The Nazis- a Warning From History Page 9

  Johannes Zahn reveals that by 1938 Schacht was not alone in thinking that Nazi economic policies must fail: ‘But we all, me included, we all underestimated what you could achieve with state power through pay freezes, exchange controls and concentration camps.’

  Once this deficit financing had been running for several years (rather than the initial ‘pump priming’ process that trained economists would have favoured, in which deficit financing was used just to start the stalled economy), Schacht must have been asking himself the question – how can Germany get out of this mess? The answer, at least to Herr Zahn, was frighteningly clear: ‘One day the Nazi regime would have collapsed economically and Hitler thought, to put it crudely, what I do not get voluntarily I will try and take through war. So the war broke out and was lost.’

  Documents show that while Hitler was aware of the economic problems caused by the financing of rearmament, he saw any domestic difficulties palling beside the overwhelming foreign policy problem Germany faced and which only rearmament could solve. In a memo written at Berchtesgaden in 1936, Hitler said: ‘Germany will, as always, have to be regarded as the focus of the Western world against the attacks of Bolshevism. I do not regard this as an agreeable mission but as a serious handicap and burden for our national life . . . The extent of the military development of our resources cannot be too large, nor is its pace too swift . . . If we do not succeed in bringing the German Army as rapidly as possible to the ranks of premier army in the world so far as its training, raising of units, armaments and above all spiritual education is concerned, then Germany will be lost!’ To Hitler it was ludicrous that he must concern himself with the petty realities of economic theory in face of the need to arm the country against the perceived Bolshevik threat. ‘Hence all other desires without exception must come second to this task [of rearmament]. For this task involves life and the preservation of life, and all other desires – however understandable at other junctures – are unimportant or even mortally dangerous and are therefore to be rejected.’12

  At the same time as Hitler wrote this memo, justifying the introduction of the Four-Year Plan, he decided that Schacht should be sidelined and the drive to maximize armaments production be directed by someone interested less in the complexities of economic theory than in the crude philosophy of Nazism – Hermann Göring. Schacht had no further future in Hitler’s administration. He finally resigned and left office as Minister of Economics on 26 November 1937.

  Schacht is symbolic of those Nazi supporters who saw the new regime as a welcome change from the insecurities and failures of the Weimar period and who were striving for stability in government. They wanted a strong and prosperous Germany. If that could be accomplished only in a dictatorship, then so be it. Germany’s brief experience of democracy had not served it well. But Schacht clearly grew uneasy as Hitler’s regime progressed, gradually realizing the true realities of Nazism. He believed that rearmament of itself was not something to be opposed. In fact, to some degree it was clearly desirable to help revitalize the eco-nomy and to set aside the shame of the Versailles Treaty, which had presented Germany to the world as a neutered nation. But Hitler now appeared to have no other goal, and he was ready to pay any price so long as Germany was prepared for war.

  During the course of making the television series on which this book is based I met many men who had the same awakening as Schacht, although in most cases their awakening came later. Many thought Nazism would bring good things to Germany and, as they surveyed the initial years of the regime, culminating in the Berlin Olympics of 1936, they were well satisfied with what they saw. Many of these people now try to make sense of their own experience by referring to ‘several’ Hitlers. There was the Hitler of the 1930s (the ‘good’ Hitler), the Hitler of the initial war years (the ‘warlike’ Hitler) and there was the Hitler of the Holocaust (the ‘evil’ Hitler). It’s an understandable attitude, since few people want to believe they were part of something rotten from the first; but they were. The ‘Night of the Long Knives’, Dachau and the other concentration camps, the racism and anti-Semitism at the core of Nazi ideology – all were present from the early years. I thought more than once after talking to these people that their travels through Nazism had been like a rocket ride. They had started on the journey because they wanted an exciting new experience. Then, when the rocket went up through the clouds, they grew uneasy. ‘That was fun, but now it’s time to return,’ they would have said. But the rocket did not return. It went on and on into the dark, a bleak and horrible place. ‘But I only asked for a rocket ride,’ they said at the end of the whole horrific journey. I never wanted to go into the dark.’ But the rocket was always going into the dark if only they had looked ahead.

  Many others were to suffer the same fate as Schacht before the outbreak of war, for this was a regime that could not ‘settle down’. Leaving aside Hitler’s own visionary desires as outlined in Mein Kampf, his own sense of power and prestige relied on continual success. After some of the major foreign policy coups – leaving the League of Nations (1933), the reoccupation of the Rhineland (1936) and the Anschluss (unification) with Austria (1938) – Hitler held a plebiscite to gauge public approval for his actions and support was predictably huge. Though not a conventional politician who worried about re-election, Hitler was nonetheless continually anxious lest the regime and the country as a whole lack excitement and movement. ‘Instead of increase, sterility was setting in,’ he said in November 1937, ‘and in its train, disorders of a social character must arise in course of time.’

  Did this mean that during the 1930s Hitler planned the war? No single question about the Nazi state in the 1930s has been more debated. Much of that debate centres on one document, known as the ‘Hossbach Memorandum’. Colonel Friedrich Hossbach was Hitler’s Wehrmacht adjutant and took notes of a meeting at the Reich Chancellery on 5 November 1937 attended by the Commanders of the Air Force (Göring), Army (Fritsch) and Navy (Raeder), the Reich War Minister (Blomberg) and the Foreign Minister (Neurath).

  According to Hossbach’s notes, the meeting started with Hitler at his most portentous: ‘The Führer began by stating that the subject of the present conference was of such importance that its discussion would, in other countries, be a matter for a full Cabinet meeting, but he, the Führer, had rejected the idea of making it a subject of discussion before the wider circle of the Reich Cabinet just because of the importance of the matter. His exposition to follow was the fruit of thorough deliberation and the experiences of his four-and-a-half years in power. He wished to explain to the gentlemen present his basic ideas concerning the opportunities for the development of our position in the field of foreign affairs and its requirements, and he asked, in the interest of a long-term German policy, that his exposition be regarded, in the event of his death, as his last will and testament.’13

  Even in these few brief lines, one experiences the authentic sense of Hitler’s political character – his distrust of cabinet meetings, his fear of an early death that would cheat him of glory and his own belief in himself as a major figure in world history.

  According to Hossbach, Hitler went on to outline how he believed it was impossible for Germany to maintain self-sufficiency ‘in regard both to food and the economy as a whole’ within her current borders. Germany should now seek Lebensraum within Europe. There was, however, no mention of a campaign against Russia. Instead, he proposed that by 1943–5 at the latest, Germany should move against Czechoslovakia and achieve unification with Austria even at the risk of war with the Western powers, since after that date Germany’s relative strength could only diminish.

  At the Nuremberg Trials the Hossbach Memorandum was presented as evidence that a complete blueprint existed of Hitler’s expansionist plans. It has proved hard to sustain this position, not least because there is no mention of Russia in the document. Some argue that this omission was deliberate ‘in order not to alarm his audience’.14 On the other hand, the historian A.J.P. Taylor wrote that the Hossbach
Memorandum was essentially ‘day-dreaming, unrelated to what followed in real life’.15 The memo should be treated, in his words, as a ‘hot potato’. Yet recent study of material not available to Taylor (such as the complete run of Goebbels’ diaries) indicates clearly that Hitler knew he could not get what he wanted without conflict. But even to read just the full text of the Hossbach Memorandum is scarcely to learn the intentions of a mere day-dreamer. There could be no clearer statements than: ‘The aim of German policy was to make secure and preserve the racial community and to enlarge it. It was therefore a question of space . . . The question for Germany was where could she achieve the greatest gain at the lowest cost? . . . Germany’s problem could be solved only by the use of force, and this was never without attendant risk.’ The Hossbach Memorandum may not be a ‘complete blueprint’ for war but it is a clear statement of expansionist intention. It is evidence of a foreign policy that would offer the rest of the world a simple choice as to how it could react – capitulate or fight.

  One other policy decision is clear from the Hossbach Memorandum: the love affair with Britain was over. Throughout the meeting, Britain was lumped with France as a potential enemy whose possible reaction to Germany’s aggression should be carefully analysed. Ribbentrop had begun to influence Hitler against Britain, and would continue to do so. He wrote Hitler a note in January 1938: ‘I have worked for years for friendship with England and nothing would make me happier than if it could be achieved. When I asked the Führer to send me to London, I was sceptical whether it would work. However, in view of Edward VIII, a final attempt seemed appropriate. Today I no longer believe in an understanding. England does not want a powerful Germany nearby which would pose a permanent threat to its islands.’16

  British coolness towards Germany had also been reported to Hitler from other sources. Karl Boehm-Tettelbach accompanied Field Marshal von Blomberg to London in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI. The German delegation took the opportunity to have talks with senior British politicians. Blomberg told his aide how disappointed he had been with the results of his discussions with Baldwin, Chamberlain and Eden – especially with Eden, whom Blomberg described as ‘unfriendly’. But the Royal Family were nicer, even without the presence of the newly abdicated Edward VIII, whose friendliness to the new German regime is infamous. At the coronation dinner in Buckingham Palace Blomberg was honoured to be asked to sit at the King and Queen’s table, gaining the impression that the Royal Family wanted to be friends with the new Germany. Unfortunately for the Germans, the politicians appeared not to be so agreeable and this was the news Blomberg reported to Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Boehm-Tettelbach followed behind Hitler and Blomberg on a long walk in the mountains as the bad news was broken to the Führer. On the way back to Berlin, Boehm-Tettelbach asked Blomberg what Hitler had said about the news. ‘Nothing,’ replied Blomberg. But shortly afterwards more resources still were planned for the army, something which Boehm-Tettelbach believes ‘was the answer and reaction from the coronation’.

  Blomberg, of course, was also one of the key participants at the Hossbach meeting. Hossbach, in his memoirs, writes that neither Blomberg nor Fritsch, the commander of the army, appeared overenthusiastic after they heard Hitler explain his plans: ‘the behaviour of Blomberg and Fritsch must have made it clear to the Führer that his political ideas had simply produced sober and objective counter-arguments instead of applause and approval. And he knew very well that the two generals rejected any involvement in a war provoked by us.’17

  These two leading army officers were not behaving as Hitler would have liked. There could be no greater contrast than between their sober pragmatism and Ribbentrop’s aggressive radicalism. Unfortunately for them, Hitler much preferred the latter’s approach. According to diplomat Reinhard Spitzy, Hitler once said, ‘My generals should be like bull terriers on chains, and they should want war, war, war. And I should have to put brakes on the whole thing. But what happens now? I want to go ahead with my strong politics and the generals try to stop me. That’s a false situation.’

  Within a few months of the Hossbach meeting, those senior military officers who had not leapt enthusiastically to support Hitler’s plans were removed. Blomberg and Fritsch were forced to resign and Neurath, the Foreign Minister, was also disposed of, appointed to the powerless job of ‘president’ of a Reich secret cabinet. The linkage of these events to the Hossbach meeting seems obvious, and there is a strong temptation to make the link appear a simple one of cause and effect – as though Hitler had decided that since these men now displeased him, they should be removed. But that is not how it happened. An understanding of the true circumstances surrounding the removal of Blomberg and Fritsch reveals how Hitler and the Nazi elite worked as politicians; for rather than having a preconceived plan, they seized the moment.

  Blomberg announced his intention of marrying a commoner called Erna Gruhn. Hitler gladly gave his permission for the match: he liked the idea that an ordinary German girl would marry the grand Blomberg. The marriage was conducted quietly on 12 January 1938, with Hitler and Göring as witnesses. Karl Boehm-Tettelbach, Blomberg’s aide, was upset that the wedding was such a small affair and that he himself hadn’t been invited: ‘I called my other adjutants and said, “Now look, isn’t that strange? He’s going to marry tomorrow and we don’t even get a glass of champagne! Isn’t that strange?”’ Immediately after the wedding, following pressure from his fellow officers, Blomberg permitted a small wedding announcement to be placed in the newspaper. The next morning the paper was read by a policeman who recognized the bride’s name and, checking his files, found that this same woman had posed for pornographic pictures, some of which were even in the file. The file was passed to the chief of Berlin’s police, Count von Helldorf. He rang Karl Boehm-Tettelbach and made an appointment to see Blomberg at once, entering the ministry discreetly through a back entrance. After the meeting he said to Boehm-Tettelbach, ‘Well young boy, you’d better look for a new job.’

  On the afternoon of 26 January 1938 Hitler accepted Blomberg’s resignation. Blomberg had no alternative but to quit, living as he did by the strict honour code of the German officer corps. Blomberg returned to the Ministry of Defence, entered Boehm-Tettelbach’s room and asked him to open the safe. ‘Here is the last will of Hitler,’ Blomberg told him. ‘Take that and give it tomorrow to Hitler with my field marshal’s baton.’ Then, shaking and crying, he said, ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ and embraced him. To Boehm-Tettelbach ‘the world broke down because I believed in him and saw that he had made a big mistake in marrying someone not decent for a field marshal.’ Blomberg’s decision to hand back his baton is significant because a field marshal usually keeps it into retirement. Perhaps the shame was simply too great.

  Hitler could not have predicted these events, but once they occurred, he and his hardline subordinates exploited them. Days after Blomberg’s removal, Fritsch was forced to resign after Himmler and Göring instigated a trumped-up charge of homosexuality against him, even hiring a false witness. In addition, sixteen older generals were retired and forty-four transferred. At the same time as Hitler made these changes, he also replaced Neurath with Ribbentrop as minister of foreign affairs.18

  This radical clearing-out of any restraining element on Hitler stemmed entirely from the resignation of Blomberg – something that could not have been anticipated. But one of Hitler’s strengths as a politician was an ability to exploit a situation when it occurred. He hinted at his attitude in July 1924 when he explained, ‘The theoretician must always preach the pure idea and have it always before his eyes: the politician, however, must not only think of the great objective but also the way that leads to it.’ One reason why so many contradictions appear in German foreign policy during this period is that Hitler was always keen to exploit the immediate situation, sometimes (as in the alliance with the Soviet Union) at the short-term expense of the long-term ‘theoretical’ goal. One day during a lunch at which Reinhard Spitzy was present, Hitler said,
‘If someone is burning a little fire, I would put there my pot with soup and heat it for the good German people, and blow a little bit in the fire.’ To Spitzy it was clear he meant that ‘he wanted to take the occasions as they came, he wasn’t fixed’.

  Without, as he saw it, the shackles of the old guard, Hitler now began to pursue a more radical foreign policy, and Austria was his first target. General Alfred Jodl noted in his diary on 31 January 1938: ‘Führer wants to divert the spotlights from the Wehrmacht. Keep Europe gasping and by replacements in various posts not awaken the impression of an element of weakness but of a concentration of forces. Schuschnigg is not to take heart, but to tremble.’19 Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Chancellor of Austria, had been bravely resisting Nazi influence in his country. In 1936 an agreement had been signed in which Austria acknowledged herself to be a German state, but was nonetheless free to run her own domestic affairs. Hitler put pressure on the Austrians for still greater ties with Germany only days after the Cabinet meeting at which the changes following Blomberg’s departure had been announced. In January 1938 Franz von Papen, now ambassador to Austria, passed on to Schuschnigg Hitler’s invitation to meet him at Berchtesgaden. The meeting revealed Hitler at his most bullying. Dr Otto Pirkham was a member of the Austrian delegation and recalls how ‘on the staircase Schuschnigg was already seized by Hitler and taken to his rooms’. Hitler demanded the appointment of the Austrian Nazi, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, as Austrian Minister of Interior and the integration of Austrian economic and foreign policy with Germany’s. Schuschnigg was clearly shocked by these demands. At lunch that day, where Hitler played the amiable host and talked about trivial matters, Schuschnigg sat completely silent. At the end of the day, when Schuschnigg had been bullied into giving Hitler what he wanted, he was even more depressed and silent. ‘His silence,’ says Dr Otto Pirkham, ‘was due to the fact that what he had learned at the meeting with Hitler would not have been very agreeable.’