I don’t want to risk being seen as an apologist for Hitler or some kind of neo-Nazi but I am going to present something that may be seen as controversial but which without, we cannot properly understand, and so explain, Hitler’s rise to power and his success in power (at least until 1941). For I am going to focus on Hitler’s bravery. He was a brave soldier and he was a brave politician. To deny so is to be blind to the truth, and that makes for bad history. So here goes. I am going to focus on three examples of his bravery. The first before he had any notion of entering politics, the second when he had not consolidated his power base, and the third when he was just setting out on a foreign policy that he knew would eventually lead to war, but which at the time Germany was not ready for.
And for the first, we go back to WW1. Hitler not only volunteered to serve in the German army in WW1, but petitioned the Bavarian king, Ludwig III, in order to do so. There is a famous photograph of him in the crowd in the centre of Munich on August 2nd, celebrating the German declaration of war on Russia the day before. He looked genuinely excited by the prospect. And he was in the thick of the fighting throughout the war: the first Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, the third Battle of Ypres, the Ludendorff Offensive and the last Battle of Ypres too. That is some list.
But what is more, Hitler didn’t just serve, he did so with great personal courage. He was hit in the leg at the Battle of the Somme in October, 1916 and was temporarily blinded by gas in the last Battle of Ypres in October, 1918. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class in December, 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class (rarely given to men of his lowly rank) in August, 1918. Hitler was undoubtedly a war hero. He not only served his country but fought for the right to do so, He served without complaint, and he served bravely. And there can be no doubt that, though there might have been emotional hyperbole in his account in Mein Kampf, his sense of devastation on hearing the news of the Kaiser’s abdication and the armistice, in other words that the war had been lost, was real.
If we jump forward to 1923 when Germany was once more humiliated (this time by the French occupation of the Ruhr), and its government forced to back down and agree to resume its payments of the hated reparations, Hitler decided to act. He decided to take over the state government of Bavaria before marching on Berlin, in the style of Mussolini’s ‘March on Rome’, and take over the German government. Yes, he was under some pressure to act or else he might lose the leadership of the nationalist cause, but act he did, and he led from the front. What happened in Munich on November 8th–9th was chaotic yet dramatic, farcical yet involving considerable bravery.
On the evening of November 8th, 1923, Gustav Kahr, the State Commissioner, General von Lossow, commander of the Reichswehr in Bavaria, and Colonel Hans von Seisser, the head of the Bavarian State police were all attending a political rally in a beer hall in Munich (quite a normal kind of venue for political rallies at that time). While Kahr was speaking to a crowd of some 3,000 people, S.A. troops surrounded the beer hall and mounted a machine gun at its entrance, whilst Hitler, leading from the front, stormed into the hall. With the place in uproar, Hitler fired a shot into the air and warned the crowd that the hall was surrounded by six hundred armed men. Hitler then took Kahr’s place at the rostrum and announced the National Revolution, claiming that both the state and national governments had been removed and a provisional national government formed; and that both the police and the army in Munich were already on their side.
Hitler then led Kahr, Lossow and Seisser into a side chamber where he threatened them at gun point that if they didn’t join him in the revolution and accept the posts he offered them, then he would shoot all three of them, and then himself. However, they resolutely refused to be bullied into something they clearly did not support. At this point, the crowded hall needed reassuring and Hitler went back into the hall and simply announced that the three had joined him in forming a new national government. Hitler would head the government and Ludendorff would take over the leadership of the Army which, he assured them, would back him. He cried out to the crowd, ‘I can say this to you. Either the German Revolution begins tonight, or we will all be dead by dawn!’[1] It was dramatic stuff. But it was all sheer bluff. Nothing that the crowd had been told was true. Hitler was no more in a position to seize control of Munich, never mind Germany, as anyone else in the crowd.
Meanwhile a trusted colleague had been sent to bring Ludendorff, who knew nothing of the plan, to the beer hall. When he arrived and learnt what was going on, he was furious at being associated with a coup. Nevertheless, Ludendorff seemed to win the triumvirate over. Hitler Kahr, Lossow and Seisser, now with Ludendorff, all returned to the meeting and all pledged their support to the putsch. The meeting broke up convinced that a coup was underway.
From this point things went badly wrong for the putsch so that by the following morning they had to hastily adopt an alternative plan. It was actually suggested by Ludendorff. He and Hitler would march at the head of their supporters to the centre of the city and take it over. Ludendorff was convinced that no soldier nor the police (who were mostly ex-soldiers) would fire on him, such was the esteem he thought he still had. And this is what they did, marching out of the gardens of the beer hall at the head of 3,000 storm troopers. Hitler waved his revolver, the storm troopers were armed with rifles, some with bayonets fixed, and there was a truck with machine guns at the ready. And they had hostages, taken during the meeting in the beer hall and including two Bavarian cabinet ministers. This got them through the cordon of police guarding the Ludwig Bridge which they needed to cross.
But when they met a second cordon of police near the War Ministry (where Rohm and his men were still surrounded by regular troops in a stand-off), the police stood firm. As is understandable in such events, it is unclear which side fired the first shot, but shots were fired on both sides and sixteen Nazis and three policemen were killed, many more wounded. The marchers had been linked to each other. The man linked to Hitler’s left was killed, Goering was badly wounded. Hitler dislocated his shoulder as he fell to the floor. The marchers fled, all except for Ludendorff who stood his ground. Hitler was sped away to the home of a close friend of Hitler. It was from there that he was arrested two days later. Ludendorff was arrested on the spot. Goering was smuggled across the border into Austria. Rohm surrendered at the War Ministry.
Now OK, the coup was badly planned (it could even be described as desperate) but nevertheless, it was bravely carried out by Hitler. Throughout he led from the front, both in seizing control of the meeting in the beer hall and in leading the march through the streets of Berlin and facing down the armed police. The comrade next to him was shot dead, it could just have easily have been him (don’t we wish). We can say the plot was foolish, we can declare it an act of treason but we cannot deny the bravery of those who took part, particularly the man who led it.
Next I want to jump forward to June, 1934. Hitler is now Chancellor of Germany but has not yet fully consolidated his hold on power. Whilst he was concerned that the elites, particularly the army, could still turn against him, he also faced a threat from within his own party as the SA led by Rohm were demanding a second socialist revolution that Hitler didn’t want (so they might move against him, and they numbered some two million and were armed).
Everyone in Germany was also aware of Hindenburg’s failing health and rumours of plots and counter-plots were swirling around Berlin again as tension rose. Hitler met with Hindenburg and was told in no uncertain terms that unless the present state of tension was brought quickly to an end, the President would impose martial law and would hand over the running of the state to the Army. The old man was clearly not finished as Hitler had thought, and he could yet pull the rug from under Hitler. Hitler was in danger of losing power. Then on June 25th General von Fritsch put the army on a state of alert, cancelling all leave. Hitler received reports that the SA were planning putsches in Berlin and Munich (there were in fact no such plans – there were never any plans to overthrow Hitler). So as in 1923, he was being pressured to act, but as in 1923, act he did.
In the early hours of June 30th, Hitler flew to Munich and drove to Wiessee, near Munich, where Rohm was meeting with SA leaders. There he led the arrests, personally arresting Rohm. SA leaders were summarily executed. It is said that Hitler had given Rohm the opportunity to end his own life, giving orders for a gun to be left in his room, but when Rohm declined the offer, he too was shot. Back in Berlin, 150 SA leaders were rounded up and shot. Others to whom the Nazis held a deep grudge also fell victim to the purge. Schleicher, who you will know of, was shot on his doorstep. Gregor Strasser, who you might know of, was also killed. The total number killed is unknown, the Nazis put it at seventy-seven but other investigations have put the number much, much higher.
In a speech to the Reichstag (now a chamber without any authority, a chamber consisting almost exclusively of Nazis) on July 13th, Hitler declared: ‘In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people.’
He had acted decisively, he had acted bravely and again, he had led from the front.
Now I accept that we can put another spin on Hitler’s actions in 1923 and again, in 1934: desperate, foolhardy, reckless, criminal, all come to mind. But they were also brave, and that’s certainly how Germans came to see them (whilst his war record spoke for itself). Here was someone standing up, not for personal gain, but for his county and for what he believed (Mein Kampf – My struggle). Here was also someone who would lead from the front. Contrast this to the way the “November criminals”, the leaders of Weimar who had overseen the “Treaty of Shame”, 1923 and the Great Depression were perceived. Hitler was seen as a brave man and I think he was a brave man. He was also desperate, foolhardy, reckless and criminal at times, and downright evil too. But we have to see the whole picture if we are to make a full explanation of why Germany, elites and people, turned to Hitler and why they overwhelmingly stayed with him to the bitter end.
[1] Quoted in Robert Gellately, p. 114
William L. Shirer recalls how, when attending the annual Nuremberg Rallies, there would be hawkers selling postcards showing four portraits: Frederick the Great, Bismarck, Hindenburg and Hitler. The inscription underneath read: ‘What the King conquered, the Prince formed, the Field Marshal defended, the Soldier saved and unified. It was an emotional pull, Hitler was shown not just as the saviour and unifier, but as the end of a lineage of great Germans. This sense of continuity in German history was also quite deliberately depicted in the term: ‘Third Reich’. The First Reich had been the medieval Holy Roman Empire, the Second Reich had been formed by Bismarck after Prussia’s defeat of France in 1871, the Third Reich was restoring Germany’s great name (after the Weimar Republic had so sullied it) and was taking it to new heights.
I want to pick up on this appeal to the glories of Germany past. I am going to look at what came to be known as the ‘Day of Potsdam’. It marked the opening of the new Reichstag after the March election of 1933 but it needs to be put into a slightly wider context. The election had been a violent affair with Nazi thugs let loose on opposition parties. But it was affected even more by the setting on fire of the Reichstag by a rogue communist and the decree which immediately followed: the Decree for the Protection of People and State which curtailed the rights of Germans (and would do until the end of the Nazi period). But Hitler wanted to change the constitution to allow him to rule without the Reichstag and without Presidential decrees. To do this he needed a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag (the reason for the March election) but he didn’t get it. What to do?
The day after the election, March 6th, the Communist Party was banned and so its eighty-one delegates could be discounted from the number Hitler needed for his two-thirds majority, though he was still short of it. Meanwhile the violence on the streets not only continued but intensified, and the Social Democrats and the trade unions were to feel its force. As had happened to the Communists, party offices were attacked, local leading officials were arrested so that the local party organisations, in desperate acts of self-protection, closed themselves down. A number of national leaders fled the country. And nothing of this was reported as Social Democrat newspapers were banned.
Such was the scale of the Nazis move against the two parties – those taken numbered in the tens of thousands (the most conservative estimate put those detained for political reasons in 1933 at over 100,000) – that, starting with Dachau just outside Munich, the Nazis opened concentration camps to house their victims (Dachau was opened on March 10th) . This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction either, it had long been planned. The camps were put under the control of the SS and quickly became what Richard Evans describes as ‘a world without regulations or rules.’[1] The violence was brutal, not sophisticated psychological violence, but the violence of the fist, the boot, the truncheon; and the gun. And what is more, the conditions in the camps was given wide publicity. The Nazis wanted their enemies, real or potential, to know what awaited them if they dared oppose the ‘national revolution’.
And most Germans accepted it. They had been conditioned to violence throughout Weimar. It had been an almost ever-present part of political life in Germany: the German Revolution the Spartacist Uprising, the Freikorps and finally the multiplicity of paramilitary groups. The Reichstag fire and the Nazi’s claim that it was intended to herald the start of a Communist revolution, was enough to convince most of those who mattered to Hitler that such extreme measures were necessary. After all, hadn’t Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire emergency decree? And if Social Democrats were included in the round-up of victims, well weren’t they Marxists too?
They may or may not have been reassured by Hitler’s pronouncement on March 10th, the same day that Dachau opened, that ‘The national uprising will continue to be carried out methodically and under control from above.’ But his angry repost to criticisms of the level of violence, voiced by his Nationalist partners in the coalition including Papen, raging against the ‘weakness and cowardice of our bourgeois world in proceeding with kid gloves instead of the iron fist’[2], might lead to more concern from amongst the elites and, too, the law abiding middle classes.
So, for the time being at least, Hitler had to keep the traditional conservative elites as well as the middle classes on board. Hindenburg could, after all, sack him. The answer was to be a display of pomp and ceremony, a day of unity, a day of “Germaness”: the ‘Day of Potsdam’.
The Day of Potsdam, March 21st, as we have noted, marked the opening of the new Reichstag following the elections and was held in the Garrison Church of the Prussian army. It would normally have taken place in the Reichstag building itself but, of course, it had been burnt down. Josef Goebbels, the Nazi’s Head of Propaganda, saw the immense symbolic potential of the setting. The Church had been built by Frederick William I in 1735 and the tombs of the ‘soldier king’ and his son, Frederick the Great lay side-by-side in the crypt. The Church had been designed to display Prussian military greatness: trumpets, flags and cannon decorated the stone of the chancel, the weather vane on the church tower held the initials FWR and featured a Prussian eagle soaring up towards the sun.
Goebbels, having been made Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda on March 13th, took personal control of the preparations, maximising the full potential of the day, even choosing the date, March 21st, the first day of spring and the date of the opening of the first German Reichstag by Bismarck following the creation of the German Empire in January 1871. The whole thing was aimed at gaining the confidence of the Old Order but also aligning the New Order, the Nazis, with it.
The streets of Potsdam (an old town just outside Berlin) were decked with German Imperial, Prussian and swastika flags (missing was the flag of Weimar Germany). The streets were also lined with ranks of Reichswehr troops and brown-shirted paramilitaries, their arms raised in salute. Veterans of the Wars of Unification were present as were the old field marshalls, generals and admirals of imperial times (the Crown Prince too), and the flags of the most renowned Prussian regiments were placed in prominent positions. Wreaths were laid on the tombs of the Prussian kings, Hindenburg paused to salute the empty throne of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a choir sang and a battery of guns fired off a salute. There was the symbolic handshake between President and Chancellor, and of course, there were speeches. Both Hindenburg and Hitler made reference to the greatness of Prussia: Hindenburg referred to Prussia’s ‘never-failing courage and love of fatherland’; Hitler paid homage to Hindenburg and to ‘the greatest of kings’: Frederick William I and Frederick the Great. And both Hindenburg and Hitler looked forward to a renewed Germany. Hitler talked of the ‘old greatness and the new strength…’ It was a great German occasion, it was a great day for the National Socialists; just as Goebbels had planned it.[3]
The ‘Day of Potsdam,’ as it quickly came to be known, signified the “happy marriage” between the old Germany of the Prussian Junker symbolised by President Hindenburg weighed down by age and his military regalia, and the new Germany, Nazi Germany, represented by Hitler wearing a suit rather than his Party paramilitary uniform, a safe pair of hands. But Potsdam too signified the utter hypocrisy of the old and the new regimes. Represented by Hindenburg’s solemn acknowledgement (with a flourish of his marshal’s baton) of the empty throne of King and Emperor. And Hitler’s public display of respect for the old order, particularly of Hindenburg. The handshake with bowed head; the words, giving thanks to ‘Providence’ that had given Germany the benefit of the great warlord’s leadership at the moment of Germany’s renewal.
And two days after the ‘Day of Potsdam’ the Reichstag met for its first session in its temporary knew home, the Kroll Opera House and, in an atmosphere of intense intimidation, Hitler would get his Enabling Act.
[1] Richard J. Evans, p. 345
[2] Quoted in Richard J. Evans, p. 348
[3] Quotes from Christopher Clark, pp. 656-7 and William L. Shirer, p. 197
There is a well-worn path in tracing the roots of Nazism and Hitler did form a philosophical base for Nazism from a number of writers, even if he was sometimes told about their works or read about them rather than studying them directly. You, I am sure, will have no trouble seeing Nazi ideals in their words. There were, though, his life experiences too: living in Vienna as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in decline, his experience as a soldier in the Great War, living in Munich in the aftermath of defeat. These are examined in separate pieces that consider ‘Hitler, the Great German Nationalist’ and Hitler’s anti-Semitism (though you can never fully get away from either). But in this piece, I will focus on the scattered writings that led others, as well as Hitler, to the same conclusions about the reasons for the mess Germany was in; and what Germany needed to get out of that:
I begin with Johann Fichte, who began his ‘Addresses to the German Nation’ at the University of Berlin in 1807 where he held the chair of philosophy, in the wake of Prussia’s defeat by Napoleon at the Battle of Jena. Despite that defeat, he argued that it was the French (as well as Latins and Jews) who were inferior to the Germans, and that Germany would rise again, led by a small elite. So, we have the German as racially superior, not just to the Jew, but to the French, who would remain a great adversary, and to the Italians whom Hitler had little regard for, certainly as a military force, even though they would be allied to them. There is also the fact that Germany would rise from defeat (as it needed to again after WW1) led by an elite. The Nazis would come to see themselves as an elite replacing the traditional elite who had shown themselves unworthy of ruling/governing Germany.
When Fichte died, his place was taken at the university by Georg Hegel whose dialectics inspired Marx and Lenin, but who also lifted the state to being of supreme importance in human life. The state, wrote Hegel, ‘has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State.’ He also saw war as a necessity for a state’s health: ‘the ethical health of peoples corrupted by a long peace …’ What is more, he argued that neither the state, nor the people who lead it, should be held back by private morals such as modesty, humility or forbearance. The state ‘must trample down many an innocent flower – crush to pieces many an object in its path.’ Like Fichte, Hegel felt Germany’s day would come.
And like Fichte, Hegel also wrote about leadership, but individuals rather than elites. He wrote about the need for ‘world-historical individuals’. These are special people: ‘They may be called Heroes, inasmuch as they have derived their purposes and their vocation, not from the calm regular course of things, sanctioned by the existing order; but from a concealed fount, from that inner Spirit, still hidden beneath the surface, which impinges on the outer world as on a shell and bursts it into pieces…. World-historical men – the Heroes of an epoch – must therefore be recognized as its clear-sighted ones; their deeds, their words are the best of their time.’ He cites as examples, Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon. Hitler, who increasingly saw himself as “given” to Germany by Providence, was therefore of the opinion that his name would be added.
Heinrich von Treitschke, another professor at the University of Berlin (between 1874 until 1896), but a historian, took Hegel’s views a lot further. His lectures were attended by officers of the General Staff of the German Army as well as officials of the Junker bureaucracy. His influence at the time was thus enormous, as it was with the Nazis. With regard to the relationship between people and the state, he said: ‘It does not matter what you think, so long as you obey.’ Exactly what the Nazi regime expected of the German people. And as for war, ‘War is not only a practical necessity, it is also a theoretical necessity, an exigency of logic. The concept of the State implies the concept of war, for the essence of the State is war.’ And what is more, ‘A people which become attached to the chimerical hope of perpetual peace finishes irremediably by decaying in its proud isolation.’ By the time he get to meet Chamberlain at Munich, Hitler was itching for war, itching to prove (to Germans as much as others) that Germany was once more a power to be reckoned with, and indeed he was bitterly disappointed at being denied war by Chamberlain’s weak submission to his demands.
Friedrich Nietzsche, by contrast, though a German himself, actually held Germans in pretty low regard. They have ‘no conception how vile they are’, he wrote. He thought that as a consequence of unification as a result of war, there existed a vulgar worship of power. He also strongly opposed anti-Semitism. None of this would be accepted by Hitler and the Nazis. Yet Hitler held him in high esteem, as did the Nazi movement too, and never tired of quoting him (mostly misinterpreting his message in the process), helped by his colourful, emotive language. Why? Because he felt state power was more important than democracy, parliaments or the rule of law – ‘Society is not entitled to exist for its own sake but only as a substructure and scaffolding, by means of which a select race of beings may elevate themselves to their higher duties.’ And he believed that the power of the individual was more important than the state – ‘When a man is capable of commanding, when he is by nature a “Master”, when he is violent in act and gesture, of what importance are treaties to him?’ He denounced Christianity as ‘the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion … I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind … no more than the typical teaching of the Socialists.’ Whereas he praised war – ‘War and courage have done more great things than charity.’ He proclaimed the coming of the master race – ‘A daring and ruler race is building itself up’, and it ‘will become the lords of the earth’ – and of the superman – ‘the magnificent blond brute, avidly rampant for spoil and victory.’ Yet his most famous concepts – the ‘will to power’ and the ‘superman’ belonged, for him, only in the world of thought and ideas, not to politics and action. Yet his words did appear to be elitist and they did appear to be racist (his sister actually led the way in vulgarizing and popularizing his ideas), and they were put to (mis)use by Right-wing nationalists including, of course, the Nazis.
Those who read Nietzche, or commentaries on his work, were most likely also aware of the work of Oswald Spengler. His book, The Decline of the West, published in two volumes, the first in 1918, the second in 1923, appeared to support the fear of those who believed that Germany had no sooner been made than it was in decline, and would continue to be so unless that decline was arrested. Spengler said that history went through phases similar to the seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn and winter, and that Germany was experiencing a winter in which established state institutions were collapsing as the masses took over control. But this didn’t mean that all was lost for spring follows winter and Spengler anticipated an ‘awakening’, the rebirth of an ‘agricultural-intuitive’ state. There doesn’t seem to be a gigantic leap of faith to take us to the position held by German nationalists in Weimar, nor to the Nazi’s belief in ‘blood and soil’.
Another contemporary of Weimar, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, saw liberalism, more even than Weimar itself, as the problem. His book, Das Dritte Reich (‘The Third Reich’), published in 1923, unintentionally provided the Nazi state with its historic name. He associated the First Reich with Charlemagne and the Second Reich with Bismarck. Both were inspirational and provided strong leadership, the opposite of Party government and the divisory experience of the Weimar Republic. The Third Reich would be the ‘final Reich’, but it would require a nationalist revolution. The book was a passionate attack on liberalism and social democracy in Germany and too, an attack on the Jewish population in Germany. He felt that liberalism was synonymous with reason which he felt was inferior to understanding. And he blamed liberalism for creating society which had replaced community. He saw the Jews as uprooted people without a homeland. Many Nazi’s, including Hitler, did not embrace Moeller but Joseph Geobbels did and Geobbels made him a hero in Right-wing circles.
But of all Germans, it was Richard Wagner that symbolized everything, or just about everything, Nazism stood for. Hitler himself would say, ‘Whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner’ Though he was as passionate a German nationalist and as passionate an anti-Semite as Hitler, and he had no time for democracy and parliaments, and little regard for the bourgeoisies who he thought were nothing more than mediocre, it was nevertheless his music that spoke to Hitler. He loved it. Wagner is famous for his operas: Tristan und Isolde, Hitler’s favourite, or Nibelungen Ring (actually four operas), recognized as his masterpiece. Wagner took mythical German tales portraying a sense of destiny, tribal codes, pagan heroes who held no fear fighting pagan gods, worlds overwhelmed by violence, the nobility of death. Wagner came closest to encapsulating Hitler’s sense of Weltanschauung, his view on how life should be lived.[1]
Hitler didn’t make a systematic study of any of these works. He was always more a man of action and as I say in my introduction, he was also very much influenced by his own experiences. But he did read and he did discuss these ideas with like-minded colleagues, and that they so closely tie to his own thinking and to Nazi policies and ways of operating, are plain to see.
[1] Quotes from William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 98-101 and pp. 110-11