Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Breitman, professor of history at American University, is the author of Architect of Genocide, a biography of Himmler. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Official Secrets

Hill & Wang

Chapter One

FORESHADOWINGS

ADOLF HITLER MIXED CANDOR and dissimulation in nearlyequal parts. His writings and speeches, as well as records of his privatemonologues and other sources, gave important indications of his thinking,but he was also a very secretive man. He sometimes issued instructionsas to what not to record, and he boasted of his refusal to confidein others, of his willingness to lie. In modern times, only Joseph Stalincould compete with Hitler on the standard of deceit.

    Hitler organized a secret effort to overthrow the Bavarian state governmentin November 1923, designed as the first step toward a generalrevolution in Germany. After botching the coup d'etat in Munich, thethirty-four-year-old Hitler was convicted of treason and served a briefprison sentence. During his stay in Landsberg prison, he began workon a long and rambling memoir and political tract, which he calledMein Kampf (My Struggle). The book appeared in two volumes, thefirst in July 1925, the second in December 1926. The sections about Hitler'syouth in Linz and Vienna traced his early rise to political and racialconsciousness, as well as his view of history and politics. But they distortedand concealed as much as they revealed. Hitler may well havepicked up racist and anti-Semitic sentiments in his youth, but (thoughsome writers disagree) he actually drifted until he found his politicalorientation and his calling in a chaotic postwar Munich in 1919.

    The general, ideological sections of Mein Kampf, however, heldbroader political significance--so much so that the book posed a problemlater for Hitler the politician and head of government. In 1938,Hitler supposedly told his onetime lawyer Hans Frank that, if he hadknown in 1924 that he was going to become chancellor, he wouldnever have written his book. This comment applied particularly towhat Hitler had stated about Germany's foreign-policy options andgoals, which revealed his conviction that the German race needed muchmore land to survive and to thrive. He had shown not only his proclivityfor war but also his hostility to France and the Soviet Union.After Mein Kampf, he wrote a second book specifically on foreign policy,but by 1929 he had come far enough politically to recognize thewisdom of not publishing it. The work remained secret for decades;the historian Gerhard Weinberg discovered it and published the textonly in 1961.

    Hitler's worldview--a blend of intense and expansionist nationalism,racism, antiliberalism, anti-Marxism, and, not least, anti-Semitism--pervaded both volumes of Mein Kampf as well as the unpublishedsecond book. Anti-Semitism cropped up even in strange contexts. Inchapters 10, 13, 14, and 15 of the second volume of Mein Kampf, Hitlerrepeatedly "explained" how the Jews were behind all foreign oppositionto Germany and all internal problems afflicting the German peopleand obstructing the advance of Nazism. Disputes between RomanCatholics and Protestants within the Nazi Party were leading it fromits true mission and thereby, consciously or not, serving Jewish interests.Russian Bolshevism was nothing other than the attempt by Jews toseize world domination. In other words, Hitler automatically associatedany problem, any difficulty, any opponent with Jewish efforts or Jewishinterests. He believed there was no need for specific evidence, whichmight be lacking because of Jewish secrecy and cunning. This conspiratorialview of history and politics had practical implications: only aconspirator could succeed in a conspiratorial world. Moreover, it suggestedthat, if he came to power and held to his views, Hitler wouldseek to neutralize what he perceived as the Jewish threat to Germany.

    Scholars have described Hitler's early writings as everything from a"blueprint for power" to "the generalizations of a powerful, but uninstructedintellect: dogmas which echo the conversation of any Austriancafe or German beer-house." Virtually every expert has acceptedthe sincerity of Hitler's early worldview; in dispute is whether the earlyHitler fixed a clear course for the future and subsequently held fast toit.

    Most individuals learn, adapt, and evolve over time; some politiciansswitch parties and programs. Many a statesman has been known toreverse previous foreign-policy pronouncements and respond primarilyto circumstances and opportunities. Some have used heated rhetoric tomake names for themselves or mobilize support. But there was a veryhigh correlation between what Hitler wrote in the 1920s aboutLebensraum (living space) and German foreign policy and the future pathof the Third Reich. Did Hitler tenaciously hold to his original visionin other respects, or did the policies and programs of the Third Reichoccur because of the actions of others or the pressure of circumstances?There is unfortunately no definitive way to trace the range and consistencyof Hitler's thinking and state of mind from 1925 until his suicideon April 30, 1945. His writings, speeches, and decisions supplycrucial evidence but also contain mendacious elements, gaps, and camouflage.

    If key Nazi officials took Mein Kampf--or the ideology expressed init--as a guide for their actions, then it becomes even harder for ahistorian to discount the continuity and impact of Hitler's early ideology.If sophisticated non-Nazi observers at the time looked to MeinKampf to help them understand the impulses and direction of the Naziregime, the case is stronger still. This chapter offers a small sample ofboth types of assessments of Mein Kampf.

    One of the most assiduous readers of Mein Kampf was a young Bavarianpolitical organizer named Heinrich Himmler. Mortified by Germany'sdefeat in World War I, which he blamed on the Marxist left,and fascinated by the principles and methods of breeding in agriculture,which he had studied at Munich's Technische Hochschule, Himmlerwas particularly susceptible to Hitler's line of racial thought. In fact, hemay have taken it more literally than Hitler himself. Later, as ReichFuhrer SS, he would try to make his own organization into a racial andpolitical elite. Himmler first met the Fuhrer in 1926, when he wasserving as deputy Gauleiter (regional party leader) under Gregor Strasserin Lower Bavaria. Within a year Himmler was also deputy leader ofthe small unit of Nazi guards known as the SS, outnumbered by thelarger Nazi paramilitary force, the Sturmabteilung, or SA.

    A meticulous record keeper, Himmler kept a partial, dated list of hisreading, along with brief comments about each book. He finished thefirst volume of Mein Kampf on June 19, 1927, writing: "It containstremendously many truths. The first chapters about his own youthcontain many weaknesses." Not captivated by Hitler's personal story,Himmler nonetheless found the book a great inspiration.

    Himmler's copy of volume 2 of Mein Kampf, which he read in December1927, has now emerged from obscurity. From markings onthis volume, it is possible to examine his early reactions to Hitler'sideology in greater detail. In general, he looked for practical ways toapply the "truths" of his Fuhrer. Next to the passage about the importanceof instilling self-confidence and a sense of racial superiorityinto youths through education and training, Himmler wrote in themargin: "education of SS and SA." Hitler had blamed the Germanrevolution of 1918, which he said had been carried out by pimps, deserters,and rabble, partly on the failure of the intellectual elite, hobbledby its upper-class etiquette and lack of manliness: they should havelearned boxing. Himmler endorsed the criticism and Hitler's remedy.

    Himmler approved of Hitler's comment that, just as races were differentand unequal, some individuals within a race were more valuablethan others. Hitler had expounded in some detail on how those racesthat had remained pure throughout history had thrived; they began todecline when they intermarried with others: nature did not love "bastards."Racial intermingling created a new hybrid but also tension betweenthe hybrid and the remaining pure element of the "higher" race.The danger for the hybrid race would end only when the last pureelements of the higher race had been corrupted. Himmler took Hitler'sremarks very seriously, writing: "the possibility of de-miscegenation isat hand" (die Moglichkeit der Entmischung ist vorhanden). Just how thiswould be accomplished remained unclear in 1927.

    This criticism of racial intermingling was directed at Germans as wellas Jews. The current German population was already racially suspectaccording to this view; only a segment remained pure. Hitler believedthat Jews were seeking to defile and corrupt the "Aryan race" throughintermarriage and seduction of German women. Ending the threat tothe higher race meant not only neutralizing the hybrid but also removingthe threat of Jewish infiltration and destructiveness. Himmlerlater used underlining and a margin line to highlight many passages inMein Kampf, among them Hitler's retroactive solution for Germany'sdefeat in World War I:

If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under [subjected to] poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the [battle]field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary, twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in time might have saved the lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the future.

The idea of using poison gas against some Jews was already planted innot only Hitler's mind but also Himmler's.

    Plenty of others read Mein Kampf, even if few took it so literally.Despite the hefty price of twelve marks per volume, 23,000 copies ofvolume 1 and 13,000 copies of volume 2 were sold before 1930. Thena cheaper edition and the Nazi breakthrough in the September 1930national elections caused sales to take off dramatically. (By the timeHitler became chancellor in 1933, sales totaled 287,000.) If Hitler theideologue was an unknown quantity to the German public during theincessant election campaigns from 1928 to 1933, it was not for lack ofevidence.

    Political campaigns often do not bring clarity to the issues. Naziorganizers, speakers, and writers frequently campaigned against the"Marxists" and the unwieldy democratic regime known as the WeimarRepublic. Successes came in part because their targets were widely unpopularexcept with the German working class. The Nazis also learnedhow to appeal to specific needs and fears of social and occupationalgroups and to adjust basic Nazi principles to local preferences. Theimage the Nazi movement presented to the German public was moredifferentiated and in some ways more sophisticated than what Hitlerhad formulated in Mein Kampf but also blurrier. The Nazis attracted themost diverse constituency in German politics, held together primarilyby shared emotions--desperation, common resentment, and fear. Nazicampaign propaganda called for a new start, a rebirth of Germanythrough the creation of a national community that transcended traditionaldivisions--a theme partly shared by right-wing nationalist parties,but Nazi presentation was more vigorous and more effective. Partlyfor this reason, Hitler and other key Nazi speakers exploited better thanmore experienced political rivals first a rising tide of nationalism in thelate 1920s, and then growing public frustration with, and despair about,the political system and the great economic depression.

    In other words, a vote for Hitler or other Nazi candidates was hardlya direct endorsement of Hitler's worldview. Still, none of Hitler'sthemes, which other Nazi officials and candidates endorsed and reinforced,hurt the Nazis politically; most of them found increasing resonancefrom 1928 on. Shared ideas and emotions gave Hitler and theNazi Party a substantial base of enthusiasts and willing followers, whoseactivity and dynamism drew others. The rise in the number of NaziParty members and their increasingly visible activities created a sense ofmovement and hope for change in others. A substantial minority ofGerman voters either accepted the Nazi program or had no objectionto it, in part because it derived from a familiar late-nineteenth-centurycurrent of radical nationalist and racist thought. Nazi electoral supportin democratic elections peaked at just over 37 percent of the vote inJuly 1932, making the Party the largest in parliament by a considerablemargin. But the level of popular support was insufficient to bring Hitlerto power, and he refused to join any coalition government unless hewas made head of it, an intransigent stance that seemed to contributeto a substantial Nazi decline in the November 1932 elections.

    Then a political deadlock and convoluted backroom negotiationsgave Hitler coalition partners who were willing to accept his leadershipat a moment when the incumbent chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher,reached an impasse. Schleicher had no prospect of surviving avote of confidence in the newly elected parliament, and he could hardlygain a breathing spell from still another dissolution of parliament andnew elections. His predecessor, Franz von Papen, had already tried thattactic twice without success; it was played out. Schleicher could notgovern around the constitution any longer. Shunning a move towardabolition of the constitution and a potential military dictatorship, onJanuary 30, 1933, the aged conservative President Paul von Hindenburgreluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor (head of government).

    Germany had seen chancellors come and go; coalition governmentsin the Weimar Republic had lasted on the average only a little morethan a year. Some expected the pattern to continue, because the newgovernment, like its predecessors, lacked a parliamentary majority andneeded the President's emergency authority to bypass the deadlock inthe Reichstag. Hitler, however, had not concealed his intention of abolishingthe democratic system. Some voters had undoubtedly backedNazi candidates for precisely that reason, thinking almost any changewould be for the better. They were quite wrong, but it took many ofthem a decade or more to realize it--those who survived that long.

Continues...

Excerpted from Official Secretsby Richard Breitman Copyright © 1999 by Richard Breitman. Excerpted by permission.
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