"Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich (47 page)

The dominance of the Party was evident in the close interrelationship between Party and state, from which emerged the new special powers (
Partikulargewalt
) that characterized the administrative model imposed on the Annexed Eastern Territories.
³
Though the administrative structure and institutional organization in the Annexed Eastern Territories corresponded, on the surface, to the law of the Reich,
⁴
a parallel Party apparatus was constructed alongside the governmental agencies, infiltrating them to such an extent that the Party was able to influence all action taken by the administration.
⁵
This not only took the form of the now well-established consultation procedures but was also implemented even more effectively: all measures of a fundamental nature, in particular those regarding the special treatment of Poles and Jews, required not only the tacit backing of the relevant Party office but also coordination with that office and its explicit approval.
⁶
On top of this, all key administrative positions were staffed by the leadership of the corresponding Party offices in a form of personal union.
⁷
This applied especially to the head of the administration, the
Reichsstatthalter/
Gauleiter, whose position of strength was justified by, among others things, the need for the powers of the Reich to appear in unified form,
⁸
so as to ensure their authority over the Poles and other “non-German races” and to prevent any public display of jurisdictional conflicts and the “undeniable” divergence of Party and state.
⁹
The heads of the state police regional headquarters were at the same time political advisers to the
Reichsstatthalter
.
¹⁰
The leading officials in the
Reichsstatthalter
offices performed key functions in the parallel Party organizations.
¹¹
The political advisers in the district presidents’ offices also headed the corresponding Gestapo district headquarters;
¹²
at the
Kreis
(county) level, the
Reichsstatthalter
had forced through the personal union of
Kreisleiter
(chief of the Party in a county) and
Landrat
(county administrator) in the vast majority of cases by provisionally empowering the
Kreisleiter
to assume the official duties of a
Landrat
and presenting the Reich Ministry of the Interior with a fait accompli.
¹³

In contrast to the Reich, where the combined function of
Landrat
and
Kreisleiter
had been abolished for some time,
¹⁴
this personal union had been urged by the administrative heads of the Annexed Eastern Territories and the Party leadership to establish the authority of the Party at the grassroots level in order to make sure that the so-called political administrative leadership was retained by the Party in the face of the internal administration authorities,
¹⁵
which claimed these powers for the
Landräte
.
¹⁶
This was by no means guaranteed by the sole appointment of Party members to leading administration positions, because it was soon recognized that even with reliable Party members, a tendency to “drift off into the realms of the state” was evident as soon as they achieved office and rank in the administration.
¹⁷
To ensure that at least the professional administrative work was performed to a certain degree, attempts were made to appoint administrative officials who were also Party members, where no Party members with proven experience in Party work (but without administrative training) were available.
¹⁸
The poor quality of available personnel meant that the demands of the Party that the
Landräte
in the Eastern Territories should not only be reliable Party members but should also have been active in Party work proved to be of little help.
¹⁹
Nevertheless, the appointment of leading Party officials as
Landräte
was forced through by the
Reichsstatthalter
against the will of the Reich Ministry of the Interior.
²⁰

This development is an interesting example of the explosive nature of the so far practically unresearched personnel policy of the Nazi regime, the infiltration of the administration by the Party. Only eighteen months later, the Reich Ministry of the Interior could barely conceal its satisfaction at noting that this experiment had, not unexpectedly, been a complete failure. The ambition of the Party to appoint Party members without administrative experience had proved to be illusory. The result was “staggering.” Many of these new
Kreisleiter/Landräte
, including about half of those in the Warthegau, had either completely failed in their duties or had been unable “even once” to prove themselves in the eyes of the Party. If the administration there “had been makeshift,” this was (solely) “thanks to the district governments (district presidents), who had increased their supervision to such an extent that they practically controlled the administration.”
²¹

The close integration of the administration with the organization of the NSDAP meant, of course, that administrative levels that did not fit into the scheme of the Party were restrained and robbed of their importance. The functions of the district presidents’ offices (
Regierungspräsidien
), the pride of the Prussian administration, which had no corresponding Party organization and thus no personal union with Party offices,
²²
were cut back heavily in the Annexed Eastern Territories in favor of the departments of the
Reichsstatthalter
and the
Landräte
,
²³
as were the those of the regional presidents. The district presidents, the bulwark of the traditional administrative system, stood in the way of the political leadership; they were scheduled for abolition in the long term and were also eventually doomed to extinction in the Altreich.
²⁴
The Reich Ministry of the Interior proved to be powerless against the undermining of its middle-ranking authorities; indeed, it had weakened its own position in the Eastern Territories through its constant acquiescence, countering only with empty protests in speeches and articles,
²⁵
which were quite understandably not taken seriously by the leadership.

The prevailing influence of the Party was also reflected in the organization of legislative powers. Although these were formally the province of the Reich Ministry of the Interior in the new Reich districts (
Reichsgaue
), it required the consent of the Party Chancellery in all important matters, being largely robbed thereby of its liberty of action. This is shown, for instance, by the settlement of nationality questions, which required the consent of the Party Chancellery and the RFSS/RKF (
Reichsführer
-SS/Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Nationhood),
²⁶
thus ensuring the decisive influence of the political powers. A further factor was that, ignoring all jurisdictional powers laid down by the law of the Reich, the departments of the RFSS/RKF had from the outset claimed supreme competence (
Generalzuständigkeit
) for all questions of the “establishment of German national identity (
Volkstum
),” which of course included principally the treatment of “non-Germans,” as well as the corresponding authority to issue instructions to the general state administration.
²⁷
The consequence of this was the not particularly reluctant withdrawal by the conventional administration from these issues, subject as they were to the arbitrary decisions of the departments of the RKF, which now felt itself responsible for the
Neuordnung
(New Order) of Europe in terms of ethnic policy. The (administrative) legislative powers of the
Reichsstatthalter
followed the same route. Although formally subject to the approval of the Reich minister of the interior,
²⁸
in fact such powers were hardly used at all, as the same issues were settled by decrees issued arbitrarily by the
Reichsstatthalter
/Gauleiter, the new lords of the land.

The primacy of the Party was also evident in the nature of the administrative leadership in the Annexed Eastern Territories. Although formally responsible to the Reich minister of the interior and bound by his directives,
²⁹
the
Reichsstatthalter
/Gauleiter of the Annexed Eastern Territories were autonomous administrative leaders and ruled to a certain extent independently of the Reich, in opposition to or parallel to the Reich authorities, if the line taken by the latter did not suit them.
³⁰
This hybrid situation of the
Reichsstatthalter,
which was formally an executive organ of the Reich administration but de facto a semiautonomous central authority, is also evident in the complicated administrative structure and the regulations issued by their departments.
³¹

The process of suppression of the Reich administration is illustrated by the political decision-making process in the disputes about the appointment of the
Gau
councils (
Gauräte
) in the new Reich
Gaue.

Both the Ostmark Law and the Sudetengau Law, both of April 14, 1939,
³²
applying to the corresponding Annexed Eastern Territories, had stipulated that the
Reichsstatthalter
should “be advised by
Gauräte
in matters of self-administration” but contained no provisions whatsoever about the size, composition, and selection of these bodies. Whereas the Reich Ministry of the Interior had principally envisaged Oberbürgermeister and
Landräte
as the members of the
Gauräte,
the intention of the deputy Führer was to appoint only full-time NSDAP functionaries. The protracted negotiations between the two authorities about the composition and powers of appointment of the
Gauräte
were totally fruitless. A Decree on the Administration of
Reichsgaue
as Self-Governing Bodies, drafted by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, collapsed in the face of the delaying tactics adopted by the deputy Führer, who saw in this relatively insignificant matter a fundamental issue of power. It was not so much a matter of administrative organization; more importantly, it raised the question of political leadership. Another conflict resulted from the question of the power of appointment. The Reich Ministry of the Interior held the view that the
Gauräte
should receive their certificates of appointment from, and be sworn into office by, the
Reichsstatthalter;
the deputy Führer, disagreeing, maintained that any swearing in was superfluous because the designated NSDAP candidates had already sworn an oath of loyalty to the Führer. Appointment by the deputy Führer was sufficient. When no agreement could be reached on this issue either, the deputy Führer presented the Reich Ministry of the Interior with a fait accompli, using tried and tested tactics, by starting to issue certificates of appointment to candidates of his choice. The Reich Ministry of the Interior, increasingly on the defensive, limited itself to recognizing the certificates but demanding their issue by the
Reichsstatthalter
as a constitutive act for the substantiation of the position of an (honorary)
Gaurat
under Civil Service law. Not surprisingly, this demand was unsuccessful. On the contrary, Martin Bormann once more went on the offensive by replacing the word
Following
by
On
in the wording of the certificate of appointment (“
On
your appointment by the deputy Führer … to the
Gaurat,
you are appointed an honorary officer under career Civil Service rules by virtue of this Certificate”) and refusing any further debate on the subject. The issue was still unsettled by the end of the war.
³³

The development of the
Gauräte
is a perfect example of the successful efforts by the Party leadership to supplant the conventional bureaucracy and replace it by a system of
Führerherrschaft
(rule by the Führer) without fixed jurisdiction and accountability. The consequence was jurisdictional chaos, legal uncertainty, and helplessness, providing the most fertile ground for the system of emergency powers to which the NSDAP aspired in contrast to the legal homogeneity of the traditional Reich administration. The emergency powers kept the upper hand, but the price was the disintegration of the traditional administrative structure.
³⁴

What even the National Socialist leadership was unable to force through was the
complete
separation of the new National Socialist
Führerkorps
from the traditional Reich administration, because the shortcomings and poor professional and personal quality of the Party and the administrative personnel available for the Eastern Territories meant that the National Socialist leadership was still forced to depend on the Reich administration.
³⁵
The dominance of the Party did, however, cause a weakening of the administrative machinery at middle (district president) and lower-ranking (municipal) levels, with the central
Reichsstatthalter’s
office becoming a superauthority that acquired for itself as many powers as possible, governing everything and everybody itself and thus well on the way to actualizing Hitler’s notions of the ‘Führer’s governors” in the East who as his deputies (
Reichsstatthalter,
Reich commissars, and governors, etc.) could do as they pleased.
³⁶