More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Hitler’s shaky sense of self-worth made him overreact whenever anyone dared to contradict him.
The suggestive, binding power Hitler exercised over others reflected the self-delusional power he had over himself. Other people found Hitler so convincing, Krosigk remarked in 1945, because he was carried away himself by the momentum of his own words and thought, and completely believed in the truth of what he said.
It was up to his subordinates to identify the core of Hitler’s digressive flights of fancy and translate it into practical instructions.
“He couldn’t see another car on the road in front without ordering his driver to pass it and leave it in the dust,”
with medals and badges: that too only increased the effect of his calculated modesty.
That income allowed him to initially refuse to accept his salary as Reich chancellor. He announced that decision in February 1933 with great pomp, underscoring his desire to nourish the public legend of the ascetic Führer.
He liked to laugh, but fundamentally it always came at others’ expense.”
But there was another reason for Hitler’s nocturnal habits: he hated being alone. “It was striking how he shied away from it,” Dietrich reported. “It often seemed to me that he was afraid of his own inner dialogues.”
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.
“All counterweights to his power were suddenly swallowed up and disappeared,”
Instead, almost all institutions and social groups within Germany bent over backwards to accommodate and support the new regime.
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 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.
“Anyone who refuses to convert has to be forced,” an officer attending the meeting quoted Hitler. “Marxism is to be utterly rooted out.”
“Attack on Marxism” was the chief slogan Hitler chose for the approaching election.
Decree for the Protection of the German People that allowed the government to curtail the right to free speech and free assembly and subjected the two left-wing parties, the SPD and the KPD, to massive restrictions.
“Police officers who use their weapons in the performance of their duties will be covered by me regardless of the consequences. Conversely, those who hesitate to do their duty will suffer disciplinary action.”36 This “fire-at-will decree” was in effect a licence to kill, as Count Harry Kessler recognised: “From now on all of us who do not stand on the so-called ‘national’ ground, i.e. who are not Nazis, can be killed with impunity.”
auxiliary police force consisting of members of the “national associations”—the SS, the SA and the Stahlhelm—ostensibly for the purpose of combating “increasing unrest from radical left-wing and especially Communist quarters.”
Auxiliary police force to combat leftists.
sort of advantages the National Socialists derived from the Reichstag fire.
That opened the door not only for the Nazis to persecute anyone who disagreed with them but also to bring Germany’s often resistant states into line.
emergency decree, which was sold to him as a “special ordinance to fight Communist violence.”
“In this regard, I am not required to establish justice. In this regard, I am required to eradicate and eliminate and nothing more!”
Nor did the SA’s brutal persecution of Communists draw any condemnation from the middle classes. On the contrary, the bête noire of a “Communist threat,” reinforced by years of propaganda, led many people to see draconian measures as justified.
“The ruthless intervention of the national government may be somewhat alienating for many people, but there needs to be a thorough cleansing and clearing up. The anti-national forces must be rendered harmless. Otherwise no recovery will be possible.”
left-wing parties “were completely denied their constitutional right to address their supporters during the final and most important week of the campaign.”
“In front of the polling station only Nazi and Black, White and Red posters, nothing from the State Party, the SPD or the KPD,”
The representatives of the KPD will not appear at the inauguration of the Reichstag because they find themselves in detention.”
That, of course, did not stop the Nazis from claiming that they had received a mandate to remake the Hamburg senate along their own lines.
Under the pretext of having to re-establish “peace and order,” the Reich Interior Ministry would intervene and appoint Reich commissioners.
Preliminary Law for Bringing the States into Line
Within a matter of weeks, the vice-chancellor, who as recently as 30 January had depicted himself as the ringmaster taming the Nazis, had been pushed to the political margins.
“The open departure from the rule of law, and the general feeling that justice no longer exists, has a tyrannical effect.”
As long as the Nazi government doesn’t punish some of their members who are out of control and make examples of them, I fear that the situation won’t calm down.
“If the conservative nationalists and other bourgeois have suddenly lost their nerve and think they have to write open letters to me, they should have done so before the election…” Hitler wrote, mockingly. “I most insistently request of you, my dear Herr Vice-Chancellor, to refrain from addressing such complaints to me in the future.”86 Still,
Nazi leaders stepped up their efforts to institutionalise the terror tactics used against their enemies.
“Dear God, strike me numb / Lest to Dachau I do come”
“Now everyone is a Nazi,” Goebbels noted on 24 February. “Makes me sick.”
the “flip-flop of the middle classes’ as “the most shameful aspect of this entire time.”
“Na, suchst du auch’n Pöstchen”—“So you too want a little job.”
Another way of declaring political allegiance was to use the greeting “Heil Hitler,” and Sefton Delmer noted that the people most apt to use the new social address were those who had dismissed Hitler as a “clown” just a few weeks earlier.
the sight of people spontaneously performing the raised right-arm salute extremely alienating.
“The best of my young friends are declaring their allegiance to National Socialism…You can’t talk to them at all. They simply believe. And there are no rational arguments against faith.”
It seemed as though Hitler were about to transform himself from a narrow-minded party leader into a statesman and a “people’s chancellor,” who bridged gaps and reconciled contradictions instead of polarising people.
“upstanding people” such as Social Democrats were being “labelled Marxists and excluded from the community of the German people.”
The “parliamentary hullabaloo,” the president said, had always been “deeply alien and unsavoury” to him.
The Enabling Act was limited to four years (Article 5) and allowed the Reich government to decree national laws “outside the process envisioned by the Reich constitution” (Article 1). It was permissible for such laws “to deviate from the constitution” (Article 2). In place of the Reich president, the Reich chancellor was allowed to formulate and publish laws (Article 3). In addition, the Reich government was granted the right to negotiate contracts with foreign countries without consulting the Reichstag (Article 4).
“national decay caused by the mistaken teachings of Marxism,”
“morally cleanse the body of the people.”
the government of “national uprising” could not do its job if “it had to request and negotiate permission from the Reichstag in every case.”
It was the last time for twelve years that anyone would make a public declaration of support for democratic principles and the rule of law in front of the Reichstag.
