Hitler (104 page)

When Hjalmar Schacht criticized these methods, there was a breach which soon forced him out of the cabinet. Hitler now felt that time was running out. His memorandum had ruled that economic rearmament must be conducted “in the same tempo, with the same resolution, and if necessary with the same ruthlessness” as the political and military preparations for war. The concluding sentences were similarly dramatic: “Herewith I am setting the following task: First. The German army must be ready for commitment within four years. Second. The German economy must be ready for war within four years.”

Reports on morale during this period speak of “a certain fatigue and apathy.”
⁷⁰
The overorganization of people was becoming almost unbearable. The regime's policy toward the churches, the defamation of minorities, the racial cult, the pressure upon the arts and the sciences, and the excessive zeal of minor party functionaries engendered anxieties that could be expressed only in the most covert terms; such griping was totally ineffective. The majority tried, as far as possible, to go on living, ignoring both the regime and its injustices. The report cited above notes that “the German greeting
[Heil Hitler
]—which at any rate is a sensitive measure of shifts in political moods—has yielded almost entirely to the older customary salutations, or is only casually responded to, outside the circles of party members and officials.”

Though such local reports were scarcely definitive, they fed Hitler's sense of urgency and showed him what had to be done: he must shake the populace out of its lethargy and create a situation in which anxiety, pride, and an offended sense of self-importance combined so that “the inner voice of the people itself slowly began to scream for violence.”

“Where Hitler draws perspectives, war is always in sight,” Konrad Heiden wrote around this time, and in the same passage asked whether the man could continue to exist “without disintegrating the world.”
⁷¹

Give me a kiss, girls! This is the greatest day of my life. I shall be known as the greatest German in history.

Adolf Hitler on March 15, 1939, to his secretaries.

 

Hitler's real plans came to light in the secret conference of November 5, 1937, whose course we know from the record kept by one of the participants, Colonel Hossbach. To a restricted circle consisting of Foreign Minister von Neurath, War Minister von Blomberg, Commander of the Army von Fritsch, Commander in Chief of the Navy Admiral Raeder, and Air Force Commander Göring, Hitler unveiled ideas that struck some of those present as sensational at the time, and others later on when they were disclosed at the Nuremberg trial.

The psychological importance of his statements evidently outweighs their political weight. For what Hitler produced in an exalted mood, inspired by the favorable circumstances, in the course of more than four hours of nonstop speech to the group assembled in the chancellery, was nothing more than the design he had developed years before in
Mein Kampf.
Now he presented it as the “result of detailed considerations and the experiences of his four and a half years as head of government,” but it was the same old concept from which he had never strayed, which had become the fixed point of all his steps and maneuvers. Only the tone of impatience was new. He would ask those present, he added portentously after his introductory words, “to regard the following statement as his testamentary bequest in case of his decease.”

If the goal of German policy, he began, were considered as the safeguarding, preservation, and increase of the body of the nation, the “problem of space” must immediately be confronted. All economic and social difficulties, all racial dangers, could be mastered only by overcoming the scarcity of space; the future of Germany absolutely depended on that. The problem could no longer be solved by reaching out for overseas colonies, as had been possible for the powers of the liberalistic colonial age. Germany's living space was situated on the Continent. Granted, every expansion involved considerable risks, as the history of the Roman Empire or the British Empire demonstrated: “Neither earlier nor at the present time has there ever been space without a master; the aggressor always comes up against the possessor.” But the gain, specifically a spatially coherent Greater Reich ruled by a solid “racial nucleus,” justified a high stake. “For the solution of the German question all that remains is the way of force,” he declared.

Once that resolve had been taken, he continued, all that remained was to decide on the most favorable time and circumstances for applying that force. Six to eight years later, conditions could develop only unfavorably for Germany. If, therefore, he was “still alive, it was his unalterable resolve to solve the question of German space between 1943–1945 at the latest.” But he was also determined, if an earlier opportunity offered, to take advantage of it—whether the occasion were a severe domestic crisis in France or a military involvement of the Western powers. In any case, the subjection of Austria and of Czechoslovakia must come first, and he made it clear that he would not be content with the demand of the racial revisionists for annexation of the Sudetenland but had in mind the conquest of all Czechoslovakia as a springboard for far-reaching imperialist aims. By that conquest Germany would win not only twelve divisions but also the food supply for an additional 5 million to 6 million persons, this in the event “that a compulsory emigration of two million from Czechia, of one million persons from Austria, would be successfully carried out.” For the rest, he considered it probable that England and France had “already written off Czechia.” There was strong likelihood that some conflicts would erupt as early as the coming year, in the Mediterranean area, for example; these conflicts would involve a heavy drain on the Western powers. In that case he was determined to strike in 1938, without waiting. In view of these circumstances, from the German viewpoint a rapid and complete victory by Franco in the Spanish Civil War was undesirable. Rather, the interests of the Reich required continuance of the tensions in the Mediterranean area. In fact, it might be wise to encourage Mussolini to undertake additional expansionist moves, in order to create a
casus belli
between Italy and the Western powers. Anything of that sort would provide a magnificent opportunity for Germany to begin the “assault upon Czechoslovakia” with “lightning rapidity.”

This exposition evidently stunned and disturbed some of the group, and in his description of the conference Colonel Hossbach notes that the subsequent discussion “at times took a very sharp tone.” Neurath, Blomberg, and Fritsch, in particular, opposed Hitler's arguments and explicitly warned him against the risks of a war with the Western powers. Possibly Hitler had convoked the conference chiefly to communicate his impatience and, as he had explained to Göring before the beginning of the meeting, “to light a fire” under generals Blomberg and Fritsch “because he was by no means satisfied with the rearmament of the army.” During the heated discussion Hitler suddenly became aware of a difference of opinion that came very close to being a matter of principle. Four days later Fritsch asked him for another meeting, and Foreign Minister Neurath—“shaken to the core,” as he later declared—also tried to see him and dissuade him from his bellicose course. But Hitler had meanwhile decided to leave Berlin and had withdrawn to Berchtesgaden. Obviously ill-humored, he refused to receive the Foreign Minister before his return to Berlin in the middle of January.

It is surely more than accidental that the men who opposed him on November 5 all fell victim to the major shuffle by which Hitler, a short time later, removed the conservatives from their last remaining strongholds, especially in the army and the Foreign Office. The conference seems to have proved to him that his sweeping plans, which required steady nerves, a readiness to take risks, and a kind of brigand's courage could not be carried out by the inhibited, cautious representatives of the old bourgeois ruling class. Their sobriety and bristly stiffness antagonized him; his old antibourgeois resentments reawakened. He hated their arrogance and their class-conscious pretensions. The ideal Nazi diplomat was, to his mind, not a proper official but a revolutionary and secret agent, an “entertainment director” who would know how “to matchmake and to forge.” A general, to his mind, should be like “a butcher's dog who has to be held fast by the collar because otherwise he threatens to attack anyone in sight.” Neurath, Fritsch, and Blomberg scarcely fitted this conception. In this regime they were, as one of them commented, one and all “saurians.”
⁷²

The November conference of 1937 marked a mutual disillusionment. The conservatives, especially the military leaders who had never learned to think beyond the narrow confines of their own goals and interests, found to their astonishment that Hitler meant what he had said. He was, as it were, actually being Hitler. And Hitler, for his part, found his contemptuous views of his conservative partners confirmed. For some years they had kept silent, obeyed, and served. Now they were manifesting their true pusillanimous nature. They wanted Germany's greatness, but without taking risks. They wanted rearmament but no war, Nazi order but not Nazi ideology.

From this angle, we can better understand the obstinate conservative efforts during the preceding years to retain a limited independence in diplomatic and military affairs. Hitler had partly outwitted such attempts on the part of the Foreign Office by instituting his system of special envoys. On the other hand he had not been able to pry open the far more coherent social bloc of the officer caste. He now saw that this was the next order of business. And as chance had come to his aid so often before, a number of developments now played into his hands. Three months later, he had ousted his top generals and totally reorganized both the diplomatic and the military structure in accord with his program for the future.

 

The seemingly innocent starting point was Blomberg's decision to remarry; his first wife had died years before. It was rather awkward that the bride, Fraulein Erna Gruhn, had “a past,” as Blomberg himself admitted. Consequently, she did not meet the strict status requirements of the officer corps. Seeking advice, Blomberg took Göring into his confidence as a fellow officer. Göring strongly urged him to go ahead with the marriage, and even assisted him in getting rid of a rival by paying the man off and arranging his emigration. On January 12, 1938, the wedding took place, in an atmosphere of some secrecy. Hitler and Göring were the witnesses.

Only a few days later, rumors began circulating that the field marshal's marriage was a
mésalliance
of interest to the vice squad of the police. A police file soon provided evidence that Blomberg's newly wedded wife had spent some time as a prostitute and had once been convicted of serving as a model for lewd photographs. Twelve days after the wedding, when Blomberg returned from a brief honeymoon, Göring informed him that he had become unacceptable. The officer corps, too, saw no reason to come to the defense of the field marshal who for so long had been devoted to Hitler with boyish exuberance. Two days later, on the afternoon of January 26, Hitler received him for a farewell visit. “The embarrassment for me and for you was too great,” he declared. “I could no longer wait it out. We must part.”

In a brief discussion about a possible successor, Hitler rejected the presumptive candidate, Fritsch, and Göring as well. The latter, in his greed for posts, had desperately tried to secure the appointment. Apparently Blomberg, still abjectly loyal, proposed what Hitler in any case intended, that he take over the position himself. “When Germany's hour strikes,” Hitler said at the end of the interview, “I will see you at my side and the whole past will be regarded as wiped out.”

The decision had evidently been taken while Göring was still intriguing to exclude his rival, Fritsch. For now, instigated by Göring and Himmler jointly, a second police file was brought to light, this time on Fritsch, in which he was charged with homosexuality. In a scene out of a third-rate drama, the unsuspecting commander in chief of the army was confronted with a hired witness in the chancellery. The man's accusations soon proved untenable, but that did not matter. They had served their purpose: providing Hitler with the pretext for the thoroughgoing shakeup of personnel on February 4, 1938. Fritsch, too, found himself dismissed. Hitler took over the post of commander in chief of the armed forces. The War Ministry was dissolved, replaced by the High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, abbreviated OKW), headed by General Wilhelm Keitel. For a prize specimen of Hitlerian comedy, we may read General Jodi's diary note on Keitel's installation: “At 1
P.M.
Keitel is ordered to the Führer in civilian dress. The latter pours out his heart on the difficulties which have descended upon him. He is growing more and more lonely.... He says to K: I am relying on you; you must stick it out with me. You are my confidant and only adviser on defense questions. Unified and coherent leadership of the Armed Forces is sacred and inviolable to me.” Hitler then continued without transition and in the same tone of voice: “I shall take command of them myself with your help.” As successor to Fritsch he appointed General von Brauchitsch, who, like Keitel, seemed the natural candidate for the post because of his servility and weakness of character; he had announced that he was “ready for anything” that was asked of him. In particular, he gave assurances that he would lead the army closer to National Socialism. In the course of these measures sixteen older generals were additionally retired, forty-four transferred. In order to alleviate Göring's disappointment, Hitler named him a field marshal.

With one blow, without a jot of opposition, Hitler had thus eliminated the last power factor of any significance. He had put across, as it were, a “bloodless June 30.” Contemptuously, he declared that all generals were cowardly. His disdain was increased by the shameless eagerness many generals had shown to occupy the vacated positions. Such behavior made it plain that the unity of the officer corps had at last been shattered and caste solidarity—which had notably failed to put in an appearance in the case of the murders of von Schleicher and von Bredow—no longer existed. Speaking for the benefit of “later historians,” General von Fritsch resignedly recorded his indignation at this “shameful treatment.” To be sure, one group of army officers began to plot some action against the dictator and tried to make contact with Fritsch. Now, and once again six months later, he refused to support them, remarking fatalistically: “This man is Germany's fate and this fate will go its way to the end.”