Der Staat Hitlers

by Martin Broszat

Interpretative study of the Hitler state now available in English. An important contribution to the study of totalitarian states.

Genres: History, Germany, Politics

475 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1969

Reviews

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

When published in 1981, this was the first study to focus on the internal structure of the Third Reich, seeking to explain how the Nazis exercised power. Among the many pertinent observations, I found these most interesting ...

*** Hitler's style of leadership … he chose not to exercise careful and continuous control at the center of the system - there was no direct and systematic leadership … instead intervened from outside - often abruptly and arbitrarily- jolting the government or Party into action, supporting one or the other initiative of party functionaries while thwarting others or leaving them to carry on without the Fuhrer's decision … the supreme Fuhrer, equally removed from Party and state organizations ... resulted in sporadic carrying out of the Fuhrer's will in an unpredictable manner ... a growing structure of rival power centers, all trying to put together schemes in the name of Hitler, all trying to get access to him and to get 'Fuhrer commands' to back them up ... a proliferation of arbitrary decisions and acts of violence ... an absence of collective and rational policy discussions or sharing of information ... claiming to act on the basis of often secret, unwritten directives or expressions of Hitler's will (eg, the liquidation of Jews)

*** Hitler's nationalist partners failed to appreciate (in early 1933) that suppression of the left (KPD & SPD & labor) was bound to diminish the role, importance, and power of the parties of the middle and right ... Hitler's partners made their first fateful mistake when they failed, at a Jan 31 cabinet meeting, to oppose Hitler's pressure for dissolving the Reichstag and holding new elections … after cabinet agreed, Hitler was able to convince Hindenburg to issue the needed Presidential 'emergency' decrees ... the Reichstag was dissolved on Feb 1 before ever meeting to express their view of the new cabinet ... the election became an acclamation of Hitler's Chancellorship ... Papen, Hugenberg and other cabinet ministers continued to deceive themselves about the prospect of cooperating with Hitler … Hitler contributed to this deception by not using the Chancellor's powers, by avoiding confrontation, by sometimes ignoring suggestions made by Frick and Goering

*** after the Reichstag fire (Jan 27, 1933) … new emergency decree for Hindenburg … ended all basic rights of the Weimar Constitution … freedom of persons, right to free expression, freedom of the press, of association and public gathering, privacy of mail and telephone, protection of property and homes ... also empowered the Reich government to 'temporarily' exercise the rights of the Land governments if 'measures necessary for the restoration of public security and order are not implemented in a particular Land' ... decree contained punitive measures (death or imprisonment) for violation of the decree, attempted assassination of members of the government, arson in public buildings, or serious unrest ... asked by the Daily Express (Mar 3) whether the present suspension of personal freedoms was to be a permanent state of affairs … Hitler answered: "No! When the Communist danger is eliminated things will get back to normal"

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A HISTORICAL STUDY OF HOW NAZI GERMANY FUNCTIONED UNDER HITLER

Historian Martin Broszat wrote in the 1981 English edition of this 1969 book, “When this book first appeared over ten years ago, there was already a wealth of historical literature on Nazi Germany … the growth of detailed research embodied the danger of historians retreating into specialization. There appeared to be little inclination to synthesize the new findings into a more general study of the National Socialist regime… this book was conceived as an attempt not primarily to recount again what had happened again in the Third Reich, but to analyze the internal set-up and changing power structure of this system… My examination … while writing this book has not therefore yielded a general theory of the Third Reich; but it does perhaps offer the elements of an improved understanding of how this historically novel form of government functioned…. In various ways my work offers a corrective to the oversimplified picture of a monolithic system and a well-oiled super state…which understandably arose because so many contemporaries were influenced by the final phase of the war… and by the enormous effort which had been required to bring down Hitler’s Germany.” (Pg. ix) He continues, “The title chosen for my book… points to this inconsistency; to the fact that National Socialist control under Hitler’s absolute leadership could not be reconciled with the normal practice and government, and indeed more and more undermined the essentials not only of the constitution but of the state as such.” (Pg. xi)

In the first chapter, he states, “The success story of the NSDAP mirrored the tragedy of the Republic and vice versa. No other party… was so dependent for its success on the crisis. More precisely, success or failure was determined by the extent to which the socio-political forces of the ‘bourgeois middle’ and conservative right were prepared to treat with the NSDAP, to join it or to make arrangements with it. The sudden mass swing to the NSDAP after 1929/1930 far exceeded any other movements between the parties during the Weimar Republic’s history… The NSDAP could not accomplish such a revolution by itself. It required the protection, or at least the goodwill, of middle-class and conservative forces in the government, armed forces, the Church, commerce and politics, which had also been the case in Munich before 1923.” (Pg. 2)

He says of Alfred Rosenberg’s book ‘The Myth of the Twentieth Century’: “[The book] really appeared at an inconvenient time and was all the less welcome to Hitler in that it gave the Church and the Centre Party a renewed opportunity to point to the fundamental anti-Christian attitudes of National Socialism. In fact the NSDAP was particularly at pains during the Republic’s final years to prove its positive attitude towards Christianity, and by criticism the atheism of the Marxist parties…” (Pg. 27) He notes, “Like its forerunners from autumn 1930, Hitler’s government was an emergency cabinet which owed its existence not to a parliamentary majority but to the Reich President’s right to pass emergency decrees.” (Pg. 58)

Of the "Decree of the Führer on the German Labour Front,' he notes, “Hitler was in a quandary since his ‘decree’ clearly contradicted the Law for the Ordering of National Labor, and besides the validity of a ‘Führer decree’ issued without the counter-signature of a Reich Minister and not even published in the [Reich law gazette] was bound to give considerable doubt. However, as Hitler was himself reluctant to retract it, the decree stood (despite its considerable illegality).” (Pg. 152)

He recounts, “After a total of twenty-nine Jewish department stores had been burnt and destroyed and numerous others ‘aryanized’ in conjunction with the organized pogrom on the ‘Night of broken glass’ [Nov. 9-10, 1938], the Party’s anti-department store campaign also generally subsided. Indeed the Aryan department stores, with their rationalized distribution machinery and to some extent strengthened trough the enforced exclusion of Jewish rivals, later proved to be an ideal instrument for control under the conditions of quota fixing of the War economy.” (Pg. 161)

He observes, “in contrast to the corporatist middle-class ideology, the national soil and peasant ideology was a fixed component of Hitler’s thought, and in this case the discrepancy between ideology and reality was not due to cynicism but was enforced by harsh economic realities.” (Pg. 180)

He states, “Terrorist and anarchist tendencies were deeply rooted in the Hitler movement as a result of the twelve-year … ‘time of struggle’, and the confederate structural principles of this movement arising from the traditions of the front-line fighter and the Freikorps defied regulation by the state just as in 1919/20 the Freikorps resisted integration in the state’s new Reichwehr. But the NSDAP had itself called for a ‘strong state’ in common with other forces of the National Right and in this connection had fiercely attacked the patronage of officers of the democratic parties from 1929 to 1930, under the slogan of ‘restoration of the professional civil service.’” (Pg. 193)

He points out, “Hitler also knew how to give the impression of the pious, humble leader though frequent public invocations of ‘the Almighty’ and ‘Providence,’ and in the Protestant districts of the Reich S.A. and S.S. men were often ordered to turn out en masse for services in order to reinforce this impression.” (Pg. 223)

He explains, “It is practically impossible to define the structure of the economic planning authorities which developed after the Four Year Plan according to the categories of any bureaucratic state administration. Nominal functions and ancillary organizations signified little. The actual process of decision-making changed and depended on the fluctuating development of personal relations and groupings, on the changing authority (derived from Hitler in the last resort) of key figures like Göring, Todt and Speer, and on the personal loyalties and ambitions of their agents. And here the business interests of the organs and managers from the private economic sector who were involved in the process must not be underestimated.” (Pg. 304)

He notes, “The extraordinary apparatus of the Führer’s authority was bound to clash sooner or later, and thus to generate conflict with the administration and judicature within what were still bound to be close legal restraints in the Old Reich.” (Pg. 323)

He summarizes, “The marriage of an authoritarian system of government with the mass movement of National Socialism seemed to be successful in spite of considerable friction over key points, and also to have overcome the shortcomings of the authoritarian system.” (Pg. 349) “The laws on healthy stock passed in 1933/4, in which Hitler and the Party were heavily involved, enforced the sterilization of the mentally ill and those with hereditary illness, whilst the Nuremberg laws (of 1935) for the protection of the blood---which made marriage and intercourse between Germans and Jews punishable---were almost a substitute for the absence of other revolutionary successes by the Party. They were also cheap concessions which were granted relatively lightly to the fanaticism of National Socialism by the conservative forces of the regime and of missile-class nationalist society. This was repeated on a larger scale later with the National Socialist population policy in the incorporated Eastern territories.” (Pg. 355)

This book may interest those studying the history and development of the Nazi state.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Martin Broszat takes an unusually thorough look at the governing machinery of the Third Reich, concluding, like others, that the system was largely run through the force of personality and whim rather than law or even ideology. He describes this condition as “polycracy” (Polycratie), and opposes it to concepts of “Totalitarianism” which are based in a “monocratic” vision of dictatorship. He supports this by looking at bureaucratic, administrative, and legal structures that often go ignored in other studies, in favor of flashier organizations like the SS or Wehrmacht, or of big personalities like Goebbels or Himmler. These individuals put in their appearances, as does Hitler of course, but you will see a lot more of names like Funk, Frick, Lammers, and Schacht than in other books on the era. The detail on laws, their passage, and their implementation is almost overwhelming at times. There is a definite strength in Broszat’s approach, although some have questioned his “intentionalist” conclusions regarding the Holocaust (which is not taken up in great detail here).

I read this book in German, which means I went very slowly, and still probably missed some of the subtleties of the argument.

[Suzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really important and deep book on the topic but I remember it being so difficult to read that I had to implement a whole new system of reading. I was also told by German speaking people that it is 'easier to read in in English, since the translation process requires the sentences to get broken up.'