Hitler a life, p.65
Hitler- a Life, page 65
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yet another battleground within the Party. Conflict had arisen between
Goebbels and Alfred Rosenberg, whom Hitler had appointed in January
1934 to be ‘responsible for supervising all matters relating to the intellectual
and ideological training and education of the NSDAP’. Whereas Rosenberg
insisted dogmatically on what was traditionally ‘Teutonic’ and wished to ban
from the German cultural scene anything ‘alien’ and modern, Goebbels
repeatedly advocated integrating specific modern elements. In his speech
on culture for this year Hitler criticized both tendencies, the modern
‘destroyers of art’ as well as those who ‘looked backwards’ and their
‘Germanic art’. This left open the question of what National Socialist cul-
ture actually was.3
The Party Rally was followed on 30 September by the second Harvest
Thanksgiving on the Bückeberg near Hamelin, then by the inauguration of
Winter Aid on 9 October.4 On 8 November, at the Munich commemorations
of the November 1923 putsch, he once again made a memorial speech in
the Bürgerbräukeller, using this opportunity to defend the mistake he had
made eleven years previously.5 This year there was no commemorative march
through the city, for 30 June had left gaps that were all too visible.
During the summer and autumn of 1934 the German population was,
however, preoccupied with other problems.
The economy in the shadow of rearmament
Although the incipient economic boom at the beginning of 1933 and the
impact of work creation measures had at first led to some increase in
employment levels, the German economy soon became dangerously unbal-
anced again. The culprit was the massive rise in expenditure on armaments;
it is difficult, however, to provide more than an estimate of spending on
armaments in the individual fiscal years because military allocations ceased
to be included in the budget and there were numerous instances of con-
cealed armaments spending, for example on infrastructure. Economic his-
torians thus arrive at a variety of results. The British historian Adam Tooze
nevertheless gives us a realistic idea of the scale of spending. According to
his calculations, the proportion of national income spent on the military
rose from less than 1 per cent in 1933 to almost 10 per cent in 1935. This
unprecedented development, quite out of line with the norm for a capitalist
market economy in peacetime, on the one hand produced a boom in the
Domestic Flashpoints 405
sectors of the economy directly or indirectly affected and on the other
caused serious distortions that the regime had difficulty in controlling.6
During the summer and autumn of 1934 the wider population felt the
impact of these in the form of price rises as well as through the restricted
supply and declining quality of consumer goods. The pressure on foreign
exchange caused restrictions on imports, which then led to shortages and
disruptions to production in the consumer goods industry.7 The situation
became so critical that at the end of September Hitler was prompted to call
on the Reich Minister for Food to produce a report on the development of
fat and milk prices. A few months previously he had had a detailed briefing
from Darré about the food situation.8 In addition, since the spring of 1934
the unemployment figures had been reducing only slowly; from April 1934
to spring 1935 they dropped from 2.6 to 2.2 million.9 This trend was already
clearly visible in the summer of 1934, so that Göring, for example, wrote to
Seldte, Minister of Labour, on 20 August concerned about the possibility of
the unemployment figures rising.10 Although this did not happen, in the
winter of 1934/35 the labour market showed a sharper seasonal fall than in
the previous year.
The key role in the steady process of gearing the entire economy to
rearmament was played by the new Minister of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht.
In his dual capacity as President of the Reichsbank and Reich Economics
Minister Schacht’s first task was to get a grip on the serious social and eco-
nomic crisis affecting the country during 1933/34 following the drop in
exports. He could then create the conditions for achieving his main aim,
one that he shared with Hitler, namely ensuring that rearmament could
proceed at the fastest pace possible. Schacht had a decisive hand in a series
of measures that marked the start of the regime’s new economic strategy.
His ‘New Plan’, agreed with Hitler in August 193411 and announced shortly
afterwards at the Leipzig Fair,12 was based on limiting the import of manu-
factured and consumer goods in favour of essential foodstuffs and animal
feeds, and also raw materials and goods needed for armaments.13 The state
moved to a system of rigorous import controls implemented through a
closely coordinated network of ‘supervisory offices’ and at the same time
gave subsidies to German exports, which led to businesses being obliged
from July 1935 onwards to pay an export contribution.14 Additionally, for-
eign trade was reoriented towards countries that were able to deliver raw
materials and food, with the result that a system of offsetting could be devel-
oped that as far as possible avoided foreign exchange payments. Trade with
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Domestic Flashpoints
the United States, Britain, and France was systematically wound down in
favour of trading partners who were close geographically, in particular in
south-east Europe, as a defence against any future blockade. The oil supplies
essential to the Reich from Romania could, for example, be increased five-
fold between 1933 and 1936. Thus between 1934 and 1936 Germany suc-
ceeded in marginally reducing imports over all, while reducing imports of
manufactured goods by a considerable amount.
In the meantime significant progress was made under Schacht in gaining
control of business organizations. This process had begun in the summer of
1933, when Schmitt was Minister for Economics, and was an essential pre-
condition for Schacht’s increasingly dirigiste approach.15 He set about grad-
ually imposing an ‘organic’ structure on the German economy (as it was
called, to distinguish it from notions of a corporatist structure), in effect the
imposition of membership of an organization embracing all businesses and
companies. It encompassed the associations for specific industries, while
what had hitherto been chambers of commerce at regional level were con-
centrated into district chambers of commerce. This created a relatively
tightly structured instrument with which the state could control business
and commerce.16 What turned out to be crucial for the financing of the
enormous costs of rearmament, however, was the system invented by
Schacht of artificially expanding the money supply, the so-called Mefo bills.17
These measures went hand in hand with immense efforts to replace
imports with home-produced goods. At the Reich Peasants’ Rally in Goslar
in November 1934 Darré, the Minister of Agriculture and peasants’ leader,
declared that an agricultural ‘production battle’ with regard to food produc-
tion was commencing. In spite of great effort its success was modest, as
increased spending power and a growth in population were leading to
higher consumption of food. From the end of 1935 onwards foreign
exchange had therefore to be diverted from imports of raw materials for
industry to imports for the food sector.18 As part of the desired move to
‘autarky’ in the German economy, in autumn 1934 Hitler gave his eco-
nomic advisor Keppler a ‘special responsibility for raw materials’ and the
task of implementing all ‘economic measures necessary in the light of the
foreign exchange situation to replace raw materials from abroad with those
produced at home’.19 Then in December 1934 Schacht received the legally
binding order to conduct a ‘thorough search of Reich territory for exploit-
able resources’ and to secure the cooperation of owners of private property
in this plan.20
Domestic Flashpoints 407
Domestic oil extraction was almost doubled between 1933 and 1936.21 In
addition, through the ‘petrol contract’ of December 1933 and more espe-
cially through the establishment of Lignite-Petrol [Braunkohle-Benzin] as a
public company by law the following year the Reich took a decisive step
towards expanding its production of petrol from coal by means of the so-
called hydrogenation process. Yet even so, by 1936 domestic extraction and
synthetic fuel accounted for only a quarter of consumption (which was
increasing year on year).22 Considerable effort was also invested in creating
‘German textiles’ (artificial silk and spun rayon) and in the production of
artificial rubber using the so-called Buna process. Between 1933 and 1936
German iron ore extraction increased by a factor of two and a half, but the
economy’s growing need for iron ore far exceeded what could be extracted.
The same was true of most non-precious metals: the increased demand cre-
ated by the armaments boom could be met only by increasing imports.23
The large-scale interventions by the state to boost the economy encour-
aged inflationary pressures. In order to keep prices under control (wages
were already to all intents and purposes frozen) in November 1934 Hitler
appointed a Reich commissioner to monitor them. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler,
the Oberbürgermeister of Leipzig, was chosen for this role. A former mem-
ber of the DNVP, he had already held the post, though with considerably
fewer powers, under Brüning until the end of 1932. By now the popula-
tion’s dissatisfaction with rising prices when wages were stagnant had
become a matter of personal prestige for Hitler. In cabinet on 5 November
1934, when the law to appoint the commissioner was under discussion, he
declared he had ‘given workers his word not to allow prices to rise’. If he
were not to take steps to curb them, employees would ‘accuse him of break-
ing his word’. The result would be ‘revolution’.24
Failure to ‘unite’ German Protestantism
Shortages of goods and price increases were not, however, the only causes
of dissatisfaction among the population. The regime’s policies regarding the
Churches were also giving rise to concern.
Although in his speech to the Reichstag of 30 January 1934 Hitler had
made much of continuing the ‘work of unifying’ the Protestant Church, this
initiative ultimately led to a dead end. Reich Bishop Müller continued to
pursue his ‘policy of integration’ and, supported by August Jäger, appointed
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Domestic Flashpoints
his legal administrator (who since 1933 had been the State Commissioner
for the Protestant Churches in Prussia), he was in fact able to bring the
majority of the state [Land] churches into line.25 In the process, however, it
became increasingly clear that Jäger (who secured the support of the
German Christians) and Müller were not aiming to unite the fragmented
Protestant Church but rather to create a supra-confessional German
‘National Church’, which in the final analysis would mean the replacement
of both Christian confessions in Germany by some kind of völkisch
‘Germanic Christianity’.26
Since the beginning of 1934, however, a broadly-based opposition to the
German Christians and Müller’s integration policy was forming within the
Protestant Church.27 On 13 March the bishops of the state churches in
Württemberg (Theophil Wurm) and Bavaria (Hans Meiser), both members
of this opposition movement within the Church, met Hitler,28 and told him
that cooperation with Müller was impossible because he did not abide by
existing agreements. Thus they no longer regarded themselves as bound by
their declaration of loyalty of 25 January. At a Protestant synod that met
from 29 to 31 May 1934 in Wuppertal-Barmen a ‘Theological Declaration
on the present situation of the German Protestant Church’ was issued
rejecting the ‘erroneous teachings’ of the German Christians. After this
synod a plethora of confessing congregations was formed, overseen by
informal governing bodies called ‘councils of brothers’, which refused to be
governed by the official Church leadership.
After 30 June 1934 Hitler considered that the time had come finally to
push through the plan for a unified Protestant ‘Reich Church’ under Nazi
control. On 18 July he received Jäger and Müller and in an official statement
announced his support for the continuation of the ‘task of unification’.29
In his speech opening the Reich Party Rally on 5 September Hitler again
emphasized, this time with explicit reference to Martin Luther, that he was
determined to put an end to the ‘purely organizational fragmentation’ of the
German Protestant Churches by establishing ‘one great Protestant Reich
Church’.30 In a show of support, Hitler made an appearance alongside
Müller, whose Reich Church leadership had used a National Synod in
August to empower itself to bring rebellious state Churches to heel.31 In
response to complaints from Bishops Wurm and Meiser about the policies
of the Reich Church, Hitler had Otto Meissner, the state secretary in the
President’s office, inform them on 11 September that Müller’s measures met
with his approval.32 After the Party Rally and before the end of September
Domestic Flashpoints 409
the Reich Church leadership appointed Reich commissars in the regional
Churches of Württemberg and Bavaria, where German Christians con-
tinued to be in the minority. Bishop Meiser in Munich and Bishop Wurm
in Stuttgart were both placed under house arrest by the police and it was
announced they had been removed from office.33 In both states, however,
Protestant churchgoers, among them many members of the Nazi Party,
strongly objected to these measures. There were demonstrations and letters
of protest, delegations were sent to the state capitals, and there were threats
of mass exits from the Church and the Party.34 At the beginning of autumn
1934 these conflicts were reaching their climax.
In response to a speech made on 18 September in Hanover on a ‘Rome-
free German Church’ in which Müller demanded a united German national
Church bringing together Protestants and Catholics,35 Foreign Minister
Neurath decided to intervene. He summoned Müller and, in view of the
consternation caused in Protestant Churches abroad, told him that ‘no
Church institution could be permitted to threaten the Reich’s whole political
strategy’. Hitler, continued Neurath, was letting Müller know that ‘if he
were to continue making speeches like the one in Hanover he would find
he no longer had the support of the Reich Chancellor and would have no
further access to him’.36 Although Frick and Meissner were present as rep-
resentatives of the state when, a few days later, Müller was formally installed
as Reich Bishop, Hitler could not bring himself to send so much as a greet-
ing.37 In the light of the dramatic events in Württemberg and Bavaria the
leaders of the Church opposition proclaimed an ‘ecclesiastical emergency’ at
their second confessional synod on 19 and 20 October 1934 in Berlin-
Dahlem, on the grounds that the Reich Church leadership had ‘removed
the Christian foundation of the German Protestant Church’. It was declared
that the Reich Church had no authority and a Reich Brotherhood Council
was established as the sole ‘legitimate’ source of leadership within the
Church.38
Hitler, on the other hand, was still set on the idea of completing the
‘work of unification’ by means of a symbolic act of submission by the ‘Reich
Church’ to him as the highest authority.39 A bill was hurriedly prepared
providing for an oath of loyalty to be taken by the new leader of the
Protestant Church to the ‘Führer of the German Reich and nation . . . as is
fitting for one appointed to serve in the German Protestant Church’.40 It
was not until 19 October, the day the Dahlem synod began, that Hitler
decided to give up the idea of swearing in the Reich Bishop and postpone
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the reception to 25 October.41 He left unanswered the increasingly urgent
requests of the Bavarian government to release Meiser from his house
arrest.42 During this period he was shown reports from the German ambas-
sador in London stating that the Archbishop of Canterbury had clearly
