The Legal Revolution
How the Nazis
consolidated their
control over the
German Government
Promising Peace – through the use of
Violence!
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Munich Putsch
Legal Means
Threat of Revolution
from below
Marxist Revolution
Impose order
Subvert existing Weimar
Constitution
The Appeal to the Conservatives
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“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
Structure of Weimar Government
President
Chancellor
and Cabinet
Reichstag
Reichsrät
(Länder)
Reich Chancellery (Civil Service)
Gau(e)
The Role of Prussia
A Case Study in Subversion
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Berlin
Heartland Germany
SPD/KPD Heartland
Banning of SA / Public
Meetings
Von Papen’s Coup
Goring as Minister of
Interior
Timeline of key events
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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
Decree for the Protection of the
People and the State
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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
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– still got 5 million votes
Remained in force throughout Third Reich
March 5th elections
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Government uses control of radio, police, government
offices to maximise exposure and intimidate opponents
Nazi Slogan
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Highest ever turnout
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The battle against Marxism
88%
Nazis only get a disappointing 44%
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Nationalist allies a further 8%
Enabling Act
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24th March
2/3rds majority by banning KPD
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Massive intimidation of opponents
Centre party supports (pressure from Vatican in return for
religious education)
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441 to 94
Gave emergency powers for 4 years
Cabinet could bypass President
Renewed in 1938
Post March 1933 Elections
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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
Goebbel’s views on using the
Weimar Constitution
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“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. We’ll 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!”
Goebbel’s 1928 Der Angriff
Treatment of Civil Service
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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
Political Parties – Eliminate
Enemies, Jettison Allies.
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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
November 1933 Elections
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The Fuhrer’s List
Plebiscite
Intimidation and threats to non and anti voters
92% support
Second Enabling Act
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January 1934
Law for the Reconstruction of the State
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Reichsrät Abolished
Länder subordinate to central government
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Gauleiter to replace local government
Constitutional amendments at will
President – six months later
The Weimar Constitution
Left to wither but not to die.
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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 - People’s Courts and Special Courts
if regular legal system too inconvenient
How did the Nazis remodel
Germany?
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What is a dictator?
Nazi party vis-à-vis Communist party in USSR
FührerPrinzip The Cultivated Image
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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
FührerPrinzip Reasons for Credence
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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
The Polycratic State
Gleichschaltung!
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Working towards the Fuhrer
Guidelines - Fuhrer’s Will
Dependable Acolytes
Departmental Competition
Access to Hitler is key to power
Diagram page 188 and 89 of Germany 1919-1939
Advantages of Hitler’s style of
government
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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
Disadvantages of Hitler’s style of
government
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Few constraints - no checks or balances
Radical momentum
Yes men promoted
Believe own Infallibility
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cunning political skills lost
Failures question system
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Military disasters
Decision Making in Nazi Germany
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Page 191
Nuremburg Laws
Kristallnacht
Euthanasia
Horse Racing
Who was running Germany?
When is a Socialist not a Socialist?
When he is a National Socialist.
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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
“Everything for the Armed Forces”
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“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
“Throwing off the Shackles of
Versailles”
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Promises of Rearmament popular with army
Reasons for it kept vague
Problem of rival SA - huge - communist threat
removed
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Kept deliberately separate from army
“To complete the Revolution”
Revolutionary phase debate
“Say what you mean Röhm”
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“Adolf is a swine. He will give us all away. He only associates with the
reactionaries now. Getting matey with the East Prussian generals.
They’re his cronies now. Adolf knows exactly what I want. I’ve told him
often enough. Not a second edition of the old imperial army. Are we
revolutionaries or aren’t we? We’ve got to produce something new, don’t
you see? A new discipline of organisation. The generals are a lot of old
fogeys. They never had a new idea. I’m the nucleus of the new army,
don’t you see that? Don’t you understand that what’s coming must be
new, fresh and unused? The basis must be revolutionary. You can’t inflate
it afterwards. You only get the opportunity once to make something new
and big that’ll 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.
Victims of the
Night of the Long Knives
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Health of Hindenburg
April meeting on Deutschland
Himmler and Göring support
June 30th 1934
Röhm , Shleicher, Von Kahr, Jung (von
Papen’s adviser) 400 total
Brüning escaped
Reaction to the
Night of the Long Knives
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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”
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Actually - the cautious phase was over
Hitler now more confident of his position
He can afford to become more radical and daring
Did Germany undergo a political
revolution 1933/34?
Why did the Third Reich become
more Radical post 1934?
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Decay of Weimar institutions
Administrative confusion led to no responsibility being
assigned
Hitler’s increasing popularity
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Success breeds success
Propaganda
The Police State
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Himmler’s fiefdom
SS rewarded for night of the Long Knives
Prussian Gestapo
municipal Police centralised in 1936
SD (SS’s Security service)
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Diagram on page 201
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The SS enforcement of
Volksgemeinschaft
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Body Guard function
Policing to protect the Nazi Regime
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Spying/informing
Economic activities of SS
Military role – Waffen SS
Enforce Master Race ideals
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Protective Custody
Einsatzgruppen
Cocentration Camps
Pages 202/3
Hitler’s Weltanschauung
Giving Germany a
‘distincitive’ direction
Hitler’s plans required the support
of:
 Army
 Business
 Civil
Service
The Dual State
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Regular Civil Service
Supreme Reich Authorities
– Organisation Todt
– SS and Police Himmler
– 4 Year Plan Göring
Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda
The Dual State
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Regular Civil Service
Supreme Reich Authorities
– Organisation Todt
– SS and Police Himmler
– 4 Year Plan Göring
Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda
The Dual State
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State Bureacracy
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Established
No coercive power
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Nazi Executive
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Privileged
No finances available
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Ministry of Finance
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Krosigk (Non-Nazi)
The German Economic Miracle?
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Unemployed reduced from 6 million to 1.8 mn
Low inflation
Steady growth
Low wage growth
Construction boom
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Housing
Infrastructure
Rearmament
Comparison to Weimar
Directing the Nazi Economy:
Schacht and the Ministry of Economics
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Respected industrialist/banker
Ex President of Reichsbank
Re-negotiated Young Plan
Influenced by Keynes
Anti-semite - sympathetic with fascism
Trying to square the Nazi economic
circle: 2 + 2 = 5
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1934 Currency Crisis
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Balance of Trade imbalance
Devaluation politically impossible
Introduced complicated bilateral agreements
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Variable exchange rates
Rearmament costs
Autarky versus International Trade
Meat and Fat shortage
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Bad planning (Schacht)
Currency problem (Darré)
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Göring’s Intervention
Schacht’s Miracle cures?
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Wages and Prices controlled
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No Trade Unions - no wage demands
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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
The Four Year Plan:
Preparation to a War Economy
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Goring finding a role for himself (Police to Himmler)
Influence of Stalin’s Five year plans
Army (Blomberg) and Schacht over-ruled and ignored
I therefore set the following tasks:
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1) The German armed forces must be ready in four years
2) The German economy must be fit for war within four years
Autarky
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Increase production of war commodities
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Developing ersatz materials
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Food, iron, coal
Buna from acetylene for rubber
Oil from coal
Target setting - across ministries
Massive investment for armed services (Luftwaffe in particular)
The Four Year Plan:
The Politicisation of the Economy
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Controls Dictated
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Production
Investment
Location of plants
Raw material allocation
Prices
Wages
Profit
Reinvestment
The Four Year Plan:
The Nazification of the Armed Services
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Goring controlled and directed all military funds
New intake of soldiers
Investment in new military technologies
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Tanks, luftwaffe
Challenges existing army expertise
The Four Year Plan:
Goring’s Empire
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Responsible for 66% of all investment in 1937/8
Big Business v Small Business
Herman Goring Reichswerke p228
Ruhr Cartel
Schacht’s resignation and humiliation
The Four Year Plan:
Guns or Butter?
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“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
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Lebensraum