Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (183 page)

10 
See Axel Schildt: “Jenseits der Politik? Aspekte des Alltags,” in
Hamburg im “Dritten Reich,
” p. 250; Hans-Ulrich Thamer and Simone Erpel,
Hitler und die Deutschen: Volksgemeinschaft und Verbrechen. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Deutschen Historischen Museum in Berlin
, Dresden, 2010, p. 210.

11 
Eberle (ed.),
Briefe an Hitler
, pp. 129f. See ibid. pp. 130f., 132, 135, 163–5 for further examples.

12 
Ibid., pp. 141f.

13 
Heiber (ed.),
Die Rückseite des Hakenkreuzes
, pp. 12, 119–26. Headteacher of the Eberswalde Academy of Foresty to Hitler, 8 April 1933, and answer from Lammers, 27 April 1933; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde R 43 II/959.

14 
See Thamer and Erpel,
Hitler und die Deutschen
, pp. 208, 225.

15 
Quotation from the
MNN
in Ian Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich
, Oxford, 1987, p. 58. See Rudolf Hess to Fritz Hess, 19 April 1933: “All day long the people are queueing in the Reich Chancellory to add their birthday congratulations to the books on display there. The love of the people and their reverence is unbelievable.” BA Bern, Nl Hess, J1.211-1989/148, 51. Messages for Hitler’s birthday in 1933 in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 51/72. Similar in tone were the greetings for New Year 1934/35; ibid., NS 51/73 und NS 51/74. Goebbels’s article “Unser Hitler!” for Wolff’s Telegraphisches Büro, 19 April 1933; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde R 43 II/959.

16 
Klemperer,
Tagebücher 1933–1941
, p. 37 (entry for 17 June 1933). On the shift in public attitudes towards Hitler see Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth
, p. 59; Rudolf Herz,
Hoffmann & Hitler: Fotografie als Medium des Führer-Mythos
, Munich, 1994, pp. 202ff.

17 
Fritz Wiedemann,
Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte: Erlebnisse und Erfahrungen des Vorgesetzten Hitlers im 1. Weltkrieg und seines späteren persönlichen Adjutanten
, Velbert and Kettwig 1964, pp. 92f.; see Christa Schroeder,
Er war mein Chef: Aus dem Nachlass der Sekretärin von Adolf Hitler
, ed. Anton Joachimsthaler, 3rd edition, Munich and Vienna, 1985, pp. 92f.; Heinrich Hoffmann,
Hitler wie ich ihn sah: Aufzeichnungen seines Leibfotographen
, Munich and Berlin, 1974, p. 198.

18 
Antoni Graf Sobanski,
Nachrichten aus Berlin 1933–1936
, Berlin, 2007, p. 89. See Martha Dodd,
Nice to meet you, Mr. Hitler! Meine Jahre in Deutschland 1933 bis 1937
, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, p. 233.

19 
Klemperer,
Tagebücher 1933–1941
, p. 21 (entry for 10 April 1933).

20 
Eberle (ed.),
Briefe an Hitler
, pp. 159f.

21 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 1 (1934), p. 275. In a decree on 25 Sept. 1933, Interior Minister Frick ordered that public offices only hang up pictures of the Führer “that do not give cause for concern about how he is presented or artistically depicted.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, R 43 II/959.

22 
Gebhard Himmler to Heinrich Himmler, 30 Aug. 1934, with the addition from his mother Anna Himmler: “You can’t imagine how happy we are about the picture of our beloved Führer.” BA Koblenz, N 1126/13. See the similar reaction of Rudolf Hess’s mother after she was sent a picture “of our beloved Führer” with the handwritten dediction, “To Herr and Frau Hess, dear parents of my oldest and most loyal comrade in arms, with heartfelt devotion, Ad. Hitler.” Klara Hess to Rudolf Hess, 4 Jan. 1934; BA Bern, Nl Hess, J1.211-1989/148, 53.

23 
Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth
, p. 60.

24 
Wiedemann,
Der Mann
, p. 80; see Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 2/3, p. 252: “People stood around and waited for hours”; vol. 3/1, p. 100 (entry for 2 Sept. 1934): “First the people down below marched past him. It was moving. What trust [they have!”; see ibid., vol. 4, pp. 215, 217 (entries for 11 and 13 July 1937).

25 
Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 2 /3, p. 170 (entry for 18 April 1933); see ibid., p. 192 (entry for 23 May 1933): Kiel; p. 232 (entry for 22 July 1933): Bayreuth Festival; p. 238 (entry for 31 July 1933): Stuttgart Gymnastics Festival; p. 259 (entry for 2 Sept. 1933): Nuremberg Party Conference; vol. 3/1, p. 54 (entry for 28 May 1934): Dresden; p. 94 (entry for 18 Aug. 1934): Hamburg.

26 
Albert Speer,
Erinnerungen: Mit einem Essay von Jochen Thies
, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1993, p. 61. See Otto Dietrich,
12 Jahre mit Hitler
, Munich, 1955, p. 183, on the “indescribable scenes” surrounding Hitler’s journeys in peace time.

27 
Wiedemann,
Der Mann
, p. 81. The Jewish lawyer Kurt F. Rosenberg from Hamburg concluded that “one cannot overstate the religious needs of the people as one of the forces driving the new movement in Germany.” Kurt F. Rosenberg:
“Einer, der nicht mehr dazugehört”: Tagebücher 1933–1937
, ed. Beate Meyer and Björn Siegel, Göttingen, 2012, p. 257 (entry for 16 March 1935).

28 
William S. Shirer,
Berliner Tagebuch: Aufzeichnungen 1934–41
, transcribed and ed. Jürgen Schebera, Leipzig and Weimar, 1991, p. 24 (entry for 4 Sept. 1934). On the occasion of his 44th birthday, three sisters from the city of Halle wrote to Hitler that the moment they first caught sight of him was “the greatest of our lives thus far.” They had sensed, they wrote, how “everyone alive and breathing was drawn to you as though attracted by a magnetic force.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 51/72.

29 
Speer,
Erinnerungen
, p. 79. Hess testified that for Hitler, alongside Friedrich the Great and Richard Wagner, Luther was “the greatest German”: “All those revolutionary, tough and fearless spirits that overcome the world are of his kind.” Rudolf Hess to Klara Hess, 21 Jan. 1927; BA Bern, Nl Hess, J1.211-1989/148, 39.

30 
For a summary see Wehler,
Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte 1914–1949
, pp. 709–11 (“Was there a National Socialist economic miracle?”)

31 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 2 (1935), p. 283.

32 
Ibid., 3 (1936), p. 157.

33 
Domarus,
Hitler
, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 260, 262. See countless other examples in Rainer Zitelmann,
Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs
, 2nd revised and expanded edition, Stuttgart, 1989, pp. 190–6.

34 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade,
1 (1934), p. 197; 2 (1935), pp. 24, 422.

35 
Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 3/1, p. 341 (entry for 6 Dec. 1935). See ibid., vol. 3/2, pp. 40 (entry for 13 March 1936), 94 (entry for 30 May 1936). Further, Hans Frank,
Im Angesicht des Galgens: Deutung Hitlers und seiner Zeit auf Grund eigener Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse
, Munich and Gräfelfing, 1953, p. 198.

36 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 1 (1934), pp. 198, 200.

37 
Ibid., 1 (1934), pp. 10f. In early June 1934, the Gestapo in Kassel reported: “As unshakable as people’s trust in the Führer may be, there is also some strong criticism of the lower party organs and particular local conditions.” Thomas Klein (ed.),
Die Lageberichte der Geheimen Staatspolizei über die Provinz Hessen-Nassau
, Cologne and Vienna, 1986, vol. 1, p. 102.

38 
Domarus,
Hitler
, vol. 1, part 2, p. 613. See Michael Burleigh,
The Third Reich: A New History
, London, 2000, p. 246.

39 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 2 (1935), p. 152.

40 
Ibid., 2 (1935), p. 758: “Sayings like ‘If the Führer only knew…he wouldn’t put up with this’ were common.” Further examples in Frank Bajohr, “Ämter, Pfründe, Korruption,” in Andreas Wirsching (ed.),
Das Jahr 1933: Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung und die deutsche Gesellschaft
, Göttingen, 2009, pp. 196, 199n52. On the compensatory function of the mythology of the Führer see Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth
, pp. 83, 96–104.

41 
Domarus,
Hitler
, vol. 1, part 2, p. 529.

42 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 2 (1935), p. 277; see ibid., p. 410: “There is no doubt that the constant drum-beating about equality, honour and German liberty has had an effect and caused confusion even deep within the ranks of the formerly Marxist working classes.”

43 
Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth
, p. 73; see Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 2/3, p. 37 (entry for 22 April 1934): “The people is indivisibly at Hitler’s side. No human being has ever enjoyed this sort of trust.”

44 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 2 (1935), pp. 904, 1018.

45 
Wiedemann,
Der Mann
, p. 90.

46 
Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade
, 3 (1936), p. 281.

47 
Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 3/2, p. 203 (entry for 5 Oct. 1936).

48 
See Karlheinz Schmeer,
Die Regie des öffentlichen Lebens im Dritten Reich
, Munich, 1956, pp. 68–116.

49 
Hans-Ulrich Thamer, “Faszination und Manipulation: Die Nürnberger Reichsparteitage der NSDAP,” in Uwe Schultz (ed.),
Das Fest: Eine Kulturgeschichte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart
, Munich, 1988, pp. 352–68 (quotation on p. 353).

50 
Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 2/3, p. 237 (entry for 29 July 1933).

51 
See Markus Urban,
Die Konsensfabrik: Funktion und Wahrnehmung der NS-Reichsparteitage 1933–1941
, Göttingen, 2007, pp. 61f.

52 
Rudolf Hess to his parents, 21 Sept. 1937; BA Bern, Nl Hess, J1.212-1989/148, 59. On what follows see Schmeer,
Die Regie
, pp. 109–16; Thamer, ‘Faszination und Manipulation,” pp. 360–3; Peter Reichel,
Der schöne Schein des Dritten Reiches: Faszination und Gewalt des Faschismus
, Munich, 1991, pp. 126–34; Siegfried Zelnhefer,
Die Reichsparteitage der NSDAP: Geschichte, Struktur und Bedeutung der grössten Propagandafeste im nationalsozialistischen Feierjahr
, Nuremberg, 2002, pp. 91–113;
idem
, “Rituale und Bekenntnisse: Die Reichsparteitage der NSDAP,” in Centrum Industriekultur Nürnberg (ed.),
Kulissen der Gewalt: Das Reichsparteitagsgelände in Nürnberg
, Munich, 1992, pp. 91–3. The running order of the 1938 party rally is given in detail in Yvonne Karow,
Deutsches Opfer: Kultische Selbstauslöschung auf den Reichsparteitagen der NSDAP
, Berlin, 1994, pp. 209–81.

53 
Shirer,
Berliner Tagebuch
, p. 23 (entry for 4 Sept. 1934).

54 
See Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 6, p. 74 (entry for 6 Sept. 1938): “The Reich insignia have been transferred to Nuremberg and will now stay here.”

55 
Ibid. On Furtwängler’s role in the Third Reich see Fred K. Prieberg,
Kraftprobe: Wilhelm Furtwängler im Dritten Reich
, Wiesbaden, 1986; Eberhard Straub,
Die Furtwänglers: Geschichte einer deutschen Familie
, Munich, 2007.

56 
Karow,
Deutsches Opfer
, p. 214.

57 
Shirer,
Berliner Tagebuch
, pp. 24f. (entry for 5 Sept. 1934).

58 
See Urban,
Die Konsensfabrik
, pp. 142–4.

59 
Shirer,
Berliner Tagebuch
, p. 26 (entry for 6 Sept. 1934).

60 
Karow,
Deutsches Opfer
, p. 230.

61 
Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 3/1, p. 292 (entry for 13 Sept. 1935).

62 
Ibid., vol. 3/2, p. 180 (entry for 11 Sept. 1936).

63 
Karow,
Deutsches Opfer
, p. 248. See Sobanski,
Nachrichten aus Berlin 1933–36
, p. 210 on the 1936 party rally: “The Führer proceeds ahead, and a miracle occurs. Everything turns bright. Suddenly, we are sitting under a dome of light, consisting of milky blue columns, separated by strips of deep-blue night and joining together overhead in a bright sapphire.”

64 
Nevile Henderson,
Fehlschlag einer Mission: Berlin 1937 bis 1939
, Zurich 1940, p. 80; Speer,
Erinnerungen
, p. 71; Joachim Fest,
Speer: Eine Biographie
, Berlin, 1999, pp. 74–6. See Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 1, vol. 4 (entry for 11 Sept. 1937): “In the evening a massive roll call of the party organisations on the Zeppelin Field: an incomparable bit of theatre. Wonderfully beautiful, illuminated by an endless dome of light.”

65 
Cited in Zelnhofer, ‘Rituale und Bekenntnisse,” p. 94.

66 
Karow,
Deutsches Opfer
, p. 251.

67 
Domarus,
Hitler
, vol. 1, part 2, p. 532.

68 
Karow,
Deutsches Opfer
, p. 265.