Third Reich

I

Introduction

Third Reich, era of the Nazi regime in Germany (1933-1945). It began following the appointment of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist and German Workers’ Party (NSDAP, or Nazi Party), as Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933. It replaced the democratic Weimar Republic, established on November 9, 1918, following Germany’s defeat in World War I and a revolution in November 1918, which overthrew the Second Reich of Kaiser William II.

II

The Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic had suffered from three major problems: a systemic political crisis, a sense of national humiliation associated with the Republic, and grave economic crises. From the start, the democratic system lacked legitimacy, having been partly imposed by the Allies on Germany as the price for an armistice, and was felt by many to be “un-German”. Above all, it failed to establish political stability. Between 1918 and 1923, a period of semi-civil war polarized opinion and exacerbated existing political divisions pre-dating World War I. An extreme form of proportional representation encouraged political fragmentation, complicating the formation of stable coalition governments; there were 16 different governments between 1919 and 1930. In addition, the new Republic had to bear the burden of responsibility for the lost war by signing the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, involving loss of territory to Poland and France and her colonies, restrictions on her armed forces, the occupation of parts of the Rhineland by Allied forces for varying periods of time, an unspecified amount in war reparations, and, most humiliating of all, acceptance of war guilt. Attempts by Weimar governments to achieve a modification of the treaty and to limit the amount of reparations met with only partial success. Finally, hyperinflation during 1923, and then the harsh terms of the subsequent revaluation of the Reichsmark, led to many middle class people losing much of their savings and further disillusionment with the Republic, now compared unfavourably with its pre-1918 predecessor, the Second Reich. A brief period of shaky economic recovery between 1924 and 1928, largely underpinned by foreign loans, was followed by the effects of the Wall Street Crash of October 1929. As US banks withdrew their loans the Republic was plunged into a second major economic crisis, a serious depression. By 1932, Germany had between 6 million and 9 million unemployed. It was against this background of political and economic crisis that the NSDAP achieved its breakthrough between 1930 and 1933.

III

The Nazi Party’s Rise to Power, 1919-1933

The NSDAP had been founded in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in January 1919. Its founders, Anton Drexler, a skilled worker and Karl Harrer, a sports journalist linked to racist circles, aimed to win the workers away from the internationalist Socialist Party (SPD) to support German nationalism, and to attack the Jews who they blamed for Germany’s plight. In September 1919 the party was joined by a 30-year-old soldier, Adolf Hitler, who was Austrian by birth and acting as an agent for the political/propaganda section of the local Army headquarters. Hitler believed that the key to Germany’s revival was to instil in the German people the will to power and, above all, to win over the workers, who alone had the mass strength and energy to achieve it. He also saw the Jews as the prime cause of the disasters of 1918. The new party, of which he became the 55th member, appeared to offer a stage on which to fulfil his mission to convert the nation and he took over the leadership in July 1921.

Bavaria in general and Munich in particular were particularly fertile soil for the NSDAP. Exploiting the backlash produced by a short-lived Soviet-style Republic, several of whose leaders were Jews, Hitler deployed his remarkable demagogic skills in the Munich beer halls to great effect, while paramilitary storm troopers (the SA) paraded through the streets and intimidated opponents. But his notorious Beer Hall Putsch of November 8-9, 1923, an attempt to prod the sympathetic Bavarian political and military authorities into launching a coup against the national (Reich) government and marching on Berlin, backfired when the authorities turned against him. Fourteen of his followers were killed in a shoot-out in central Munich, the NSDAP was banned, and Hitler was imprisoned.

Following his release in December 1924, Hitler re-founded the party in February 1925. However, during the “golden twenties”, few were interested in the NSDAP’s brand of extremist politics. But Hitler’s attempted coup and his proud and aggressive defence at his trial had made him a hero to racists throughout Germany and, between 1925 and 1928, the NSDAP established a thin national network of dedicated activists. Crucial to this organization was Hitler’s dictatorial form of leadership. It was based on what became known as the “Führer (leader) principle” and grounded on the remarkable relationship between himself and his followers. For Hitler conveyed to his followers, who were yearning for a leader, the impression that he had a calling to save Germany and possessed the exceptional gifts necessary to achieve his goal. Belief in Hitler’s leadership as the key to power provided the core round which a party containing a large number of socially diverse, ambitious, and combative individual sub-leaders could unite.

Between 1929 and 1933 the NSDAP persuaded a large minority of Germans that, under Hitler’s leadership, it was capable of resolving the national crisis. The party’s electoral campaigns under its brilliant propaganda chief, Dr Joseph Goebbels, used the most modern techniques and were conducted with exceptional drive, represented most strikingly by the marching columns of its paramilitary units, the SA (Sturmabteilung) and SS (Schutzstaffel), who impressed potential supporters, while intimidating opponents. The campaigns drove home three main messages. First, unlike its rivals, who had shared power, it was not responsible for the crisis and so could be a new broom. Secondly, unlike its exhausted opponents, it had the energy to solve Germany’s political and economic crisis. Finally, while its rivals each represented particular segments of the population—Catholics, workers, the middle class, and so on—as a classless party, representing the German people as a whole, the NSDAP could restore unity and honour to a deeply divided and humiliated nation.

The NSDAP was not voted into power by the German people; its maximum vote was 37 per cent in the Reichstag (national parliament) election of July 31, 1932. And, while the party gained support from a broad cross-section of the population, Roman Catholics, especially in rural areas, and blue-collar workers, particularly in big industrial centres, proved especially resistant. Indeed, in the six months prior to Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor the party was in electoral decline, gaining only 33 per cent in the November election, riven by factional feuding, and desperately short of money. The Nazis came to power in the nick of time as a result of backstairs intrigues on the part of members of the German elites.

In March 1930 the coalition government led by Socialist Hermann Müller had collapsed over the question of which sections of the community should bear the main burden of the economic crisis. The Right seized the opportunity to sideline the Reichstag and the Socialists by introducing government by presidential decree, permitted in an emergency by the Constitution. By January 1933 political power had become concentrated in the hands of the 85-year-old President Paul von Hindenburg and a handful of right-wing politicians, officials, and generals. When Hitler refused to accept the subordinate position of Vice-Chancellor, their mutual jealousies and their need to secure the popular support of the NSDAP for a right-wing regime to replace Weimar democracy finally persuaded them to agree to his appointment as Reich Chancellor.

IV

The Nazi Takeover of Power, 1933-1934

Although now head of the government, Hitler and the NSDAP lacked absolute power. The Nazis only had 3 out of 12 posts in the coalition government, while the president was initially suspicious of Hitler. Moreover, the Nazis only controlled 4 out of the 13 states. Indeed, the Conservative vice-chancellor, Franz von Papen, told a doubter: “Don’t worry, we’ve hired him”. But the Nazis had important advantages. First, as Chancellor, Hitler was head of government with the constitutional right to determine policy. Secondly, the two other Nazi-held ministries—the Reich Interior Ministry (Dr Wilhelm Frick) and the Prussian Interior Ministry (Hermann Göring)—gave the Nazis influence over internal security throughout Germany and direct control of the police in Prussia, covering half the population. Thirdly, through the SA and SS, the Nazis could exert power on the ground independent of the state, with which to intimidate their opponents. Fourthly, the Nazis were determined to seize power, while their opponents were demoralized by their previous failures and, with no experience of a totalitarian regime, gravely underestimated the Nazis’ potential. Finally, most Germans were desperate for a saviour and prepared to put up with rules being bent in the process of their salvation.

In February 1933 Göring began by purging the Prussian state administration of opponents, and recruiting SA and SS as “auxiliary police”. A fire in the Reichstag on February 27, laid by a lone Dutch Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was interpreted as the start of a Communist uprising and used as a pretext to issue a “Decree for the Protection of People and State” the following day. This removed the civil liberties contained in the Weimar Constitution, legitimized “protective custody” without trial or right of appeal, and provided the legal basis for the future Nazi terror system. It also permitted the Reich government to takeover power in the states in an emergency. Such was the widespread fear of Communism that the measure was generally welcomed. Meanwhile, Hitler had called a Reichstag election for March 5 to strengthen the NSDAP’s popular legitimacy. However, despite widespread harassment of its opponents, the NSDAP only gained 43.9 per cent of the vote, and the government could only achieve an overall majority of 51.7 per cent with the support of its Conservative partners.

The election was followed by the takeover of power in the states (between March 5 and March 10, 1933), achieved by mass demonstrations by the local NSDAP, followed by intervention by the Reich Interior Ministry, under the terms of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which appointed Nazi leaders to “restore order”. Following the election, the Nazis also felt free to arrest and beat up their opponents, confining them in makeshift concentration camps (Konzetrazionslager or KZs), such as that established on March 22 in a disused factory in Dachau near Munich and taken over by the Nazi SS on April 2.

The Nazis successfully portrayed their takeover as a “patriotic uprising” and, on March 21, the new Reichstag was inaugurated in a brilliant spectacle organized by the new Reich Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda established on March 13 under Goebbels. In a solemn ceremony in the Garrison Church in Potsdam, the burial place of Frederick the Great of Prussia, broadcast live, Hitler received the benediction of President von Hindenburg, war hero of World War I and veteran of the wars of German unification that had created the Second Reich. The old Germany was symbolically conferring legitimacy on the new Third Reich in a scene that had a powerful emotional resonance for upper and middle class Germans. Two days later, the Nazis succeeded in wooing and intimidating the other parties into providing the two thirds majority necessary to pass an “Enabling Law”. This enabled the government to pass legislation without the need for approval from either the Reichstag or the president. Only the Socialists voted against (the Communist deputies had been excluded).

The Nazis then sought to win over and neutralize their main potential opponents. They declared May 1, a traditional day of celebration of the Socialist labour movement and never previously officially recognized, as “National Labour Day” and obliged employers to take part. But, on the next day, they took over the offices of the powerful Socialist Trade Unions. Then, on July 14, Hitler signed a Concordat with the Papacy, in which, in return for vague concessions, the Third Reich received the official recognition of the Catholic Church. On the same day, a law was issued declaring that the NSDAP was the only officially recognized political party. In fact, by then, the other parties had either been banned or had dissolved themselves. Meanwhile, in a process known as “coordination” (Gleichschaltung) all public and private associations, societies, and clubs had ensured that they had Nazi members in senior positions, acting either under pressure or, in many cases, voluntarily.

The largest of the Nazi organizations, the paramilitary SA, with some 2 million members under its leader, Major Ernst Röhm, now sought to replace the professional Army (Reichswehr), relegating it to a purely training role. This ambition threatened Hitler’s relations with the Reichswehr, whose continuing support was vital to the consolidation of his power and his rearmament programme. Meanwhile, a number of Conservatives had become disillusioned with “revolutionary” features of the new regime and a centre of opposition had formed around Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen. On the night of June 30-July 1, 1934, known as the “Night of the Long Knives”, Hitler used the SS, with army support, to murder Röhm and a number of other SA leaders, Conservative associates of von Papen, and other individuals who had crossed him in the past, claiming that they were plotting a coup. This purge of the unruly SA had broad popular support and increased Hitler’s prestige. Then, not even waiting for the death of President von Hindenburg, on August 1, the Government issued a law appointing Hitler to the new post of “Führer and Reich Chancellor”. All members of the army and civil service swore an oath of loyalty to the person of the Führer. Hitler was now dictator of Germany.