1933-1945 Nazi Germany, 5.01 Authoritarian States

1933-1934 Hitler’s Consolidation of Power

Base Timeline

• 1889: Hitler is born in Austria
• 1914: Hitler joins the German Army in 1914-1918 World War I
• 1918: WWI ends.
• 1919: Hitler joins the German Workers’ Party
• 1921: Hitler becomes chairman of the party. The party is renamed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP)
• 1923: Hitler stages a failed coup (Munich Putsch)
• 1924: Hitler released after a 5-month jail sentence for the failed coup
  • The trial provided him with a platform to speak against the government
  • His sentence was practically a slap on the wrist for an attempted rebellion, signaling sympathy in the courts
• 1925: Hitler publishes Mein Kampf – practically a Nazi manifesto
• 1930: The NSDAP becomes the second-largest party in Germany
  • thanks to the socio-economic turmoil brought about by the 1929-1943 Great Depression crisis
• 1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor. He introduces censorship, passes a law ending civil liberties, passes the Enabling Act and makes himself dictator for four years
• 1934: Hitler merges the posts of Chancellor and President

Why Hitler still needed to consolidate

Summar

Hitler was in power, but his seat wasn’t yet assured.

• Hitler was Chancellor of a ==coalition governmen==
  • 3/11 of its members were Nazis, but not all
• the SA was becoming difficult to control – Ernest Rohm, its leader, was beginning to challenge Hitler's leadership
• Hindenburg, as President, retained ultimate control – and deeply distrusted Hitler

Key Events

1933 February: Reichstag Fire

• 1933 Feb 27: a Dutch communist set fire to the Reichstag building in Berlin.
• the fire was a lone action, but the Nazis pounced on and denounced it as a large-scale communist plot and the beginnings of a communist uprising
  • well-off white-collar workers feared that the communists would take their Hard-Earned Money and give it to the poor, and so turned to Hitler
    • incl. teachers, lawyers and engineers
  • Joseph Goebbels ran with that rhetoric and mounted an aggressive campaign in the run-up to the Reichstag March elections – only a strong Nazi government under Hitler could save Germany from a communist revolution
  • it laid the one of the legal cornerstones for the Nazi dictatorship
• modern historians suspect that the fire was a set-up, although it hasn’t been definitively proven
  • Hermann Rauschnigg and Willi Munzenberg (then-anti-Nazis) blamed the NSDAP for the fire
  • the KPD was dealt with so easily, and so unprepared, that they couldn’t defend themselves much less spark a revolution
  • nevertheless, Hitler was able to crush the KPD
• 1933 February 28: Hindenburg signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People – suspending the democratic aspects of the Weimar Republic and declaring a state of emergency
  • decree removed civil rights & basic personal freedoms, e.g. freedom of speech, right to own property, right to trial before imprisonment
  • it provided the Nazis with ==legal basis== to persecute and oppress opponents framed as traitors to the republic
    • people could be imprisoned for any or no reason
  • the Nazis suppressed opposition to power using these powers – the SA terrorized other parties into silence, with the KPD (communist supporter party) the principal target
    • leaders were arrested, personnel physically attacked, offices vandalized
• 1933 March: Hitler calls for another election to try and get a Nazi majority in the Reichstag

“It is the work of the Reds. We must crush these murderous pests with an iron fist.”

–Adolf Hitler

1933 March: Reichstag Elections

• Hitler sought to pass the Enabling Bill to give him personal power
• he persuaded Hindenburg to call an election

“To consolidate his position as Chancellor, Hitler insisted on holding a democratic election to end democracy.”

–Piers Brendon, modern scholar

1933-1934: Gleichschaltung

• the process through which Hitler and the Nazis established complete control over all aspects of German society
  • attempted to eliminate all anti-Nazi elements in pursuit of uniformity and the removal of all non-Germanic people
• Nazis aimed to ‘co-ordinate’ every aspect of German population’s lives so that they conformed to Nazis’ ideals
  • from economy and trade associations to media, culture and education
• brought under control everything not covered by the Enabling Act – the Church, the military, the labor movement, and the civil service
• NOTES STOP HERE

1934 June: Night of the Long Knives

TODO

1934 August: Hitler becomes President

• 1934 August: Hindenburg dies. RIP.
  • he was a WWI war hero who later became a politician and president
  • the military honored him deeply, and Hindenburg must have still held some measure of clout – especially as they disliked Hitler, seeing him as an upstart with no military heritage/legacy
    • necessitated the personal oath of allegiance to Hitler they swore upon his ascension to presidency
• Hitler sought to avoid another becoming President and thus having checks over his power – he added the presidency to the chancellorship
• his supreme power was recognized in his new title of Fuhrer
• he ran a plebiscite to determine whether the German populace approved of his extension of power – to which 📈 30 million Germans, or ==92%== of the electorate voted YES
  • he was seeking the mandate of the people – it was difficult to justify this merger of power under the Emergency Powers granted by Hindenburg
  • almost a ‘show election’
  • overwhelming, runaway success – nearly impossible to achieve as a politician in the modern day
• the Army was required to take an oath of allegiance to Hitler

Key features of National Socialism

• Palingenesis
  • the birth of the nation, purged of non-Germanic elements
  • ‘Janus-faced’ – looking back to a glorious German past and forward to a greater future
    • ref. Janus, the Roman god with two heads
    • very appealing to the people, after seeing the decline of Weimar and the ToV
    • worked fantastically in propaganda
• Revisionism
  • desire to overturn the Versailles 'Diktat'
• Volksgemeinschatt
  • emphasis on “volk” – a community united by blood and ethnicity
  • the main ‘socialist’ part of ‘national socialism’
• Greater Germany
  • inclusion of all Germans in an enlarged German state
  • sought eventual expansion for the German people’s living space (lebensraum)
• Social Darwinism
  • Aryan (racial) superiority with heavy anti-Semitic emphasis
  • a strong, healthy race of people; those with disabilities were cast out or killed
• Totalitarianism
  • ==Fuhrerprinzip – leadership principle of a hierarchical, one-party state==
• Rejection of egalitarianism
  • outright hostility to democracy and communism – perceived as divisive to the community

Instruments of Nazi power

The SS

• 1924: SS began as Hitler’s personal bodyguard
• 1929: Heinrich Himmler takes over SS squad co-ordination
• 1934 June: Night of the Long Knive and subsequent destruction of Rohm and the SA paved the way for the SS to become an elite body answerable only to Hitler
• 1936: Himmler succeeded in bringing police forces in all German states under SS authority

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• by the time Hitler became President, it was essentially a civilian police network run on military lines, enforcing law while operating outside the law – extrajudiciary powers
• Himmler’s success in this merits the description of the Third Reich as an “SS State”, and Nazi Germany’s nomer of a “police state” with harsh measures to control a populace
  • civil liberties were often trampled upon
• Hitler’s SS parades were propaganda at its best – the event held grandeur, flags were everywhere, and SS members marched with pomp
  • it was a showcase of military might and strength, and by extension the Fuhrer’s power
• one of its first tasks was to run concentration camps – a special SS Death’s Head Division was set up to guard camps
• they were committed to four fundamental principles:
  1. protection of Germany from racial corruption (in pursuit of the Aryan race)
  2. cultivation of a fighting spirit amongst its members
  3. loyalty to the German state
  4. absolute obedience to the Fuhrer

The SSI Gestapo

• special arm of the SS dedicated to exposing and removing ‘enemies of the states’
  • eventually developed into a nationwide organization
• relied on reputation as much as it did on actual force – encouraged citizens’ self-censorship, to prevent retaliation upon them & their families
• civilian police force was subject to its authority
• arguably one of the most fearful aspects of the Nazi regime for ordinary Germans
  • no legal restriction on its powers of arrest, methods of interrogation or period of detention
  • they had arbitrary power to detain ANYONE on suspicion; torture became standard practice
• acquired much of its knowledge through citizens informing on neighbors and workmates

The Army

Inf

Any authoritarian regime ==MUST== have the army’s support. Without it, its power is fragile.

• Germany had a strong military tradition → they favored strong leaders
  • perception of the Weimar government was that of weakness – infighting and inability to form any coalition governments, which most Germans never really liked anyway
• Hitler believed that the army had been betrayed by politicians at the end of WWI → stressed the creation of the Wehrmacht in the creation of the Third Reich
  • militarily, Germany ==never actually lost WWI== – the armistice was simply an agreement to stop fighting, NOT a surrender treaty
  • politically, Weimar politicians agreed that Germany lost, betraying the country
• Hitler regarded military strength as an expression of German Greatness → he sought a powerful army, but never wanted an independent organization capable of challenging his authority
  • the Army was made to swear an oath of unconditional loyalty to the Fuhrer – i.e., Hitler himself and not the state
  • it still remained politically independent, however, and wasn’t a part of the Nazi Party → military opposition remained a source of concern for Hitler despite the army’s oath → he sought complete control over the military
    • many leaders came from the Prussian aristocracy and regarded Hitler as an Austrian upstart who had never progressed beyond the rank of private

Hitler gaining control

• 1938: two separate sex scandals gave Hitler the opportunity to seize control
  • they’re easy to manufacture, and challenges Germany's conservatism → suggested the Wehrmacht was corrupt at the very top and couldn’t be trusted
    • the Germanic Volk wouldn’t stand for it, especially in the Nazis’ ideal Germany
    • appealed to the 'moral degradation of Germany' from the Weimar era of crisis that the Nazis were fighting against
  • scandals involved Blomberg (Hitler’s Field Marshal) and Verner von Fritsch (Commander-in-Chief of the Army) + exploited by Hitler and Goering
    • Blomberg was forced to resign from his post to prevent his second wife’s past as a prostitute from becoming public scandal knowledge
    • Fritsch was accused of being homosexual, though later acquitted, likely because he was Blomberg’s successor
      • Fritsch had been encouraged by General Ludwig Beck to carry out a military putsch against Hitler’s regime
    • possibly because they were not supportive of Hitler's plans to send Germany to war, and that they weren’t ready yet → scapegoated, blamed, dismissed so they’re out of Hitler's way
    • Field Marshal is an elite title that must be earned
  • Blomberg and Fritsch were dismissed, and ==Hitler became Commander-in-Chief==
    • he was now the active commander of Germany’s armed forces → consolidated and increased the power he held