Ian Kershaw: Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

‘After three years, I believe that, with the present day, the struggle for German equal rights can be regarded as closed.’ The day was 7 March 1936. The words were those of Hitler addressing the Reichstag as German troops, defying the western democracies, crossed into the demilitarized Rhineland. ‘Great are the successes which Providence has let me attain for our Fatherland in these three years,’ Hitler continued. ‘In all areas of our national, political, and economic life, our position has been improved… In these three years, Germany has regained its honour, found belief again, overcome its greatest economic distress and finally ushered in a new cultural ascent.’ In this paean to his own ‘achievements’, Hitler also explicitly stated that ‘we have no territorial claims to make in Europe’. He ended with an appeal — received to rapturous acclaim — to support him in new ‘elections’ (though only one party, the Nazi Party, was standing), set for 29 March. 1The outcome of these ‘elections’ was a vote of 98.9 per cent backing Hitler. But however ‘massaged’ the figures had been, whatever the combined weight of propaganda and coercion behind them, there can be no doubt that the overwhelming mass of the German people in March 1936 applauded Hitler’s recovery of German sovereignty in the Rhineland (as they had his earlier steps in throwing off the shackles of Versailles). It was a major triumph for Hitler, both externally and internally. It was the culminating point of the first phase of his dictatorship.

Hitler’s triumph also marked the plainest demonstration of the weakness of France and Great Britain, the dominant powers in Europe since the First World War. Hitler had broken with impunity the treaties of Versailles and Locarno, the main props of the post-war peace-settlement. And he had signalled Germany’s reassertiveness and new importance in international affairs.

Within Germany, by this point, Hitler’s power was absolute. The largest, most modern, and most thrusting nation-state in central Europe lay at his feet, bound to the ‘charismatic’ politics of ‘national salvation’. His position as Dictator was unchallenged. No serious threat of opposition faced him.

The mood of national exhilaration whipped up by the Rhineland spectacular was, it is true, of its nature short-lived. The worries and complaints of daily life returned soon enough. Worker discontent about low wages and poor work conditions, farmer resentment at the ‘coercive economy’ of the Food Estate, the grumbling of small tradesmen about economic difficulties, and ubiquitous consumer dissatisfaction over prices continued unabated. The behaviour and corruption of party functionaries was as much a source of grievance as ever. And in Catholic areas, where the ‘Church struggle’ had intensified, the party’s attacks on the Church’s practices and institutions, the assault on denominational schooling, and the harassing of clergy (including highly publicized trials of members of religious orders for alleged foreign-currency smuggling and sexual impropriety) left the mood extraordinarily sour. But it would be as well not to overestimate the significance of the discontent. None of it was translated into political opposition likely to cause serious trouble to the regime.

Oppositional forces on the Left, the Communists and Socialists, were crushed, cowed, and powerless — dismayed at the supine acquiescence of the western democracies as Hitler continued to upturn the post-war international order. The propaganda image of a statesman of extraordinary boldness and political genius seemed as a consequence of weakness of the western powers to match reality in the eyes of millions. Under threat of draconian recrimination, the perilous illegal work of undercover resistance had continued, even revived, for a brief period in late 1935 and early 1936 as foodstuff shortages led to rising unrest in industrial areas, and was never halted. But following a huge onslaught by the Gestapo to crush all indications of a short-lived Communist revival, any threat of resistance from below by illegal organizations was effectively ruled out. 2Resistance cells, especially those of the Communists, were constant prey to Gestapo informers, and were as a result frequently penetrated, the members arrested and interned in prisons or concentration camps. It has been estimated that around one in two of the 300,000 Communist Party members of 1932 was imprisoned at some stage during the Third Reich — a statistic of unrelenting attritional repression. 3Even so, new cells invariably sprang up. Those risking liberty, even life, showed great courage. But they lacked any semblance of power or influence, had no contacts in high places, and consequently lacked all opportunity to overthrow the regime. By this time, they could pose no real threat to Hitler. Opposition endangering his dictatorship — leaving aside the unpredictable actions of an outsider acting alone, as would occur in 1939 — could now in practice only come from within the regime itself. 4

Meanwhile, the pillars of the regime — armed forces, Party, industry, civil service — were loyal in their support.

The national-conservative élites who had helped Hitler into power in imagining that they would be able to control and manipulate him, had largely swallowed their differences. Disquiet in such circles had been marked especially during the gathering internal crisis of spring and summer which had been ended by the massacre of the stormtroopers’ leadership (and the liquidation of numerous other genuine or presumed opponents) in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ on 30 June 1934. But whatever their continuing misgivings about anti-capitalistic tendencies in the Party, the highhanded behaviour of Party bosses, attacks on the Christian Churches, the lawlessness of Party formations, and other disquieting aspects of the regime, the conservative élites had by early 1936 not distanced themselves from Hitler in any serious fashion.

The armed forces, though the officer corps often turned up their noses at the vulgar upstarts now running the country, had fewer grounds than most for dissatisfaction. The tensions with the SA which had preoccupied the military leaders in the early months of the regime were now long past. The political murder of two generals, the former Reich Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Major-General Ferdinand von Bredow, in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ had seemed a small price to pay for removing the scourge of SA leader Ernst Röhm and his associates. Meanwhile, military leaders had seen their aim of rebuilding a powerful Wehrmacht, cherished even in the dark days of the 1920s, fully backed. 5The army had been delighted when general conscription, despite the prohibition under the Versailles Treaty, had been reintroduced (as the basis of a greatly expanded thirty-six-division peacetime army) in March 1935. In line with Hitler’s promise in February 1933 ‘that for the next 4–5 years the main principle must be: everything for the armed forces’, 6rearmament was now rapidly gathering pace. The existence of the Luftwaffe — a further flouting of Versailles — had been announced, without recrimination, in March 1935. And, remarkably, Great Britain had proved a willing accomplice in the undermining of Versailles in its willingness in June 1935 to conclude a naval treaty with the Reich allowing Germany to attain 35 per cent of the strength of the British Navy. With the remilitarization of the Rhineland Hitler had then accomplished a cherished desire of the military leadership long before they had contemplated such a move being possible. He was doing all that the leaders of the armed forces wanted him to do — and more. There could be few grounds for complaint.

Leaders of big business, though often harbouring private concerns about current difficulties and looming future problems for the economy, were, for their part, grateful to Hitler for the destruction of the left-wing parties and trade unions. They were again ‘masters in their house’ in their dealings with their work-force. And the road to massively increased profits and dividends was wide open. Even where Party interference was criticized, problems of export trade or shortage of raw materials were raised, or worries about the direction of the economy voiced, no industrialist advocated, even in private, a return to the ‘bad’ old democratic days of the Weimar Republic.