state.
However Ribbentrop did not become known to the public until 1935,
when he successfully brought about the Anglo-German Naval Treaty,
which the Foreign Office had thought could not be achieved, which made
his success extremely welcome to the naval command and to Hitler in
particular. From now on he was regarded as a specialist in British affairs — a
sphere which was of particular interest to Hitler in view of his foreign
policy goals.
In autumn 1936 he was appointed ambassador to London with the task,
laid down by Hitler, of delivering an Anglo-German alliance. Although he
too was originally convinced that it could be achieved, he was soon forced
to recognise the incompatibility of German, that is National Socialist, and
British policy and so gradually moved away from the policy towards Britain
contained in Hitler’s programme and took an anti-British course instead.
In numerous reports and discussions the National Socialists’ ‘England special-
ist’ tried to explain to his Fuhrer the probability of an Anglo-German conflict
which could scarcely be avoided, in order from at least 1937 to make him
reorientate his stated policy to Britain. Since London would never be able
to accept Germany’s disturbing the balance of power in Europe, British
politicians would regard the German State as the most dangerous political
opponent and so Great Britain would always oppose the German plans for
conquest in the East; indeed, Ribbentrop warned, even ‘territorial revision
involving Czechoslovakia’ would mean war. An ‘agreement on our terms’
was therefore impossible. For this reason it was important for the Reich to
prepare in advance for a warlike confrontation with the British Empire and
168 Joachim von Ribbentrop

to forge a powerful anti-British system of alliances.”

This recommendation suggested exactly how Ribbentrop envisaged
foreign policy and what he doggedly tried to persuade Hitler to do: of-
ficially they were to continue to court Britain, but at the same time, in
complete secrecy and with all urgency, a counteralliance was to be formed,
which would be powerful enough either to avoid a future war between
National Socialist Germany and the British Empire, which was assumed to
be inevitable, or at least to enable the outcome to be in Germany’s favour.
It was not surprising that he also supported the ‘Anti-Comintern Pact’
between Germany and Japan, which, especially since Italy had joined in
November, was formally anti-communist in its orientation, but de facto
anti-British, since according to his understanding of politics all three re-
visionist powers were hindered in their expansionist plans not primarily by
the Soviet Union, but by Britain.
The reports and recommendations of his ambassador in London were
not without influence on Hitler, but he still did not by any means believe in
the necessity of an anti-British strategy. In his speech on the basis of
foreign policy on 5 November 1937, which we know of because of the
account given by Colonel Hossbach, the Fuhrer did describe Britain for
the first time as a ‘hated opponent’, and therefore no longer intended to
realise his political aims with Britain, as he had insisted again and again
since the early twenties, but now without Britain, although if possible not
against Britain.
The extent to which Ribbentrop had meanwhile become important for
Hitler’s policy is demonstrated by the fact that at the beginning of 1938 he
replaced the Foreign Minister, Konstantin von Neurath, who had been in
office since 1932 but who was no longer prepared to share the responsibility
for Hitler’s increasingly obvious course towards war as leader of the
Foreign Office. Ribbentrop had now achieved the goal he desired.
This new ministerial appointment in February 1938 did not initially
result in any spectacular changes in personnel. The new boss chose as his
Secretary of State Ernst von Weizsacker, who as an experienced career
diplomat was not just highly thought of in the Foreign Office. Ribbentrop
was evidently making an effort to secure the professional competence of
the office and to link the Foreign Office more into the foreign policy
decision-making process once again. However after a few months more
National Socialists were put into key positions. Members of the ‘Ribben-
trop Office’ in particular, which he had kept in existence, moved over to
Wilhelmstrasse. Over and above this the influence of the SS in the Foreign
Office was increased. It was concentrated on personnel policy, cultural and
ethnic policy as well as Jewish policy, especially during the war. Ribben-
trop himself had had good relations with Heinrich Himmler since 1932 — he
was one of the SS leader’s few close friends — and Himmler in return
rewarded Ribbentrop’s political advancement with correspondingly high
rank in the SS.
 Wolfgang Michalka 169

At the time of the ‘union’ of Austria with the German state in the spring
of 1938, the new Foreign Minister had yet to make an appearance: he was
in London, vacating his ambassadorial office. Because of this Hermann
Goering was able to seize the initiative and make Hitler adopt a policy of
forced annexation. During the Sudeten crisis, however, which followed
immediately after this, it was Ribbentrop who was unmistakably one of the
‘hawks’, advocating an agressive policy in this European conflict. The
‘doves’ around Goering and the group in the Foreign Office around Weiz-
sacker were however able to have their way and win Hitler over to the
diplomatic solution agreed at Munich.
The antagonism between Britain and Germany, which had become
increasingly obvious from at least 1938, made Ribbentrop regard even the
Soviet Union, along with Japan and Italy, as an important ally in German
plans to become a great world power. At the turn of the year 1938/39,
when Warsaw rejected German proposals aimed at resolving the issues of
Danzig and the Polish corridor in the interests of National Socialism and to
force Poland into the role of a junior partner of the German Reich and
when, finally, in March 1939 London and Paris guaranteed the integrity of
Poland’s borders, National Socialist decision-makers were forced to give
greater emphasis in their calculations to the Western powers’ opposition to
German efforts to become a great power. In this critical situation the
proponents of an Eastern option in the Foreign Office and also in economic
spheres were given a considerable new impetus, so that Ribbentrop, too,
who thought primarily in terms of opportunistic power politics, recognised
the Soviet Union as a possible partner for German expansionist policies
which would indubitably have to reckon with British opposition, and from
now on he conceived of it as a central factor in his policy.
The German-Soviet non-aggression pact, signed on the night of 23/24
August 1939 in Moscow, must surely count as one of the most glittering
moments in Ribbentrop’s career in foreign policy, for, in the short term at
least, he had succeeded in convincing Hitler, who had originally wanted to
march with Britain against Russia, that a pragmatic reversal of the fronts
was the need of the moment. Ribbentrop regarded the alliance between
Berlin and Moscow as the cornerstone of his anti-British plan and the basis
of German policies aimed at reviving world power status. He himself
compared his policies with Bismarck’s: ‘In the situation we faced in 1939
the re-adoption of these historical links for reasons of real politik was a
factor of the first importance in attaining our political security’.*
In the same way Ribbentrop was at pains to achieve a ‘lasting settlement’
with Germany’s eastern neighbours. At the end of the Polish campaign he
intensified political and economic links. For in the face of the British
refusal to recognise Germany’s position of hegemony in Europe in the
years 1939-1941 and to come to an agreement with Hitler, and with an eye
to the threat of America joining the war on the side of Britain, the
establishment of a European and Asiatic Four Power Agreement became
170 Joachim von Ribbentrop

indispensable for Ribbentrop’s anti-British plan. With the help of a power-

ful, indeed downright unbeatable continental power block, which was to
extend from Gibraltar to Yokohama, Ribbentrop intended to put the
traditional sea-power, Great Britain, in its place and lead the German
Reich out of its confinement in continental Europe. In his opinion this was
the only way that Germany could grow into a world power to match the
British Empire and America.
Ribbentrop’s foreign policy plans, primarily conceived of in terms of
power politics, which clearly harked back to the traditions of Wilhelmine
imperialist goals, but were changed to suit the altered political situation
after the First World War, so that they were capable of being realised,
were in total opposition to Hitler’s foreign policy programme, which was
determined by racist ideology. The latter’s deviation towards this alterna-
tive to his original programme was determined solely by events and was
short-lived. Hitler held fixedly to his racist ideological policy, the goal
being the destruction of the ‘Jewish-Bolshevik’ Soviet Union, the strategic
planning for which occurred at the latest in the summer of 1940, after the
defeat of France, and it was to be realised during 1941.
Ribbentrop tried until the end of 1940 to bring Hitler round to his
pro-Soviet real politik, but in vain. Resignedly he records in his memoirs:
‘Even then I had the feeling that I was on my own with my policy towards
Russia’.*
Although Ribbentrop took his orders solely from Hitler and was com-
pletely subordinate to him, he believed after the defeat at Stalingrad in
1943 that Germany would have to seek a separate peace with Russia, an
initiative which he pursued until the spring of 1945. His sporadic initiatives
for peace, which were certainly undertaken in part to raise his own political
profile, can be regarded as vain attempts to end the ideological war by
means of calculable real politik.
1943 marked the turning point in Ribbentrop’s political career. He
increasingly lost Hitler’s trust and therefore also his political importance.
Constantly at pains to remain in the vicinity of the Fihrer, who was
indispensable for his political situation, he devoted himself almost more to
increasing rivalry with Goebbels, Rosenberg, Bormann and also with
Himmler, whose support he had enjoyed for a long time, than to the affairs
of the Foreign Office, which was taking less and less part in the political
decision-making process during the war. It should be noted at this point
that the Foreign Office was increasingly confronted and pre-occupied with
the so-called ‘final solution’ to the Jewish question. The office responsible
for it was the ‘Germany Section’, created in 1940, the director of which,
Martin Luther, took office with the rank of a Secretary of State. He was a
member of the ‘Ribbentrop Bureau’ and initially enjoyed the confidence of
his Foreign Minister. The ‘Jewish Committee’ of this section was respon-
sible, among other things, for developing and preparing the ground diplo-
matically for, or safeguarding plans for, the deportation and resettlement
 Wolfgang Michalka 171

of German and European Jews which was originally under consideration.

The Madagascar Plan, which was drawn up after the victory over France in
1940 but never implemented, according to which European Jews were to
be evacuated to this French island and almost put in ‘quarantine’, should
be mentioned in this context. After the attack on the Soviet Union in June
1941, the beginning of the ‘ideological war of destruction’, deliberations
about the deportation of the Jews to the East were put in hand, even at the
Wilhelmstrasse office. It comes as no surprise that Luther took part as
representative of the Foreign Office at the conference Heydrich called at
the Wannsee at the end of February 1942 and learned of the plans to
exterminate the Jews. Equally the Foreign Office, and therefore Ribben-
trop too, was aware of the murder of the Jews that followed by the Task
Forces of the Security Police and the SD.
Within his own Ministry Ribbentrop had long since ceased to be un-
opposed. Martin Luther, who himself wanted to be Minister, wove a net of
intrigue around his superior and those who had originally supported him.
However Ribbentrop was able to get rid of this rival in the nick of time —
perhaps his last political triumph. He had long since left the arena of
political decision-making. Hitler was scarcely accessible to him any more.
It was entirely logical that Admiral D6nitz, who was Chancellor for a few
days after Hitler’s suicide of a Germany which had long since sunk into a
coma, did not include Ribbentrop in his cabinet.
He was taken prisoner by British soldiers, prosecuted at Nuremberg as a
war criminal and executed on 16 November 1946.

NOTES

1. Quoted from Joachim C. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches. Profile einer
totalitaren Herrschaft (Munich-Zurich, 1986) p. 246.
2. For the broader. context see Wolfgang Michalka, Ribbentrop und die deutsche
Weltpolitik 1933-1940. Aussenpolitische Konzeptionen und Entscheidung-
sprozesse im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1980) p. 162ff.
3. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau (Leoni am Starnber-
ger See, 1953) p. 184.
4. Ibid., p. 237.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
In comparison to other leading Nazis, the position with regard to source material
relating to Ribbentrop’s person and policies is good. The German archives have
available a full range of political documents, which make it possible to write a
172 Joachim von Ribbentrop

biography firmly based on primary sources. British, French, Italian and American
archives — to name but the most important — are accessible to historians. The
archives of the Soviet Union are still closed, which is highly regrettable, given the
importance of Ribbentrop’s policy on Russia.
The edited files of German Foreign Policy (ADAP), series C, D and A present
an excellent basis for any study of Ribbentrop. Foreign editions (DBFP, FRUS,
DDF etc.) can be consulted to complement the former.
During his time in prison in Nuremberg Ribbentrop wrote memoirs (Zwischen
London und Moskau. Erinnerungen und letze Aufzeichnungen. From his estate,
edited by Annelies von Ribbentrop (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1953)), which in
spite of all the criticism which can be levelled at them are of great value as sources.
His wife has published the following annotated collections of source material as
an exercise in apologism: Deutsch-englische Geheimverbindungen. Britische
Dokumente der Jahre 1938 und 1939 im Lichte der Kriegsschuldliige (Tubingen,
1967); Verschworung gegen den Frieden. Studien zur Vorgeschichte des Zweiten
Weltkrieges (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1963); Die Kriegsschuld des Widerstandes.
Aus britischen Geheimdokumenten 1938/39 (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1975).

Secondary Literature

A biography of Ribbentrop which meets all academic requirements is still needed.

The brilliantly written biographical sketch by Joachim C. Fest: ‘Joachim von
Ribbentrop und die Degradierung der Diplomatie’, in Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten
Reiches. Profil einer totalitaren Herrschaft (Munich, 1986), is based solely on
secondary material.
In contrast to this Hans-Adolf Jacobsen has described Ribbentrop’s origins, his
political career and the organisation of his offices on the basis of a broad range of
primary sources in Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik 1933-1938 (Frankfurt am
Main-Berlin, 1968). Wolfgang Michalka’s Ribbentrop und die deutsche Westpolitik
1933-1940. Aussenpolitische Konzeptionen und Entscheidungsprozesse im Dritten
Reich (Munich, 1980) examines the genesis and quality of Ribbentrop’s foreign
policy aims on the basis of sources, compares these with Hitler’s ‘programme’ and
fits them into the range of political ideas of important decision-makers in the Third
Reich.
Important complementary studies are the works of Andreas Hillgruber, Hitlers
Strategie. Politik und Kriegsftihrung 1940-4] (Frankfurt am Main, 1965) and Klaus
Hidebrand, Vom Reich zum Weltkrieg. Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage
(Munich, 1969) and by the same author, Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1933-1945. Kalkiil
oder Dogma? (Stuttgart, 1971ff) and also Josef Henke, England in Hitlers politis-
chem Kalkiil 1935-1939 (Boppard am Rhine, 1973). These studies are mainly
devoted to Ribbentrop’s foreign policy goals.
Stimulating analyses of institutions are to be found in: Hans-Jiirgen Déscher,
Das Auswartige Amt im Dritten Reich. Diplomatie im Schatten der ‘Endlésung’
(Berlin, 1987) and Peter Longerich, Propagandisten im Krieg. Die Presseabteilung
des Auswartigem Amtes unter Ribbentrop (Munich, 1987).
Christopher Browning’s study, The Final Solution and the Foreign Office. A
Study of Referat D III of Abteilung Deutschland 1940-43 (New York, London,
1978, gives important insights into Ribbentrop’s role in the ‘final solution’.
16 Ernst Julius R6hm: Chief
of Staff of the SA and
Indispensible Outsider
Conan Fischer

At first sight R6hm’s personal origins marked him out for conventional
success rather than for a career in radical, anti-establishment politics. He
was born on 28 November 1887 as the third child and younger son of a
well-connected Bavarian senior railway official and, after receiving a gram-
mar school education, fulfilled his boyhood dream of following a military
career. A cadet officer in 1906, he attended military academy in 1907 and
became an officer in 1908. During the war he served with distinction as a
Company commander in the Royal 10th Infantry Regiment and was three
times badly wounded, finally at Verdun, before receiving the Iron Cross
(First Class) and being transferred as a staff officer to the 12th Bavarian
Infantry Regiment. As a man of action he must have regarded this transfer
with mixed feelings, but he went about his new, bureaucratic tasks ener-
getically and displayed excellent organisational talent — most notably dur-
ing the German retreat of September 1918 in Flanders.
This apparently conventional background, however, coexisted uneasily
with Rohm’s still-latent homosexuality — perhaps the product of an intense
attachment to his mother during a childhood blighted by a dominating and
austere father for whom, Rohm later claimed, he could find no feelings at
all. Finding no emotional satisfaction in a string of affairs with women and
eventually despising all women — his mother and sister excepted — and
rejecting the civilian society, in which his father had made his career, as
venal and corrupt, Rohm found personal and emotional commitment
solely within the monarchist Bavarian army. The loss of the war and the
collapse of the monarchy came therefore as twin hammer blows for him
and out of this personal catastrophe began the overt politicisation of his
military and organisational talents.
His role in post-war military affairs left him well-placed to wreak revenge
on the hated civilian society which, he believed, had enriched itself during
the war and then attained pre-eminence by concluding a dishonourable
peace with Germany’s enemies. Serving initially as a staff officer in the
Freikorps von Epp, Rohm was soon transferred in July 1919 back to the
Bavarian 7th Division along with his Freikorps unit. Here he was entrusted
with the procurement of substantial weapons stocks and their concealment
from the Allies. He assumed a role in military intelligence which provided

173
174 Ernst Julius Rohm

further connections with the radical Right and, in addition, was a founder
member of the clandestine Eiserne Faust (Iron Fist).
This informal association provided a means of liaison between different
(para-)military groups and through it ROhm came to meet the army ‘V-
Mann’ (intelligence agent) Adolf Hitler. Suspicious of the lone wolf cor-
poral, RGhm nonetheless believed that his oratorical skills were of use and
admitted him to the Eiserne Faust. Shortly after this Hitler joined the
fledgling DAP (later NSDAP) and reported his move to R6hm who conse-
quently attended a DAP meeting, was impressed by the manner of its then
leader, Drexler, and joined as a passive member. Thus Rohm’s personality
and background had caused him to gravitate towards that defiance of the
Republic epitomised by right-wing radicalism and although he regarded
membership of the NSDAP as one commitment among many, Hitler, once
leader, was to benefit decisively from his decision. Through the embittered
army captain he obtained his first links with Bavarian politicians and with
military leaders, some of whom were persuaded by ROhm to join the
NSDAP.
During the early 1920s and particularly by 1923 Rohm’s importance for
the NSDAP became unmistakable. Although the Bavarian government
was notoriously ambivalent towards the Republic, it regarded the growth
of the right-wing radical leagues on its territory as a decidedly mixed
blessing. Recognising that the leagues did not share its arch-conservative
values, it wavered between exploiting the common anti-republican bond
that united the two and suppressing them, but at such moments the new
Nazi leader, Hitler, found he could count on his army friends. A notable
example, of which ROhm made much in his memoirs, occured in January
1923 as Hitler planned to include a propagandistically valuable march-past
of his paramilitary forces as part of the NSDAP’s first congress. The
government in Munich resolved to check the rising fortunes of the uncom-
fortably radical Nazis by banning outdoor parades and thereby humiliating
their leader. In the event the government, and not Hitler, was humiliated.
Rohm and von Epp lobbied their Divisional commander, von Lossow, to
intercede with the government and Rohm even arranged meetings between
Hitler and, firstly, von Lossow and, secondly, the authorities. Under this
pressure the latter backed down and allowed a triumphal Hitler to take the
salute at a march-past of over 5000 paramilitaries as planned.
During the spring and summer Rohm continued to play the role of
liaison officer par excellence between the army and the activists, seeing to
the equipping and training of the leagues within army barracks and occa-
sionally providing them with arms and ammunition from within the secret
hoards he had created. In this he received the backing — sometimes active,
sometimes passive — of von Lossow, despite orders to the contrary from
Berlin, but the army’s support for Hitler was by no means unconditional.
Its apparent generousness stemmed from its wish to mobilise paramilitary
 Conan Fischer 175

forces across party lines to serve the interests of Bavarian particularism.

This conflicted starkly with Hitler’s aim of obtaining military backing for
his national revolution which would be accomplished by the NSDAP under
his leadership.
These differences between the NSDAP and army left Rohm, as a mem-
ber of both, in a similarly ambivalent situation. Eventually, as relations
between the Reich and Bavaria deteriorated further during September
1923 and both Hitler and the Bavarian conservatives prepared in their own
ways for a showdown, Rohm partly resolved his own dilemma by resigning
from the army and placing himself at the complete disposal of his paramili-
tary comrades. Thus was completed the transformation of R6hm from
monarchist army officer to paramilitary adventurer. Already involved since
1921 with the SA and for almost a year with organising the Kampfbund, an
umbrella organisation embracing the SA, Bund Oberland and the Reichs-
flagge which sought to achieve the revolutionary overthrow of the state,
R6hm openly took command of the Reichsflagge (renamed Reichskriegs-
flagge) on 9 September. Although these forces claimed loyalty to Hitler
and hoped to enable him to repeat Mussolini’s exploits north of the Alps,
the Nazi leader fell in with this reluctantly. He and the political wing
of the National Socialist movement were now overshadowed by their para-
military allies.
Hitler, who had envisaged the SA on its own as a quasi-terrorist organ-
isation subordinate to the party, instead found himself acting as the gifted
propagandist for a broader-based, essentially paramilitary movement. The
events of 9 November changed matters decisively, for while Hitler’s failed
putsch undoubtedly represented a severe short-term setback for Nazism as
a whole, it might equally be regarded as the point at which Hitler and his
party became the masters of the National Socialist movement and their
paramilitary colleagues their servants. Political mass mobilisation under
the aegis of the new Policy of Legality replaced the discredited strategy of a
military-style assault on the state.
However, while Hitler remained confined in Landsberg fortress ROhm
was spared the worst consequences of his own failed strategy; he had
displayed his usual competence during the putsch by occupying the War
Ministry building and, after five months confinement in Stadelheim prison,
was released on | April 1924. He became a Reichstag deputy for the
NSFB, although by his own admission made little impact, and, more
significantly, received permission from Hitler to recreate and command the
SA.' Because of an official ban on Nazi organisations Rohm established a
so-called military sports league, the Frontbann, which represented a com-
promise between the party army desired by Hitler and a conventional
paramilitary league. Despite difficulties with the authorities ROhm built it
up to a strength of 30 000,* but Hitler’s release from Landsberg in January
1925 brought his freedom of action swiftly to an end. He was ordered to
176 Ernst Julius Rohm

dissolve the Frontbann and invited to re-launch the SA which, this time,
would be unreservedly under the control of Hitler and the party organisa-
tion (PO). R6hm continued to insist on full powers of command over an
autonomous league, but Hitler’s refusal to countenance this precipitated
Rohm’s resignation as leader of the Frontbann on 1 May 1925 and his
subsequent refusal to re-launch the SA.
Publicly disgraced by his part in the Hitler putsch, estranged from the
Nazi movement, and latterly involved in a number of semi-public and
controversial homosexual affairs, Rohm withdrew entirely from political
life. Not surprisingly he suffered a personal moral crisis living, as he put it,
like a sick animal. He failed to establish himself in any civilian career,
sought solace in a series of homosexual liaisons and eventually, in 1928,
accepted with alacrity an offer from the Bolivian government of a post as
military instructor. Receiving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, the demands
of a new lifestyle and exile from the scene of his failures evidently came as
a relief to ROhm, but he still hankered after his former love-life and the
fellowship of his old comrades.”
A crisis within the National Socialist movement provided him with the
opportunity to return. Tensions between the SA and PO had persisted in
his absence. The SA never abandoned its activist leanings, regarding
Nazism’s growing political success from 1929 onward as little more than the
springboard for its own revolutionary assault on the state, but the PO owed
its pre-eminence to the primacy of the Policy of Legality. This basic dispute
spawned a series of quarrels over matters such as finance, the delineation
of responsibilities and, ultimately, the degree of political power to be
enjoyed by the SA within the movement. Matters came to a head in
August 1930 when the SA’s Chief of Staff, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon,
demanded the inclusion of SA members on the NSDAP’s electoral list for
the forthcoming Reichstag elections, only to be met with a blank refusal
from Hitler. He resigned and was replaced provisionally by Otto Wagener,
but regional SA leaders regarded the deeper issues as unresolved, all the
more so when, in September, Hitler publicly reassured the army that the
NSDAP posed no threat to its position in the state. The SA intended to
replace the army with a revolutionary people’s militia.
In this tense atmosphere Hitler contacted Rohm, inviting him to return
to head the increasingly rebellious SA and on 5 January 1931 he became
Chief of Staff. Given the obvious political differences between the two
men, the move seems at first sight curious and historians have provided
varied explanations for Hitler’s decision. Certainly the two had always
remained personal friends and Hitler was appealing to R6hm to get him
out of a tight spot. Rdhm conceivably believed that Hitler’s problems
would enable him to gain concessions for the SA that were unobtainable in
1925. Equally Hitler’s move may have testified to his own self-confidence
and belief that in the longer term he held the stronger hand. Certainly he
 Conan Fischer 177

retained ultimate control over the SA as its Supreme Commander, whilst

R6hm for his part faced an immediate challenge to his authority as Chief of
Staff from the existing SA hierarchy. It resented his sudden elevation and
resented even more the entourage he brought with him into the SA
leadership — men with a reputation for corruptness, debauched perversion,
and violent criminality. Furthermore, regional SA leaders, such as the
commander of the eastern SA, Walter Stennes, in Berlin, appreciated that
these circumstances did leave ROhm particularly dependent on Hitler and,
therefore, quite possibly in effect a Trojan horse for the PO and the Policy
of Legality within the SA. Stennes rebelled in April 1931, forming an
independent SA, but since few rank-and-file stormtroopers followed him
Rohm was able to isolate the mutiny and stamp increasingly his authority
on the SA, thereby dispelling the doubts expressed by Goebbels, among
others, concerning his abilities.
ROhm embarked on a fundamental restructuring of the SA which greatly
facilitated its subsequent rapid expansion. It had concentrated from an
early stage on recruiting from within the youthful working class and its
relative success in this regard became of acute importance during the
depression years. ROhm appreciated that young, unemployed workers, as
well as white-collar employees and recruits from the impoverished farming
population, might have a considerable disruptive impact if they could be
organised within the SA to be unleashed against the existing social and
political system. In this he was not to be disappointed and, even before the
events of early 1933, he earned praise from Goebbels for his personal
contribution to the destabilising of Briining’s government in May 1932.
Furthermore, Rohm’s recruitment policy — willingly endorsed by most
other SA leaders — provided the Nazi movement with an organised follow-
ing from within those circles normally associated with the Communist or
the Social Democratic Party. This simultaneously deprived the Left of an
element of support while, ironically, providing the National Socialists with
an instrument of mass proselytisation and terror which was turned against
the Left in particular. Although the SA only enjoyed the support of a
minority of the male unemployed before March 1933, it was, in contrast to
the KPD (Communist panty) able to organise and exploit its following to
great effect.
Even at this stage, a ROhm’s position within the Nazi movement
was ambivalent. His homosexual affairs provoked an outraged response
from sources as diverse as the Italian fascist government, the Social Demo-
cratic press, and elements of the Nazi movement itself who were also
concerned by the growing number of senior SA commanders appointed by
R6ohm from among his ex-Freikorps homosexual acquaintances.* With this
he seemed at best to have created a potential powder keg. For the mo-
ment, these doubts notwithstanding, complaints were brushed aside by
Hitler, for Rohm proved an excellent and tenacious SA commander. The
178 Ernst Julius Rohm

latter certainly entertained growing personal misgivings about the pros-

pects for long-term relations with the PO and was uncomfortably aware
that the elites of Weimar distinguished between the NSDAP and the SA to
the detriment of the latter. He even toyed with the idea of forming an
alliance with the disgraced Stennes during 1932 — intriguingly enough to
effect the restoration of the Bavarian and Prussian monarchies — but found
Stennes unwilling to cooperate. For all this, however, he remained faithful
in practise to Hitler and his Policy of Legality and indeed it seems that his
personality prevented him from ever branching out on his own. He had
always played the role of the loyal lieutenant and during the latter months
of 1932 this loyalty was apparent and valuable.
The SA’s rank and file had been spurred on during the seemingly endless
election campaigns of early and mid 1932 by promises of imminent victory.
The failure to win power ‘legally’ in the July Reichstag election led to
mounting frustration and indiscipline within the SA and, during the
autumn, to increasing collaboration with the KPD at the grassroots. Rohm
was instructed to calm SA excesses; something which he and his senior
leaders more or less achieved during the final, difficult months of 1932. The
task was unenviable; ROhm himself had lost any personal confidence in the
Policy of Legality and his instincts pointed towards the pursuit of a more
activist course culminating in a direct assault on the state. Instead, how-
ever, he ensured that the SA’s activism was harnessed in such a way as
largely to contain its impatience, maintain pressure on the NSDAP’s
enemies and, most vitally, avoid provoking outright state repression. This
thankless middle way earned him enemies within the SA, such as the
Franconian commander, Stegmann, who eventually mutinied in January
1933, and enemies within Hitler’s entourage who resented the SA’s ambi-
tions and Rohm’s personal lifestyle. At this stage, however, both Hitler
and Goebbels stood by R6hm whose value they fully appreciated.
On 30 January 1933 it appeared that ROhm’s spadework had paid off and
in the immediate aftermath of Hitler’s takeover the SA continued to play a
pre-eminent role. As the party exercised coercion from above through the
organs of government the SA served both as an instrument of overt
populist insurrection and of thinly-disguised terror from below, thereby
helping the National Socialist regime to by-pass remaining constitutional
and legal obstacles to one-party dictatorship. In the run-up to the March
Reichstag election the rapidly expanding SA was unleashed upon rival
political parties and awkward individuals. In the aftermath of the election
the SA, its ranks swollen with new recruits and even deserters from the
KPD and its paramilitary wing, the Red Front, vented its wrath on trade
union buildings, rival party and church offices and, by staging riots in the
non-Nazi south German states, provided the pretext for suspending their
constitutions. Equally ominously, the SA’s members began to settle per-
 Conan Fischer 179

sonal scores on a grand scale and to indulge in widespread attacks on

minority groups, notably Jews.
By late spring the basis of the uneasy alliance between SA and Party,
and Rohm and Hitler, was evaporating. ROhm had never concealed his
desire to create a people’s militia around which the whole of German
society would be reshaped — the Second Revolution — while Hitler had,
from his days in Landsberg, resolved to collaborate with and exploit
existing institutions whenever expedient in order to consolidate his power.
And indeed party and SS members were obtaining power and privilege in
society as quickly as much of society seemed to come to terms with them,
but the proletarian SA found little preferment and its leaders, apart from a
few who became local police chiefs, were largely deprived of high office or
significant advancement. Certainly control of the armed forces, which they
had so long cherished, lay far beyond their reach. Trouble mounted as the
SA not only persevered with its campaign of intimidation and lawlessness
long after the political benefits of this for Hitler had disappeared, but
began to turn against the party itself. At this point, in mid-1933, the
question of how far Rohm could adapt to Hitler’s programme, or whether
he was capable of defying him successfully became all important.
For all his personal bravery and organisational talent, Rohm lacked guile
in his political dealings. His hatred of civilian society and ordered
bourgeois life remained undiluted in National Socialism’s hour of triumph
and he observed Hitler’s accommodation with elements of civil society and
the old army with incomprehension and growing fury. His followers were
just as reluctant to break off their widespread petty violence and intimida-
tion which, ominously, began to include strikes in the workplace and
attacks on employers and managerial staff. Rohm was unwilling or unable
to bring them to order and was just as unwilling to curb his own rhetoric.
Frequent speeches aimed at Hitler’s conservative allies, including the
army, and also at senior Nazi party functionaries were accompanied by
private outbursts against Hitler himself about which one of R6hm’s sub-
ordinates and eventual successor as Chief of Staff, Viktor Lutze, (or so it
has hitherto been claimed) kept the Fihrer informed.° Rohm did accept a
seat in the Cabinet in December 1933, but this represented an attempt by
the party to canalise SA demands through the state bureaucracy rather
than a triumph for the Chief of Staff on his own terms.
Even in the spring of 1933 Goring had complained that the SA’s ambi-
tions threatened to undermine the new state and by early 1934 he and the
Interior Minister, Frick, had lost all patience with the SA. Hitler found
himself sandwiched between the PO and conservative groupings in society
on the one hand and Rohm and the SA on the other. Ordinary SA
members, many of them unemployed, became increasingly impatient with
the Third Reich for its failure to provide them with any significant material
180 Ernst Julius Rohm

concessions or reward. Unemployment levels in the SA remained very high

long after the national rates had begun to decline markedly. Rohm, mean-
while, showed increasing contempt for his old friend Hitler, and did not
baulk from reminding him of his squalid and humble political origins — and
by implication of the Fuhrer’s debt to him. To make matters worse, Rohm
increasingly abused his powers to advance his homosexual preferences and
the activities of several other senior SA leaders in this regard became a
matter for public concern.°
Faced with formidable opposition from the party, the ambitious Himm-
ler and his SS (which was still technically subordinate to the SA), from the
armed forces, and with the public heartily sick of the SA’s excesses, ROhm
could only display embittered defiance towards the Fihrer whose political
friendship he still sought, almost pathetically, to reclaim. Precisely when
Hitler decided to curb the SA remains a matter for debate, but by June
1934 a showdown seemed unavoidable. As an experienced military man
Rohm must have realised that an effective revolt against the state was
beyond the SA’s capabilities; at best he might have brought down Hitler
and National Socialism along with the SA, but that was never his intention.
Indeed, just weeks before Hitler struck against the SA, Rohm sent it on
leave.
His enemies, however, had the means and the will to strike at the SA.
The army agreed tacitly to stand aside and on 30 June a round-up by the SS
of senior SA leaders and some other opponents of the regime was followed
by a spate of executions. Hitler sanctioned R6hm’s death on 1 July, for his
old friend simply knew too much to be allowed into exile or a similar
escape. He contemptuously refused a suggestion by his gaolers that he
should commit suicide and was subsequently shot down in his prison cell in
Munich, deemed a moral and political failure even on Nazism’s perverted
terms. In gratitude for the purge of their rivals the armed forces delivered
up an oath of personal allegiance to Hitler. The bureaucratised terror of
Himmler’s SS replaced the more spontaneous violence of the SA although
the events of June and July 1934 showed that the National Socialist author-
ities were prepared to operate well outside the bounds of the law —
apparently with the approval of the old establishment. R6hm’s name
disappeared rapidly from standard reference books, the vocabulary and
the consciousness of Nazi Germany to the point where historians have only
recently come to appreciate the full extent of his malign contribution to the
catastrophe of 1933.
 Conan Fischer 181

NOTES

1. Berlin Document Center. R6hm Papers (BDC). Letter Hitler to R6hm. Munich
1 April 1924.
2. BDC. Correspondence between ROhm and Bavarian Minister of State Stutzel.
29 July — 5 September 1924.
3. BDC. Correspondence between ROhm and Heimsoth.
3 December 1928 — 11 August 1929.
4. BDC. Letter from Radowitz to Reichsorganisationsleiter. 30 July 1932. Bunde-
sarchiv (BA) Sammlung Schumacher (Sch)/402. Various letters, autumn 1932.
BA, SA Archiv (NS23)/124. OSAF, 18 February 1933. signed Seydel. See also
numerous secondary sources.
5. Recent research suggests that Lutze’s role in R6hm’s downfall may have been
exaggerated. ;
6. BA, NSDAP Hauptarchiv (NS26)/328. Letter Kallenbach to Fiehler. Munich 4
July 1934. BA, Sch/407. Letter Buch to Heines. Munich 16 February 1934.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
A small collection of R6hm’s personal papers and letters are found in the Berlin
Document Center. Otherwise one is dependent on material within the extensive
collection of SA papers, most notably in the Bundesarchiv, NS23, NS26 and
Sammlung Schumacher. Many of ROhm’s speeches and other public activities
were reported in Der SA-Mann. Organ der OSAF der NSDAP (Munich, 1932 to
June 1934) available in various archival collections.

Secondary Literature

Biographies
There are very few biographical works on Rohm. His own, detailed, disconcertingly
artless autobiography, Die Geschichte eines Hochverraters (Munich, 1928) does
not cover the later, vital part of his career. This period is included in J. Fest’s essay
on Rohm and the SA in The Face of the Third Reich trans. M. Bullock (London,
1972), but very much as an outline sketch. J. Mabire’s Rohm, l’homme qui inventa
Hitler (Paris, 1983) comprises a very full account of R6hm’s life and times, drawing
heavily on ROhm’s autobiography, but its non-academic, even novel-like style
might disconcert readers. Thus there is still a place for a full, academic biography of
Rohm’s place within the SA and the Nazi movement.

Hitler Putsch 1923/R6hm Putsch 1934

Rohm is given extensive treatment in J. Favez’s excellent study, ‘Hitler et la
Reichswehr en 1923’ in Revue d’ Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (1970) 22-49.
Within the more plentiful coverage of the R6hm putsch one finds frequent refer-
ence to him. More recent authors such as C. Bloch, Die SA und die Krise des
NS-Regimes 1934 (Frankfurt-Main, 1970), M. Gallo, La nuit des longs couteaux; 30
juin 1934 (Paris, 1970) and H. Hohne, Mordsache Réhm: Hitler’s Durchbruch zur
182 Ernst Julius Rohm

Alleinherrschaft, 1933-1934 (Reinbek, 1984) investigate inter alia ROhm’s role

within the context of the political, economic and social background of the purge.

Rohm and the SA

Among general studies of the SA which refer to ROhm: H. Bennecke, Hitler und
die SA (Munich, 1982) is still useful. More recent works include R. Bessel, Political
Violence and the Rise of Nazism. The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany 1925-
1934 (New Haven, 1984) and C. Fischer, Stormtroopers. A Social, Economic and
Ideological Analysis 1929-35 (London, 1983) in English and P. Longerich, Die
braunen Bataillone. Geschichte der SA (Munich, 1989) in German.
17 Alfred Rosenberg:
National Socialism’s
‘Chief Ideologue’?
Reinhard Bollmus

Alfred Rosenberg, born on 12 January 1893 in Reval, was regarded as the

chief ideologue of the National Socialist movement and the system of rule
it represented. At the same time he was never, throughout his whole life,
able to exercise the formative and continuing influence on the ideology and
policies of the regime which might have been expected from ‘the Fuhrer’s
Commissioner for the supervision of all intellectual and ideological educa-
tion and training in the NSDAP’. (This was the designation of official
duties he had awarded himself on the basis of a commission from Hitler on
24 January 1934.) However the consequences of his activities should not be
underestimated. Quite the opposite — the exercise of the function men-
tioned above alone — and it was only one of several — demonstrated the
fateful significance even of an office which was relatively powerless in the
Party.
Rosenberg had his roots in the Baltic German bourgeoisie. His ancestors
had mainly been craftsmen. His father, the son of a master cobbler from
Reval, had achieved the status of director of the Reval branch of a German
commercial enterprise; his son Alfred was even able to go to university. All
the preconditions for upward social mobility were, therefore, present.
Nonetheless the son showed scarcely any of the characteristics of a ‘social
climber’s’ mentality; unless it was in the form of his ambition as an
ideologue.
Rosenberg’s parents died early. An aunt took over the upbringing of
Alfred and an older brother (who died in 1928). The younger brother
studied architecture and gained his diploma in March 1918 in Moscow, the
Riga Technical College having been evacuated there. Shortly after his
return to Reval he witnessed the arrival of German troops there. In pursuit
of a long-cherished ambition he travelled to Germany on 30 November
1918, after finally having received a permit. In the previous months he had
developed a distinct dislike of Bolshevism, which combined with his anti-
semitism and a strong aversion to Christianity and churches to form a
peculiar ideological mixture. He had become aware of latent anti-semitic
attitudes in a student association, the Rubonia Corps, in Riga. However,
looking back, in 1935, when one might have expected him to give an
exaggerated interpretation, he described his impressions in a lacklustre

183
184 Alfred Rosenberg

manner. As will be shown, his anti-semitic attitudes seem primarily to have

been formed on the basis of his reading of literature on the subject.
Rosenberg did not make any serious attempt to take up his profession.
What he was really looking for was evidently the possibility of being able to
devote himself to the formulation of an all-encompassing ideology. So it
was not by chance that he came across Dietrich Eckart and his anti-semitic
paper Auf gut deutsch, and the very first article he published there was an
expression of his ideology: “The Russian-Jewish Revolution’. In autumn 1919
he got to know Hitler through Eckart; shortly afterwards he joined the
NSDAP. In 1921 he became editor, and in February 1923 managing editor
of the Volkischer Beobachter. The following November, after the failure of
the putsch, Hitler, in something of a predicament, made him interim leader
of the Party. In this role he came to grief against more robust opponents
and in mid 1924 he resigned from the Volkischer Beobachter too. Nonethe-
less, from February 1926 his name appeared once more in the list of
editors: Hitler had won him back for tactical reasons. From 1 January 1927
he got a full time deputy. By this time Rosenberg probably only dictated
the general direction of the paper, since now, and more particularly from
April 1933, he was increasingly turning his attention to other spheres of
activity. Nonetheless he still had ultimate responsibility for the Vélkischer
Beobachter. After a clash with Hitler (probably exaggerated in Goebbels’
account of it) he was demoted from 29 December 1937 to ‘publisher’. He
had probably not conformed enough to the Goebbels line.
As far as the period 1920-2, and possibly as far as 1924, is concerned,
however, recent research has provided a basis for the theory that Rosen-
berg had greater influence on Hitler than had previously been supposed. In
particular, Hitler could have taken his idea about the ‘Jewish’ character of
Bolshevism, which he spoke of in public for the first time in June 1920,
from the articles which Rosenberg had been publishing since February
1919. Rosenberg’s ideas could also have played a part in the transforma-
tion of his views on alliances: after 1921 both were of the opinion that
Britain should be fought in alliance with a post-Soviet Russia. But Bolshe-
vism proved to be unexpectedly stable, as was shown for example in 1922
in Rapallo. That demanded an explanation. Rosenberg attempted to give it
in June/July 1922 in his pamphlet ‘Plague in Russia’, by asserting that there
was a connection between Bolshevism and the Russian character. In the
latter he had detected a ‘dormant anarchistic impulse’ from its Jewish and
Mongolian inheritance. At the same time he referred to Russia as a
multi-national state and came to perceive Ukrainian separatism as the
means of destroying Bolshevism.’ From this it may only have been a small
conceptual leap to Hitler’s reflections of December 1922, which he still
only gave voice to in confidence, that in future Nazi foreign policy ‘there
would be an attempt to reduce Russia to ruins with the help of Britain’. To
this remark was added the comment that ‘in Russia there would be enough
 Reinhard Bollmus 185

land for German settlers and wide scope for German industry.’ The new
plan for alliances and the demand for ‘living space’ formed the constant
central factor in Hitler’s foreign policy planning from 1924 onwards. In
1927 Rosenberg further developed his views on the partition of Russia into
independent states in his essay on ‘The future course of German foreign
policy’, and wrote, among other things, of an alliance between Berlin and
Kiev. However Hitler completely rejected one central component of
Rosenberg’s ideology as it was then developing: this was the mysticism
with which Rosenberg, in his main work, the Myth of the Twentieth
Century, attempted to give a religious intensity to a racist interpretation of
history. Rosenberg borrowed the historical basis of this from Houston
Stewart Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. He had
discovered this anti-semitic work as a sixteen-year-old and in retrospect
described this youthful experience as follows:

A new world opened up for me: Hellas, Juda and Rome. And to all of it
I said yes, yes and yes again. . . . I was in the grip of a fundamental
insight into the Jewish problem and it never let me go again. Later
political events therefore seemed necessary to me. I did not need to
add any subjective experience. And what Chamberlain said about the
Germanic world confirmed what I had experienced reading Germanic
legends.°

So even as an adult Rosenberg still stood steadfastly by the principle that

there should be no impirical verification of historical or political theories,
as long as the latter agreed with the ideology which had been fixed upon. In
his book he proclaimed the overlordship of the ‘Nordic’ race. It had, he
said, created all the substantial cultures of the world, but it was threatened
on all sides by the Jewish ‘Anti-Race’. ‘Juda’ had destroyed ‘Hellas’ and so
Rome had emerged. Even today the doctrine of Christianity, imbued with
Judaism and orientalism, was still being disseminated from ‘Rome’. Its
highest virtues of ‘compassion’ and ‘love’ undermined the highest Ger-
manic virtue of ‘honour’. The ‘honour of the German Nation’ should take
precedence over everything else, he claimed. For it too was an expression
of a basic Nordic, Germanic substance and learning, which had been
preserved for millenia in a ‘mythology of blood’, and must now be re-
awakened in the twentieth century.* Rosenberg saw the formation of a
‘German Church’, in which, for example, the Nordic legends and fairly
tales, to begin with simply related, later conceived of as symbols, should
take the place of Old Testament stories of ‘pimps and livestock dealers’, as
the greatest task for this century.”
It was set out plainly and simply that what he proposed was an ideology
which was anti-Christian as well as utilitarian in the imperialistic political
sense. Occasionally this also emerged clearly behind the germanophile
186 Alfred Rosenberg

mysticism. It was said for example in the Myth that in the struggle for
‘living space’ for the ‘future 100 million Germans no allowance could be
made for the impotent, worthless and presumptuous Poles, Czechs and so
on’. They must be ‘driven off to the east, so that the land becomes free to
be tilled by the hands of German peasants.’°
Although, as can be seen in Mein Kampf, Hitler agreed with these
demands, from 1929 onwards he expressed his opposition to the Myth on
several occasions. His concerns were predominantly its pseudo-religious
portent. In 1942 Hitler explained in his monologues that like many of the
Gauleiter he too had ‘only read a small part of the book’, since in his
opinion it was too incomprehensibly written. Even the title was ‘off-beam’.
For it was impossible to say that one ‘intended to compare the mythology
of the twentieth century’, that is to say, something mystical, with the
intellectual ideas of the nineteenth century; instead ‘as a National socialist
one would have to say that one was comparing the belief and knowledge of
the twentieth century with the mythology of the nineteenth century.’’ This
statement also demonstrates a strongly rationalistic component in Hitler’s
thought. On the other hand in 1943 Rosenberg was once described by
Hitler as ‘one of the most incisive thinkers on ideological matters’.* This
remark was made at a time of some excitement; Hitler may have exagger-
ated somewhat. Nonetheless it demonstrates something important: in spite
of the differences of opinion already mentioned, Hitler and Rosenberg
were in agreement about the main points of ideology like anti-semitism and
the rejection of ‘religious faiths’ as soon as they came into conflict with ‘the
feeling of decency and morality of the German race’,” that is to say did not
fit in to national Socialism’s claim to be all-embracing.
Rosenberg did not know or did not want to recognise the fact that Hitler
rejected his main work and, to a degree, his policies. In any event Hitler
usually only addressed himself to Rosenberg indirectly. He avoided
naming names in public. Goebbels reports that Rosenberg clapped ‘most
loudly of all’’® after Hitler’s speech at a Party convention in which the
Fuhrer had ‘disowned’ him. Something similar happened at the 1938 Party
Conference. Hitler declared in a speech that racial doctrine did not
represent ‘a mysticalocult, but the care and leadership of a people chosen
by their blood’.'! Rosenberg did not react, but remarked that Hitler had
‘ostentatiously . . . shaken him by the hand’’* for what was admittedly an
extremely anti-church address he had given on the same occasion. As an
instrument of intellectual, anti-Christian terror he was obviously good
enough for the Fuhrer. This use of him as a tool did not by any means only
affect the churches but extended to policies for tertiary education and all
intellectual activity. On 29 January 1940 Hitler signed the contract for the
establishment of the alternative university — the Hohe Schule Rosenberg
had been planning for a long time. This happened of all times just after a
 Reinhard Bollmus 187

discussion in which Rosenberg and his Fuhrer had exchanged fundamen-

tally differing views on the relationship between scientific knowledge and
ideology. Hitler had declared; ‘Our ideology must not dictate to the exact
sciences but deduce its abstract laws from their work’. Rosenberg was
surprised but consoled himself: ‘The Fuhrer’s positivist note was new to
me. But since he has a firm faith in providence he is at home in both
worlds’.'* The wantonness with which they went about revolutionising the
entire state education system on the basis of such ill-defined intellectual
preconditions had its parallels of course six years earlier when Rosenberg
was given an all-encompassing remit to oversee ideology.
Rosenberg did not learn until the Nuremberg Trials in May 1946 that
none of the Nazi leaders facing charges there (with the possible exception
of Goering who did not face questioning) had more than at best dipped
into his Myth. Schirach also said, ‘the youth leaders had certainly not read
the ‘‘Myth’’’.'* That is credible, since even Hitler had found the style of
Rosenberg’s work ‘too incomprehensible’.!° Educated readers were re-
pelled by the abstruse logic in the Myth.
At the same time it would be wrong to assume that Rosenberg did not
have any effect on ideology. Schirach had proclaimed in 1934 that ‘Rosen-
berg’s path is the path of German youth’.'® By this he meant that young
people should leave the Catholic associations — the Protestant one had
already been brought into line — and join the Hitler Youth. The comments
made at Nuremberg, along with this earlier declaration, show that Rosen-
berg’s name could be used as a watchword in the struggle with the church
without people having a detailed understanding of the Myth. The frequent
use of the name, then, does not allow one to draw any conclusions about
the book having been widely read, but on the other hand it does demon-
strate the dangers which flowed from Rosenberg’s ideology.
However the Myth also damaged the regime, since Rosenberg’s appoint-
ment was perceived by the churches as a declaration of war. In the
following period, especially until 1937, there were numerous refutations.
They were tolerated by the regime for tactical reasons, as long as the
author concerned acknowledged the validity of what was written in the
foreword to the Myth: that the book contained only ‘personal beliefs, not
policy details of the political movement to which Rosenberg belonged’. For
the Party and the state did not then have to take the criticism of Rosenberg
as directed at them. However as a rule they were the real target.
The refutations this procedure legalised have always been the subject of
research and recently they have all been thoroughly examined. Their
authors all deserve credit for their services in clarifying Rosenberg’s
ideology. Walther Kunneth, for example, author of one of the most widely
disseminated ripostes, declared that the concept of ‘race’, elevated by
Rosenberg to the status of ethical yardstick, did not have any ‘ethical
188 Alfred Rosenberg

content’ and that in disputed cases it was bound to lead to ethical col-
lapse.'’ Even at that time many readers must have interpreted that as a
condemnation of the terror of that era and a warning for the future. Other
examples of the refutation of ideological claims were to be found in the
Catholic ‘Response to the Myth’. In this, Rosenberg’s historical frame-
work, including the theory that the Etruscans had brought the seeds of the
Jewish malady to Italy, were held up to ridicule.
However the refutations also reflected the church’s partial failure in
confronting the regime: in the case of Kiinneth in particular, they con-
tained anti-semitic sections. On the Protestant side a national Protestant
concept of the constitutional state prevented them from fully recognising
the illegal nature of the Hitler state. In 1935 the Protestant pastor Her-
mann Barth raised the objection that the refutation of Rosenberg’s ‘mis-
takes’ was spreading the dangerous illusion that the regime was capable of
reform. In the latest research this criticism has been emphatically taken up
by Harald Iber.
As a politician Rosenberg attempted to put his ideological blueprints
into practice, at least in part. He was regarded as a foreign policy expert in
the NSDAP, not least on the basis of his 1927 writings mentioned above.
After being elected to the Reichstag he represented the Party in the
parliamentary foreign policy committee, among other things. After the
seizure of power, however, he did not receive the post of Secretary of State
in the Foreign Office, but on 1 April 1933 he was commissioned with
establishing and directing an NSDAP foreign policy office (APA). The
idea of the alliance with Britain against ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ had been
expanded in the Myth by the concept of the defence of the white race, hand
in hand with the Scandinavian states. The implementation of such ideas
foundered on the fact that Rosenberg and most of the experts in the bureau
(about sixty in 1939), who had not been educated for service in the foreign
office, were unable to come to a precise understanding of the specific
interests of other countries. To any informed reader, Rosenberg’s foreign
policy memoranda were the expression of schematic, ideologically-bound
thinking. In practice the office apparently succeeded in providing a few
British authorities with information about the ‘peaceful’ character of the
regime, until their rival Ribbentrop put a stop to this in 1935. Apart from
Afghanistan, the main campaign ground for this sort of amateur foreign
policy was Romania. At the end of November 1937 the anti-semitic
politician Octavian Goga, whom the APA had supported for years, was
appointed Prime Minister. Rosenberg’s triumph was however only short-
lived: Goga’s lack of success brought about his removal on 10 February
1039 and a coup d’etat by the king.
The APA’s activities were fateful for Scandinavia. The ‘Nordic Society’,
which it clandestinely directed held annual, noisy ‘Nordic Days’ in Liibeck,
but in Sweden, for example, it gave the impression that the Reich was
 Reinhard Bollmus 189

pursuing ‘secret political and cultural expansionist aims’’® in the north.

Indeed the APA, along with the Navy, was behind the coup carried out by
Vidkun Quisling in Oslo on 9 April 1940, the day on which he suggested
German occupation should begin. At Rosenberg’s suggestion, on 1 Feb-
ruary 1942, Hitler appointed Quisling Prime Minister of a government
which he however determinedly refused to give any independence, how-
ever limited, as for example in the context of a Greater German League.
This signified a defeat for Rosenberg, too.
Rosenberg is best known for the part he played as the Party ideologue.
The strangely long-winded formulation of his duties quoted at the begin-
ning came about because Hitler did not follow his appointment of
24 January 1934 with any regulations on how his duties were to be carried
out. Rosenberg therefore believed he ought to advance his claim to
authority in the form of the title he soon assumed. The reasons which led to
his appointment are not entirely clear. This is not just because of the
inadequate source material which has survived, but is probably also a
reflection of the fact that Rosenberg’s appointment was as irrational as
Nazi ideology itself. Hitler was acting rationally in as far as in appointing
Rosenberg he had a functionary who would permanently keep the
churches insecure. At least it is possible to assume that this was his motive
and the fact that, at the time of the appointment, he was still trying to win
the churches over to his regime need not necessarily count against this
theory. But it is another testimony to the limits of Hitler’s rationality that
he appointed as guardian of ideology a man whose chief ideological work
he rejected.
The occasion for Rosenberg’s appointment was brought about by an
internal constellation of interests within the Party: in 1933 the Fighting
League for German Culture (KfdK), founded in 1929 and directed by
Rosenberg, had succeeded in taking over two organisations for theatre-
goers, the Volksbiihne and the Biihnenvolksbund, and making them part of
his Deutsche Biihne (German Stage). But Goebbels put a ban on its
activity. At the end of 1933 Rosenberg saw himself being practically
excluded from cultural life, which was dominated by the State Chamber of
Culture. Then Robert Ley suddenly appeared, looking for assistance in
formulating a syllabus for the training of the NSDAP’s body of function-
aries, of which he was in charge. He and Rosenberg then formulated the
wording of Rosenberg’s commission and Hitler signed it without difficulty.
The commission also included the supervision of Ley’s ‘Strength through
Joy’ group. It is possible that Ley intended to win large numbers of visitors
to the ‘Strength through Joy’ Theatre by this means. In any case in 6 June
1934 he declared himself prepared to subsidise Rosenberg’s cultural organ-
isation, at which point it became part of the ‘Nazi Cultural Community’
(NSKG). However the NSKG and ‘Strength through Joy’ were competi-
tors. This led to years of violent disputes which ended on 7 June 1937 with
190 Alfred Rosenberg

Rosenberg’s office losing its most important organisation in the realm of

cultural policy to Ley’s ‘Strength through Joy’.
One of the main reasons for the dispute was that Ley did not allow
Rosenberg to play any practical part in training. He stressed until 1945 that
‘supervision’ meant only the preparation of written material. In spite of
intensive negotiations lasting years and countless disputes no solution
could be reached. Nonetheless Rosenberg occasionally succeeded in call-
ing conventions of his ‘Regional representatives’, who were also Ley’s
‘Regional training directors’. He also frequently spoke at rallies; further-
more the office disseminated extensive publicity. He was one of the
publishers of the ‘Information on the state of Ideology’, an information
service opposed to the churches, which was only distributed as far down as
the level of District Leader, and on account of the partially confidential informa-
tion it contained, was a less monotonous read than other ‘training’ material.
Up to 1940 Rosenberg made four attempts to gain for his office the
authority to give directions to the Party and state authorities, and always
failed. However at the end of 1940 Hitler signed the commissioning
contract for the Hohe Schule. Thereafter on 30 May 1940 the National
Minister for Education, Rust, gave Rosenberg’s office permission to set up
so-called branch offices at five universities in the first instance, three of
which actually came into being and were staffed by professors who were
also employed at the universities. This was a successful breakthrough
which would have been bound to have had disastrous consequences. Such
consequences had already become evident in the office’s activities in the
fields of research into pre-history and folklore, where whole academic
disciplines and also countless researchers were endangered.
The efficacy which an office possessing little capacity for asserting itself
internally within the Party could have, if circumstances permitted, was
demonstrated by the “Task Force of National Director Rosenberg’, which
exported such quantities of objets d’art, furniture and the contents of
libraries from the occupied areas of Europe that up to 17 October 1944,
1 418 000 wagons and 427 000 tons of shipping capacity had been required
for the task. Rosenberg was expressly made aware, by the German civil
servants responsible for safeguarding works of art, of the fact that his
actions were against international law. When, for the first time, in a letter
of 1 July 1940, he vigorously dismissed this idea, he stepped over the
threshold from ideology to action, from the intellectual crime to one which
was committed in fact. In his capacity as State Minister for the Occupied
Eastern Territories, to which he was appointed on 17 July 1941, his moral
failure was much greater; although he had, as was noted in his Nuremberg
death sentence, ‘occasionally objected to the outrages and brutality com-
mitted by his subordinates’, he had permitted the crimes to ‘take their
course’ while he remained ‘in office to the end’.!? On 16 October 1946
Alfred Rosenberg was executed by hanging in Nuremberg.
 Reinhard Bollmus 191

NOTES

. A. Rosenberg, Pest in Russland (Munich, 1922) p. 38.

. A. Hitler, Sdmtliche Aufzeichnungen 1900-1924 (Stuttgart, 1980) p. 773.
. Rosenberg, Wie der Mythus entstand, Manuscript, 1935, BA NS 8/22.
wheRosenberg, Mythus, 4th edition (Munich, 1932) pp. 85, 99-105, 129,
168-170.
5. Ibid., p. 603.
6.: Ibid., p. 662 (11.4.1942).
. H. Picker, Hitlers Tischgesprache (Stuttgart, 1963) p. 269.
8 . Hitlers Lagebesprechungen, edited by H. Heiber (Stuttgart, 1962) p. 258
(8.6.1943).
9. NSDAP Party Programme, 24.
10. Die Tagebticher von Joseph Goebbels. Samtliche Fragmente. Teil I. Edited by
E. Frohlich (Munich, 1987).
11. Quoted from R. Zitelmann, Hitler. Selbstverstandnis eines Revolutiondars
(Stuttgart, 1989) p. 373.
12. Rosenberg, Tagebuch, ed. Kempner p. 32 (10.10.1938).
13. Rosenberg, Tagebuch, ed. Seraphim, p. 121 (7.2.1940).
14. IMG, vol. 14, p. 494.
15. See note 7.
16. H. Miller, Katholische Kirche und National-sozialismus (Munich, 1963)
No. 312.
17. Kiinneth, Antwort, p. 57.
18. ADAP, D, Vol. 5, p. 471, note 2 (2.6.1938).
19. IMG, vol. 22, p. 616.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Most of the file on Rosenberg are in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BA), with a
selection of copies in the Institut fiir Zeitgeschichte, Munich (IfZ); the trial
documents are dispersed throughout the Stadtsarchiv, Nuremberg, and some of
them have been published in Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher . . . , 47
vols (Nuremberg, 1947-9), the relevant volume being no. 11, pp. 491-651; Selbst-
verteidigung und Verhdr Rosenbergs. Rosenberg’s defence is in A. Rosenberg,
Letzte Aufzeichnungen (Gottingen, 1955) and is put even more strongly in Gross-
deutschland, Traum und Tragddie by the same author. Rosenberg’s Kritik an
Hitlerismus (Munich, 1970), here edited by the publisher, H. Hartle, a former
colleague in the Rosenberg bureau. The following are important — Das politische
Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs 1934/35 und 1939/40, ed. H.-G. Seraphim (Gét-
tingen, 1956 and Munich, 1964) based on microfilm of the manuscript, and R.M.
W. Kempner, ‘Der Kampf gegen die Kirche. Aus unver6ffentlichten Tagebiichern
Alfred Rosenbergs’ in Der Monat, 1 (1948/49) part 10, pp. 28-38 (without any
information on the original). Bibliographies of the publications of Rosenberg and
his offices can be found in Baumgartner, Bollmus and to an extent in Iber (see
below). His most important works were mentioned in the text. Over and above
these his replies to the attacks on the Myth deserve mention: An die Dunkelmdanner
unserer Zeit and Protestantische Rompilger (Munich 1935 and 1937 respectively).
192 Alfred Rosenberg

Secondary Literature

The most important refutations of Rosenberg’s Myth are a) Studien zum Mythus
des 20 Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1934); the important parts are in the 4th and Sth
impressions (1935) which also contain a consideration of Rosenberg’s An die
Dunkelmdnner unserer Zeit (catholic) and b) W. Kiinneth, Antwort auf den Mythus
(Berlin, 1935) (protestant). Numerous other refutations, some parts of which are
important, are examined in I. Iber, Christlicher Glaube oder rassischer Mythus. Die
Auseinandersetzung der Bekennenden Kirchen mit Alfred Rosenbergs ‘Der Mythus
des 20. Jahrhunderts’ (Bern, 1987) and in R. Baumgartner, ‘Weltanschauungs-
kampf im Dritten Reich. Die Auseinandersetzung der Kirchen mit Alfred Rosenberg
(Mainz, 1977). Iber’s critique is directed primarily at the refutations, as has been
explained above. Baumgartner accuses the author’s book: R. Bollmus, Das Amt
Rosenberg und seine Gegner. Studien zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen
Herrschaftssystem (Stuttgart, 1970) of regarding ‘the importance of the ideology as
simply being a tool’ for Nazi history and Rosenberg, an accusation which is without
foundation, since it is based on inaccurate quotations (p. 4 in Bollmus, p. 17, 69)
and does not take into account the consequences of the actions of the Rosenberg
bureau, something which the author discussed in detail. Baumgartner largely
dispenses with quoting parallel passages in the author’s work and does not take
issue with them individually. See also R. Bollmus, ‘Zum Projekt einer national-
sozialistichen Alternativ-Universitat: Alfred Rosenbergs “Hohe Schule’’’ in
M. Heinemann (ed.), Erziehung und Schulung im Dritten Reich, Part 2 p. 125-52;
by the same author: ‘Zwei Volkskunden im Dritten Reich’, in H. Gerndt (ed.),
Volkskunde und Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1987) p. 49-60.
— Information on Rosenberg’s offices’s cultural policy, unfortunately largely with-
out references to secondary literature, can be found in the following: Boguslaw
Drewniak, Das Theatre im NS-Staat (Dusseldorf, 1983), and by the same author
Der deutsche Film 1938-1945 (Dusseldorf, 1987). From the point of view of an East
German political scientist: J. Petzold, Die Demagogie des Hitlerfaschismus (Frank-
furt am Main, 1983) p. 192-216.
— On Rosenberg’s Biography and ideology, especially with regard to policies
towards the East: R. Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and
Nazi Ideology (London, 1972) and also F. Nova, Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi Theorists
of the Holocaust (New York, 1986). Nova’s findings, ‘that the Nazi holocaust rose
inevitably upon its theoretical foundation. And to this Rosenberg contributed
substantially . . .’ (p. 238) does not appear to agree with the book’s subtitle. Both
books, although intended for a wide readership, contain useful information on
Rosenberg. For thorough information on his foreign policy duties see: H.-A.
Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik 1933-1938 (Frankfurt am Main/
Berlin, 1968) p. 45-89, 446-64, 477-94. Essential for an understanding of the
ow. campaign: H.D. Loock, Quisling, Rosenberg und Terboven (Stuttgart,
1970).
— On the Eastern policy: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 4
(Stuttgart, 1983) especially the contributions by J. Férster, R.-D. Miiller and G.R.
Ueberschar. Still important are: A. Dallin, Deutsche Herrschaft in Russland (Dus-
seldorf, 1958). On the subject of Rosenberg at Nuremberg: B.F. Smith, Der
Jahrhundertprozess (Frankfurt am Main, 1977); W. Maser, Niirnberg: Tribunal der
Sieger (Dusseldorf-Vienna, 1977) (better than its subtitle would lead one to
expect). According to O. Brautigam, So hat es sich zugetragen (Wurzburg, no
year), the former deputy Nuremberg prosecutor, R.M.W. Kempner, is supposed to
have said ‘the trial took place at least a year too early. In the meantime we have
 Reinhard Bollmus 193

found many more documents. Today we would no longer sentence Rosenberg to

death’ (p. 713f). Kempner wrote an emphatic denial of this to the present author
(28.7.1987). This sentence was triumphantly quoted in Hartle, Rosenberg, Gross-
deutschland . . . (see above), but he omitted Brautigam’s comment: ‘but I believe
he did deserve to die’. Kempner wrote on this matter to the present author
(28.7.1987): ‘It was more my intention to express the fact that later material was
found against Rosenberg which fully justified the death sentence.’ See also R.M.W.
Kempner, SS im Kreuzverhor, new, revised edition (Nordlingen, 1987) p. 116,
224-28, 271f.
18 Fritz Sauckel:
Plenipotentiary for the
Mobilisation of Labour
Peter W. Becker

It was problems in the German labour market which brought Fritz Sauckel,
then Gauleiter of Thuringia, to the controls of the German war economy,
brought him ignominy, and ultimately his death at the end of a rope in
Nuremberg.
Ernst Friedrich Christoph Sauckel was born on 27 October 1894 in
Hassfurt (Lower Franconia), the only son of postal official Friedrich
Sauckel. His parents brought him up in the spirit of the Christian faith and
to love his Fatherland. His mother was a seamstress; the extra income she
brought in enabled her son to go on to high school. When she had to give
up work because of a serious heart complaint, Fritz left school at the age of
fifteen. Following his inclination for seafaring, he became a cabin boy and
sailor on Norwegian and Swedish sailing ships and came to know all the
oceans and continents At the outbreak of World War One he found
himself on a German sailing ship bound for Australia, which was sunk by a
French warship. Sauckel spent the next five years as a prisoner of war.
In November 1919, he returned to Germany. He decided to become an
engineer and financed his studies by working as a lathe operative in a
ball-bearing factory in Schweinfurt. In 1923, he married and in the course
of a happy marriage he fathered ten children, two of whom were killed in
the war.
During his life at sea he had not been interested in politics, but this had
changed while he was a prisoner of war. In 1923, he attended an NSDAP
meeting and it was here that he heard Hitler speaking for the first time. In
his speech Hitler demanded that the contradictions between workers and
the bourgeoisie should be -eliminated in a ‘national community’ which
stood over and above the classes. Only if one succeeded in overcoming the
division of the German people into a multiplicity of parties and philos-
ophies could the burning issues confronting Germany be dealt with. This
idea made a deep impression on Sauckel and he joined the NSDAP.
As one of Hitler’s faithful followers, he also remained loyal to him
during the time when the Party was banned after the Hitler Putsch. He
tirelessly won over new adherents to National Socialist philosophy, and
in 1927 Hitler rewarded him for his zeal with the job of Gauleiter of
Thuringia. His predecessor in this job was Arthur Dinter, a religious

194
 Peter W. Becker 195

sectarian, who regarded a Christian religious revival as the necessary

prerequisite for national rebirth. Hitler, on the other hand, was of the
opinion that the Party should keep itself out of religious controversies.
Dinter, who was not prepared to follow Hitler’s line on this issue, was
dismissed as Gauleiter of Thuringia on 30 September 1927 — ‘because of
overwork’, as they put it — and a year later he was expelled from the Party.
Sauckel, who thought on far more pragmatic lines than Dinter and,
moreover, had distinguished himself as regional administrator, seemed to
Hitler to be a fitting successor. In 1929, he was elected to the Thuringian
Parliament and after the elections in June 1932, in which the NSDAP won
26 of the 60 seats, he acted as Minister President of Thuringia and Minister
of the Interior. After the states were integrated and coordinated within the
Reich, he became governor and a member of the Reichstag. At the
beginning of the war he became one of the Commissioners for the Defence
of the State. In spite of all this he remained a simple man of the people.
In fact he would rather have served the Fatherland in the armed forces,
and when Hitler turned down his requests for this he hid himself as a
stowaway on a U-boat, in order to demonstrate his willingness to fight to
his children and friends. Donitz felt obliged to recall the U-boat. The
possibility of serving his Fuhrer in soldierly fashion arose at the beginning
of 1942, shortly after Hitler had nominated Albert Speer as successor to
Fritz Todt in all his duties. On 21 March 1942, Hitler appointed Sauckel
Plenipotentiary for the Mobilisation of Labour, a position which, accord-
ing to Speer, was beyond him both ethically and intellectually. While it had
been possible in the so-called Blitzkrieg period of the war for Germany to
mobilise sufficient numbers of soldiers as well as workers for the arma-
ments industry, the situation changed drastically with the Russian cam-
paign, and more and more rigorous measures were called for.
Between May 1939 and May 1942, 9.7 million men had been mobilised
and had theoretically left behind the same number of vacant jobs. In fact,
however, there were only 7.5 million unfilled jobs: the difference is ex-
plained by the mobilisation of foreign workers and prisoners of war (the
Geneva Convention permits states at war to put captured soldiers to work
at jobs which do not directly benefit the war effort). Foreign workers were
originally enlisted as volunteers in Poland, Holland, Belgium, France,
Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark and Russia, but as early as January 1940
Hermann Goering ordered Governor-General Hans Frank to recruit a
million Polish workers, if necessary by force. In August 1942, Frank
announced that up to that time it had not been possible for him to find
more than 800 000 workers. In the western occupied territories by the end
of 1941 around 300 000 people had responded to the inducements of the
German recruiters; after this compulsory measures were introduced here too.
However, right from the outset, there was a difference between workers
from the east and those from the west. This was the consequence, firstly, of
196 Fritz Sauckel

the fact that the western countries had a greater pool of skilled workers, as
well as highly developed industry, which Speer intended to harness for the
German economy. Secondly, the National Socialists regarded the inhabi-
tants of the western and northern European countries as racially related,
while they arrogantly looked down on the Slavs in the east as ‘sub-
humans’. This racist motive, as well as Hitler’s fear that all Russians were
disciplined and convinced communists, intent on undermining the German
will to fight, held the German leadership back from deploying as workers
the 3.5 million soldiers taken prisoner during the first four months of the
Russian campaign. In February 1942, only 1.1 million of them were still
alive; the others had starved to death in German prison camps. Hitler did
not exploit the labour potential of the Russian prisoners of war until
November 1941, and then with great reservations; but even by February
1942 only about 400 000 of them were working in Germany.
The same sort of ideological blinkers prevented Hitler from deploying
German women in the armaments industry. He was of the opinion that the
church, the kitchen and motherhood provided the proper contexts for
women’s tasks and was reluctant to widen their range of functions in the
face of looming defeats. Goering supported him in this view, making him
uneasy with accounts of the decline in sexual morality in World War One,
and these were fears which Sauckel, too, shared. On the other hand, he
was ignoring the reality of the approximately 15 million women who were
in employment, a figure which barely changed throughout the war. Six
million of them worked in the countryside and were therefore involved in
an activity which was ideologically acceptable to Hitler, since it involved
the land. Over and above this, however, nine million women worked in
other areas, from which one can only conclude that pragmatic considera-
tions weighed more heavily than ideological reservations. Before the war
the national Ministry of Employment had worked out plans to deploy 5.5
million unemployed German women in the war economy and to move a
further two million women from civilian into war-related employment.
Ultimately the possibility of the extensive deployment of foreign workers
released Hitler from having to come to terms realistically with the issue of
women in the labour force. While the numbers of working women in
Britain and America doubled during the war, the German leadership
depended on forced foreign labour.
The recruitment of the necessary foreign workforce became Sauckel’s
duty. He had been singled out for this not because he had any special
abilities (later, in Nuremberg, he thought it to his credit that he had never
read a book), but because he was a Gauleiter. The Gauleiter, who were also
Commissioneers for the Defence of the Reich, had made life difficult for
the armaments ministers, Todt and Speer. The conscription of millions of
German men for military service, the closure of factories not essent.al to
the war effort, the conversion of other facilities from civilian to military
 .&

Peter W. Becker 197

production, as well the conscription of millions and the relocation of

hundreds of thousands caused problems which were not solely economic,
creating work for the Gauleiter in particular. They felt themselves respon-
sible for the social and political concerns of the residents of their region,
were unwilling to allow themselves to be told what to do without protest by
the national authorities, and thwarted measures which were in the interests
of the warring nation. Only one of them, it was thought, could overcome
such resistance. Speer would have liked to see his friend, Karl Hanke, the
Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, take on this role, but Bormann was afraid of
power becoming concentrated in Speer’s hands and suggested Sauckel
instead. Hitler’s decree of 21 March 1942 made Sauckel directly respon-
sible to him and made him responsible for the mobilisation of the entire
labour force, including foreigners and prisoners of war.
The growing losses on the eastern front, increasing conscription and the
heightened demands on the war economy constantly forced Speer to turn
to Sauckel with steadily increasing demands for more workers. Sauckel did
his best to fulfil Speer’s requirements. Earlier, he had received backing
from Hitler for his task: approached about the legality of the planned
compulsory recruitment, Hitler declared to Sauckel that he had no need to
comply with the Geneva or Hague Conventions. In the west the army’s
decrees or agreements entered into with the French government would
prevail, while in the east the surrender of Poland, it was said, had deprived
it of all rights. Since Russia had not signed the Geneva Convention in any
case, Germany was not bound to observe it there either. Sauckel acted
accordingly. In his ‘Report on the Mobilisation of the Labour Force in
1942’ he pointed proudly to the fact that in the first two so-called ‘Sauckel
Initiatives’ he had brought 2.7 million people into the Reich.
As events reached a critical stage in Stalingrad and North Africa, and
also with the conscription of German men this involved, it became evident
that the numbers of foreign workers were no longer sufficient. It became
necessary to fall back on the German workforce to a much greater degree.
And so, in January 1943, the ‘Fuhrer’s Decree for the comprehensive
Deployment of Men and Women for the Task of Defending the Reich’ was
proclaimed. Now all men between the ages of 16 and 65 and women
between the ages of 17 and 50 who had not yet registered with the
employment offices were to be mobilised. The result was inadequate.
During the first six months, Sauckel announced that 1 332 000 people had
been mobilised, 1 235 000 of these being women. However only 688 000 of
them were in full-time employment. On the other hand, at the end of 1943,
Sauckel announced that in the third ‘Sauckel Initiative’ he had recruited
1.4 million foreigners.
At the beginning of 1944, a conference which had been called by Hitler
came to the conclusion that during that year the German economy would
require a further four million workers. Sauckel believed he could mobilise
198 Fritz Sauckel

half a million in Germany itself, but doubted whether he would succeed in

finding the missing 3.5 million abroad. The outcome proved him right.
During the first six months he recruited 1 482 000 people, of whom 96 600
were prisoners of war, 537 400 were foreigners and 848 000 were Germans,
mainly women and young people. During the second six months of 1944 he
added a further 449 000 foreigners.
When the retreat from the east began, the area from which Sauckel
could win recruits became steadily smaller, until there were practically no
more Russians available to him. However he believed he could recruit
more workers from western countries to replace them, and, after the
defection of Germany’s Italian ally, from German-occupied Italy too. He
only had a limited degree of success in this, however, mainly because Speer
had in the meantime established so-called restricted enterprises in these
countries, which worked for him alone and were not accessible to Sauckel.
Nonetheless Sauckel managed to bring approximately 5.3 million foreign
workers to Germany during the three years he was active. The largest
western contingents came from the Netherlands, Belgium and, particu-
larly, France. However the great bulk of the foreign workers came from
Poland and Russia. At the end of 1944, at the height of the mobilisation of
the workforce, 20 per cent of all workers in Germany were foreigners. It is
important not to underestimate these figures. Up to 1940, four million men
had been conscripted into the armed services and the civilian workforce
had been reduced to 36 million. A further seven million German men were
called up between May 1942 and September 1944, but nonetheless, thanks
to the foreigners, the size of the civilian workforce remained constant at
36 million.
Just as important as the quantity was the quality of the workers. An
examination of the aptitude of 12 000 workers in a steel factory gave the
following ranking among men: first the French then Russians, Germans,
Poles, Yugoslavs, Dutch, Norwegians and Italians. In the case of the
women the Russians came in first place, followed by the Poles, Germans,
French and Yugoslavs. In the spring of 1944, the National Chamber of
Commerce made available a study of the productivity of foreign workers.
Measured by a German standard of 100 per cent, female workers from the
east scored 90 to 100 per cent, trained Czechs scored 80 to 95 per cent, men
from the east 60 to 80 per cent, Italians 70 per cent and workers from the
Netherlands, Denmark and the Balkans 50 to 70 per cent. All in all, the
contribution of the foreign workers to productivity was astonishing; there
is no doubt that it was the decisive contribution to the German war
economy during the last years of the war.
However recruitment was anything but voluntary. Sauckel himself ad-
mitted that, of the five million foreign workers, at most 200 000 had come
to Germany of their own free will. It was forced deportation and the
 Peter W. Becker 199

treatment of foreign workers in Germany which landed Sauckel in the dock

in Nuremberg after the war.
Sauckel had no reservations about going about his duty with tireless
energy and ruthless brutality. He had promised Hitler in 1942 that he
would execute his task with fanatical conviction and he kept this promise
until the end. In the beginning he had no difficulty in fulfilling his quotas:
until mid-1942 the number of voluntary registrations was more than suf-
ficient. The first trains filled with laughing Ukrainians arrived in German
stations decked with flowers. After this, however, it was necessary to hunt
down people in order to produce the required millions. Raids were con-
ducted at night, in railway stations and in the streets and public places,
even during religious services. Men, women and children were herded
together like cattle, brutally and in humiliating fashion. Villages were
surrounded, the inhabitants loaded into goods wagons and transported to
Germany. In occupied Russia in 1943, an order went out that all people
between the ages of 14 and 65 were required to register. Additional
regulations made it possible to deport them more easily to Germany, but
did not make the deportation any more humane.
Word had naturally got round about how bad the treatment of forced
labour in Germany was. However, wherever there was the slightest resist-
ance, it was broken with the use of extreme force; on one occasion 45
Ukrainians were shot, among them 18 children, ranging in age from 3 to
15. And that was by no means the only time that German forces acted so
barbarously. The calls to the target age groups to report for transportation
to Germany were always linked to threats. If those concerned refused,
then members of their family lost their ration cards or were taken to
prisons, punishment camps or even concentration camps. The execution of
Sauckel’s initiatives was the responsibility of the army, the SS and the SD.
Criticism of Sauckel’s methods was voiced increasingly loudly, particularly
by the army. With some justice, he was held responsible for the steady
growth in the number of partisans: instead .of allowing themselves to be
freighted off to forced labour in the Reich, the Russians preferred to join
the partisans in the forests.
However no easy fate awaited those who were rounded up and trans-
ported to Germany. The first difficulty was in accommodating the foreign
workers, as they were called. The main responsibility for this lay with the
firms who employed them; the German Labour Front had the task of
supervising the building and maintenance of the lodgings. All over Ger-
many barracks grew up in the vicinity of workplaces. In 1944, there were
22 000 of these camps, 16 400 of them in the countryside. Until the first
Sauckel Initiative, conditions in them were relatively good, but the sudden
influx of several million Russians changed the situation considerably. For
all practical purposes the workers were treated like prisoners; they were
200 Fritz Sauckel

not allowed to leave the camps without permission and were surrounded by
guards. The camps were overcrowded and facilities for hygiene inadequate.
The provisioning could at best be described as unsatisfactory. Initially
the Russians and Poles received less to eat because it was thought that, as
‘sub-humans’, they could be treated in this way. After Sauckel was put
in charge of the mobilisation of the workforce the workers were better
provided for, but the differences between workers from the west and from
the east and the German workforce remained: the workers from the west
received less to eat than the German workers and those from the east
received only about half of the Germans’ rations. The workers normally
only had one hot meal a day. The German authorities found themselves in
a particular dilemma with regard to provisions: on the one hand, they
wanted to give the foreign workers as little to eat as possible; on the other
hand, it was plain to them that they could only get the maximum out of the
workers if they provided them with a reasonable amount of food, the more
so since the workers from the east were often undernourished when they
arrived in Germany.
The workers were similarly disadvantaged in the matter of payment.
Although the workers from eastern Europe nominally earned as much as
the workers from western Europe, their wages were subject to special
levies, the result of which was that only 7 to 22 per cent of their wages was
left for them. Apart from this, the eastern workers in particular were
subjected to merciless discipline in their workplaces. They were often
beaten and handed over straight away to the police or even the SS for even
minor crimes. If they attempted to escape they could even be publicly
executed.
Sauckel knew that slaves who were undernourished, ill, obstinate,
despairing and full of hatred never work as well as those employed under
normal circumstances. From the beginning, therefore, he gave orders to
the agencies carrying out his policies that during recruitment they should
give truthful information about wages, accommodation and food. Over
and above this he demanded that the foreign workers be well treated and
housed. He was partly motivated by humanitarian considerations, partly
by purely pragmatic ones. He also tried a few times to improve the
appalling conditions by his own intervention, but these efforts did not last
for long. Sauckel was fully informed about the deficient living conditions of
the foreign workers but, leaving aside sporadic attempts to alleviate them,
he preferred to do nothing. It was certainly not his intention that his
compulsory conscription should result indirectly in the death of thousands
and the suffering of millions, but these considerations paled before the
necessity of producing millions of new workers. Germany’s victory was
more important than behaving justly. Over and above this, as far as he was
concerned foreign workers were only second-class people.
On these grounds, he was found guilty in Nuremberg of having com-
 Peter W. Becker 201

mitted war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was unanimously

condemned to death and executed. In certain respects the verdict was
questionable. In the final analysis it was Speer who spurred Sauckel on to
more and more conscription campaigns, and it was Funk’s Ministry of
Economics which was directly responsible for the treatment of the foreign
workers. Accordingly both Speer and Funk should also have received the
death sentence; however Funk was only sentenced to life imprisonment
and Speer only to 20 years. The considerations the individual judges took
into account in coming to their judgments are unknown, but it is certain
that Sauckel was no more and no less guilty than the other two.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
The main sources for Sauckel’s role in the mobilisation of labour are the transcripts
of the proceedings of the International Tribunal in Nuremberg and the related
collections of documents. The documents are held in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz
and in the Institut fiir Zeitgeschichte. Further insights into Sauckel’s activities are to
be found in the files of the Armaments and Economics Ministries, the archives of
the Four Year Plan and those of the Ministry of Employment, all of which are held
in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz. Speer’s ‘Memoires’ are an interesting primary
source, but can only be used with due reservations.

Secondary Literature

The best accounts based on archival research are: A.S. Milward, Die deutsche
Kriegswirtschaft 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1966) and G. Janssen, Das Ministerium
Speer. Deutschlands Riistung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1968). Both works
concern themselves with the German war economy, and pay particular attention to
the question of the mobilisation of labour. On the question of the ‘foreign workers’
see also: E.L. Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (Princeton, 1967);
H. Pfahlmann, Fremdarbeiter und Kriegsgefangene in der deutschen Kriegswirt-
schaft 1939-1945 (Darmstadt, 1968); U. Herbert, Fremdarbeiter. Politik und Praxis
des ‘Auslander-Einsatzes’ in der Kriegswirtschaft des Dritten Reiches (Berlin—Bonn,
1985). Books which are concerned with the Nuremberg trials and devote chapters
to Sauckel include: E. Davidson, The Trial of the Germans (New York, 1966); B.F.
Smith, Reaching Judgment at Nuremberg (New York, 1977); G. Wysocki, Zwang-
sarbeit im Stahlkonzern. Salzgitter und die Reichswerke ‘Hermann Goering’ 1937-
1945 (Braunschweig, 1982); R.E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg (New York, 1983).
See also the following articles: D. Eichholtz, ‘Die Vorgeschichte des ‘‘Generalbe-
vollmachtigten fiir den Arbeitseinsatz’’’, in Jb. Gesch. 9 (1973) pp. 339-83; J.L.
Wallach, ‘Probleme der Zwangsarbeit in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft’, in Jb.
Inst. Dtsch. Gesch. 6 (1977) pp. 477-512; D. Petzina, ‘Die Mobilisierung deutscher
Arbeitskrafte vor und wahrend des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, in VfZ 18 (1979)
pp. 443-SS.
19 Baldur von Schirach:
Student Leader, Hitler
Youth Leader, Gauleiter
in Vienna
Michael Wortmann

Baldur von Schirach was born on 9 May 1907 in Berlin, the youngest of
four children. However it was his childhood years in Weimar which formed
his character. His father Carl took over the directorship of the Grand
Duke’s Court Theatre there the following summer. Up until then Carl
Baily Norris von Schirach had served in the Royal Prussian Hussar Guards
Regiment. He left with the rank of captain. Schirach the elder’s decision to
go into the theatre did not come out of the blue. He had long felt attracted
to art, literature and music. From time to time he had taken leave of
absence from military service in order to take lessons with the famous stage
director Martersteig. Schirach’s skills as a director were ‘highly com-
mended’. Within the musical sphere he was regarded as ‘extremely tal-
ented’.' The change from being an officer to a theatre manager was not
exceptional in the Wilhelmine period. The officer as artist, the artist as
officer: Schirach always claimed that ‘as director he was a cavalier, not a
comedian’, thereby contributing his share to the intellectual sterility of
the era.’
Baldur von Schirach’s mother was an American. Emma Middleton
Lynah Tillou had married Carl in 1896 in Philadelphia. The Schirach family
had close ties with America. Carl’s father had spent several years in the
United States, fought for the North in the Civil War and married the
daughter of a locomotive manufacturer. Emma, too, came from this
family.* Several anecdotes are told of her which give the impression of a
self-confident, wilful woman. The fact that throughout her life she spoke
only broken German contributed considerably to making Baldur an out-
sider from his childhood onwards. By his own account at the age of six he
still could not speak ‘a single word of German’.*
The Schirachs established themselves in Weimar in imposing style. The
director’s salary alone of course was scarcely adequate for the way of life
which went with the job. However Carl and Emma had sufficient private
means to enable them to enjoy the life style of the grand bourgeoisie.
Schirach’s bourgeois origins are documented in family history. The upper
class ‘von’ had been awarded by Maria Theresa to a learned ancestor,

202
 Michael Wortmann 203

Gottlob Benedikt. He had written a biography of her father, Charles VI.

In cultural terms, Weimar at the beginning of the century was still just a
shadow of its former self and the classical literary period of Goethe and
Schiller had atrophied into rigid monuments. It was dominated now by
literary reactionaries, led by Adolf Bartels, who had come to the seat of
the Court in 1895. Bartels and his confederates preached the ideal of
‘home-grown art’, symbolically expressing the intellectual isolation and
rigidity of Weimar. They blocked modern literary trends. The Bartels
group was characterised above all, however, by an extreme anti-semitism.
Hans Severus Ziegler, Bartels’ pupil and secretary, later to be deputy
Gauleiter in Thuringia, became the young Schirach’s first National Socialist
mentor. Baldur von Schirach singled out his time in the Wald Institute at
Bad Berka as the formative phase of his schooling.” This country boarding
school was run according to the rules of the educational reformist Her-
mann Lietz, who wanted to replace schools based on ‘instruction’ with
schools which emphasised ‘character building’. Lietz taught that the devel-
opment of the body and the character must rank equally alongside the
mediation of knowledge. Lietz too was anti-semitic.
The defeat in the First World War resulted in drastic and painful changes
for the family. Carl von Schirach was dismissed. In October 1919 Baldur’s
brother Karl shot himself. In his farewell letter he gave ‘Germany’s
misfortune’ as the reason for his decision.© The actual reason, however,
was his own misfortune, the career as an officer denied to him by the
Treaty of Versailles. Without a doubt this double catastrophe for his family
was one of the decisive formative experiences in Schirach’s life, with
far-reaching consequences for the development of his personality. He had
been made receptive to the National Socialist doctrine of salvation.
However Schirach did not become a National Socialist at any specific
time. Within the vdlkisch (populist ethnic), anti-semitic atmosphere he
lived in and took for granted, his perceptions of the enemy were simply
radicalised under the influence of these personal and political upheavals,
and his hopes for deliverance intensified into fanaticism. At the age of
seventeen Schirach developed an intensive interest in anti-semitic literature.
He read Chamberlain, Bartels and Ford. In July 1925 Hitler’s Mein Kampf
appeared. Schirach devoured the book straightaway at one sitting. For him it
was like ‘a bible, which we learned by heart, in order to have an answer to
the questions of doubters and critics cleverer than us’.’
Hitler, who was still banned from public speaking in Bavaria, made
repeated visits to Weimar in the spring and summer of this year to make
public appearances. In Thuringia the Volkische had a considerable pool of
people at their disposal. At national and state elections they gained around
ten per cent of the votes. Schirach was present at Hitler’s first public
meetings. He was a member of the Knappenschaft, a vodlkisch youth
defence league led by Ziegler, which provided the security services for the
204 Baldur von Schirach

meeting. Schirach and his family soon came into closer contact with the
leader of the NSDAP through Ziegler. Baldur admired Hitler and soon
became his unconditionally devoted follower. Countless poems in praise of
him which begin to appear from then on, bear testimony to this. Schirach’s
relentless production of poetry, which was superior to the outpourings of
other vélkisch versifiers, laid the early foundation of his reputation as the
movement’s bard and in the early years in particular it furthered his
National Socialist career.
Baldur von Schirach joined the NSDAP on 29 August 1925. His mem-
bership number was 17 251.° In the years that followed Weimar remained
an important stronghold for the National Socialists. In 1926 the NSDAP
held its Party Conference there. On that occasion, at Ziegler’s suggestion,
the youth organisation was given the name ‘Hitler Youth’. The name was
descriptive, and at the same time an indication of the extreme personality
cult of the Weimar National Socialists, even in the early days. The socially
revolutionary views which dominated wide sections of the Party at that
time were alien to them. Schirach followed decisively in this tradition.”
After finishing his Higher School Leaving Exam, on Hitler’s suggestion
he went to study in Munich. He attended lectures and seminars in German
Literature, English, art history, psychology and Egyptology, without how-
ever gaining any final qualifications. The straitened financial circumstances
of the majority of his fellow students were alien to him. Schirach socialised
in the upper-middle-class salons, which by that time had long since opened
their doors to Hitler, and tried, at first in vain, to find a foothold among the
Party leader’s closest following.
Soon he came across the National Socialist German Students’ League.
The basic tenets of National Socialist ideology, anti-semitism and anti-
Marxism determined the policies of this organisation too. But over and
above this it was dominated by strong social revolutionary traits. Soon
Schirach became leader of the Munich University group. In summer 1928
he took over the leadership of the entire Nazi German Students’ League.
The social revolutionary tendencies were supressed and the League
opened up to the corporations which then dominated student life. At this
time, when the NSDAP could still only claim to be a splinter party, the
Students’ League launched upon a series of electoral successes at the
universities, which led to the National Socialists dominating the German
student body in the summer of 1931. This also gave Schirach an official
mandate for his battle against the Republic. This victorious campaign
strengthened his position in the Party and assured him of Hitler’s backing.
Repeated attempts to remove Schirach from power were therefore con-
demned to failure.
Even at that time Schirach was looking around for new duties to increase
his power. He cast an eye on the Hitler Youth. Under the leadership of
Kurt Gruber it was being built up only slowly. It hardly gained any recruits
 Michael Wortmann 205

from among middle class youth. In the schools and colleges the National
Socialist League of School Pupils, founded in 1929, was becoming estab-
lished under the leadership of Adrian von Renteln. In the university towns
he worked closely together with the Students’ League. Gruber’s position
was worsening visibly. Finally he was dismissed. On 3 October 1931 Hitler
appointed Schirach National Youth Leader of the NSDAP, but transferred
direct responsibility for the Hitler Youth to Renteln. However in June of
the following year Schirach succeeded in having Renteln removed from
power and forcing his resignation. Schirach himself took over the Hitler
Youth and made the School Pupils’ League an integral part of it.
His efforts were now concentrated on building up the Hitler Youth as
quickly as possible. At that time it was one youth organisation among
many, and by no means the biggest among the numerous assortment of
groups, leagues and associations. Only a strong position would give him a
chance of taking over the leadership of the entire youth movement after
the expected seizure of power. The so-called State Youth Day in Potsdam
in October, in which 70 000 young people took part, was a demonstration
of his claim.
However after 3 January 1933 Hitler was initially dependent on his
Conservative coalition partners. So Schirach had to be patient in his battle
against the other youth organisations and confine himself to propaganda
and tactical moves, like taking over the state committee for German Youth
Associations. The plan considered in the spring of creating a Ministry for
Youth and the merging of countless groups within the ‘Greater German
League’ considerably weakened Schirach’s position. Things only changed
when Hitler appointed him as ‘Youth Leader of the German State’ on
17 June 1933. Now Schirach vigorously asserted his claim to power wher-
ever possible. The ‘Greater German League’, with 70 000 young members,
was scrapped. An agreement between Schirach and Reich Bishop Muller
on the organisation of Protestant Youth brought 700 000 young people into
the Hitler Youth in December 1933. The membership total was further
increased by deals, coercion and new members joining voluntarily to stand
at 1.9 million boys and 1.26 million girls by September 1935.'°
However there were limits on Schirach’s expansionist plans. For ex-
ample, Hitler’s Concordat with the Vatican prevented him from getting the
Catholic youth organisations within his grasp. The development of the
organisation did not keep pace with the rapid increase in membership.
Leaders, premises and money were all in short supply. At that time the
Hitler Youth would not have been capable of dealing with the compulsory
membership of all young people. In this early phase of the dictatorship
Schirach repeatedly underlined the socialist mission of his organisation, the
claim to be ‘Adolf Hitler’s Revolutionary Youth Movement’."’ But this
meant nothing other than that he intended to encompass and lead all young
people.
206 Baldur von Schirach

He stayed at a careful distance from the SA, although he was an SA

General and for a while before the seizure of power was immediately
subordinate to R6hm. He survived the assassination of the leadership of
the SA on 30 June 1934 unscathed. Schirach’s position had been further
strengthened at that time, but was based entirely on Hitler’s goodwill.
Since he had married Henriette Hoffmann in March 1932, the daughter of
Hitler’s close friend and personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, he
belonged at last to the inner circle around the Party leader. Among the
leader’s followers, however, he continued to be controversial.
Schirach was consistent in his pursuit of his political and pedagogical
strategy. He proclaimed it endlessly in his two slogans: young people must
be led by young people and have their own state. Schirach could point to
Hitler himself as the originator of this strategy.’* It represented an attempt
to create, as it were, an autonomous copy of the Nazi state within the
Hitler Youth: a ‘Liliput’ in the Third Reich, answerable to Hitler alone.
This meant in part warding off or canalising the influence of the Party and
the state, while at the same time usurping greater and greater areas of
education. Cooperation with the Party, army, SS, SA, ministries and other
organisations was regulated by contracts, which were always designed to
guarantee the sovereignty of the Hitler Youth. Cooperation with any one
organisation immediately brought the other competitors into the fray,
since they feared losing influence and new recruits. The alternating
attempts of the army and the SA, and later the SS, too, to take in hand the
pre-military training of the Hitler Youth and Schirach’s efforts to extricate
himself are all impressive testimony to this.’°
After the seizure of power, Schirach was responsible first to the Minister
of the Interior, Frick, and then to the Education Minister, Rust. His efforts
to establish the Hitler Youth as the third factor in upbringing, alongside
the parental home and school were reflected from summer 1934 in the
so-called State Day of Youth. Saturday was to belong to the Hitler Youth
alone. However this arrangement proved to be unsuitable becasue of
organisational difficulties and was abolished after the promulgation of the
law regulating the Hitler Youth. With this law of 1 December 1936 Hitler
made the National Youth Directorate a senior office of state and Schirach
Secretary of State. Schirach was now directly responsible to Hitler. The
Hitler Youth was reorganised as an independent educational power.
However he did not achieve his aim of establishing the National Youth
Directorate as a shadow ministry within the educational sector — led by 80
civil servants, a leadership corps paid by the state and with a state budget.
The Hitler Youth did not become the State Youth, but remained a branch
of the Party. Hitler only allowed the National Youth Directorate a few civil
service posts. Financial jurisdiction remained with the Party Treasurer,
Schwarz.'* Compulsory membership was not enshrined in law until March
1939. Nonetheless the law represented a success for Schirach. He had now
obtained a platform for the most ambitious phase of his career: he intended
 Michael Wortmann 207

to bring school education, too, under his control. In January 1937 he, and
the National Organiser, Robert Ley, announced a programme for the
establishment of ‘Adolf Hitler Schools’. In these, selected Hitler Youths
were to be educated to Higher School Leaving Certificate standard and
the principle of self-government implemented. Rust was beside himself
about this competition. The strain which already existed in their rela-
tionship escalated into open conflict. Hitler considered replacing Rust with
Schirach, but then left everything as it was.
Schirach continued his show-down with the schools, demanding ‘unity of
education’, the unspoken meaning of which was: under his direction.
However the only result of all his efforts was that the gulf between the
National Youth Directorate on the one hand, and the Education Ministry
and the National Socialist Teachers’ League on the other, became deeper
and deeper. Even Rosenberg became involved in the conflict. He was
already in dispute with Schirach. They had differences on ideological
matters, in their evaluation of the philosophers Klages and Kant. Rosen-
berg accused the National Youth Directorate of attempting to form ‘as it
were an intellectual party alongside the Party’. Now the Party ideologue
publicly took the teachers under his protection, in the face of the attacks
from the Hitler Youth. Schirach did not give in. Finally Rosenberg tempor-
arily even subjected Schirach’s journalistic mouthpiece ‘Wille und Macht’
to his censorship.'°
Schirach’s pedagogical policy was very inadequate. In the final analysis,
behind the jumble of phrases his plans related to the few fixed points of
Lietz’s teachings. However he did want more than simply to fulfil Hitler’s
much quoted adage, by which the Hitler Youth were to be ‘as swift as
greyhounds, as hard as Krupp steel and as tough as leather’. Schirach also
claimed for himself the ‘intellectual and moral education of youth’. This
reflected his intention of encompassing ‘all spheres of life’ for young
Germans.*° At the same time, alongside sporting and pre-military training,
cultural work gained in significance in the years before the war. Schirach
took a comparatively independent line in cultural policy, with which he
intended at the same time to underpin his claims to leadership in the sphere
of National Socialist education.
However control of education in the Third Reich was only a staging post
for him. Instead Schirach wanted to ‘seek out that German person who is
capable of leading the world power called Germany’.'’ On 20 April 1939
he declared to his deputies:

The German people is called on to rule the world. Of course we

will heed this call. . . . If we dispute the British nation’s claim to leader-
ship, then we don’t need people who have the outlook of moles, but
people who have trained themselves to conceive of great territories. . . .
Within this territory we have millions of Czechs. We will yet have
millions of other peoples.'*
208 Baldur von Schirach

However the outbreak of war put a temporary end to Schirach’s ambi-

tions. While all eyes were on Poland, he attempted, in a surprise move, to
secure for himself sole control of the education system. Goering, who was
conducting government business, appeared to greet his intentions appro-
vingly. But when Hitler learned of his plans he stopped Schirach just
before he achieved his goal. Most of the Hitler Youth leaders had at that
time entered military service. Control of Youth was increasingly slipping
out of his grasp. The number of illegal youth groups increased by leaps and
bounds. Increasingly, criminal tendencies came to the fore. During this
phase, supervision of the Hitler Youth passed in practice to the Party. The
‘failure of the leadership of the Hitler Youth’ was blamed on Schirach.’”
When exactly Hitler made the decision to dismiss Schirach can no longer
be determined today. However the decision was final by the beginning of
April 1940 at the latest. By this time Schirach had already entered active
service in the army. After participating in the French campaign, on
10 August he took up his new post as Gauleiter and Reich Plenipotentiary
in Vienna. At the same time he was appointed ‘Commissioner for the
Inspection of the entire Hitler Youth’. However his influence on youth
training was severely limited.
At this time there was a sense of dissatisfaction among wide sections of
the Viennese population. The initial euphoria after the annexation into the
Reich had evaporated. Living conditions had become worse since then.
The pivotal positions in the Party, administration and economy had been
filled with German functionaries from the Reich. There was a general
feeling in many places that they had been downgraded into a Prussian
provincial town. Schirach’s task was to divert the Viennese from their
social problems by developing a glittering cultural life, and to blind them to
the fact that their city had indeed become politically insignificant. Over and
above this Hitler delegated him with the task of deporting the 60 000 Jews
remaining in Vienna.
At first Schirach was successful in his efforts to fulfil these tasks. Vienna
soon seemed to outshine even Berlin in cultural terms. In the process
Schirach continued to pursue policies which were avant-garde even by
National Socialist standards. Goebbels, who was responsible for cultural
policy and at the same time Gauleiter of the capital of the Reich, observed
Schirach’s work with the greatest attentiveness and gradually became more
and more critical. However his first attempt to undermine Schirach’s
cultural supremacy in Vienna, in June 1941, missed its mark.*° By that time
10 000 Jews had already been sent to Poland in the first wave of deporta-
tions, after Governor-General Frank had objected in vain to Schirach’s
demand that he must ‘relieve him’ of the Jews.*! Although Schirach knew
by May 1942 at the latest, that Jews were being murdered in the gas
chambers, even after this he still publicly celebrated their deportation as
his ‘active contribution to European culture’.”?
 Michael Wortmann 209

Even from Vienna Schirach made attempts to strengthen his influence

on the education system. In September 1940 Hitler had charged him with
the evacuation to the countryside of children from cities at risk from
bombing. Initially the evacuation was to apply only to children of school
age from Berlin and Hamburg who lived in suburbs and parts of the cities
which did not have sufficient air-raid shelters. Schirach gave responsibility
for teaching in the camps exclusively to the National Socialist League of
Teachers. The project soon became more and more extensive. In April
1942 there were already 850 000 boys and girls in the evacuation camps.”
In them it was possible to some extent for Schirach to implement his ‘unity
of education’ ideas. His attempt in March 1942 to have Hitler entrust him
with the conduct of the mobilisation of young people and by this means to
achieve pre-eminence in the field of education .was unsuccessful.”
At this time, in spite of the increasingly violent attacks from Goebbels,
Schirach still enjoyed his Fihrer’s patronage. However Hitler was becom-
ing more and more dissatisfied with Schirach’s cultural policy. Even the
establishment of a ‘European Youth Association’, to which he had invited
delegates from fascist youth organisations of thirteen countries to Vienna
in September, was almost unanimously rejected in the capital of the Reich.
Schirach was increasingly pessimistic in his assessment of the prospects of
winning the war. Therefore he declared in front of his subordinates that
Germany should not exercise ‘power through force’, but should instead
aim to act as the ‘premier security power’ within the context of ‘voluntary
cooperation between nations.’” By this time the defeat at Stalingrad was
already taking place. He fell into disfavour in summer 1943 because of
misgivings about his cultural policy, complaints that he had not been
energetic enough in putting Vienna on the necessary footing for total war,
and an attempt he made at least once, although in vain, to inform Hitler of
his ideas on alternative foreign policy and policy for the occupied
territories.*° Schirach remained at his post, but from now on he no longer
played any political role. When the Russians were outside Vienna in April
1945 Schirach stood down and disappeared but later gave himself up to the
Americans. At Nuremberg he was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment
for ‘crimes against humanity’. He completed his sentence on 1 October
1966. Schirach died on 8 August 1974 in Krév on the Moselle.

NOTES

1. Leonhard Schrickel Geschichte des Weimarer Theatres von seinen Anfangen bis
heute (Weimar, 1928) pp. 256 and 251.
2. Carl von Schirach to the editor Christ, 5.6.1943, Archive of the Hesse State
Theatre, Wiesbaden, Carl von Schirach’s personal file.
210 Baldur von Schirach

. For the family history see Max von Schirach, Geschichte der Familie von
Schirach (Berlin, 1939).
. Schirach in conversation with Jochen von Lang. Transcript in the Institut fur
Zeitgeschichte, Munich, vol. I, p. 12.
. Ibid., p. 20, vol. II, p. 47.
. Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler (Hamburg, 1967) p. 15.
. Baldur von Schirach, Die Hitler-Jugend. Idee und Gestalt (Berlin, 1934) p. 17.
. Berlin
CONN Document Center, file on Baldur von Schirach. According to this
Schirach did not, as is frequently claimed, join the Party on his eighteenth
birthday.
. See Konrad Studentowski, Wie die Hitler-Jugend ihren Namen erhielt.
Weihnachtsgruss an die Thiiringer Hitlerjugend-Fiihrer im Felde (Weimar,
1941). According to other information in Nazi literature, the naming of the
Hitler Youth can be traced back to Julius Streicher, who was then conducting a
meeting about ‘matters concerning schooling and the organisation of youth’.
He evidently put Ziegler’s suggestion to a vote.
10. These figures were given during a conference of Hitler Youth financial mana-
gers in the context of the Nuremberg Party Conference on 12.9.1935 (BA/
NS26/395). The officially announced figures for the end of 1935 are as follows:
3 943 303 boys and girls from a total population of 8 172 000 young people
within the German Reich.
9 Radio speech, 1.1.1934, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna (AVW)/
Reichsstatthalterei/Ordn. 1394.
¥2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 743rd—747th edition (Munich, 1942) p. 461 and
p: 317
53. See the Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv Freiburg (BA-MA)/RH37/1351/1379 and
the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BA)/R43II/520b/522b/526 and NS/336, Institut fiir
Zeitgeschichte Munich (IfZ)/MA32S5.
14. See the letter of Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, 6.5.1936, Politisches Archiv des
Auswartiges Amtes Bonn/Inland I Partei/Reichsjugendfihrer, Plan fiir den
Aufbau der Reichsjugend, BA/R43 II/525, Bericht ber die Geldverwalterta-
gung der Hitlerjugend, 12.9.1935, BA/NS26/395, Vermerk zur Hitlerjugend,
25.2.1937, BA/R43I1/52S.
je Compare the references in BA/NS8/212.
16. Speech to the press, 5.4.1939, AVW/Reichsstatthalterei/Ordn. 1396.
di Speech to the departmental directors of physical education, 21.4.1939, AVW/
|
Reichsstatthalterei/Ordn. 1398.
18. Speech at the opening of the Academy for Youth Leaders to its first students,
20.4.1939, ibid.
iL. Friedrichs, in front of the deputy Gauleiter, 5.3.1940, IfZ/91/3.
20. Schirach to Lammers, 25.6.1941, AVW/Reichsstatthalterei/Org. 569/208 II.
21. Note by Bormann, 2.10.1940, quoted from IMT, vol. XXXIX, p. 435.
ne Speech on the occasion of the establishment of the EJV, 14.9.1942, AVW/
Reichsstatthalterei/Ordn. 1406.
ree Landverschickung schulpflichtiger Jugendlicher, no date (September 1940),
AVW/Reichsstatthalterei/Presse/unsigned, speech to the participants in an
officers’ training course, 22.4.1942, AVW/Reichsstatthalterei/Ordn. 1406.
24. Printed in IMT, vol. XXXIII, p. 558f. Schirach was evidently reacting in this to
the appointment, which was announced shortly before, of the Thuringian
Gauleiter Sauckel to the post of ‘General Plenipotentiary for employment’.
LS. Speech to a regional leaders’ conference in Braunschweig, 13.1.1942, AVW/
Reichsstatthalterei/Ordn. 1406.
 Michael Wortmann 211

26. Compare Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937-1945 (Mainz, 1980)
p. 340.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
An impression of Schirach’s output of lyric poetry is given in a book published in
Munich in 1929: B.v. Schirach, Die Feier der neuen Front. Schirach’s book, Die
Hitler-Jugend. Idee und Gestalt (Berlin 1934) was described by his press agent,
Giinther Kaufmann, in 1941 as being entirely ‘outdated in all sections’. Schirach
himself was not interested in a new edition, because ‘various fundamental questions
concerning education will have to be thoroughly looked into after the end of the
war’. A collection of the speeches of the Hitler Youth Leader appeared in 1938 in
Munich: B.v. Schirach, Revolution der Erziehung. Reden aus den Jahren des
Aufbaus. This collection was intended to provide the written programme for the
Hitler Youth, which up till then had been lacking.
Schirach’s memoirs can only be used with considerable reservations: B.v Schir-
ach, Ich glaubte an Hitler (Documented by J.v. Lang) (Hamburg, 1967). The book
is based on conversations Schirach had with Jochen von Lang after his release from
prison. The transcripts of the tapes are in the Institut fir Zeitgeschichte, Munich.
Schirach attempts to take refuge in the role of an innocent young man, seduced by
Hitler, who only learned of the crimes of National Socialism when it was too late.

Secondary Literature

There are two comprehensive biographies of Schirach: M. Wortmann, Baldur von

Schirach. Hitlers Jugendftihrer (Cologne, 1982); J.v. Lang, Der Hitler-Junge. Baldur
von Schirach: Der Mann der Deutschlands Jugend erzog (with the collaboration of
Claus Sybill) (Hamburg, 1988). Wortmann shows in his study that Schirach consis-
tently followed a political and educational policy which had as its aim the unres-
tricted control of education in the Nazi state and the formation of a new leadership
elite. Lang’s biography is based on the ‘oral history’ method. Lang had already
collaborated on Schirach’s memoirs. However the results of recent research are
also taken into consideration. Unfortunately Lang does not give any detailed
source references. A sketch of the Nazi Youth Leader which contains many salient
points can also be found in J.C. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches. Profile einer
totalitaren Herrschaft (Munich, 1963) p. 300-18. However large parts of this con-
tribution no longer reflect the latest findings of research, and Fest also underesti-
mates Schirach’s desire for power. There is as yet no satisfactory history of the
Hitler Youth. The best study to date is: A. Kloénne, Jugend im Dritten Reich. Die
Hitler-Jugend und thre Gegner (Dusseldorf/Cologne, 1982).
20 Albert Speer: Cultural and
Economic Management
Jost Dulffer

No other leading personality of the Nazi era has expressed himself as

explicitly and critically about these years as Albert Speer has done. Be-
cause of this none of the actors of the time has had such an impact on the
interpretation of the Nazi system as a whole as he has. This does not make
it easy for a historian to give a picture which is independent of these
distorting factors.
Albert Speer was born on 19 March 1905 in Mannheim. He grew up
there, and from 1918 in Heidelberg, in an upper middle class milieu
imbued with liberal values. His father was a respected architect in the area.
It seemed reasonable for his son to chose the same subject. Albert studied
in Karlsruhe, Munich and, from 1925, in Berlin, where he was a student of
Heinrich Tessenow at the Technical University. Tessenow was neither a
modernist nor a traditionalist in his field and aimed for a policy of self-
determination, closeness to nature, simplicity and a vernacular style, but
also a renunciation of mere rationality. Speer was immediately enthusiastic
about his teacher, writing in 1925, ‘To look at he is just as unimaginative
and sober as I am, but nonetheless his buildings have a sense of profound
experience.’' This personal affinity probably also explains why Speer be-
came Tessenow’s assistant in 1928. This also gave a material basis for his
marriage to a childhood sweetheart, which produced six children. A circle
of friends of the same age formed around Tessenow and these later became
Speer’s close colleagues, but the National Socialist students also gathered
around him and soon became dominant as they had done elsewhere. In this
milieu, open to radical change and new experience, which provided a sharp
contrast to the sufferings of the Great Depression, Speer found his way
into the NSDAP. His later description of the effect of one of Hitler’s public
speeches bears all the marks of a personal conversion: ‘He had taken hold
of me, before I realised’.*
Speer’s admission to the Nazi Party in January 1931 was not just a
formality; he attempted immediately, both in Berlin and Mannheim, to
make himself useful to this cause which he had recognised as good, pri-
marily in the National Socialist Drivers’ Corps. He was also interested in
the SS, but did not become a member. Since he was financially secure,
because of his parents’ property, Speer became an independent architect in
1932 and received his first commissions through Nazi contacts. The young
architect’s uncertain prospects improved considerably with the National

212
 Jost Diilffer 213

Socialists’ seizure of power. The Berlin Gauleiter, Joseph Goebbels, had

his new propaganda ministry, a Schinkel building, converted and fur-
nished. Speer, an industrious worker, achieved this in three months. At the
same time he was commissioned to set the scene for the Berlin Proclama-
tion of 1 May 1933, and a little later for the Party convention in Nurem-
berg. For this purpose Speer used over-sized swastika flags which could be
lit up at night. From this he developed the idea of projecting a ‘cathedral of
light’ by using many spotlights directed upwards. This created a pseudo-
sacral element within the aesthetic concept of National Socialism which
remained a constant part of the ritual thereafter. He had created a gigantic
and exhilarating framework, impressive for the media world of its day,
which made the individual appear small but at the same time part of a
collective national greatness.
Hitler noticed Speer and had him supervise the conversion of the Reich
Chancellery which had been planned by Paul Troost. In this way he
entered into the most decisive association of his life. It was probably the
young man’s vigour which Hitler liked; but Speer himself proved to be so
impressed by his personal proximity to the Fiihrer that other perceptions of
the centre of power and the exercise of power paled by comparison. The
architect soon belonged to the Fuhrer’s artistic entourage, took part in
Hitler’s bohemian life style, travelled with him and moved to be close to
Hitler’s alpine home on the Obersalzberg. Hitler, for his part, as a self-
taught architect, made use of Speer’s expertise. If Hitler had had a friend,
it would have been Speer, was how Speer later interpreted the points of
contact between the two personally reserved men, which also contained
elements of homosexuality. This also points to the most important criterion
for Speer’s varying positions of power until 1945: the Fihrer’s goodwill or
lack of it, which formed the basis for departmental power within the Nazi
hierarchy and for competition between National Socialist rivals. The
arrangement was reminiscent of courtly ritual, but on the whole this ‘court’
had petty-bourgeois characteristics. Furthermore, the ability to enforce
obedience to one’s own decrees also played a part, as did personal asser-
tiveness, ambition, intrigue and the cold-blooded exploitation of opportu-
nities in competition with others in positions of power; the vehicles for this
were legal regulations, decrees and authorisations, best of all from Hitler
himself. They were formulated specially for a given sector, but were at the
same time vague as to the delineation of authority and were scent marks
which were placed at the individual boundaries of those in positions of
power.
At the beginning of 1934, after Troost’s death, access to the Chancellor
meant he had the opportunity to advise him on his hobby, a hobby,
however, which related in the closest possible way to the dictator’s overall
political aims. Hitler wanted to anticipate German greatness, indeed its
position as a premier world power, in a corresponding monumental design
214 Albert Speer

for buildings and whole cities, like Berlin and Munich. His ideas for town
planning were determined by his intention of demonstrating that the Ger-
man nation did not ‘represent some sort of second-class power, but is the
equal of every other people in the world, even America’.* For Hitler,
buildings were a source of pride for all peoples in the history of the world.
The architect experimented with this concept and then suggested the idea
of building in natural stone, so that even thousands of years later there
would still be imposing ruins remaining of this German Reich which they
were to build anew. “The Fuhrer is building as head of state . . . . His great
buildings, which are today beginning to rise in many places, are intended as
one expression of the character of the movement for millenia to come, and
so are a part of the movement itself,’ Speer wrote in 1936 in a book of
photos which was distributed in hundreds of thousands.*
First of all, however, he had to impress Hitler with monumental designs
which the latter found to his liking and which reproduced the forms of
classical antiquity, to make plans for individual builings and develop par-
ade routes for city centres. In Nuremberg Speer extended the National
Party Convention ground. Hitler had been negotiating with Berlin’s
National Socialist administration since 1933 about a monumental trans-
formation of the city and he was looking for a man suited to the task. In
1935 he was still sceptical about whether Speer would do. He in the
meantime had been commissioned with building projects by other Nazi
leaders and was producing various buildings as examples of his work, of
which the foremost was the German Pavilion for the Paris World Exhibi-
tion in 1937. Furthermore he undertook the office of ‘Beauty of Labour’ in
the German Labour Front (DAF) in 1937 and established himself in the
NSDAP on Rudolf Hess’s staff as the Commissioner for Buildings.
On 30 January 1937, the fourth anniversary of the seizure of power,
Speer became General Building Inspector for the National Capital (GBI).
With global authority for all the necessary measures which fell within this
remit, authority he himself established in accordance with Hitler’s wishes,
Speer set himself to the task of establishing an axis of parade streets and
boulevards in the centre of the capital, at the central point of which was to
be built a mighty triumphal arch, and at its nothern end a monumental
Great Hall for 180 000 people. The remaining overall plan for the trans-
formation of the capital into the world imperial capital, Germania, which
was to be completed by 1950, fared badly by comparison. Alongside the
design work for the larger buildings which were to be situated on the axes,
there began a ruthless programme of evicting tenants and tearing down
established streets. Later the seizure of the appartments of Jewish citizens
was also part of this process. They had to vacate their appartments initially
to make way for those affected by the demolition work, then for those
decorated in the war and finally for victims of the bombing. What hap-
pened to them was beyond doubt. Energetic negotiations with other
 Jost Diilffer 215

authorities underline the fact that the Fihrer’s dynamic architect was
endeavouring to fulfil the expectations made of him. This became even more
obvious during the rebuilding of the Reich Chancellery, which was com-
pleted within a year at the beginning of 1939, more quickly than normal
planning procedures and the careful handling of money and materials
should actually have allowed. This seemed to be an expression of genuinely
National Socialist get-up-and-go and secured his superhuman reputation.
Speer’s position became so strong that in the middle of 1940 he brought
about the dismissal of Berlin’s mayor, who had demanded rights of con-
sultation: “The unique nature of my task demands the clear pre-eminence
of the one post necessary for the overall concept. That means me.”
In addition to this Speer made efforts to coordinate building plans in the
rest of the Reich too. Hitler had commissioned other architects elsewhere —
for example Hermann Giesler; for their part party leaders attempted to
gain building permits within the context of a law promulgated in 1937. In
February 1941 the talk was of twenty-three regional capitals and four other
towns, and building projects in the National Socialist style were scheduled
to be undertaken in forty-one towns. On 18 October 1940 Speer did in fact
gain authority for the overall coordination of these plans, but when he tried
to become ‘Commissioner for Town Planning’ as a whole, he had over-
reached himself. After intrigues against him he threw in the towel and
declared on 20 January 1941 that in future he intended to concentrate on
his real life’s work, the buildings in Berlin and Nuremberg, and gave up the
Party buildings. Speer saw himself being cast back on the source of his
power, on Hitler. There is something to be said for the theory that the
latter wished to retain alternatives to his chief architect, so that all strands
of building work had first of all to pass in front of him.
If before Speer had repeatedly rejected requests from other offices for
the provision of all monies required, and especially for natural stone and
building materials, as not being in line with the Fihrer’s wishes, in 1940 he
fought his way to the position of being able to assert the precedence of
what was practicable over all other requests.
On this basis five Fuhrer cities’ — Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Nuremberg
and Linz on the Danube - were given overall precedence, and the —
defunct — general plenary powers for city planning were to be used to
achieve this. This endeavour may have appeared to Hitler as the first stage
of bureaucratic torpor. Of course in the meantime Speer had built up an
apparatus, even including a fleet of trucks, which were to be used to
transport suitable natural stone from all over Europe for the planned
major buildings. It was the enormous requirement of raw material which
brought Speer closest to the terror inherent in the system. Concentration
camps were newly established or expanded at the demand of the General
Inspector. In close cooperation with the SS economic concern ‘German
Earth and Stone Works’, brickworks were built from Oranienburg to
216 Albert Speer

Neuengamme, stone quarries worked from Natzweiler to Flossenburg. As

late as March 1945, Speer’s deputies were calculating costs with the SS for
a new works in Oranienburg. They were fully aware that the work was
done as forced labour by detainees in concentration camps, and in the
same way the GBI gratefully accepted the offer of the SS to put detainees
at their disposal to exploit deposits of Norwegian stone should the need
arise. This was more than ‘technical immorality’ (J. Fest), clinging to a
grand task which was primarily artistic, and not caring about or not
noticing the crimes which surrounded it. Speer, the capable organiser, was
central to the expansion of the system of concentration camps.
The war, which was intended to win, by military means, the German
greatness which Speer was building in stone, did not initially drastically
interrupt his activities, for in the summer of 1940, after the victory over
France and then again after the first battles against the Soviet Union in
summer 1941, the hope was that the war would soon be over. Hitler urged
the architects to keep working. Trondheim in Norway was added to the list
in 1941 — planned as a future naval base and a city of several hundreds of
thousands of people. However a proportion of the workers were with-
drawn from Speer’s building sites to be put in to armaments production
and assigned as a unit to the factories concerned, and then in 1941 sent as
Speer’s Building Staff to rebuild railways and roads in the Ukraine. In so
doing the GBI had taken over activities which were normally the duty of
the Todt Organisation (OT).
When Fritz Todt died on 8 February 1942 in a plane crash, Hitler at once
appointed Speer as his successor in all offices. This was undoubtedly a
central turning point in Speer’s career. Along with Road Building and
Fortification, Speer’s chief task was to take over the Ministry for Arma-
ments and Munitions. Further duties were added, like that of General
Inspector for Water and Power, and General Inspector of German Roads.
At the same time Speer became chief of the Todt Organisation. It was an
empire with responsibilities which extended right across Europe and
70 000 public sector employees had been earmarked to work in it. Speer
was no expert in the specialist problems it dealt with, but he was in
possession of Hitler’s trust and had considerable organisational talent. He
promised to fulfill the duties conferred on him, by-passing the establish-
ment elites and bureaucracies — and that included the military. Some
principles should be stressed. Speer knew how to delegate: the OT for
example de facto continued to be directed by Franz Xaver Dorsch. But
since the Minister did not bother with the details, and even brought the
‘experts’ along to discussions with Hitler, they were, because of their
relative independence and access to the centre of power, gradually able to
undermine the Minister’s role. The more duties Speer had, the more he
lost an overall view of them. It was possible to build up power bases against
him via access to Hitler, the legitimising basis of authority and the signa-
 Jost Diilffer 217

tory of Fuhrer’s Decrees, who stubbornly pursued his favourite ideas, even
in the field of armaments, and distributed his favour according to the
extent to which they were implemented. From 1942 Hitler’s relations with
Speer were no longer predominantly based on art and friendship, but on
matter-of-factness and impartiality. Hardly anything is more characteristic
of the dynamic aggressive style of the thirty-six-year-old Minister than his
declaration, shortly after he took office, that ‘a deputy, not over forty years
old, must be appointed for every executive over the age of forty-five’.°
Speer subsequently made much of the fact that the number of colleagues
directly responsible to him remained comparatively small. They consisted
predominantly of architects, municipal officials and entrepreneurs. Below
his ministry Speer built up a system of which his predecessor had already
developed the central features: the ‘self administration of industry’ or, in
Marxist terminology: a new level of state monopoly. Committees were
formed with responsibility for some military goods — as Todt had already
done for weapons, munitions and heavy armour — under the honorary
control of an industrialist. They were responsible for the armaments de-
liveries requested by individual customers (mostly the military); between
these ‘rings’ were formed for the relevant sections of industry, and these in
turn set up main and branch committees or ‘rings’. So self-administration
only meant that industry was responsible for production and it did not plan
for a specific market. What was to be produced was decided by others.
Nevertheless industrialists took up more prominent state functions than in
World War One. Chairmen were usually directors of industry, representa-
tives of the big firms, and with the express support of the minister they
pushed through a dynamic rationalisation of the German economy. Small
and medium-sized concerns were specifically sought out and shut down,
using a decree obtained by Speer on 28 June 1943, among other methods.
This trend towards big business and rationalisation of production was the
consequence of an intended change in armaments policy which only hap-
pened to coincide with what Speer had been entrusted with doing. If the
war had until then been designed in economic terms for campaigns which
imposed only slight material deprivation on the German population and
mobilised far fewer resources than the First World War, the bogging down
of the German advance on Moscow at the end of 1941 symbolically sig-
nalled that a longer and more total war would have to be waged; the
alternative of peace did not exist for Hitler. What Goebbels tried to bring
about by propaganda, Speer did for armaments.

1. His first aim was to expand his spheres of competence. In April 1942 he
received from ‘central planning’ (of the Four Year Plan) the responsibility
for the provision and administration of raw materials; one month later the
Defence Economy and Armaments Division of the Army Supreme Com-
mand was put under his control and completely abolished the following
218 Albert Speer

year. In July 1943 Speer and the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Karl
Donitz, agreed the former would now take over naval armaments; on
1 August 1944 Speer took over the Air Force armaments, by making
General Erhard Milch, who had hitherto been responsible for it, his
deputy. In this way Speer also brought about the rationalisation of military
output down to fewer types of a given arms product, at least in as far as
Hitler did not intervene with his own ideas. The results were considerable.
The index of armaments production (1942=100) reached its highest point
during the war (226) in June 1944, the index for armour got as high as 462;
the index began to decline after June 1944, while production by subcon-
tractors reached its highest point slightly earlier. Over and above this Speer
took over responsibility for civilian output from the Economics Ministry.
This was announced by a decree from Hitler on 2 September 1943, aimed
at ‘the concentration of the war economy’ and at the same time it trans-
formed Speer’s Ministry into a ‘Ministry for Armaments and War Produc-
tion’. As a result the ‘Super Minister’ now held the chairmanship of an
inter-ministerial committee. Powers to manage the armaments industry in
the parts of Europe under German rule were added, powers which on the
whole were easier to implement in France, Belgium and the Netherlands,
and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia than in the east. Finally
from 1943 he gained increasing influence on the remaining German foreign
economic policy.
Speer became the second most powerful man in the regime, and this
because Hitler let him have his way. The young man began to think he was
probably the one whom the ‘Fuhrer’ would name as his successor, in a Nazi
regime of course.

2. However the extent of Speer’s power already contained the seeds of its
destruction, that is the construction of opposing power blocks. On 1 March
1942 Speer skilfully took up a formal position subordinate to Hermann
Goering as ‘Commissioner for Armaments in the Four Year Plan’ and was
able in this way to bring about a bearable relationship with the former
second man in the regime, although it was repeatedly upset by petty
jealousies. Speer could only occasionally evade the triumvirate which
regulated personal access to Hitler — Wilhelm Keitel, Hans-Heinrich Lam-
mers and Martin Bormann - and he failed in particular to neutralise
Bormann. The Armaments Minister was aware that for the moment he was
in agreement with Goebbels in the endeavour to run the Reich more
efficiently and achieve total mobilisation, and was even willing to be put on
public show by him. Nonetheless personal enmity outweighed this. Speer’s
relationship with Heinrich Himmler was originally characterised by effec-
tive cooperation. Speer could depend on the SS leader when he threatened
insufficiently cooperative colleagues or competitors with the concentration
camp. He fully understood the significance of the system of forced labour,
 Jost Diilffer 219

which contributed to the efficiency of his activities, when he demanded

armaments workers from Auschwitz, for example, or had concentration
camp workers work on the building of underground factories in the Harz
mountains. Later he stepped back from this position. The few improve-
ments, for example in hygiene, which Speer implemented for the concen-
tration camps, were solely for the purpose of increasing productivity. What
the Armaments Minister only dimly grasped was that Himmler was pro-
ceeding to build up production bases and positions of power which did not
come under Speer’s control, precisely in the sphere of the armaments
economy, through the Economics Ministry.
The final authority for the mobilisation of the population into employ-
ment was held by Fritz Sauckel, the Thuringian Gauleiter. With him, too,
Speer originally worked well, as long as he came up with the necessary
workers for the armaments industry. But Speer occasionally arranged
things directly with Hitler, as with the transportation of 200 000 Russian
miners into the Reich. It was not the system of forced labour, as such,
which led to disputes with Sauckel, but its lack of efficiency vis-a-vis the
requirements of the defence industry. Speer came more and more to
favour production in the parts of Europe controlled by Germany, especial-
ly in France, while Sauckel continued to support forced deportation into
the Reich. Plans for Europe in the case of permanent German rule after
the war, too, were developed in Speer’s ministry. Finally, the fact that
Speer was increasingly getting into difficulties with the Gauleiter (who were
also the Commissioners for the Defence of the Reich) was added as a
source of conflict.
Speer became ill in the course of this permanent struggle for power, in
January 1944, because he was exhausted/overworked; but his illness had a
psychosomatic background. During his convalescence, which lasted several
months, aspects of his power base in the Reich were lost to him and even
within his department colleagues were able to make themselves per-
manently independent.

3. Speer’s success in armaments is all the more astonishing if one considers

that with the retreat of German troops before the victorious Allies, access
to raw material and workers they had previously exploited was lost, the
willingness to cooperate disappeared and, most importantly, bombing
raids destroyed or damaged German towns and utilities important for the
armaments industry. Armaments planning now gave rise to an increasing
number of special committees and commissioners, who, although they were
given precedence over earlier priorities, were only able to plug gaps. The
first of these was the ‘Fighter Staff’ for the production of fighter aircraft,
set up on | March 1944, which became a miniature ministry in its own right
and slipped from Speer’s control under the leadership of Saur, on the
authority of SS leader Kammler. Speer was at first officially involved in the
220 Albert Speer

making of ‘wonder weapons’, rockets, and other missiles, but gradually

had to give up his role to the SS. It was, for example, necessary to have a
special commission for the maintenance of synthetic oil production in
summer 1944; in autumn 1944 a Ruhr commission was set up to alleviate
the worst of the bomb damage in that area. Industrialists filled the most
important positions in it, up to the point of intervening in municipal
administration. ‘The armaments industry, which had been unified within
my ministry from the spring of 1944, began to disintegrate again in the late
autumn.”’
Speer personified to a very high degree the endeavour to bring technical
efficiency into the armaments industry, and its inhumanity as well. Some of
his disputes with other potentates can be traced back to this. Speer wanted
to involve women in greater numbers in the total war and was frustrated by
Hitler’s ideological reservations. From a very early stage, Speer had trou-
ble with a form of ‘regional particularism’,*which he attacked, and which
seemed incompatible with the principles of ‘the unity of the Reich’. Gaulei-
ter (of whom Sauckel was one) were opposed to the total mobilisation he
aimed for, partly out of consideration for the population, but probably also
because of anti-capitalist resentment about Speer’s clientele from large-
scale industry. It made no difference, if Speer, for his part, complained to
the Gauleiter as he did for example in his speech in Posen on 6 October
1943, that some industrialists did not want to conduct the war on such an
all-embracing footing as he did. When, after he assassination attempt of 20
July 1944, Goebbels and Hitler concentrated more powers in their own
hands, that too was a consequence of Speer’s demands. Shortly before — at
the high point of war production — he had demanded ‘that now even the
last reserves should be mobilised’ and that ‘in Germany all measures which
are appropriate for increasing German armament, should be taken with all
vigour’.”
Speer described himself as a bad speaker, but he learned how to over-
come this handicap within the Party and in public. He described himself as
shy, but he seemed to be arrogant; ‘He is cold right through to his heart.
All that counts for him is the cause. He will extract everything from us right
down to the last drop’, was the opinion of one close colleague (Schieber)
even as Speer took office."° He conducted the numerous meetings in a
cavalier manner. Another colleague (Kehrl) noted; ‘His wealth of ideas,
his dynamic activism, the impatient pressure for speed, his ability to throw
customary practice into question and to find unconventional solutions for
apparently insoluble problems were the source of his success’. ‘I was
infected and intoxicated by the exercise of power, pure and simple, orga-
nising people, making decisions on important matters, having billions at
my disposal,’ was how Speer later analysed his ‘intoxification with
leadership’.'' In retrospect, Speer claims he had given the war up for lost
by 1942/43. His attempts to achieve the greatest degree of material and
 Jost Diilffer 221

psychological mobilisation, however, can be traced as far on as January

1945. There is evidence of public pronouncements on endurance, which
were probably required of a man in his position in the Nazi movement,
right up almost to the end. However because of the war situation and his
own reduced power base, thoughts were taking shape in Speer’s head
during the course of 1944 about the time after the war, now no longer
regarded as the epoch after the final victory. As early as 11 October 1943
Speer had had himself entrusted with the rebuilding of the bomb-damaged
cities. In this way the architectural team of the Thirties, the core of which
remained, could plan for the period after the war. The pre-war idea of
cities planned for traffic, but now without monumental buildings, became
their guiding strategy, as Speer had wished. In contrast to the pre-war era,
he now made a stand for the preservation of historic buildings. As the
allied troops moved increasingly closer to Germany, Speer employed him-
self not in completely destroying industrial sites which were about to fall
into the hands of the enemy, but in making them temporarily unusable,
paralysing them. This policy, which was still pursued under the pretext that
those areas would soon be regained by military action, became, in two long
memoranda dating from March 1945, decisively opposed to Hitler’s ‘burnt
earth’ policy.
Although in the preceeding months he had barely taken any notice of his
duties, and on his travels had only been punctual at the point of departure,
he now declared that the war would be lost in four to eight weeks. ‘We
ourselves have no right, at this stage in the war, to undertake destruction
which might affect the lives of the people [. . .]. It is our duty to leave all
possibilities open to the people, which might secure their revival in the
distant future’.'* This outspoken, and even then daring stand, had no
personal consequences for Speer, who began to prepare for a future
without National Socialism.
Adventurous plans to flee to Greenland were weighed up and rejected;
for in May 1945 in the ‘D6nitz government’ Speer undertook the duties of
Minister for Economics and Production. He used this activity, fictitious in
most respects, mainly to build up good contacts with the Americans, who
were trying him, by means of providing them with experts in armaments
matters. As an apolitical expert, he probably expected to play an authorita-
tive role in a new German government. Therefore the blow was all the
greater when, after his imprisonment and the subsequent hearings, charges
were brought against him in the trials of the major war criminals at
Nuremberg, and when he was finally sentenced to twenty years imprison-
ment, which he served, for his involvement in the system of forced labour.
Speer differed from most of the accused at Nuremberg in that he did not
only (like Goering) admit his responsibility, but also his guilt. He under-
stood this in a very limited way in the general sense of being a senior
member of the government who took no notice of the crimes of the system
222 Albert Speer

outside of his own sphere of work. It was at this time that he developed an
image of himself as a man who was essentially only ambitious in an artistic
sense, and then of the technician who had acted in an immoral way
precisely because of his limited insight. Although this self-analysis of a
senior Nazi potentate was rare, it must be emphasised that he was more
actively involved in the shaping of the system of terror and mass destruc-
tion than he admitted to himself. In prison, and from his release on
1 October 1966 until his death on 1 September 1981, Speer reflected on
and published works on his activities. His pride in his unprecedented
architectural achievement and his success in the armaments economy
remained.
Speer was a National Socialist, even though he was not a Party organisa-
tion man, or even if he did have disputes with Gauleiter or Martin Bor-
mann. Speer boasted in his last memo to Hitler that, ‘without my work the
war would perhaps have been lost in 1942/43’.'° In this he may well have
been right. Speer was not personally bound to an ideology of conquest
based on racial theory, but he was more than an apolitical technocrat. His
rise to power came because of his personal faith in Hitler, which was
unique because of the artistic component in it. In his role as an architect
Speer actively promoted the expansion of the concentration camp system,
the erosion of traditional government. As manager of the armaments
industry he was one of the most important figures in the implementation of
the total war, with all its consequences for the German state and Europe as
a whole. And at the same time he was always aware of the significance of
his own actions for National Socialist rule and the inhuman system it
espoused, even if he only thought about it later, and then partially dis-
tanced himself from it.

NOTES

1. Speer, Memoirs, p. 37.

2. Ibid., p. 34.
3. Dulffer/Thies/Henke, Hitlers Stadte, p. 297 (a remark made by Hitler on
10.2.1939).
> . Adolf Hitler. Bilder aus dem Leben des Fiihrers. Cigaretten-Bilderdienst
(Altona-Bahrenfeld, 1936) p. 72.
5. Speer to Lippert, 1.6.1940, Bundesarchiv R 120/3984.
6. Speer, Memoirs, p. 225.
7. Ibid., p. 420.
8. Bleyer, Staat und Monopole, p. 123.
9. Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg, vol. 5, p. 360 — memorandum dated
12.7.1944.
10. Kehrl,. Krisenmanager, p. 344, the following quotation from p. 330.
 Jost Diilffer 223

11. Speer, Memoirs, p. 353.

12. Internationaler Militérgerichthof, vol. XLI, Document on Speer 23, p. 421,
425.
13. Ibid., Speer to Hitler 19.3.1945, document on Speer 24, p. 426.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Speer’s own works begin with his memoirs, which are themselves based on source
studies: Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1969). They are continued in his diaries, which one
suspects have been heavily edited: Spandauer Tagebticher (Frankfurt am Main,
1975), an extensive interview in Technik und Macht, edited by A. Reif (Esslingen,
1979), and end with a work written entirely from a historical perspective: Der
Sklavenstaat. Meine Auseinandersetzung mit der SS (Stiittgart, 1981). In addition
Speer published his artistic work in a magnificent volume with an introduction by
historians: Architektur. Arbeiten 1933-1942 (Berlin, 1978).
Important sources for evaluating Speer’s life are contained in: W.A. Boelcke
(ed.), Deutschlands Riistung im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Hitlers Konferenzen mit Albert
Speer 1942-1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1969); J. Dilffer/J. Thies/J. Henke, Hitlers
Stadte. Baupolitik im Dritten Reich. Eine Dokumentation (Cologne-Vienna, 1978).

Secondary Literature

So far the only attempt at a critical biography of Speer based on a careful examina-
tion of Speer’s own writing is by M. Schmidt: Albert Speer. Das Ende eines Mythos.
Speers wahre Rolle im Dritten Reich (Bern-Munich, 1982). The sketch on Speer in:
J.C. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches (Munich, 1963) pp. 271-85 should also
be mentioned here, as well as the two more recent contributions on the same
theme: A.C. Mierzejewski, “When did Albert Speer give up?’, The Historical
Journal, 31 (1988) pp. 391-7; J.J. White Morris, Albert Speer: The Hitler Years.
Views of a Reich Minister, dissertation, Ball State University, 1987.
On the subject of Speer as an architect see: J. Petsch, Baukunst und Stadtplanung
im Dritten Reich. Herleitung/Bestandsaufnahme/Entwicklung/Nachfolge (Munich-
Vienna, 1976); W. Durth, Deutsche Architekten. Biographische Verflechtungen
1900-1970 (Braunschweig-Wiesbaden, 1986); W. Durth/N. Gutschow, Tradume in
Triimmern, 2 vols (Braunschweig-Wiesbaden, 1988); J. Diuilffer, ‘NS-Herrschafts-
system und Stadtgestaltung: Das Gesetz zur Neugestaltung deutscher Stadte vom
4. Oktober 1937’, German Studies Review, 12 (1989) pp. 69-89. On the subject of
the war economy or Speer as Armaments Minister, the following works should be
consulted: D. Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939-1945,
Vol. Il: 1914-43 (Berlin (East), 1985); W. Schumann (director of the authors’
collective), Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg, vols 3-6 (Berlin (East) and Co-
logne, 1983-5); G. Janssen, Das Ministerium Speer. Deutschlands Riistung im
Krieg (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, 1968); E.R. Zilbert, Albert Speer and the
Ministry of Arms (London, 1981); L. Herbst Der Totale Krieg und die Ordnung der
Wirtschaft. Die Kriegswirtschaft im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Ideologie und Propa-
ganda 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1982).
21 Gregor Strasser: Nazi
Party Organiser or
Weimar Politician?
Udo Kiussenkoetter

Gregor Strasser came from a farming family in the Chiemgau. He was born on
31.5.1892 in Geisenfeld near Plattenhofen on the Inn. His father, Peter
Strasser, served as counsel in the courts in Windsheim and Deggendorf. He
loved discussing history, political economy and politics in private with his three
sons at the end of the Wilhelmine era, and so, for example, they all read
Maximilian Harden’s Die Zukunft (The Future) together. Strasser the father
also published polemical political tracts himself. When the First World War
broke out, Gregor joined up as a volunteer in the 1st Bavarian Light infantry
Regiment and was demobilised at the end of the war with the rank of First
Lieutenant. This was the decisive formative event in his life, as it was for a
whole generation. From the experience of life in the trenches, where all social
distinctions seemed to have been abolished, there developed the idea of
‘German Socialism’. The ‘miracle of August 1914’ and the ‘organic’ national
community, as experienced by a whole generation as they fought through a
total war side by side, made a deep impression on him:

It was a profound experience for me when, during patriotic instruction in

the field, one of my gunners asked me: ‘What does it mean, this Father-
land? It is surely the land which belongs to my father and one day will
belong to me, which gives me the chance to work and feeds me; in the
same way I have been defending this patch of land for three years. But
neither my father nor I has ever had even a patch of land, and all our
desire to work has never yet protected us from going for weeks and
months without bread and from existing our whole lives through in a
constant state of worry, about whether we will still have a job tomorrow’

From this Strasser draws the following conclusions:

It is deceiving oneself to believe that a nation of sixty million people in

the rational Twentieth Century can be induced to make the endless
sacrifices a national war of liberation requires simply out of exalted
feelings of honour, love of the Fatherland and national pride, if the
nation does not become a unified tolerant whole, with equality of oppor-
tunity and reward.

224
 Udo Kissenkoetter 225

He wanted to draw all of society, but especially the workers, into an

organic national community, structured along corporative lines. In the
‘German working people’s social struggle’ he saw ‘the German nation’s
Struggle for freedom’.' These ideas, which derived as much from the
social-revolutionary ideas of his parental home as from the ‘miracle of
August 1914’ accompanied Strasser throughout his political career. As a
member of the Freicorps Epp, he took part in the founding of a ‘National
Association of German Soldiers’ and in Landshut, where he set himself up
as a pharmacist in 1920, he built up the ‘Lower Bavarian Storm Batallion’.
This brought him into contact with the patron of all the patriotic defence
leagues, General von Ludendorff, and also with the early Munich NSDAP
under Hitler. On 11.3.1923 he was appointed leader of the ‘Lower Bava-
rian Storm Troops”? (SA). He took part in the demonstration by National
Paramilitary Leagues in Munich on 1.5.1923 with the largest SA formation
from outside the area. On 9 November 1923, he was the only leader to
arrive punctually in Munich with his Storm Troops. He accomplished his
task, which was to occupy the strategically important Wittelsbach Bridge,
and returned in good order to Landshut with his unit, where, without
trying to escape, he allowed himself to be arrested at home. After the Nazi
leaders had been put in jail and the NSDAP had been banned, Strasser’s
greatest hour arrived.
On 6.4.1924 he was elected to the Bavarian Parliament from the list of
the vdlkisch (ethnic populist) faction. In a triumvirate with Ludendorff and
von Graefe he founded the National Socialist Freedom Party in Weimar at
the conference which unified their movement, and entered the Reichstag
after the elections of 7.12.1924. While Hitler was in prison he had become
one of the most important vdlkisch leaders in the country. As a member of
the Reichstag, and as one of the leaders of the vdlkisch camp, he began to
collect experience and knowledge in both organisational matters and par-
liamentary work at a national level. Having been released from prison,
Hitler received permission to re-establish the NSDAP on 4.1.1925, and this
took place at a meeting in the Munich Birgerbraukeller on 27.2.1925.
Strasser was not present at this inaugural meeting. He was holding an event
of his own in Straubing at the same time. A few days earlier, on 21/22 in
Hamm/Westphalia Strasser had chaired a conference of leaders of National
Socialist groups from North and West Germany. Here, five days before the
actual founding of the party, he was able to show them a power of attorney
signed by Hitler, and appointed ‘suitable’ local leaders as the Gauleiter of a
party which did not yet exist. With a slight exaggeration it is possible to say
that the NSDAP was founded twice: once on 27.2.1925 — the official legal
founding within the context of the old Munich-Bavaria organisation, from
those remaining who had stayed loyal to Hitler, and for the second time at
national level in a conversation between Hitler and Strasser, probably on
17.2., which led to the conference at Hamm.
226 Gregor Strasser

Here, in the organisation at national level, was to be his sphere of

activity for the next few years. For him, questions of ideology and propa-
ganda, on the one hand, and organisational work on the other, were
simply two sides of the same coin. His manifest ability to attract able
colleagues stood him in good stead here. Throughout his political life he
was accompanied by an increasing number of able and obviously devoted
colleagues and friends, some of whom left the Party with him after his
downfall, or remained friends or in contact with him, or his family after his
murder. It was typical of him too, that in his search for colleagues, those of
like mind and discussion partners, he did not by any means stop at the
boundaries of the NSDAP. In principle, everyone who was willing to help
in the nationalist reconstruction or create equality within the terms of a
national German socialism were possible partners for him. Strasser’s organ-
isational work, and the development of his policy statements which ran
parallel with it, can be divided into three phases. During the initial phase of
building up the Party, which was basically his duty outside Bavaria, Stras-
ser at first had no official legitimisation apart from Hitler’s power of
attorney. With the support of a few active young National Socialists, who
wanted the Headquarters of their Region in Elberfeld to become the
‘Mecca of German Socialism’, and who included Karl Kaufmann, Joseph
Goebbels, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, Viktor Lutze, he founded the Study
Group of the North West German Regions of the NSDAP. At the same
time he attempted to establish a quality, mass circulation newspaper and
he tried to win over Oswald Spengler for this purpose. On 2.6.1925, he
wrote to him: ‘One way I see of achieving this is by publishing a political
and academic newspaper, like the socialist monthlies . . . which clarifies
and explains problems of National Socialist foreign, domestic and econ-
omic policy independent of any official influences’. In the same exchange of
letters he also pointed out the fundamental differences between the
NSDAP and other volkisch groupings:

The volkisch movement, including its so-called political statement of

intent (represented in organisational terms by the Volkisch Freedom
Party) and National Socialism’s political and economic aspirations to
power! (For better or for worse, and unfortunately rather more the
latter, this is represented by the National Socialist [German] Workers’
Party). If in the first case what we are discussing is a movement fed by a
thousand sources of dissatisfaction, which considers the primitive solu-
tion of anti-semitism to be adequate, and is satisfied by a nationalism
which is usually as loud as it is honest, and driven by an understandable
reaction to war and revolution, then the second is nothing other than the
conscious desire to bring about a true revolution to make up for the
results of one which failed because of the cowardice and inability of its
leaders and because of the doctrinal limitations of Marxist theory!*
 Udo Kissenkoetter 227

There was much enthusiastic discussion in the Study Group North West
(AG) about a new Party manifesto and efforts to formulate it as a means of
bringing about this German revolution. This draft manifesto, which propa-
gated the model of a corporatist state, and which foresaw controls on, and
common ownership in the economy, industry and agriculture, was rejected
at the Bamberg Conference of 14.2.1926. To this extent the North West
AG had failed to become a policy-making circle within the NSDAP.
However in Strasser’s view the AG also, over and above this, had the duty
to be a pressure group within the Party and it was by no means unsuccessful
in this role. On 16.9.1926 Strasser took over as Director of National
Propaganda in Munich, replacing Hermann Esser, precisely the man whom
the AG had targetted in most of their attacks when they referred to the
‘stinking rotten state of affairs in Munich’.
For Strasser, propaganda meant covering the greatest possible area of
the country with speakers, propaganda materials and demonstrations by
the Party. In the Party, which was still short of members, and most of all,
money, this meant that the few existing available speakers had to be
engaged in tours which were well prepared with regard both to dates and
themes. This was exactly what had already been formulated in paragraph
two of the statutes of the AG: ‘The greatest possible degree of uniformity
of the attached Regions in organisation, propaganda, the creation of
uniform propaganda tools, exchange of speakers . . . where necessary the
exchange of ideas on political and organisational matters.’* Strasser had
taken his Regional business manager, Himmler, with him into the direc-
tor’s office for national propaganda. In accordance with Strasser’s ideas,
Himmler acted by and large independently in the thematic and geographi-
cal organisation and timing of propaganda. This did not change when
Strasser gave up the directorship of National Propaganda at the end of
1927 and Hitler himself finally took over the running of propaganda, or
when Joseph Goebbels was entrusted with the control of propaganda on
27.4.1930. Goebbels and his collaborators did not take over until after the
Reichstag elections of 14.9.1930, although at the same time the National
Propaganda Directorate was hived off under Fritz Reinhardt, who was
responsible for the training of speakers and continuing to supply them with
materials for speeches. In January 1928 Strasser took control of National
Organisation. At the elections of 20.5.1928, which turned out unfavour-
ably for the whole of the right, the NSDAP alone received almost exactly
as many votes as it had had in December 1924, when the trend was
favourable to the volkisch parties, in a coalition with Ludendorff and von
Graefe. Although at that time only four National Socialists had entered the
Reichstag, now it was twelve. This result was judged a great success, not
only by Gregor Strasser, but also by Hitler and Goebbels. However the
organisational structure was still in the form dictated by circumstances as
they were at the time of the Party's founding. Strasser, who was attempting
228 Gregor Strasser

to introduce uniformity, had to overcome two hurdles. First of all, internal

financial problems had to be cleared up. The national leadership financed
itself fundamentally from the huge Bavarian Region, since dues from other
Regions were paid only irregularly. Secondly, the personal resistance of
Hitler, who regarded Bavaria as his home power base, had to be over-
come. Strasser succeeded in achieving both at the leaders’ meeting of 31.8.
to 2.9.1928. In the new Party guidelines it was determined in point four
that ‘the local branches are to be concentrated in Regions in such a way
that those branches within the area of a national parliamentary constitu-
ency form a Region of the NSDAP which bears the name of the constitu-
ency’. Accordingly on 1.10.1928 five Regions were set up within Bavaria
and had Gauleiter appointed. On 1.3.1929 Strasser himself gave up the post
of Gauleiter in Lower Bavaria and on 1.11.1929 Greater Munich became
the last area to be transformed into a Region. The Otto Strasser crisis
caused an upset for Gregor Strasser. It reached its climax on 4.7.1930 when
the press of the Kampf Verlag announced: “The socialists are leaving the
Party’. However the significance of this event for Gregor Strasser has
clearly been overestimated. For one thing many articles in the Kampf-
Verlag Press attributed to Gregor Strasser were in fact written by Otto,
and for another Strasser had withdrawn from the affairs of the Kampf
Verlag by 1928 at the latest. Now he quickly took up a critical position to
this secession and in this way by and large prevented it from having a
greater effect within the Party.
Soon this crisis too, was overshadowed by other events. Subjected to the
full impact of the Great Depression, the parliamentary elections of
14.9.1930 turned into a debacle for the Weimar parties. If the NSDAP up
to now had ultimately only been a sectarian party with twelve members,
now, with 107 members of parliament, it was the second strongest grouping
in the Reichstag. It had, so to speak, arrived at the outer gates of power.
Strasser was prepared for such a situation. A decision had been taken, at
the special conference for organisational matters in 1929, that:

at the suggestion of the National Organiser, Strasser, an Organisation

Department II will be set up under the direction of Party Comrade
Colonel (retd) Hierl, with the purpose of collating, studying and clari-
fying all matters concerning the development of the movement and the
National Socialist concept of the state.°

Hierl, whom Strasser had known for a long time from the Tannenberg
League, was standing in for him in this capacity, in the construction and
expansion of his power base in the Party. While Strasser himself retained
control of the immediate Party organisation in Organisation Department I,
Hierl’s Department II had two important tasks from his point of view.
 Udo Kissenkoetter 229

Firstly, important matters relating to the domestic and economic policies of

the future government were to be developed here. Here, for example,
were to be found departments for justice, social policy, international
economics, the creation of employment, trade and industry and economic
theory. Secondly, however, Strasser was creating here a think tank which
would be able to pursue further his policy ideas and aims. At the same time
these ‘specialists’ gave him the possibility of making contact with groupings
outside the NSDAP, without him having to appear in person. This hap-
pened to a particularly great degree with the creation of an economic and
job creation programme in 1931 and 1932.
In summer 1932, as a final step in the construction of the Party adminis-
tration, came the implementation of a clear vertical steering and command
structure.° The most important visible evidence of this Party reform,
during which Organisation Department II was re-absorbed, was the emerg-
ence of national State inspections. The chief, Strasser, and his two national
inspectors, Schulz and Ley, had under their control Senior Division III
with, among other things, education and the national press office, IV
economy, V agriculture, VI NSBO (National Socialist Factory Cell Organ-
isation), VII civil servants, VIII women, IX care of war victims. The state
inspectors were subordinate to National Inspector I, Schulz, for North
Germany and II, Ley, for the South. They had great power over the
roughly three to five Regions under their control, in respect of personnel as
well. It was compulsory for all Party organisations, and for Gauleiter, too,
to follow ‘official channels’, set up in parallel with this new administrative
structure, in cases of complaints, requests or suggestions. By means of a
decree aimed at controlling Nazi fractions,’ it was established that fractions
were to be controlled uniformly from the centre. ‘All petitions to elected
bodies, from local council to Reichstag, are to be presented to me (Gregor
Strasser) before they are submitted.’ However he did not stop at passive
control, but had parliamentary petitions formulated in advance in the
specialist department of his administrative headquarters (ROL), which he
then made binding on the various Nazi fractions. He delegated specialists
from the ROL to support Nazi parliamentarians in promoting these peti-
tions. ‘I forbid all offices and Party members. . . from dealing with pub-
lications about job creation or its financing . . . in local newspapers . .
independently.’”* He also intervened increasingly in Nazi propaganda:

The preparatory work required by the ROL’s head departments for

propagandistic use will be carried out within the ROL. Individual con-
sultants who are members of the ROL may not make any preparatory
drafts available to the National Propaganda Directorate without having
obtained the approval of the National Head of Administration or his
deputy through official channels.’
230 Gregor Strasser

In addition Strasser now possessed a kind of house press again — he was

the publisher of the weekly and monthly papers of the corresponding chief
departments of the ROL: ‘National Socialist State Post’, ‘Nazi Women’s
Watch’, ‘Care of German War Victims’ and ‘Working People’. The last
named in particular, the organ of the NSBO, became increasingly import-
ant, since this organisation was growing quickly and he was increasingly
becoming the idol of its members. For many he became a point of refer-
ence, since it was possible to become a member of this mass organisation
without even belonging to the NSDAP, so that a direct means of relating to
Hitler was lacking for many. From this power base Strasser presented his
‘Economic Immediate Programme’ (Wirtschaftliche Sofortprogramm) of
the NSDAP to the public and made it binding on the Party. First of all he
introduced it in his speeches in the Reichstag on 10.5.1932 and then it was
published as a series of points to serve as material for speakers in the
campaign for the elections to the Reichstag on 31.7.1932. Strasser attacked
the existing economic order, against which ‘the great anti-capitalist long-
ing . . . which is spreading through our people’ was directed and ‘which
has today already encompassed 95 per cent of our people’. ‘This was,’ he
claimed, ‘the protest of a people against a corrupt economy, and the
people demands of the state that it should stop thinking in terms of export
statistics and National Bank interest discounts and should be in the posi-
tion once more to produce an honest livelihood for an honest day’s work’.
Since workers and tools and the need for goods, too, all existed, these
factors had to be slotted together. He saw this as a cumulative process: ‘I
am utterly convinced that it is only a question of starting up the motor.
Work produces work.’ He suggested that the following tasks were in the
interest of the state as a whole: 1) agricultural work; 2) private house
building; 3) road building, the construction of dams and drainage canals,
the expansion of the economy in the field of energy, the renovation of
apartments.
The most important point was naturally the financing of this programme.
For this he recommended the following model: since all the measures were
wage intensive, approximately thirty per cent of the costs could be financed
from the unemployment benefit which would no longer be taken up, and a
further five per cent from the increased flow of unemployment insurance
contributions. A further fifteen per cent was to be financed from additional
tax income. Twenty per cent was to be paid by the beneficiaries of these
measures, for example those who received their own home, or the farmers
whose lands were improved. The remaining thirty per cent should be paid
by ‘productive credit creation’. Strasser explained this in the following
terms: the expansion of credit occurs on the basis of credit advanced to the
Reich by the National Bank and those banks subject to state control. The
expansion of credit occurs by way of a state-run bookkeeping exercise, and
as such is to be included within the bounds of state finance and in the
 Udo Kissenkoetter 231

newly-created financial and credit system of the future. Exchange of goods

and state credit would become the basis of currency in circulation.'° The
origins of these ideas for a National Socialist economic policy which Stras-
ser put forward and which later also became the basis of early National
Socialist government policy-making, in the form of the so-called Reinhardt
Plan, cannot be examined any more closely here. None-the-less the circles
in which these plans were discussed, interesting in themselves, reflect, in
the wide range of the figures involved in them, Strasser’s view of the
possibility of a political seizure of power. The ‘Study Society for Systems
of Finance and Credit’ founded by the industrialist Drager and finance
specialist Dalberg became the platform for the economic reformers, whose
thinking took its impetus from both the economic and financial doctrines of
Silvio Gesells and perceptions of the development of the German State
economy during the First World War. Trades unionists, like Woytinski and
Tarnow, who later presented the WTB plan in association with Baade, met
here, and bourgeois industrialists and politicians alongside Drager and
Dalberg like Grotkopp, Grawell, Professor Wagemann, Friedlander-
Prechtl, and also National Socialists, predominantly from Strasser’s politi-
cal economy department, like Fritz Reinhardt, Werner Daitz, Hermann
Tholens, Arthur R. Hermann, Walther Funk and Cordemann. In summer
1932 it became possible to recognise the political constellation on which,
six months later, Schleicher attempted to base his government. Strasser
himself had reached the zenith of his power in the NSDAP in the summer
and autumn of 1932. Dominating the entire party apparatus as a quasi
‘general secretary’, he himself regarded this power as a form of division of
labour with Hitler. While he was the man for practical political work,
Hitler embodied the idea of the National Socialist movement. Therefore
he probably did not seriously consider breaking with Hitler at any time, for
he realised that by so doing he would also destroy his own base. Over and
above this he was also sure right to the end that in the final analysis he had
the greatest influence on the Fihrer against his opponents in the Party.
At the same time as his power in the NSDAP was developing, Strasser
had also grown beyond the Party. He had become a Weimar politician. For
many in Germany, from bourgeois conservative politicians to various
union representatives, he was considered well-suited for government, in-
deed for many he had become a possible integrating figure, who pointed to
a third way of saving Germany from the emergency of 1932. From the time
of the Presidential Elections in spring 1932 at the latest, Strasser himself
had come to perceive that the NSDAP by itself could not achieve power by
legal means. If plans for coups d’état were disregarded, there remained
outside parliament only the possibility of a minority cabinet dependent on
the ‘auctoritas’ of the President. But as Strasser saw it, this made for
dependence on the goodwill of the President and his camarilla. After the
NSDAP’s great electoral successes of 31.7., Hitler tried to follow this path,
232 Gregor Strasser

carried along by the enthusiasm of his followers, when he demanded the

office of Chancellor for himself from Hindenburg on 31.8. However the
President refused and — so it seemed — finally. There remained therefore
only Strasser’s route to power, and that was to enter into coalitions in order
to achieve a parliamentary majority. And for this purpose the NSDAP’s
prospects at that time — the strongest fraction in the Reichstag with 230
members — were excellent. In the short term this could only mean entering
a coalition with the Centre Party and making the job creation programme
put forward by Strasser the basis of government policy. But for the long
term he had visions of a ‘front of working people’. He believed he saw
Germany’s future in a corporatve model and regarded the various trade
union Organisations as its central core. By agreement with the ‘potestas’ of
the army they would take over the administration of the state and by so
doing make Germany independent of the swings and roundabouts of a
parliamentary democracy. He probably also saw the possibility that one
day the NSDAP alone might be able to dominate a state based on this
model. Until such a time he was willing if necessary to ‘throw himself into
the breach’ if Hitler himself, perhaps as Vice Chancellor, was unwilling to
enter such a cabinet.
When, after parliament was dissolved again, the NSDAP remained the
strongest fraction in the elections of 6.11.1932, but suffered serious losses,
the situation as Strasser saw it became increasingly urgent. Once again he
attempted to implement a ‘Labour Front’ as a practical solution to Ger-
Mmany’s continuing crisis, on one hand by bringing immense influence to
bear on Hitler, and on the other by negotiating with the powerful man in
the army, General von Schleicher. The ‘Tatkreis’ and above all Zehrer
and Elbrechter, played a part behind the screens in this. However it must
be emphasised that these ideas, and the attempts to translate them into
fact, were never directed against Hitler, or even without Hitler knowing of
them. He did not want to split the Party — for the Party administration was
ultimately his life’s work — nor did he want to separate himself from Hitler,
to whom he was attached by a remarkable personal devotion. Instead he
wanted to convince him of the way he had recognised as the correct one.
And it was precisely in this that he failed. Instead of coming to Berlin on
30.11. to arrange the final details of a Schleicher government with Strasser
and Schleicher, Hitler went to the hustings in Thuringia. It was here that
Strasser suffered his decisive defeat within the inmost circle of the NSDAP
leadership. Hitler did not want to go down Strasser’s road. Deeply re-
signed, he gave up all his posts on 8.12 and went to the Tyrol on holiday.
Returning hesitantly once more to the political stage in the middle of
January, his only significance and last chance would probably have been in
being the rallying point for his supporters in the event of parliament being
dissolved again. But since there were no new elections, Hitler took power
 Udo Kissenkoetter 233

in his own way on 30.1.33 and as Strasser stayed clear of any further
involvement in politics, the grievances within the Party soon dissipated. On
30.6.1934, Strasser was murdered by the Gestapo on the basis that he still
represented a possible threat to Hitler.

NOTES

. Gregor Strasser, Freiheit und Brot (Berlin, no date).

. VB, 22 March 1923.
. Letter from Strasser to Spengler dated 2.6.25 and 8.7.25 in, Oswald Spengler,
Briefe 1913-36 (Munich, 1963) p. 291f. and p. 397f.
. BA, NS 1-340-319.
. VB, 12.9.29. .
WN
nn. VB, 9./10.6.1932, negotiations about deputies within the National Organisa-
tion Departments dated 18.7.32 BA/ns22/348.
. Decree dated 9 June 1932, VB 15.6.32.
. Circular to the Nazi press 21.11.32, BA, NS22/356.
oo. Letter of the National Organiser dated 5.12.32 to the Senior Departments I-IV
in the ROL, BA/NS/348.
10. Speech in the Berlin Palace of Sport dated 20.10.1932.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Important documents relating to Gregor Strasser’s activities are to be found in the
Bundesarchiv Koblenz, the Institut fiir Zeitgeschichte and the Berlin Document
Center. Reference should also be made to the numerous publications which
appeared at the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties. For the early
period, approximately the period before 1930, however, it is important to bear in
mind the danger of confusing the activities of Gregor Strasser, on the one hand,
and the circle round Otto Strasser on the other, something which is not always
taken into account in the literature. In 1932 the Eher-Verlag published a collection
of speeches and essays by Gregor Strasser from the period 1924 until 1932: Gregor
Strasser, Kampf um Deutschland. This collection also contains the important
‘Arbeit und Brot’ (Work and Bread) speech of 10 May 1932. The ‘Economic
Immediate Programme’ (Wirtschaftliche Sofortprogramm) of the NSDAP was dis-
tributed throughout the entire Party organisation in the form of ‘outline material
for public speakers’ and can therefore be found in many archives relating to this
nod.
ae far as the publications which appeared during the Nazi era are concerned, it is
important to be aware of the fact that references to Gregor Strasser were often
subsequently erased and sources falsified, if the disgraced former National Organ-
iser was mentioned in them.
234 Gregor Strasser

Secondary Literature

The study by the present author, U. Kissenkoetter, Gregor Strasser und die
NSDAP (Stuttgart, 1978) concentrates basically on the period 1930-2. Its most
important theme is Strasser’s activities as National Organiser and his links to
parties, associations and individuals in the Weimar Republic. Over and above this
it investigates the origins of the NSDAP’s ‘Economic Immediate Programme’. The
study by P.D. Stachura, Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism (London, 1983)
is based on a wide range of sources. Nonetheless the author underestimates
the basis of Gregor Strasser’s power around 1932. Stachura’s interpretation of the
context of Strasser’s policies is rather unconvincing, especially the questionable
thesis that the NSDAP regarded the results of the Reichstag elections of 20.5.1928
as a defeat and as a reaction to this underwent a swing to the right. The two
following dissertations should also be looked at in a critical light: J. Murdock,
Gregor Strasser and the Organisation of the Nazi Party, 1925-32, Stanford Univer-
sity 1966, and U. Worzt, Programmatic und Fihrerprinzip. Das Problem des
Strasser-Kreises in der NSDAP (Erlangen-Nuremberg, 1966). Murdock’s disserta-
tion rests on an extremely narrow base of sources, and mainly uses secondary
literature. Strasser’s significance for the NSDAP is insufficiently developed. W6rtz
is mainly concerned with matters of ideology. In the process he inaccurately lumps
Gregor Strasser together with his brother Otto and the other members of the
‘Elberfeld circle’ and the ‘Kampf-Verlag’.
22 Otto Strasser:
Nationalist Socialism
versus National Socialism
Patrick Moreau

The history of the National Socialist left wing in the years 1925 to 1938 is
primarily that of its leading figure, Otto Strasser. Strasser, who was born
into the family of a civil servant in Bavaria, a conventionally Christian
family with socialist and nationalist leanings, volunteered for military
service in 1914. His military exploits brought him countless honours and a
commission as an Officer.
After the war, with no clear sense of direction, he joined the Freicorps
Epp, along with his brother Gregor, and took part in the liquidation of the
‘Red Army’ in Bavaria. While Gregor Strasser began his nationalistic
agitation in June 1919, and met Adolf Hitler for the first time as a result,
his brother made his way to Berlin, joined the SPD there and began to
study economics. The following year he founded the ‘Academic War
Veterans Association of the SPD’ and had himself elected to the students’
parliament. In addition to this he wrote as a freelance journalist for
Vorwarts and led three Red Hundreds in their resistance to the Kapp
Putsch. In April 1920, Strasser broke with the SPD, accusing it of having
betrayed the workers in the Ruhr uprising; in fact they had been left in the
lurch by the Social Democratic government under pressure from the
Freikorps, led by Watter. Returning to Bavaria, Otto Strasser, too, met
Hitler for the first time, but the relationship between the two men was
stamped from the beginning by antipathy and Otto refused to join the
emerging National Socialist movement. Somewhat later he got to know
one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution, Grigori Zinoviev, at an
Independent Social Democratic (USPD) meeting in Halle, and he seems to
have convinced Strasser of the importance of the Bolshevik revolution as
such, of its role as a model for Germany’s future course of development
and of the necessity of Russian-German rapprochement.
At the end of 1920 Strasser was under the influence of a variety of
approaches to politics: revolutionary socialism, nationalism, Christianity,
moderate anti-semitism and finally, an as much romantically as ideological-
ly motivated pro-Soviet position are some of the facets he later attempted
to integrate into the philosophical stock of ideas in his political writings.
Between 1920 and 1925 Strasser took a doctorate in economics and
became an executive in an industrial concern. In his free time he intensified

pp)
236 Otto Strasser

his knowledge of politics both by his contacts within the circles of conserva-
tive and National Socialist youth and particularly by his critical reading of
the works of Oswald Spengler and Moeller van den Bruck. He still res-
olutely refused to join any organisation, however it was structured.
In the meantime, Gregor Strasser, for his part, had left Bavaria in order
to put himself at the disposal of the German Nationalist Freedom Party
(DNFP) in north Germany as organiser and Propaganda Chief for the
elections in May and December 1924. Since the gradual restabilisation of
economic life threatened considerably to reduce the chances of a National
Socialist protest movement in the longer term, it was now becoming even
more urgent that its various currents should converge. With Hitler, now
released from prison, at its head, the newly founded NSDAP had a born
leader, but nonetheless the transformation of the National Socialist move-
ment from a putschist grouping into a mass party was to throw up serious
problems with regard to policies.
On the basis of his activities as leader of the election campaigns of 1924,
Gregor Strasser was well aware of the difficulties there would be in de-
veloping a predominantly racist and National Socialist movement, given
North Germany’s particular economic and social structures. A numerically
strong industrial proletariat solidly organised by the SPD and KPD did not
produce a very favourable milieu for the expansion of National Socialism.
The Party’s Twenty-Five Point 1920 manifesto was quite obviously un-
suited either to conquering the middle classes or winning over the working
class. Gregor, whose strengths lay more in the area of strategy, rather than
ideology, therefore asked his brother for help in working out a Nazi
ideology, which was to be reworked and renewed in order to suit it to the
altered political and economic situation. This was a task which Otto Stras-
ser, who had in the meantime been convinced of the theories of Moeller
van den Bruck, undertook with enthusiasm. The two brothers shared out
their work according to their talents: Otto became the ‘North German
ideologue’ and wrote articles for his brother which he published under his
name. In his role as an ‘eminence grise’ Otto Strasser forgot to take the
trouble to gain an official post in the Party for himself, with the result that
his role in laying its foundations was largely unrecognised and his influence
limited to the North German leadership cadres.
In September 1925 Gregor organised a Party conference in Hagen,
Westphalia, the goal of which was to define and agree on a common policy,
independent of Munich, for the whole of the North German NSDAP,
suited to the economic and social preconditions for regional propaganda
there. The founding of the Study Group North and North West of the
NSDAP, led by the Strasser brothers, Karl Kaufmann, Viktor Lutze (later
Chief of Staff of the SA) and Joseph Goebbels, was to proclaim and
establish in writing this ‘Right to our own Way’.
In 1926 the left-wing functionaries introduced a programme they had
 Patrick Moreau 237

been working on since October 1925, which gave the Study Group’s
policies a more precise orientation in economic, domestic and foreign
affairs. This formed the basis of the doctrine which was retained in its
essentials until the leftist wing of the NSDAP was wiped out in 1934, and it
was to undergo extensive further development in the ideologies of the
groups led by Otto Strasser from 1930-8. The left wing of National Social-
ism agreed to a large extent with the Party’s Twenty-Five Point Plan and
laid particular emphasis on nationalisation and putting curbs on private
ownership. But over and above this it demanded the creation of a Soviet-
German alliance for a national war of liberation against the western im-
perialist powers.
Hitler, who was convinced of the necessity of purging the Party of these
‘Bolsheviks’, as they were called, tried from 1926-30 to weaken the Nazi
left and drive a wedge between the Strasser brothers, without however
risking the breakaway of the North German Party organisation. He struck
his first successful blow at the end of 1926, with Joseph Goebbel’s uncon-
ditional change of sides. Hitler’s declaration that the Party’s Twenty-Five
Point Plan was unalterable and could neither be modified nor expanded
through the inclusion of new theories meant for Strasser that he could be
marked out as a renegade in the Party if he continued to elaborate his
ideology.
In spite of this, for tactical reasons Hitler offered Gregor the post of
Propaganda Chief and in January 1928 that of National Chief of Party
Organisation. He accepted the offer in the (vain) hope of being able to
convince Hitler of his socialist ideas.
That meant there were only Otto Strasser and a handful of functionaries
left to defend the socialist programme in the Region of Berlin, the leader
of which, Goebbels, had received orders to increase the propagation of
socialist theories, in order to take the wind out of the sails of anti-Hitler
tendencies. As a parallel move, all high ranking left-wing cadres, like the
Gauleiter of Silesia, Rosikat, Pomerania, Vahlen and Saxony — von Miicke
— were expelled from the NSDAP and replaced by leaders loyal to the
Party line.
The Great Depression, which began in 1929, finally put an end to the
equilibrium between the various National Socialist tendencies. Within the
changed social and economic context, Hitler defined the strategic axes for
his Party’s policies: respect for institutional legality and the principle of
elections, restrictions On anti-capitalist agitation, an opening towards con-
servatism and the Catholic Church and an increase in anti-marxist and
anti-semitic propaganda.
In the face of this strategic plan and the NSDAP’s closer relations with
the German National People’s Party, there remained for Strasser in his
writing only the steadfast repetition of the criticism that Hitler was be-
traying socialism in favour of reaction. The ‘founding of a Third Reich’ he
238 Otto Strasser

proclaimed, was only possible by means of a national revolution, side by

side with the Marxists, whom the National Socialists had meanwhile per-
suaded of the futility of class warfare and proletarian internationalism.
A power struggle between Otto Strasser and Goebbels was then to lead
to a final breach between Strasser and his followers and the NSDAP. When
Strasser succeeded in March 1930 in transforming his National Socialist,
which had previously been published weekly by the Berlin Kampf Verlag,
into a daily paper, Goebbels feared for his influence in the Region and
demanded several times that Hitler should put Strasser in his place and
force him to give up the Kampf Verlag. Although Hitler subsequently
decided to have two conversations with Strasser in May, in which the
inevitability of the breach between them became apparent, Hitler suc-
ceeded in delaying it for tactical reasons until the state elections in Saxony.
Not until the fourth of July 1930 was it finally announced ‘the socialists are
leaving the NSDAP’, and the ‘Battle Group of Revolutionary National
Socialists’ (KGRNS) was called into being. In spite of an appeal by Gregor
Strasser, who reminded the NSDAP members of their oath of loyalty to
their leader, the KGRNS developed substantially faster than the Munich
headquarters had expected. The rise of the KGRNS can be divided into
two periods: in the first, during the months of July and August, the
framework of the KGRNS leadership structure was created from the influx
of people who had left the NSDAP, while the second period, from August
to December 1930, is characterised by the consolidation and strengthening
of its basis, although it was limited by the ‘national bolshevist’ crisis in
September/October 1930.
The KGRNS, under the leadership of Otto Strasser, Herbert Blank and
Bruno Ernst Buchrucker, the former leader of the Black Army, registered
5000 members for the first time in December 1930, among whom were the
Gauleiter of Brandenburg and Danzig, Emil Holz and Bruno Fricke,
cadres from the Hitler youth and the SA, as well as numerous NSDAP
local branch leaders from Thuringia, Saxony, Brandenburg, Schleswig
Holstein and the Ruhr. At the end of May 1931, after a phase of adminis-
trative consolidation, the KGRNS turned again to seeking new members,
with the result that it finally numbered 6000 members in ninety local
branches. For them the weekly Die Deutsche Revolution was published in
an edition of 10000 copies and also a theoretical monthly entitled
Nationalsozialistische Briefe.
However tensions soon emerged within the KGRNS: a national bolshev-
ist left wing demanded radical socialisation and the establishment of a
planned economy. The supporters of this approach criticised the economic
ideas of the KGRNS leadership as being ‘reformist’. In spite of these
internal conflicts, however, Strasser’s group was able to record further
successes in April 1931 during the revolt of the Berlin SA.
At the time of the Stennes Putsch the KGRNS was able to count on allies
 Patrick Moreau 239

who would spread revolutionary ideas outside the confines of its own
organisation into the senior ranks of the SA, where it stirred up disatisfac-
tion still further. Apart from this, the Strasser group was cooperating at
this time with the 10 000 member strong para-military Wehrwolf League
and the Hamkens wing of the Landvolkbewegung, which had 2000-3000
members in Schleswig Holstein and Saxony. From 1931 onwards there was
widespread unrest and loud protests in the SA about the Party’s legality
policy. When at last no wages were paid in the months of March and April,
Stennes, the leader of the North German SA, set himself at the head of an
uprising which was joined by most of his general staff and about 10 000
members of the SA, thus threatening a breach with the NSDAP. However
the intervention of Hitler and Goebbels and immediate financial measures
quickly took the wind out of the revolt’s sails. In the end only about 1000
active SA members decided to break away.
In May 1931 Ehrhardt, well known from the Freikorps in the Twenties,
initiated the merging of the Stennes group and the KGRNS into the
‘German Nationalist and Socialist Fighting Association’ (NSKD). How-
ever Ehrhardt was a government agent. This explains why resources
accrued secretly to the NSKD from state sources. Ehrhardt aimed to
gather all active paramilitary groups which opposed Hitler around the
NSKD and its allies.
However July 1931, when the NSKD increased its public demonstration
of power, manifestly put an end to the revolutionary national socialist
dynamic. By this time the ideological bases of revolutionary national
socialist thought had reached their final form and the coalition of the
Stennes wing of the SA, the Wehrwolf, the remains of Ehrhardt’s brigade
and a few peasants’ groups had developed into a force which stood unam-
biguously apart from the NSDAP.
On the basis of this alliance, however, there was a series of feuds and
personal rivalries: Stennes was fundamentally an activist, Strasser a social-
ist intellectual and Ehrhardt was a government agent. The opposing nature
of their aims made lasting cooperation within the NSKD leadership im-
possible. The break-up of the NSKD was therefore preprogrammed into it,
and each of the separate tendencies in it had to re-establish its own tactical
autonomy.
When the failure of the NSKD, caused by the opposing characters and
interests of its protagonists, became obvious, the Strasser group plunged
once more into a ‘national bolshevik’ crisis, whose consequences were
clearly greater than those of 1930. Since its founding the KGRNS had had
to accept a series of splits or the loss of former NSDAP members who
afterwards joined the KPD. With this trend, which continued to a greater
or lesser extent until the KPD was banned in 1933, the KGRNS had
involuntarily taken over the role of a sort of staging post between Hitler’s
National Socialism and communism.
240 Otto Strasser

The reason for this ‘national bolshevik’ crisis probably lay in the weak-
ness of the ideology, which could not hold its own in the intellectual battle
with Marxism; but it was unmistakably also the result of the inability of the
Strasser group to assert itself against the power of the NSDAP and the SA.
Neither the elitist theories of the ‘Officers and NCOs of the German
Revolution’ of 1930, nor the alliance with Stennes, nor the Schwarze Front
in 1931/33 made Strasser’s supporters capable of resistance or even of
reacting to the blows of Hitlerite terrorism. The climate of uncertainty
increased with every raid by the SA on the meetings of the Revolutionary
National Socialists or against individual members, and drove the local
branches of the KGRNS into the protective arms of the communists at
precisely the same time as the leadership was forced to intensify its criti-
cism of communism in order to secure its capacity for ideological survival.
Thanks to its influence and its nationalistic propaganda, the KPD soon
appeared to be the only political force which could materially and intellec-
tually defy Hitlerite terrorism.
The KGRNS, which after the break-up of the NSKD had lost both the
activists around Stennes as well as its entire left wing, did not seem likely to
survive much longer in autumn 1931. Therefore Otto Strasser decided to
establish the Schwarze Front (Black Front), which consisted of an informal
alliance of the Wehrwolf, several local branches of the Oberland League
and remnants of the Hamkens Movement.
At the periphery of this alliance, Die Tat, a newspaper edited by Ferdi-
nand Fried gave it an intellectual point of reference. It threw its weight
behind the establishing of a front line against Hitler, which was to extend
from the Revolutionary National Socialists by way of trades unionists like
Leipart and figures like Kurt von Schleicher, into the Christian conserva-
tive camp. In May 1932, the KGRNS, which had already dwindled by the
end of 1931 to a hard core of 800 active members and about 1500 sup-
porters, was sleep-walking into a serious crisis, forcing it to fall back on
dogmatic positions, which it continued to defend by a permanent appeal to
irrational vdlkisch (populist ethnic) feelings and by a belief in the cyclical
course of history, in which they placed all their hope. At that time the
KGRNS could only be regarded as a sect around Strasser.
The internal crisis in the NSDAP in autumn 1932 and Gregor Strasser’s
resignation at the beginning of December resulted in a wave of resignations
from the Party, which also contributed to the revival of the anaemic
KGRNS. Up to the end of 1932 it won 4000 new supporters for the fight
against Hitler, but still could not prevent his unstoppable rise to the
Chancellorship. This triumph of Hitler’s legality tactic even won applause
from Otto Strasser, who, blinded by his belief in his destiny, could only see
in it the first, reformist phase of the inevitable national socialist revolution
which he intended one day to bring about.
After Strasser’s troops had been decimated in the first months of ‘in-
 Patrick Moreau 241

tegration and standardisation’ by police raids and arrests, he conducted a

resistance struggle on two fronts, at home and abroad, in the years be-
tween 1934 and 1938, from Austria until 1934 and afterwards until 1938
from Czechoslovakia. Thanks to the support of conservative circles around
Edgar Jung, Strasser was able to maintain illegal groups in a state of
readiness in Germany until 1935/36 and continue agitation against the
regime with their help. The effectiveness of the repression, however,
caused his influence to disappear almost completely from 1936/37 and a
little later it drove him right across Europe and as far as America, as he fled
the Gestapo.
What was ideology which drove Strasser on, and how different are his
theories from Hitler’s philosophy? Strasser was a believer in the life cycle.
He saw every society as being tied into such a life cycle of birth, develop-
ment and death. Since there was no place in his philosophy for a heroic
meaning to life, as Nietzsche formulated it, for Strasser the individual had
to find his social and ethical fulfilment in sacrifice for the community. The
motif of readiness for sacrifice is therefore omnipresent in Strasser’s writ-
ings and is used to justify both the First World War and the inevitable
losses in a future conflict which would be necessary to liberate Germany
from the chains of the Treaty of Versailles.
Strasser’s point of departure was the existence of regular biological
cycles, for individuals as well as for social systems, in the course of history.
The present time was still a waiting time, but an ‘Us’ revolution would
certainly come, marking the final point of a swing of the historical pendu-
lum which every one hundred and fifty years led western civilisation first
in the direction of individualism and then back in the direction of
collectivism.
In contrast to Ernst Junger of Moeller van den Bruck, however, Strasser
devoted little attention to the political present, since for him it was only a
transitional phase within the context of the cyclical development of history.
This ‘logic of destiny’ led him completely to lose sight of the industrial
society of his day — with the exception of the contemporary agricultural
crisis. He contented himself with diagnosing the bankruptcy of society and
evaluated the failure of the Weimar Republic and the Great Depression as
manifestations of a predetermined degeneration. On the basis of the un-
avoidable return of social values, the future for him belonged to the
Revolutionary National Socialists and ‘leader figures’ — like Cromwell,
Lenin and Strasser — were to hasten the inevitable course of history.
Strasser, like Jinger, dreamed of a new type of ‘worker’, who was
however to be explicitly peasant-like in nature, be it the peasant-worker,
the peasant-intellectual or the peasant-soldier, — facets of a social revolu-
tion brought about by the destruction of industrial society and compulsory
re-education of citizens towards regenerative work in the countryside.
In his theoretical works, Strasser’s ideology comes over as extreme
242 Otto Strasser

agrarian conservatism. His goal is the abolition of heavy industry and its
breaking down into small decentralised structures which would bring
peasant workers together in units within the framework of village com-
munities. Consumption was confined to the near autarchic satisfaction of
the primary necessities of life, by which means a clear reduction in indus-
trial production would be achieved in the medium term. Capitalism, already
weakened by a process of employees taking a share in capital assets and
decision making processes, which Strasser foresaw, was in this way to be
abolished step by step. Great landed estates were to be divided up into
several smaller feudal holdings, and banks were to disappear gradually in
favour of international barter.
It should be pointed out here that the significance of Strasser’s ‘social-
ism’ has often been undervalued. Of course Strasser’s ‘socialism’ differed
markedly from the Marxist concept of socialism. However, putting his
ideas into practice would have led to just as radical a transformation of the
existing social order as had been brought about by the Bolshevik October
Revolution.
In his own view Strasser was following a third way between liberalism
and Marxism - the two classic hate figures of the National Socialist revolu-
tion. At the same time he regarded a tactical alliance with the KPD and the
partially semantic adoption of many of its theories as tolerable, indeed
even necessary for the speedier development of a desire for revolution in
the working class. Strasser’s judgement of the NSDAP, too, bore the
strong imprint of his cyclical view of history. In the NSDAP, as Strasser
saw it, were gathered in a mass party those Germans who had become
aware of the imminent change in the times, or felt it coming intuitively.
This coming together took place as yet under the auspices of a programme
defined by liberalism, but its nationalistic, league-oriented and vdlkisch
aspects were bound to produce a new public spirit. Hitler, who beat the
drum of the German revolution, was for him only a Kerensky, who would
have played out his role in fomenting and intensifying a collective rejection
of the existing regime at the watershed of the revolution and with the
re-entry into the conservative cycle.
The ‘School of Officers and NCOs of the German Revolution’, the
KGRNS and their allies in the Schwarze Front were to gather up from
the ranks of the mass parties all the leaders who had grasped the logic of
the historical cycles and were intellectually prepared, not necessarily to
bring about the revolution (which was in any case unavoidable), but to lead
on the masses after the downfall of Weimar.
Strasser therefore found himself in a dilemma. With Jiinger or Goebbels
he would have recognised the usefulness of propaganda as a means of
mobilising the masses, and Hitler’s unique gift of acting as a political
catalyst. However, crippled by his sterile political theories, he could only
wait for the end of what he regarded as the necessarily short dynamics of
 Patrick Moreau 243

the predetermined upheaval. This explains his impotence in the years after
1933, when Hitler was able to an increasing degree to personify a far-
reaching consensus and the social and economic stability desired by the
German people.
Among the most modern aspects of Strasser’s ideology is indisputably
still his vision of nationalism as a factor for undermining the imperialism of
the western powers. The weakening of Germany’s opponents, like France
and Britain, was based, in his view, not only on supporting all the national
liberation movements in the colonies but also on the break up of pseudo
‘national states’ like France. Strasser was probably the first to emphasise
consistently the importance of the independence movements of an ethnic
linguistic type, like those of the Bretons, Flemings, Welsh and Scots — ideas
which were to be taken on ten years later by the General Staff of the SS,
too. So for left wing National Socialists, nationalism is a tool for the
reorganisation of Europe on an ethnic and linguistic basis and a political
model for all peoples on the earth. Within the movement, nationalism was
the point of reference for all political activity for Strasser’s supporters, but
in contrast to Hitler’s ideas it was not based on racism.
Strasser does emphasise the importance of the natural inclination to
endogamy and the rejection of all foreign cultural influence (be it on the
German national character or on any other) and for this reason he too
wanted to reduce the political and cultural influence of the Jews, but he
never considered systematic persecution of the Jews, far less a ‘final
solution’.
The anti-modern character of many of the traits of Strasser’s ideology is
as Clear as the contrast with Hitler’s philosophy and goals. Hitler was too
clearly aware that the industrial transformation of Germany in the
nineteenth century could not be reversed for Strasser’s agrarian extremism
to be attractive to him. He saw himself as the authoritarian leader of an
industrial society, on which he wanted to force certain strategic options;
Strasser on the other hand felt called on to bring about a fundamental
transformation of the social, economic and political system and underesti-
mated not least its stability and capacity for resistance. And this explains
why Hitler’s realism ultimately triumphed over Strasser’s idealism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Of all of the Strasser movement’s newspapers and journals, we should first of all
mention Die Deutsche Revolution (Jan. 1931 to Aug. 1931), which was the most
important organ of the KGRNS. The two daily papers of the National Socialist left
244 Otto Strasser

wing, Die Faust (1929-30) and Der Nationale Sozialist (1929 to Dec. 1930), docu-
ment the conflicts between the varying ideas of the two Strasser brothers and the
official line of the NSDAP. Die Schwarze Front (Sep. 1931 to Feb. 1933), the organ
of the organisation of the same name, contains important information about
co-operation with groups like the Wehrwolf and the ‘Peasants’ Movement’. Insights
into the ideological development of the Strasser group are best found in the
Nationalsozialistiche Briefe (1929-31), the theoretical organ of the National Social-
ist left and the KGRNS.
The most important publications in book form from the ranks of the Strasser
movement are: H. Blank, Weichensteller Mensch (Leipzig, 1932). This book give a
good insight into the theory of history which ultimately led the ‘revolutionary
national socialists’ into a serious misjudgement of the Hitler phenomenon. Comp-
lementary to this work is: R. Schapke, Die schwarze Front (Leipzig, 1932). The
most important of Otto Strasser’s own works is the book Aufbau des deutschen
Sozialismus (Leipzig, 1932). Here Strasser developes the economic and social ideas
of the Schwarze Front. Both the radicalism of his concept of revolution and the
distinctions between this and the bolshevik model of revolution are evident here.
On the breach between Strasser and Hitler see Strasser’s own account: Ministerses-
sel oder Revolution (Berlin, 1930). Strasser’s great ignorance of Marxism, the
language of which he nonetheless adopted, is documented in his publication: Mit
oder gegen Marx zur deutschen Nation (Leipzig, 1932).

Secondary Literature

Fundamental to an understanding of Strasser are the studies by R. Kuhn! and the

author’s dissertation: R. Kiihnl, Die nationalsozialistische Linke 1925-1930
(Meisenheim am Glan, 1966); P. Moreau, La Communauté de Combat National
Socialiste Révolutionnaire en Allemagne, Tchéchoslovaquie et Autriche 1930/1938, 2
vols (Paris, 1978) (the edited German version appeared under the title: Nationalso-
zialismus von links — Die ‘Kampfgemeinschaft Revolutionarer Nationalsozialisten’
und die ‘Schwarze Front’ Otto Strassers 1930-1935 (Stuttgart, 1985)). Kihnl’s
analysis gives exact and detailed information on the ‘Strasser wing’, even if one may
not wish to accept the author’s marxist approach to the material. The French
edition of the present author’s work deals very fully with Strasser’s ideology and
also gives information on the Strasser group’s resistance in Austria and Czechoslo-
vakia. These sections are noi reproduced in the German version, but are about to
be published in a German translation. An excellent description of the ‘national
bolshevist’ tendency is given in the study by L. Dupeux, which also deals with the
KGRNS: ‘Nationalbolschewismus’ in Deutschland 1919-1933. Kommunistische
Strategie und konservative Dynamik (Munich, 1985). However one major short-
coming in this work is its underestimation of the seriousness of the socialist claims
and the light in which many ‘national bolshevists’ saw themselves.
23 Fritz Todt: From
Motorway Builder to
Minister of State
Franz W. Seidler

ENGINEER AND POLITICIAN

Fritz Todt was a successful civil engineer in the firm of Sager and Woerner
in Munich, when Hitler sent for him in Berlin in 1933. He specialised in tar
and asphalt roads. A Swabian, born in Pforzheim in 1891, he had com-
pleted his education at the Technical University in Karlsruhe, and after-
wards served throughout the First World War, finally as an air force officer.
For a while he was impressed by Friedrich Naumann’s vision of a European
economic community under German leadership, but as early as 1920 he
was drawn under Adolf Hitler’s spell. He was engrossed by ‘how much the
people actually love this leader and how devoted they are to him, and look
to him full of hope and trust.’ Todt did not come into Hitler’s circle from a
royalist or imperialist, reactionary standpoint, but because of his social and
national inclinations. Put another way, he came to the NSDAP from the
left and not from the right. At that time many technologists were choosing
to join the Party. At the end of 1922, Todt and his wife submitted applica-
tion forms to the Party and were admitted in January 1923. Todt im-
mediately founded a local branch of the NSDAP at Eitting near Erding,
where he was at that time supervising the construction of a power station
on the Isar.*
After the NSDAP was banned because of the failed November coup
attempt, Todt’s political zeal went into abeyance. He remained a member
of the Party, but in the second half of the twenties he devoted himself
exclusively to his career and his family. In 1931 he even disregarded the
rallying call made on the occasion of the establishment of the ‘Fighting
League of German Architects and Engineers’ (KDAI). Todt did not be-
come active in party politics until the winter of 1931/32. He joined the
SA Reserve Regiment R16 and took part in the customary propaganda
marches. During the Presidential elections in March 1932 he became an
active proselytiser within middle class circles for the candidate Adolf
Hitler. Within the KDAI he took over leadership of the engineers’ section.
He worked as consultant and assessor for the NSDAP’s ‘Office for Econ-
omic Technology and Creation of Employment’, which was run by Gottfried
Feder. In this capacity he vehemently opposed the demonisation of the

245
246 Fritz Todt

machine as the main cause of unemployment in Germany. In the building

trade, at least, he considered the slogan ‘Down with Machines: Create
Work for the Unemployed’ to be a pernicious demand. He clarified his
thoughts on the abolition of unemployment in December 1932 in a report
for the leadership of the NSDAP: ‘Roadbuilding and Administration’. He
expounded the view that roadbuilding was a part of the ‘overall task of
rebuilding the Reich’ and that the communications network must be ex-
panded. He estimated the costs at five billion Reich Marks, if 600 000
workers were employed. Technical responsibility for road-building in Ger-
many should be given over to a higher national office empowered to
impose guidelines on the states — not an administrative body in the tradi-
tional sense but an office made up of specialists with a real leader at its
head.*

ORGANISATION OF TECHNOLOGY

When Todt delivered the ‘Brown Report’ he already held the Party office
of ‘Personal commissioner to the Fuhrer’s deputy for all matters of Tech-
nology and their Administration’. In this capacity he came into competi-
tion with Gottfried Feder, who as leader of the KDAI was ruthlessly
bringing into line all technical and scientific organisations. Todt was against
abolishing existing specialist professional associations. He aimed to pre-
serve their specialist abilities ‘but to realign them with National Socialism’.
In August 1934 at Todt’s suggestion, Hess founded the ‘National Socialist
League of German Technology’ (NSBDT) as an umbrella organisation for
the many varied forms of technical associations. Therefore of the eighty-
four specialist associations in the Weimar Republic, sixty survived until the
end of the Third Reich. The most powerful was the ‘Association of Ger-
man Engineers’ (VDI) and Todt himself became chairman of it in 1938.4
Todt exercised decisive influence on the development of technology and
the orientation of technologists and engineers in the Third Reich through
his nexus of roles and responsibilities. As director of the ‘Head Office for
Technology’ in the Brown House he had to be involved in all regulations
and decrees concerning technical matters. As the national chief of the
NSBDT he was responsible for the furtherance of technical and scientific
projects and the training and orientation of its members ‘in the interests of
applying German technology according to the demands of people and
state.’> As Director of the ‘Office for Technical Sciences’ in the German
Labour Front (DAF), he gained an overall picture of technical innovation
and secured the right to be consulted on the care of technicians by the
DAF. Todt drew the final line under the reorganisation of technology in
the German Reich in April 1937 with his mass meeting at the Berlin Palace
of Sport. In front of more than 10 000 engineers he argued that the
 Franz W. Seidler 247

committed co-operation of technical specialists was indispensable for the

rise of the Third Reich. However, in spite of this appeal, the degree of
organisation within the NSBDT remained relatively slight. In autumn
1937, with the total number of engineers standing at 220 000, it only had
81 000 members.® From March 1936 the Plassenburg near Kulmbach was
made available to Todt for the purpose of specialist political training.
Here, the political implications of their profession were to be made clear to
technicians and natural scientists. Todt demanded of them that they should
not just think as experts, but also in political terms. In his speeches he
emphasised again and again the importance of technology for Germany’s
destiny. Striking sentences and apt turns of phrase from Todt’s speeches
were collected in the so-called ‘Plassenburg speeches’ and kept in readiness
for future publication.’
According to Todt’s ideas, Plassenburg was to become an academy of
engineering in Germany, the stronghold of the National Socialist concept
of technology. In it ‘the achievements and cultural significance of techno-
logical endeavour at the time of Adolf Hitler were to be brought before
the German people in a worthy setting’.» The museum building, on a
90 000 square metre site between Corneliusstrasse and Zweibriickenstrasse
was to be planned in such a way that it was the expression ‘of a higher
cultural understanding of technology’.’

ROADS

The ‘Decree for the Establishment of a National Motorway Enterprise’ of

27.6.1933 commissioned the German Railways to set up a subsidiary called
‘National Motorways’ for the purpose of establishing an efficient network
of transport routes under the control of the Reich. Hitler appointed Fritz
Todt as Inspector General of this enterprise in July 1933. Todt was en-
thusiastic:

The contract to build a network of interconnecting motorways offers

challenges which the master builders of many centuries have longed for
in vain. The task of constructing a network to a unified plan and, more-
over, to the shortest timescale, of building roads many hundreds of kilo-
metres long all in the same style, and of imbuing the overall character
of the roads with grace, toughness and singleness of purpose is one which is
bound to give rise to enthusiasm among those entrusted with it.'°

Todt set to work with unprecedented energy. By the middle of 1934 he had
set up fifteen building directorates, which were to take care of all the
matters which arose from the implementation of building work. The ‘So-
ciety for the Preliminary Work on National Motorways Inc’ (known as
248 Fritz Todt

Gezuvor) was commissioned to plan the routes. It had developed out of the
‘Association for the Preliminary Work on the Trunk Route Hansa Towns—
Frankfurt-Basel’ (Hafraba). Work began on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt-
Heidelberg stretch on 23.9.1933. In 1936, 125 000 workers were employed
on motorway building sites. 120 000 worked in quarries, or for suppliers
and subsidiary companies, an unknown number in the extensive road-
building equipment industry.'’ By the beginning of the war more than 3065
kilometres of motorway were ready and 1689 under construction.
It was Todt’s ambition to make the motorways not only technically
perfect but also artistically pleasing. They were to blend into nature and be
suited to the form of the landscape. The new roads were not intended in
the first instance to convey travellers as quickly as possible from one place
to the other, but to show them the beauties of Germany. All the building
directorates were allocated landscape architects as advisers. These took
care of the alignment of the curves, the correct management of topsoil, the
restoration of the edges of forests which had been torn up and suitable
planting for preventing sun dazzle. They were not only to preserve the
countryside but to enhance its effect through road-building:

The road itself should be beautiful in the same way as the countryside
which surrounds it. Embankments and cuttings are to merge into the
land by means of soft curves. Drainage ditches are to be avoided where
possible. Only native varieties are to be used for planting, that is, plants
which grow and flourish by themselves without human intervention. . . .
Care should be taken with the line and construction of the roads so that
the landscape is seen to advantage and the sequence of landscapes is
harmonic and rhythmic.”

Hitler was enthusiastic about Todt’s work. While inspecting the Dresden-
Chemnitz-Meerane stretch of motorway in June 1937 he enthused — “These
roads will never disappear. There is something grand and wonderful in
living at such a time and being able to take part in work such as this!’
Hitler did not have military or mobilisation routes in mind. In the thirties a
visit to the motorways was part of the tourist agenda of many foreign
visitors to Germany and was a part of the agenda of all congresses.
Hundreds of journalists and correspondents were stunned and enthusi-
astic. Abroad they represented Todt’s masterpiece as symbolic of the rise
of the new Reich. In National Socialist propaganda the roads were called
the ‘Fuhrer’s Roads’. Todt did nothing to damage the legend that Hitler
had already sketched out transport routes suitable for cars in the ‘Era of
Struggle’.'* Hitler and Todt were in agreement: the Reich’s motorways
were not economic products but national artistic monuments. They should
not just be judged by fiscal criteria. All the great cultural monuments of
 Franz W. Seidler 249

past centuries had broken the budget of their builders, the churches of the
Middle Ages as much as the buildings of classical antiquity. ‘But the
German people, indeed all of humanity, would be the poorer today with-
out these immortal works of art’.

THE BUILDING OF THE WEST WALL (THE SIEGFRIED LINE)

The ‘Czechoslovak crisis’ of May 1938 made Hitler speed up the building of
a fortified belt on the western border as a defence against Czechoslovakia’s
ally, France. Since the fortification pioneers did not think they were
capable of building bunkers in the numbers required by the Fihrer in the
prescribed four months, Hitler transferred the commission to implement
the project to the Inspector General for German Roads. He was to con-
trive the chain of fortifications according to the military and tactical plans of
the Pioneer Staff, employing the Motorway Directorates in such a way that
5000 concrete structures were complete by 1.10.38. Todt directed the
twenty-two senior building executive committees which were commis-
sioned to undertake the construction work from the Central Office for
Western Fortifications in the Hotel Kaiserhof in Wiesbaden. Along with
the Pioneers and the National Labour Service, about 1000 firms with their
depots and staff worked under his overall direction on the West Wall. At
the end of the day there were 430 000 building workers employed on it.
Their working day could be as long as thirteen hours.
Hitler’s commission to Todt to build the West Wall was seen by the
military as an unprecedented assault on their authority. Hitler took every
opportunity to make it clear to the army generals that Todt was to take the
credit for the West Wall. ‘If I had given this task to the army alone, the
West Wall would still not have been ready in ten years’.'© Todt played his
part in the West Wall propaganda in agreement with the general objec-
tives. He interpreted the Wall as a measure ‘to re-establish the might of the
Reich’. He regarded the edifice as a ‘chess move by our Fuhrer, by which
he has compelled our opponents to declare unambiguously whether they
want to live in peace with Germany or whether they no longer want this
peace!’'’ Hitler appeared twice at building sites in Todt’s company. In an
order of the day of 20.5.1939 he expressed his satisfaction. ‘An inspection
of the West Wall has convinced me of its impregnability. The German
people joins me in thanking all those who by their unstinting efforts have in
the shortest of time built the basis of Germany’s security in concrete and
steel.’'® With the West Wall Todt proved that he was able to fulfil com-
mands which would be regarded as impossible by the standards of normal
technical expertise. After this Hitler’s trust in Todt was as great as for few
others within National Socialist leadership circles.
250 Fritz Todt

WORK ON THE FOUR YEAR PLAN

Since the building of the West Wall had had a considerable deleterious
effect on the construction sector of the Third Reich’s economy — shortages
of raw materials, labour shortages, rising wages, price increases, fierce
competition — Hermann Goering, in his capacity as Commissioner for the
Four Year Plan, decided on 9.12.1938 to appoint Todt as Plenipotentiary
for the Regulation of the Construction Sector (GB). Todt was to restore
order to the construction sector, ‘under a unified leadership’ and to throttle
the volume of building work back to a normal level. The GB’s most
important measures for stopping the boom in the construction sector,
which had already reached a level of 11.5 billion Reich Marks in 1938,
entailed an increase in the use of machines, while restricting the range of
makes, the fixing of quotas for raw materials and the direction of labour. In
the list of priorities which Todt made for the building sector, fortifications,
docks, locks and harbours for the defence of the Reich were pre-eminent.
In second place was building of production facilities important for the
armaments industry. The building of dwellings took last place. The slogan
of the building industry in 1939 was ‘increased production with simul-
taneous savings in raw materials.’ Todt flooded entrepreneurs, engineers
and workmen with appeals to their national conscience. ‘Now there must
be a quite different type of education. Concepts like enthusiasm, enjoying
one’s work, comradeliness within companies must be required to a far
greater extent than before’.!”
Todt prohibited three shift working at building sites because of the
increased danger of accidents, but other than this he considered every way
of increasing production: moves to rationalisation, the management of
building materials, transfers of building workers, mothballing of building
sites, the punishment of builders who broke regulations, suspension of lists
of priorities. In spite of this Todt was only partially successful. The civil
service, the army and the NSDAP tried again and again to escape his
restrictions. Nonetheless the Commissioner for the Four Year Plan, Her-
mann Goering, was impressed by what had been achieved. On 23.2.1940
he ordered Todt to take on technical and economic problems outside the
building industry. In his new office as Inspector General for Special Tasks
in the Four Year Plan, it was his duty to examine all the measures of the
Four Year Plan with a view to their being successfully implemented in the
economy. To this end he was able to make use in the first instance of the
offices of the Head Office for Technology, that is of the Party apparatus.
From this time onward technical engineering arguments came to the fore in
the planning of economic enterprises. In all companies the machinery
depots were inspected to see if they were being used to capacity. Time and
motion specialists supervised the pursuit of national working methods
within factories. Instead of putting up costly new buildings, firms had to
 Franz W. Seidler 251

make do with huts. Even armaments factories were shut down if they met
no urgent requirements.”

THE TODT ORGANISATION

The name Todt Organisation (OT) was used by Hitler for the first time at
the National Party Convention at Nuremberg in 1938, when he was inform-
ing the public about the building work on the West Wall. But it he meant
the 430 000 men who were building fortifications in the West of the Reich
under Todt’s direction. During the Polish campaign from September 1939,
and to an even greater extent during the French campaign from May 1940,
the squads of building workers who had until then worked on the motor-
ways or the West Wall were brought into the occupied territories to
support the army engineers and pioneers. One of their particular tasks was
the reinstatement of roads behind the front. Wherever they were deployed
their company links were maintained. The contractor, workforce and
machinery stayed together. Transport and mobility were guaranteed by the
OT. The men were now called ‘front line workers’. At the beginning of
the Russian campaign Todt placed 20 000 men in units of 2000 each, with
the necessary fleet of transport, at the disposal of the army. In the winter of
1941/42 the organisation grew to a strength of 800 000 men, including
foreign workers. After the collapse of the rail transport system because of
winter temperatures the OT ensured that the front line was re-supplied and
the wounded removed by road. Alongside maintaining the road transport
system, in Russia, as in all occupied territories, it took over the exploita-
tion of sources of raw materials, the reinstatement of factories and the
transportation of strategic products back to the Reich. At the same time it
was commissioned in France with the constructing of bunkers for the
Navy’s U-Boats and with the fortification of the Channel coastline. Up to
800 000 tons of concrete were used up in one month there. The total
number of workers deployed by the OT’s Western Action Force rose to
264 000 men.

ARMAMENTS

The appointment of a ‘National Minister for Weapons and Munitions’ on

7.3.1940 fulfilled one of Hitler’s long-cherished desires. He had wanted to
centralise the production of munitions as early as 1939 on the basis of his
perceptions of the First World War. The supreme commanders of each of
the armed forces had torpedoed this plan. When the armaments industry
complained more and more openly about the ponderous and pedantic
methods of the weapons offices, the Fuhrer took up the idea once more.
252 Fritz Todt

He chose neither an officer nor an armaments expert, but Fritz Todt.

The latter took up the post without enthusiasm, because he had no
technical qualifications in this sphere. In industrial circles, however, the
new minister met with a very favourable response, because it was expected
that he would promote the development of entrepreneurial initiatives.
Todt did. First of all he reduced the demands of the armed forces to
correspond with what was possible for industry. In order to increase
production he ordered that companies which produced similar weapons,
munitions and tools should be merged into production communities or
work groups. For each broader area of production, for example weapons
or tanks, the relevant contractors formed committees as autonomous,
responsible bodies for the industry. These co-ordinated production by
securing supplies of raw materials, workers and machinery. Todt’s task was
limited to executing the planning of Hitler’s political changes, of course,
and to giving the committees realistic planning targets after discussion with
the Armed Forces High Command and the Army High Command. If the
armaments industry did not achieve the expected degree of efficiency
during Todt’s time, this was caused by countless changes of direction which
resulted from the changing priorities set by Hitler according to the military
requirements of the moment. Besides this there was an increasing lack of
trained workers in the factories because of the growing volume of conscrip-
tion into the army. The only help Todt could offer was to deploy huge
numbers of prisoners of war and civilian workers from the occupied terri-
tories. For the summer of 1942 he promised the armaments industry
800 000 foreigners.

ENERGY SUPPLIES

Todt’s appointment as Inspector General for Water and Energy on

29.7.1941 represented a decision by the Fuhrer against the ministries which
had hitherto dealt with these matters. In his new capacity Todt was to
centralise the Water and Energy industries in the Reich, open up new
sources of energy and draw upon the occupied territories as a source of
supply for the German armaments industry. His appointment as Inspector
General for Water and Energy fulfilled one of Todt’s most heartfelt wishes.
He believed that in this office he would be able to apply his technical
building experience in the same way as he had done for road building since
1933. He regarded hydraulic engineering, too, that is to say exploitation of
the power of water, as a cultural task. No more buildings for the water and
energy industries were to be constructed without first having regard to
biological, geographical and anthropological consequences.”!
However Todt’s short period in office was not sufficient to reform the
energy industry. The shortage of coal and gas in the Reich increased month
 Franz W. Seidler 253

by month. The Army High Command did intend, at Todt’s insistence, to

exempt coal miners from conscription. Todt planned to build new hydro
electric power stations, he did attempt to equalise supplies between the
various consumer areas in the Reich by setting up a grid system, he did fall
back on the energy reserves of the occupied territories, but he could not
prevent the threat of an energy crisis.

THE END

Only a few men in the leadership of the Third Reich understood Ger-
many’s economic inadequacies as well as Todt did. By the time the USA
entered the war, in December 1941 at the very latest, he was forced to
admit to himself that the Allied armaments potential was so great that
Germany could not win the war, no matter how the campaign against the
USSR ended. To these insights were added in the winter of 1941/42
depressing human experiences, for example when Todt learned of the
wretched fate of Russian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union’s icy deserts,
and when he registered the collapse of the German transport system with
his own eyes. All the evidence points to the likelihood that Todt spoke
alone with Hitler before the end of 1941 about the hopeless situation of the
German Reich. The latter remained deaf to all arguments.*? Even the
increasingly obvious inferiority of German weapons, particularly the tanks,
to Russian armaments, did not open his eyes. He ordered modifications in
design and improvements in materials, although the one was impossible in
the short term and the other was hopeless in view of the increasing
shortage of raw materials.”°
On the afternoon of 7.2.1942 Todt was with Hitler for the last time at the
Wolfschanze. He expected the conversation to provide him with, among
other things, the Fuhrer’s reaction to a report he had presented to him
containing a comparison of German industrial capabilities with those of the
Allies. What happened during the six hours that Hitler and Todt were
alone together remains unclear, because there are no minuted statements
about it in existence. It seems at times to have been a noisy discussion.
After a short night, which Todt spent in the guest bunker at the Fihrer’s
headquarters, he intended the following morning to fly to his family in
Munich. Shortly after take-off the plane, a Heinkel III, crashed. Hitler
gave the address at the state funeral in Berlin. After a detailed apprecia-
tion of Todt’s achievements for the National Socialist movement and the
Third Reich, he concluded with the words: ‘In this man I have lost one of
my most loyal colleagues and friends. I see his death as a contribution by
the National Socialist movement to our people’s war of liberation.’** Since
no announcement was circulated about the cause of the accident, there
were soon rumours that Todt had been the victim of an assassination.
254 Fritz Todt

Some spoke of it as the planned work of enemy secret services, others of

sabotage by army officers, who wanted to stop Todt breaking in to military
concerns, and finally a third group believed that Hitler himself had had a
hand in it, to sweep the defeatist Todt out of the way. Yet others suspected
that Bormann, remembering the flight of Hitler’s deputy, Hess, to Britain,
feared that Todt would take off for Sweden and for this reason had had an
explosive charge built into Todt’s aircraft.*” However, as the experts at the
office for Air Safety and Equipment in the National Air Transport Ministry
established, Todt’s crash was caused by a technical fault. It left open simply
whether the cause of the accident lay in the icing up of the wings or in
oversteering the aircraft.*°

NOTES

. Facsimile of a letter by Todt in Deutsche Technik, March 1942, p. 14.

. See Berlin Document Center, NSDAP-Akte Todt.
. Todt’s memo
WN ‘Strassenbau und Strassenverwaltung’ dated December 1932,
Brauner Bericht, Bundesarchiv RW6SI/1a.
4. See Volkischer Beobachter dated 31.5.1938.
5. See Rundschau Deutscher Technik 14/1939.
6. See Deutsche Technik, October 1937, p. 470.
7 . See Bundesarchiv NS14/78 and NS28/1188.
8 . See Mitteilungen aus dem Haus der Deutschen Technik, ed. by Haus der
Deutschen Technik e.V. Munich, supplement to the journal Deutsche Technik
October 1938, p. 495ff.
9. Leistung und Schénheit der Technik im Dritten Reich, series 1, pictorial supple-
ment to the journal Deutsche Technik, January 1939, p. 2.
10. Quoted according to Eduard Schénleben, Fritz Todt. Der Mensch. Der In-
genieur. Der Nationalsozialist (Oldenburg, 1943) p. 56.
11. Fritz Todt, “Der Strassenbau im nationalsozialistischen Staat’ in Grundlagen,
Aufbau und Wirtschaftsordnung des nationalsozialistischen Staates, ed. by Hans
H. Lammers und Hans Pfunder, vol. 3: Die Wirtschaftsordnung des nationalso-
zialistischen Staates (Berlin, 1937) p. 3.
12. Fritz Todt, as above, p. 26.
13. Die Strasse, second July edition 1937, p. 6.
14. See Heribert Menzel, ‘Das Erlebnis der Reichsautobahn’ in, Die Strasse, 23—24/
1941, p. 372.
15. Lecture by Todt at Plassenburg on 7.10.1938; see Deutsche Wasserwirtschaft
1938, p. 397.
16. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler 1938-1943. Aufzeichnungen des Major Engel, ed. by
Hildegard von Kotze (Stuttgart, 1974) p. 27.
17. See Die Strasse, January edition, 1940, p. 28.
18. Bundesarchiv NS16/1190.
19. Rundschau Deutscher Technik 24/1939.
20. See Deutsche Technik, March 1940, p. 99.
21. See Fritz Todt, ‘Schénheit der Technik’ in Kunst im Dritten Reich 1/1938, p. 14;
see minutes of the meeting of 9.11.1941, Bundesarchiv R4/4, sheet 302f.
 Franz W. Seidler 255

22. See statements made to the author by Xaver Dorsch and Heinrich Classen.
23. See the proceedings of the leaders’ meeting of 29.11.1941, Bundesarchiv/
militararchiv RW19/822.
24. See Der Frontarbeiter dated 14.2.1942, p. 3; Die Strasse, February edition 1942,
p. 26; Deutsche Technik, June 1942.
25. See the Akten des Spruchkammerverfahrens Todt, Amtgericht Munich.
26. See a condensed version in Franz W. Seidler, Fritz Todt (Berlin, 1988)
(Ullstein-Taschenbuch 33095, p. 365ff.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Fragments of written sources material on Todt’s life can be found in nearly all the
German archives, but mainly in the Bavarian Hauptstadtsarchiv, the Institut fur
Zeitgeschichte and the archive of the Deutches Museum, Munich. The vast ma-
jority of the files did not survive the war. A substantial proportion of them were
destroyed by fire during the bombing of Berlin. Another part of them, especially
files on the West Wall and the Atlantic Wall, was apparently entrusted by Speer in
January 1944 to Todt’s widow for safe-keeping. Colleagues of Bormann and Speer
were supposed to go over the material with her ‘with a view to seeing which of the
files were the late Dr Todt’s personal property and could be handed over without
further ado to his widow and which were to be regarded as official files’. Mrs Todt,
who died in January 1986, in her one hundred and third year, claimed to have seen
nothing of this. A third parcel of files, ‘especially those which had to do with the
personal influence of Dr Todt on the design of buildings and the transformation of
the road system’ were taken to Schloss Steinach near Straubing on Speer’s instruc-
tions. This building had been bought by the building directorate in Munich as a rest
house on the planned Regensburg-Passau motorway. The director of the then
building directorate in Munich, President Hafen, was given the task of keeping safe
‘the most important files, those which would one day be essential for Todt’s
biography or for editing his letters’. Mrs Speer was informed of this in a letter from
Speer dated 15.9.1944. Shortly before the end of the war Schloss Steinach was
bombed by the Allies and burned to the ground. The files which were being kept
there were lost.
Of Todt’s writings only one long essay is worthy of mention: ‘Der Strassenbau
im nationalsozialistischen Staat’ in volume three of the publication Grundlagen,
Aufbau und Wirtschaftsordnung des nationalsozialistischen Staates, which was
published by Hans H. Lammers and Hans Pfundner in 1937 in Berlin. Salient
quotations from his speeches at Plassenburg were collected and today they are kept
in the Bundesarchiv NS 26/1188. Many details on the person of Todt can be gleaned
from the files and evidence from the tribunal proceedings against Todt’s widow
during the years 1946—S0.

Secondary Literature

The biography of Todt by the present author which appeared in 1987 was published
as a paperback in a revised version in 1988. Franz W. Seidler, Fritz Todt. Baumeis-
256 Fritz Todt

ter des Dritten Reiches (Munich, 1986; by the same author, Fritz Todt (Ullstein
Taschenbuch 33095). In the second edition in particular it is made clear that Todt
was not the victim of an assassination, but of a navigational error by his pilot. Todt
scarcely plays any part in the literature on the Third Reich. Not even the literature
on architecture, road-building, engineering, armaments, job creation or the build-
ing of fortifications gives more than references to the minister. Among these are:
D. Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1939-1945, vol. 1 (1939-
41) and vol. 2 (1941-3) (East Berlin, 1984/85); G. Hortleder, Das Gesellschaftsbild
des Ingenieurs. Zum politischen Verhalten der technischen Intelligenz in Deutsch-
land (Frankfurt am Main, 1974); K.-H. Ludwig, Technik und Ingenieure im Dritten
Reich (Dusseldorf, 1974); A.S. Milward, Die deutsche Kriegswirtschaft 1939-1945
(Stuttgart, 1966); W.F. Renn, Hitler’s West Wall. Strategy in Concrete and Steel
1938-1945, dissertation, Florida State University 1970. Even the author’s essay on
Die Organisation Todt. Bauen fiir Staat und Wehrmacht 1938-1945 (Cologne,
1987), had to put the main emphasis on Todt’s successor, Albert Speer, since it was
only under the leadership of the latter that this organisation gained a ‘European
dimension’.
Index
Amann, Max, 6 Epp, Franz von, 39, 75, 173f, 225, 235
Andersch, Alfred, 99 Ehrhard, Ludwig, 162
Axmann, Artur, 16 Esser, Hermann, 227

Baade, Karl, 231 Feder, Gottfried, 5, 28-38, 246

Backe, Herbert, 4, 25, 91 Feder, Johannes, 28
Bartels, Adolf, 203 Fegelein, Hermann, 141
Barth, Hermann, 188 Fest, Joachim, 43, 165, 216
Benedikt, Gottlob, 203 Fischer, Ludwig, 41
Bernhardt, Joseph, 99 Flisges, Richard, 49
Best, Karl Rudolf Werner, 92ff Ford, Henry, 203
Bismarck, Prince Otto of, 165, 169 Frank, Hans, 5, 39-47, 195, 208
Blank, Herbert, 238 Frederick II of Prussia, 15
Blomberg, Werner von, 6, 58, 70 Frick, Wilhelm, 65, 89, 179, 206
Bohle, Ernst, 79 Fricke, Bruno, 238
Bormann, Gerda, 9, 13, 15 Fried, Ferdinand, 240
Bormann, Martin, 7-17, 44, 78, 140, 148, Friedlander-Prechtl, Robert, 231
152, 158, 160, 170, 197, 218, 222, 254 Fritsch, Werner von, 71
Bouhler, Philipp, 6 Funk, Walther, 59, 161, 201, 231
Braun, Eva, 11
Broszat, Martin, 42 Gartner, Heinrich, 104
Buch, Walter, 9 Gesell, Silvio, 231
Buchrucker, Ernst, 238 Giesler, Hermann, 215
Bihler, Josef, 41 Glaise von Horstenau, Edmund, 138
Burckhardt, Carl Jacob, 87, 90, 94 Globocnik, Odilo, 45, 138
Goebbels, Fritz, 48f.
Canaris, Wilhelm, 140 Goebbels, Joseph, 2, 4, 14, 45, 48-61, 69,
Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 185, 203 75, 80-1, 87, 124, 148, 160, 166, 170,
Chamberlain, Neville, 125 177, 178, 184, 186, 189, 208f, 213,
Charles V, emperor, 203 217f, 220, 226, 227; 236ff, 242
Churchill, Winston, 80, 127 Goebbels, Katharina, 48f
Coblitz, Wilhelm, 41 Goebbels, Magda, 54, 57f
Cordemann, Hermann, 231 Goering, Carin, 63f
Cromwell, Oliver, 241 Goering, Edda, 66
Goering, Emma, 66
Daitz, Werner, 231 Goering, Franziska, 62
Dalberg, Rudolf, 231 Goering, Hermann Wilhelm, 2, 12, 15, 25,
Darré, Richard Walther, 4, 18-27, 91, 138, 42, 55, 59, 62-73, 74, 81, 87, 110, 113,
157 165, 166, 169, 179, 187, 196, 208, 218,
Dietrich, Otto, 58, 122 221, 250f
Dinter, Arthur, 34, 194f Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 109, 203
Donitz, Karl, 16, 171, 195, 218, 221 Goga, Octavian, 188
Dollfuss, Engelbert, 138 Graefe, Albrecht von, 225, 227
Dorsch, Franz Xaver, 216 Grawell, Walter, 231
Drager, Heinrich, 231 Grotkopp, Wilhelm, 231
Drexler, Anton, 33, 115, 174 Gruber, Kurt, 204
Giinther, Hans Friedrich Karl, 19, 87, 107
Ebert, Friedrich, 137
Eckart, Dietrich, 32, 184 Hallgarten, George W. F., 98, 102
Ehrhardt, Hermann, 239 Hamilton, Douglas, Duke of, 80
Eichmann, Adolf, 94 Hamkens, Wilhelm, 239, 240
Eisner, Kurt, 5, 31, 39 Hanke, Karl, 197
Elbrechter, Helmuth, 232 Harden, Maximilian, 224

257
258 Index

Hassell, Ulrich von, 41 Klages, Ludwig, 207

Haushofer, Albrecht, 80 Klagges, Dietrich, 36
Haushofer, Karl, 74, 80 Klausener, Hubert, 138
Hayler, Franz, 161 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 109
Heinrich, Prince of Wittelsbach, 98f Kraus, Karl, 89
Henry I, German king, 106 Kriebel, Hermann, 77
Herrmann, Arthur R., 231 Kriiger, Friedrich-Wilhelm, 48
Hess, Ilse, 74ff, 82 Kube, Wilhelm, 6
Hess, Johann Fritz, 74 Kiinneth, Walter, 187f
Hess, Klara, 74
Hess, Walter Rudolf Richard, 2, 10, 69, Lammers, Hans-Heinrich, 6, 14, 218
74-84, 148, 150, 152, 214, 246, 254 Landfried, Friedrich Walter, 161
Hess, Wolf Riidiger, 82 Lasch, Karl, 41
Hewel, Walter, 141 Lawrence, David Herbert, 90
Heydrich, Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia, Leipart, Theodor, 240
85 Lenin, Vladimir Illyich, 241
Heydrich, Lina, 95 Leopold, Josef, 138
Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen, 4, Ley, Robert, 4, 22, 59, 77, 87, 144-54, 157,
85-97, 135, 139f, 157, 158, 160, 171 160, 189f, 207
Heydrich, Richard Bruno, 85 Lietz, Hermann, 203, 207
Hierl, Konstantin, 228 Lossow, Otto Hermann von, 174f
Hillgartner, Professor, 103 Lubbe, Marinus van der, 121
Himmler, Ernst, 98 Ludendorff, Erich, 225, 227
Himmler, Gebhard (brother), 98, 103 Luther, Martin, 171
Himmler, Gebhard (father), 98ff Lutze, Viktor, 6, 179, 226, 236
Himmler, Heinrich, 4, 14ff, 19, 25, 42, 44f,
46, 69, 86, 88, 91, 94, 98-111, 135, Malaparte, Curzio, 45f
138-40, 150f, 158, 160, 161, 165, 166, Manstein, Erich von, 159
168, 170, 180, 218 Maria, Theresa, empress, 202f
Hindenburg, Paul von, 55, 120, 232 Marrenbach, Otto, 146
Hitler, Alois, 114 Martersteig, Max, 202
Hohne, Heinz, 90 Marx, Karl, 89
Hottl, Wilhelm, 141 Milch, Ehrhard, 218
Hoffmann, Heinrich, 206 Moeller van den Bruck, Arthur, 236, 241
Holtz, Emil, 238 Mommsen, Hans, 113, 123
Hossbach, Friedrich, 168 Miicke, Hellmuth von, 237
Hugenberg, Alfred, 21, 71, 120 Miller, Heinrich, 139
Muller, Hermann, 205
Iber, Harald, 188 Mussolini, Benito, 14, 57, 64, 89, 135, 141,
175
Jeckeln, Friedrich, 139
Jessen, Jens Peter, 155ff, 160 Naumann, Friedrich, 245
Jodl, Alfred, 6, 140 Nebe, Arthur, 139
Jung, Edgar Julius, 241 Neurath, Konstantin von, 71, 168
Jiinger, Ernst, 92, 241, 242 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 41, 105, 241
Nolte, Ernst, 5, 41, 87
Kaltenbrunner, Ernst, 133—43
Kammler, Hans, 219 Ohlendorf, Otto, 140, 155-64
Kant, Immanuel, 207
Kapp, Wolfgang, 235 Papen, Franz von, 71, 120, 128, 166
Kaufmann, Karl, 50f, 226, 236 Peter I, the Great, 126
Kehrl, Hans, 98, 220 Pfeffer von Salomon, Franz, 176, 226
Keitel, Wilhelm, 6, 14, 218 Pitt, William the Younger, 127
Keppler, Wilhelm, 139, 166 Prang, Fritz, 50
Kerensky, Alexander Feodorowich, 242 Pritzmann, Hans-Adolf, 139
Kersten, Felix, 86, 99
Kessler, Harry, 100 Quisling, Vidkun, 189
 Index 259

Rainer, Friedrich, 138 Schweitzer, Hans Herbert, 52

Raubal, Geli, 76 Sebecker, S, 106
Reinhardt, Fritz, 227, 231 Seeckt, Hans von, 88
Reinthaller, Anton, 138 Seldte, Franz, 151, 152
Remarque, Erich Maria, 54 Selzner, Nikolaus, 146
Renteln, Adrian von, 205 Seyss-Inquart, 138ff
Ribbentrop, Annelies von, 166 Sinoviev, Gregori, 235
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 2, 67, 71, 124, Skorzeny, Otto, 141
141, 165-72 Speer, Albert, 4, 11f, 15, 59, 81, 91, 98,
Ribbentrop, Richard, 165 161f, 165, 201, 195ff, 212-23
Richthofen, Manfred, Baron von, 63 Spengler, Oswald, 226, 236
Ripke, Axel, 50 Spengler, Wilhelm, 87
Robespierre, Maximilian de, 50 Stahlherm, Anka, 49
Rohm, Emilie, 173 Stalin, Joseph, 13, 125, 127, 147
Rohm, Ernst Julius, 9, 40, 78, 88, 95, 104, Starhemberg, Prince Ernst Rudiger von,
149, 173-82, 206 135
Roéhm, Julius, 173 Stegmann, Wilhelm, 178
Rosenberg, Alfred, 4, 34, 36, 58, 69, 125, Stennes, Walter, 177f, 239f
167, 170, 183-93, 207 Strasser, Gregor, 1, 5, 10, 35, 36f, 51, 77,
Rosenberg, Lydia, 183 104, 144, 147f, 224-34, 235-8, 240
Rosenberg, Waldemar Wilhelm, 183 Strasser, Otto, 1, 4, 5, 34, 36, 52,
Rosikat, Ernst, 237 228, 235-44
Rossbach, Gerhard, 8 Strasser, Peter, 224
Ruhland, Gustav, 24 Streckenbach, Bruno, 139
Rundstedt, Karl Rudolf Gerd von, 41f Streicher, Julius, 6, 13
Rust, Berhard, 55, 58, 190, 206 Stresemann, Gustav, 66

Tarnow, Fritz, 231

Saint-Just, Antoine-Louis Leon de, 95 Taus, Karl, 139
Sauckel, Ernst Friedrich Christoph, 152, Tessenow, Heinrich, 212
194-201, 219 Tholens, Hermann, 231
Saur, Karl, 219f Todt, Elsbeth, 245
Schacht, Hjalmar, 37, 71, 151 Todt, Fritz, 4, 195, 196f, 216f, 245-56
Schaumberg Lippe, Prince Friedrich Treitschke, Heinrich von, 2f.
Christian, 147 Troost, Paul Ludwig, 213
Scheidt, Wilhelm, 126f
Schellenberg, Walter, 93, 140 Vahlen, Theodor, 237
Schieber, Walter, 220
Schiller, Friedrich von, 109, 203 Wagemann, Professor, 231
Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 55, 213 Wagener, Otto, 6, 36, 176
Schirach, Baldur von, 81, 187, 202-11 Wagner, Richard, 85
Schirach, Carl von, 202-11 Waldherr, Max von, 49
Schirach, Emma von, 202f Watter, Oskar von, 235
Schirach, Henriette von, 206 Weiss, Bernard, 53
Schirach, Karl von, 203 Weizsacker, Ernst von, 168f
Schleicher, Kurt von, 55, 166, 232, 240 Wessel, Horst, 53f
Schmeer, Rudolf, 146 Wilhelm II, emperor, king of Prussia, 165
Schmitt, Kurt, 71 Woytinski, Vladimir, 231
Schénerer, Georg von, 134 Wrisberg, Ernst von, 166
Schiiddekopf, Otto-Ernst, 88
Schiitz, Wilhelm von, 49 f6CKo Young, Owen D., 53
Schultze-Naumburg, Paul, 20
Schulz, Paul Gustav, 229 “Zehrer, Hans, 232
Schuschnigg, Kurt von, 138 : “Zibordi, Giovanni, 87
Schwarz, Franz Xaver, 206 Ziegler, Hans Severus, 203f

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