The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

A cloak of “legality” was given to the arbitrary arrests and the incarceration of victims in concentration camps. The term was Schutzhaft, or “protective custody,” and its exercise was based on the Law of February 28, 1933, which, as we have seen, suspended the clauses of the constitution which guaranteed civil liberties.

Article 11. The following offenders, considered as agitators, will be hanged: Anyone who… politicizes, holds inciting speeches and meetings, forms cliques, loiters around with others; who for the purpose of supplying the propaganda of the opposition with atrocity stories, collects true or false information about the concentration camp; receives such information, buries it, talks about it to others, smuggles it out of the camp into the hands of foreign visitors, etc.

The decree, which suspended all civil rights, remained in force throughout the time of the Third Reich, enabling the Fuehrer to rule by a sort of continual martial law.

The Wilhelmstrasse is delighted. Either Mussolini will stumble and get himself so heavily involved in Africa that he will be greatly weakened in Europe, whereupon Hitler can seize Austria, hitherto protected by the Duce; or he will win, defying France and Britain, and thereupon be ripe for a tie-up with Hitler against the Western democracies. Either way Hitler wins.14

To make the voice of reason heard in the frenzied atmosphere of Nazi Germany in 1937 was an impossible task, as Schacht realized,

HITLER: That’s as may be. I am telling you once more that things cannot go on in this way. I have a historic mission, and this mission I will fulfill because Providence has destined me to do so… who is not with me will be crushed… I have chosen the most difficult road that any German ever took; I have made the greatest achievement in the history of Germany, greater than any other German. And not by force, mind you. I am carried along by the love of my people…

demonstrating his bold leadership and emphasizing that he alone would make the decisions in foreign policy and that it was the Army’s role merely to supply the force, or the threat of force.

Hitler’s instructions, as revealed in a Foreign Office memorandum, were that “demands should be made by the Sudeten German Party which are unacceptable to the Czech government.”

“We must always demand so much that we can never be satisfied.”

for cooking up a stew in a land he coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and concealing his real purpose.

Propaganda warfare [emphasis in the original] must on the one hand intimidate the Czechs by means of threats and wear down their power of resistance; on the other hand it must give the national minorities indications as to how to support our military operations and influence the neutrals in our favor.

Economic warfare has the task of employing all available economic resources to hasten the final collapse of the Czechs…

In the course of military operations it is impo...

increase the total economic war effort by rapidly collecting information about important factories and setting them going again as soon as possible. For this reason the sparing—as far as military operations permit—of Czech industrial and...

For the Fuehrer, against war, against boss rule, peace with the Church, free expression of opinion, an end to the Cheka terror, restoration of justice, reduction of contributions to the party by one half, no more building of palaces, housing for the common people and more Prussian probity and simplicity.

The very maintenance of its bare existence was, admittedly, difficult in a police state dominated by terror and spying. Moreover, how could a tiny group—or even a large group, had there been one—rise up in revolt against the machine guns, the tanks, the flame throwers of the S.S.?

“If the Fuehrer is determined to settle this matter by force without waiting even for a discussion between ourselves, why did he let me come? I have wasted my time.”

I pictured the scenes I had read of in 1914 when the cheering throngs on this same street tossed flowers at the marching soldiers, and the girls ran up and kissed them… But today they ducked into the subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence… It has been the most striking demonstration against war I’ve ever seen.

“The public, down to the last man,” he wrote, “realizes that political drives like those of November 9 were organized and directed by the party, whether this is admitted or not.”*

Incidentally, I would like to say that I would not like to be a Jew in Germany.

World opinion was shocked and revolted by such barbarity in a nation which boasted a centuries-old Christian and humanist culture. Hitler, in turn, was enraged by the world reaction and convinced himself that it merely proved the power and scope of “the Jewish world conspiracy.”

Poland’s existence is intolerable and incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany’s life. Poland must go and will go—as a result of her own internal weaknesses and of action by Russia—with our aid… The obliteration of Poland must be one of the fundamental drives of German policy… [and] is attainable by means of, and with the help of, Russia.

“were subjected to even greater degradations than can ever have been inflicted on the chieftains of the Sioux tribes.”

I once took over a State which was faced by complete ruin, thanks to its trust in the promises of the rest of the world and to the bad regime of democratic governments… I have conquered chaos in Germany, re-established order and enormously increased production… developed traffic, caused mighty roads to be built and canals to be dug, called into being gigantic new factories and at the same time endeavored to further the education and culture of our people.

Besides, Hitler adds, the population of non-German territories in the East will be available as a source of labor—an early hint of the slave labor program he was later to put into effect.

May 23,

M. Burckhardt said [the High Commissioner later reported] that that would lead to a general conflict. Herr Hitler replied that if he had to make war he would rather do it today than tomorrow, that he would not conduct it like the Germany of Wilhelm II, who had always had scruples about the full use of every weapon, and that he would fight without mercy up to the extreme limit.

It was for this reason, the note explained, that Russia “was participating in the organization of a defensive front against [German] aggression.”

Essentially, all depends on me, on my existence, because of my political talents. Furthermore, the fact that probably no one will ever again have the confidence of the whole German people as I have. There will probably never again in the future be a man with more authority than I have. My existence is therefore a factor of great value. But I can be eliminated at any time by a criminal or a lunatic.

shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war—never mind whether it is plausible or not.

I fear one thing [Voroshilov said]. The French and English sides have allowed the political and military discussions to drag on too long. That is why we must not exclude the possibility, during this time, of certain political events.*

Tension in the capital had been building up all day. Since early afternoon all radio, telegraph and telephone communication with the outside world had been cut off on orders from the Wilhelmstrasse.

he himself did not believe that the Fuehrer would do what he said he would do.

“by the blood of Christ… the strong [to] hear us that they may not become weak through injustice… [and] if they desire that their power may not be a destruction.”

This ignorance

mind and character and purposes of Adolf Hitler, and indeed of the Germans, who, with a few exceptions, were ready to follow him blindly no matter where nor how, regardless of morals, ethics, honor, or the Christian concept of humanity, was to cost the peoples led by Roosevelt and the monarchs of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway and Denmark dearly in the months to come.

You ask: But the German people can’t possibly believe these lies? Then you talk to them. So many do.

“in the name of humanity and for the repose of his own conscience not to let pass this last chance of a peaceful solution.”

If they did, it was not his fault and it would be “very painful” to him.

but by this time, of course, the Nazi dictator expected everyone to swallow his lies.

In fact they were a hoax. They were a sham to fool the German people and, if possible, world opinion into believing that Hitler had attempted at the last minute to reach a reasonable settlement of his claims against Poland.

If an educated, cultivated and experienced diplomat such as Hassell could be so woolly in his thinking is it any wonder that it was easy for Hitler to take in the mass of the German people?

How can a country go into a major war with a population so dead against it?”

Good propaganda, to be effective, as Hitler and Goebbels had learned from experience, needs more than words. It needs deeds,

as though he himself were dazed at the fix he had got himself into and felt a little desperate about it.

I trust I may live to see the day when Hitlerism has been destroyed and a liberated Europe has been re-established.

The conversion of the whole of German industry to “war economy” was ordered.

U-30 torpedoed and sank the British liner Athenia some two hundred miles west of the Hebrides as it was en route from Liverpool to Montreal with 1,400 passengers, of whom 112, including twenty-eight Americans, lost their lives.

For cynicism Hitler had met his match in Stalin.

Both parties will tolerate in their territories no Polish agitation which affects the territories of the other party. They will suppress in their territories all beginnings of such agitation and inform each other concerning suitable measures for this purpose.