Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (76 page)

14

Totalitarian Revolution

“Now we can really get started,” Hitler told NSDAP Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach on the evening of 5 February 1933, five days after moving into the Chancellery. “We have power and we’re going to keep it. I’m never leaving here.”
¹
The new Reich chancellor was by no means omnipotent, but he was determined to seize total power. The constellation of the government of “national concentration” Hindenburg had appointed meant that Hitler had to hold back and take into account his conservative coalition partners, who made up the majority of his cabinet. But as he confided to intimates, he saw the alliance formed on 29 and 30 January as an interim solution, an unavoidable transitional phase on the path towards unlimited authority.

Rarely has a political project been revealed as a chimera so quickly as the idea that conservatives in the government cabinet would “tame” the National Socialists. Those who “believed that Hitler is constrained in his cabinet by the lack of his own personnel,” wrote Theodor Heuss on 7 February, were overlooking the fact “that these calculations contained some very dubious assumptions.”
²
Papen, Hugenberg and their allies had indeed convinced themselves that they had “boxed in” Hitler so tightly that they could restrain his thirst for power and co-opt him and his movement for their own ends. Soon they would be forced to recognise how utterly mistaken they had been. “We had the wrong idea about the powers of the majority within a presidentially appointed government,” Hugenberg admitted in May 1933 in a conversation with Richard Breiting, the editor-in-chief of the
Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten
newspaper.
³
The other members of the cabinet were no match for Hitler’s tactical cleverness and his notorious mendacity. Within weeks, he had their backs to the wall and succeeded in securing the sort of favour with Hindenburg that Papen had formerly claimed for himself. The vice-chancellor found himself in the role of the apprentice magician who could not control the evil spirits he had summoned.

Contemporary observers took note of the drama playing itself out in Berlin. “When the Hitler–Papen cabinet came to power, there were assurances that Hitler would be kept in check…by a government of conservative nationalists,” reported French Ambassador André François-Poncet in early April 1933. “Six weeks later we find that all the dams that were supposed to hold back the waves of the Hitler movement have been washed away.”
⁴
Nonetheless, there is little truth to the notion of a careful strategic plan behind Hitler’s rapid seizure of power. What National Socialist propaganda later celebrated as the targeted action directed by the Führer’s intuitive genius was actually a series of improvised decisions with which the Nazi leadership responded to and exploited unforeseeable situations.
⁵
Administrative measures “from above” and violent activities “from below” reinforced one another and drove developments.

It was astonishing not just how quickly but how easily Hitler turned political Germany on its head. “All counterweights to his power were suddenly swallowed up and disappeared,” noted the Romance literature professor Victor Klemperer in his diary as early as March 1933. “This complete collapse of the existing powers, worse still their utter absence…has truly shaken me.”
⁶
There was hardly any resistance. Instead, almost all institutions and social groups within Germany bent over backwards to accommodate and support the new regime. The process of
bringing
things and people “into line”—
Gleichschaltung
—would never have gone so smoothly and successfully had it not corresponded with a widespread wish to
be brought
into line.
⁷
Within only eighteen months, Hitler would rid himself of all rivals for power and establish a “Führer dictatorship.”

—

On the afternoon of 30 January, Hitler held his first cabinet meeting. It was intended to demonstrate that the new government was capable of action and was tackling its duties from the outset. The political situation was clear. As he had demanded in his negotiations with Papen, Hitler wanted new elections to gain a parliamentary majority that would pass an enabling act in the Reichstag. A few hours previously, Hugenberg’s resistance to the idea had almost scuppered the new government. Moreover, the night before, Papen had told Hindenburg that negotiations were under way with the Centre Party to join the government, which was why the position of justice minister had been kept open. These unresolved issues bled over into the cabinet meeting. Hugenberg came out against both fresh elections and involving the Centre Party in the government, arguing that the latter “would endanger the formation of a unified will.” Instead, he suggested banning the KPD and redistributing their parliamentary seats, which would yield a parliamentary majority.

Hitler did not think the beginning of his chancellorship was an opportune moment for such a draconian move. Banning the Communist Party would cause domestic unrest and perhaps lead to a general strike, he told the cabinet. He added: “It is nothing short of impossible to ban the 6 million people who stand behind the KPD. But perhaps in the coming election after the dissolution of the Reichstag, we can win a majority for the current government.”
⁸
Hitler, too, was uninterested in expanding the coalition to include the Centre Party. But with an eye towards the promises he had given Hindenburg, he agreed to “sound out” Centre Party representatives. With that, subsequent talks with Centre Party Chairman Ludwig Kaas and Parliamentary Leader Ludwig Perlitius were destined to fail.
⁹
Hitler demanded parliament be suspended for at least a year, while the Centre leaders would only support a suspension of around two months. They also made their participation contingent upon being given written answers to a series of questions that would provide reliable information about the government’s intentions. Hitler used such demands as a pretext for telling his cabinet that very afternoon that “there is no point to further negotiations with the Centre…new elections will be unavoidable.”

Hitler sought to reassure his conservative coalition partners by promising the outcome of the election would have no influence on the composition of the cabinet. Then it was Papen—and not Hitler—who made a radical suggestion. It should be made clear, the vice-chancellor declared, that the next election would be the last one and that a return to the parliamentary system would be ruled out “for ever.” Hitler gladly adopted this proposal, saying that the upcoming Reichstag election would indeed be the final one and that a return to parliamentary democracy was “to be avoided at all costs.”
¹⁰
Using this argument, and with support from Papen and Meissner, Hitler succeeded in convincing Hindenburg that it was necessary to dissolve the Reichstag. Hindenburg’s decree, dated 1 February, justified the decision to hold new elections as giving the German people the opportunity to “have their say on the formation of a new government of national solidarity.” The date for the vote was set as 5 March. Hitler had achieved his most immediate goal without any serious resistance from his cabinet.
¹¹

On the evening of 1 February, Hitler delivered a governmental declaration, approved by his cabinet, over the radio. It was the first time he had addressed the German people over the airwaves, and the veteran speaker, who thrived on direct contact with his audience, displayed all the signs of stage fright. “His whole body was shaking,” observed Hjalmar Schacht.
¹²
In his address, Hitler combined the attacks on the democratic “betrayal” of November 1918 and the Weimar Republic from his 1932 campaign speeches (“fourteen years of Marxism have brought Germany to the brink of ruin”) with appeals to conservative, Christian, nationalist values and traditions. The first task of his government, Hitler said, was to overcome class hostilities and restore “the unity of our people in spirit and will.” Christianity, Hitler added, was to be “the basis of our morals,” the family the “basic cell of our body as a people and a state,” and respect for “our great past” the foundation for the education of Germany’s young people. The chancellor sounded tones of moderation concerning his foreign policy. A Germany that had recovered its equality with other states, Hitler promised, would stand for “the preservation and solidification of peace, which the world needs now more than ever.” Hitler did not neglect to direct some flattering words in the direction of the “honourable Reich president,” and he ended his speech with the same appeal he was to utter innumerable times in the future: “Now, German people, give us the span of four years and then you may pass judgement upon us!”
¹³

From Hitler’s governmental declaration, it was easy to get the impression that he, as head of government, intended to be more moderate and would revise the goals he had formulated prior to 1933. But it was clear on the evening of 3 February, when Hitler paid his introductory visit to the commanders of the German army and navy, that any such impressions were mistaken. The meeting called by new Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg took place in the official apartment of the army chief of staff, Kurt von Hammerstein, and Hitler was initially ill at ease among all the high-ranking officers. “He made strange humble little bows in every direction and was at a loss,” one participant remarked.
¹⁴
Only after dinner, when he began a speech that would last two hours, did he shed his nervousness. No trace was left of the moderation he had displayed only two days earlier in his radio address. On the contrary, Hitler, with astonishing frankness, laid out for his military commanders what he intended to do in the years to come.
¹⁵

Hitler defined his government’s first goal as to “reclaim political power,” which would have to be the “purpose of the entire state leadership.” Domestically there would have to be a “complete reversal” of present conditions. Pacifist tendencies would no longer be tolerated. “Anyone who refuses to convert has to be forced,” an officer attending the meeting quoted Hitler. “Marxism is to be utterly rooted out.”
¹⁶
Germany’s youth and its entire population, Hitler declared, had to be aligned along the ideas that “only battle can save us and everything else must be subordinated to this thought.” The “sternest, authoritarian state leadership” and “the removal of the cancerous damage of democracy” were necessary to strengthen Germany’s “will to defend itself.” In the part of his speech that dealt with foreign policy, Hitler said his first goal would be “to fight against Versailles” by achieving military equality and rearming the Wehrmacht. “Universal conscription has to be reintroduced,” Hitler demanded. The phase of rearmament, Hitler said, would be the most “dangerous” one, since France could decide to launch pre-emptive military strikes. Hitler apparently did not specify what he intended for Germany once it had regained its status as a major military power. But he did hint at two options, and left the officers in no doubt as to which one he favoured: “Perhaps the achievement of new export possibilities; perhaps—and probably better—conquest of new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanification.”
¹⁷

With that, Hitler had pulled back the curtains and given military leaders a backstage look at his plans for territorial expansion, the same ones he had laid out in principle in
Mein Kampf
. It is unlikely that the generals in attendance realised that they could be heading for a racist war of extermination with the Soviet Union. What Hitler told them largely reflected the military leadership’s own ideas. The generals could easily identify with a battle against Marxism and pacifism, demands for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles, a rearming of Germany’s military and the restoration of its status as world power. The military leadership was especially pleased to hear Hitler promise that the Wehrmacht would remain the country’s only legitimate military force and that it would not be used to put down domestic opponents. The latter, Hitler declared, was the job of National Socialist organisations, particularly the SA. General Ludwig Beck, who was named chief of the Troop Office in the autumn of 1933, may have later claimed that he soon forgot what Hitler had actually said at the meeting, but this is scarcely credible. Beck was among the officers who had unreservedly greeted the change of power in January 1933 as, in his own words, “one of the first major rays of light since 1918.”
¹⁸
Admiral Erich Raeder, the navy chief of command, was probably more truthful when he testified after the war that Hitler’s keynote speech had been “extraordinarily well received by everyone who heard it.”
¹⁹

The partnership concluded by Hitler and the military leadership on 3 February 1933 benefited both sides. The Reich chancellor could now concentrate on crushing the political Left and bringing German society as a whole into line with Nazi ideals without any fears of the military intervening. The military leadership in turn had received a guarantee for its monopoly position and was assured that its concerns would enjoy the highest priority within the new government. “For the next four or five years,” Hitler told his cabinet, “our main principle will be: everything for the Wehrmacht.” Germany’s future, Hitler pontificated, depended “solely and exclusively on the rebuilding of the Wehrmacht.”
²⁰