The Legal Revolution

1
The Legal Revolution

• How the Nazis consolidated their control over the
  German Government

2
Promising Peace through the use of Violence!

• Munich Putsch
• Legal Means
• Threat of Revolution from below
• Marxist Revolution
• Impose order
• Subvert existing Weimar Constitution

3
The Appeal to the Conservatives

• The National Government will preserve and defend
  the foundations on which the strength of our
  nation rests. It will take under its firm
  protection Christianity as the basis of our
  morality, and the family as the nucleus of our
  nation. Standing above estates and classes, it
  will bring back to our people the consciousness
  of its racial and political unity, and the
  obligations arising therefrom. It wishes to base
  the education of German youth on respect for our
  great past and pride in our traditions. It will
  therefore declare merciless war on spiritual,
  political and cultural nihilism. Germany must not
  and will not sink into Communist anarchy.
• Adolf Hitler 1st February 1933 in a Radio
  broadcast

4
Structure of Weimar Government

• President
• Chancellor and Cabinet
• Reichstag
• Reichsrät (Länder)
• Reich Chancellery (Civil Service)

Gau(e)
5
The Role of Prussia A Case Study in Subversion

• Berlin
• Heartland Germany
• SPD/KPD Heartland
• Banning of SA / Public Meetings
• Von Papens Coup
• Goring as Minister of Interior

6
Timeline of key events

• Jan 30 Hitler Chancellor Harzburg Front
• Feb 27 Reichstag Fire
• Feb 28 Emergency Decrees
• Mar 5 Elections 288
• Mar 13 Ministry for Public Enlightenment
  Propaganda
• Mar 24 Enabling Act
• Nov 12 Plebiscite
• Jan 30 1934 Second Enabling Act

7
Decree for the Protection of the People and the
State

• 28th February 1933
• Article 48
• Removed Freedom of Speech
• Protective Custody
• Ability to take power from Länder to Restore
  Order
• Sold to Conservatives as Temporary Measure to
  deal with Communist threat
• KPD still allowed to stand although repressed
• still got 5 million votes
• Remained in force throughout Third Reich

8
March 5th elections

• Government uses control of radio, police,
  government offices to maximise exposure and
  intimidate opponents
• Nazi Slogan
• The battle against Marxism
• Highest ever turnout
• 88
• Nazis only get a disappointing 44
• Nationalist allies a further 8

9
Enabling Act

• 24th March
• 2/3rds majority by banning KPD
• Massive intimidation of opponents
• Centre party supports (pressure from Vatican in
  return for religious education)
• 441 to 94
• Gave emergency powers for 4 years
• Cabinet could bypass President
• Renewed in 1938

10
Post March 1933 Elections

• The Destruction of Marxism
• Rush to secure official posts
• Purges of unreliable civil servants
• Reich Commissioners to remaining 9 non-Nazi
  Lander
• Reich Ministry of Information and Propaganda
• Reichstag not abolished Nuremburg laws
  Announcements propaganda tool
• Länder maintained but without assemblies
• Reich Governors appointed to coordinate with
  centre

11
Goebbels views on using the Weimar Constitution

• We go into the Reichstag in order to acquire the
  weapons of democracy from its arsenal. We become
  Reichstag deputies in order to paralyse the
  Weimar Democracy with its own assistance. If
  democracy is stupid enough to give us free travel
  privileges and allowances for this services, that
  is its affair. Well take any legal means to
  revolutionise the existing situation. If we
  succeed in putting sixty to seventy agitators of
  our party into the various parliaments in these
  elections, then in future the state itself will
  supply and finance our fighting machinery. We
  come as enemies! Like the wolf tearing into the
  flock of sheep, that is how we come!
• Goebbels 1928 Der Angriff

12
Treatment of Civil Service

• Conservative, authoritarian tradition
• Law for Restoration of professional civil service
• Jews
• SPD
• Rush to join Nazi party
• Hitler promised that the party would not take
  over the organs of State

13
Political Parties Eliminate Enemies, Jettison
Allies.

• KPD hounded out of existence
• SPD flee to Prague outlawed
• Nationalist defections to Nazi party
• Centre party undercut by Vatican Concordat
• Schools instead of political activity
• July 14th Law against the Formation of New
  Parties
• One Party State

14
November 1933 Elections

• The Fuhrers List
• Plebiscite
• Intimidation and threats to non and anti voters
• 92 support

15
Second Enabling Act

• January 1934
• Law for the Reconstruction of the State
• Reichsrät Abolished
• Länder subordinate to central government
• Gauleiter to replace local government
• Constitutional amendments at will
• President six months later

16
The Weimar ConstitutionLeft to wither but not to
die.

• Reichstag - re-instated Enabling Act every four
  years - Nuremburg laws
• Cabinet - non-Nazi members
• President and Chancellor roles combined
• Reich Chancellery (Civil Service) - designs and
  implements its own laws
• Länder - Reich Commissioners / Gauleiter p198
• Judiciary - Peoples Courts and Special Courts if
  regular legal system too inconvenient

17
How did the Nazis remodel Germany?

• What is a dictator?
• Nazi party vis-à-vis Communist party in USSR

18
FührerPrinzip - The Cultivated Image

• Personified the Nation
• Understood the German People
• Architect of German Economic Renaissance
• Representative of German Justice
• Defender of Germany from internal and external
  threats
• Responsible for all successes

19
FührerPrinzip - Reasons for Credence

• A reaction to Weimar
• Emotional need for strong government
• Authoritarian tradition
• Extension of Nazi Party ideas on leadership
• Sustained by Economic and Foreign successes
• Enhanced by Propaganda

20
The Polycratic StateGleichschaltung!

• Working towards the Fuhrer
• Guidelines - Fuhrers Will
• Dependable Acolytes
• Departmental Competition
• Access to Hitler is key to power
• Diagram page 188 and 89 of Germany 1919-1939

21
Advantages of Hitlers style of government

• Strong emotional attachment to regime
• Failures can be blamed on underlings
• Rivals played off against each other
• No dominant individual can challenge Hitler
• Success vindicates system

22
Disadvantages of Hitlers style of government

• Few constraints - no checks or balances
• Radical momentum
• Yes men promoted
• Believe own Infallibility
• cunning political skills lost
• Failures question system
• Military disasters

23
Decision Making in Nazi Germany

• Page 191
• Nuremburg Laws
• Kristallnacht
• Euthanasia
• Horse Racing
• Who was running Germany?

24
When is a Socialist not a Socialist? When he is a
National Socialist.

• What happened to the Strasser Radical wing?
• Socialisation of industry?
• Parallels with USSR?
• May Day rebranded
• Entrepreneurs / Supporting Industries
• Unions / DAF
• Only one true secret economic desire

25
Everything for the Armed Forces

• Every publicly sponsored measure to create
  employment has to be considered from the point of
  view of whether it is necessary to render the
  German people again capable of bearing arms for
  military service. This has to be the dominant
  thought, always and everywhere
• Hitler

26
Throwing off the Shackles of Versailles

• Promises of Rearmament popular with army
• Reasons for it kept vague
• Problem of rival SA - huge - communist threat
  removed
• Kept deliberately separate from army
• To complete the Revolution
• Revolutionary phase debate

27
Say what you mean Röhm

• Adolf is a swine. He will give us all away. He
  only associates with the reactionaries now.
  Getting matey with the East Prussian generals.
  Theyre his cronies now. Adolf knows exactly what
  I want. Ive told him often enough. Not a second
  edition of the old imperial army. Are we
  revolutionaries or arent we? Weve got to
  produce something new, dont you see? A new
  discipline of organisation. The generals are a
  lot of old fogeys. They never had a new idea. Im
  the nucleus of the new army, dont you see that?
  Dont you understand that whats coming must be
  new, fresh and unused? The basis must be
  revolutionary. You cant inflate it afterwards.
  You only get the opportunity once to make
  something new and big thatll help us lift the
  world off its hinges. But Hitler puts me off with
  fair words
• Röhm in a private interview with a local party
  boss, Rauschning.

28
Victims of the Night of the Long Knives

• Health of Hindenburg
• April meeting on Deutschland
• Himmler and Göring support
• June 30th 1934
• Röhm , Shleicher, Von Kahr, Jung (von Papens
  adviser) 400 total
• Brüning escaped

29
Reaction to the Night of the Long Knives

• Radical event to please conservative army
  establishment
• Surprisingly popular
• Hitler removed serious second revolutionary
  threat
• President Hindenburg dies two months later
• Army content to see offices combined
• New oath
• The Revolutionary Phase is over
• Actually - the cautious phase was over
• Hitler now more confident of his position
• He can afford to become more radical and daring

30
Did Germany undergo a political revolution
1933/34?
31
Why did the Third Reich become more Radical post
1934?

• Decay of Weimar institutions
• Administrative confusion led to no responsibility
  being assigned
• Hitlers increasing popularity
• Success breeds success
• Propaganda

32
The Police State

• Himmlers fiefdom
• SS rewarded for night of the Long Knives
• Prussian Gestapo
• municipal Police centralised in 1936
• SD (SSs Security service)
• Diagram on page 201

33
The SS enforcement of Volksgemeinschaft

• Body Guard function
• Policing to protect the Nazi Regime
• Protective Custody
• Spying/informing
• Economic activities of SS
• Military role Waffen SS
• Enforce Master Race ideals
• Einsatzgruppen
• Cocentration Camps
• Pages 202/3

34
Hitlers Weltanschauung

• Giving Germany a distincitive direction

35
Hitlers plans required the support of

• Army
• Business
• Civil Service

36
The Dual State

• Regular Civil Service
• Supreme Reich Authorities
• Organisation Todt
• SS and Police Himmler
• 4 Year Plan Göring
• Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda

37
The Dual State

• Regular Civil Service
• Supreme Reich Authorities
• Organisation Todt
• SS and Police Himmler
• 4 Year Plan Göring
• Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda

38
The Dual State

• State Bureacracy
• Established
• No coercive power

• Nazi Executive
• Privileged
• No finances available
• Ministry of Finance
• Krosigk (Non-Nazi)

39
The German Economic Miracle?

• Unemployed reduced from 6 million to 1.8 mn
• Low inflation
• Steady growth
• Low wage growth
• Construction boom
• Housing
• Infrastructure
• Rearmament
• Comparison to Weimar

40
Directing the Nazi EconomySchacht and the
Ministry of Economics

• Respected industrialist/banker
• Ex President of Reichsbank
• Re-negotiated Young Plan
• Influenced by Keynes
• Anti-semite - sympathetic with fascism

41
Trying to square the Nazi economic circle 2 2
5

• 1934 Currency Crisis
• Balance of Trade imbalance
• Devaluation politically impossible
• Introduced complicated bilateral agreements
• Variable exchange rates
• Rearmament costs
• Autarky versus International Trade
• Meat and Fat shortage
• Bad planning (Schacht)
• Currency problem (Darré)
• Görings Intervention

42
Schachts Miracle cures?

• Wages and Prices controlled
• No Trade Unions - no wage demands
• Real wage rates fall between 1933 and 1936
• I will ensure that prices remain stable - for
  that I have the SA. Woe to the man who puts up
  prices! Hitler to Rauschning
• The first cause of the stability of our currency
  is the concentration camp Hitler to Schacht
• Debt and Reparations payments solved by Bruning
  and von Papen
• Cyclical depression?
• Weimar Germany hit hardest - bounced back
  furthest?
• MEFO bills to put off inflation p216

43
The Four Year PlanPreparation to a War Economy

• Goring finding a role for himself (Police to
  Himmler)
• Influence of Stalins Five year plans
• Army (Blomberg) and Schacht over-ruled and
  ignored
• I therefore set the following tasks
• 1) The German armed forces must be ready in four
  years
• 2) The German economy must be fit for war within
  four years
• Autarky
• Increase production of war commodities
• Food, iron, coal
• Developing ersatz materials
• Buna from acetylene for rubber
• Oil from coal
• Target setting - across ministries
• Massive investment for armed services (Luftwaffe
  in particular)

44
The Four Year PlanThe Politicisation of the
Economy

• Controls Dictated
• Production
• Investment
• Location of plants
• Raw material allocation
• Prices
• Wages
• Profit
• Reinvestment

45
The Four Year PlanThe Nazification of the Armed
Services

• Goring controlled and directed all military funds
• New intake of soldiers
• Investment in new military technologies
• Tanks, luftwaffe
• Challenges existing army expertise

46
The Four Year PlanGorings Empire

• Responsible for 66 of all investment in 1937/8
• Big Business v Small Business
• Herman Goring Reichswerke p228
• Ruhr Cartel
• Schachts resignation and humiliation

47
The Four Year PlanGuns or Butter?

• Would you rather have butter or guns? Shall we
  bring in lard or iron ore? I tell you, guns makes
  us powerful. Butter only makes us fat. Goring
• But
• Hitler sensitive to reports of any food shortages
• Extensive use of Propaganda
• Autarky and Ersatz could not satisfy consumer or
  strategic demands
• Lebensraum