Clemens von Lengsfeld - Adolf Hitler

The Informant

One of the ironies of history is probably the fact that Hitler started his political career as an informant of all things. Up until now the fact that the German authorities protecting the constitution had used informants to combat the right-wing extremist NPD, has been a very explosive subject and the Constitutional Court, the highest guardian of the law in the Federal Republic of Germany, has had to deal with this multiple times. Hitler too was employed by the propaganda department Ib/P, a sub-division of the Reichswehr Group Command, to spy on newly established parties in Munich with regard to the danger of a Bolshevist threat and to keep a closer eye on the population 45. In June 1919 he was trained for his task on an “ anti-Bolshevist course” . The influential nationalist conservative historian, Karl Alexander von Müller, by the way a highly regarded academic, brought his trainees round to his point of view. This was, completely in line with the times, anti-capitalist and at the same time anti-Semitic. The Jews were the epitome of the “ interest servitude” , a defamation, which characterised anti-Semitism then as it does today.

Müller was the first who, in a break in proceedings, became aware of Hitler’s natural gift for oratory and recommended him further. In his role as informant, on 12 September 1919 Hitler came into contact for the first time with the DAP, the German Labour Party, which had only been founded in the January of the same year. This belonged to the nationalist movement and, in addition to German nationalist ideas, also represented anti-Marxist ones. When Hitler went to spy on the party, a lecture was being held on the subject: “How and with what means does one get rid of capitalism?” The informant promptly broke cover and gave a word-perfect rendition of his freshly learned knowledge about “Breaking the Jewish interest servitude”. As early as one week after this visit, Hitler became a member of the DAP and – due to “ his big mouth 46“ – also its “main propagandist” in 1920. In this capacity he was responsible for organising all events and for public relations work. From the outset, Hitler made no secret of the fact that he had no interest in a democratic path through official channels. He unashamedly demanded to be a party leader with dictatorial powers.

It did not even take two years before Hitler had completely won over the party to his way of thinking. Here, on a small scale, he was also having himself honoured as “Führer” 47.

The Drummer

Hitler was regarded as a hogger of the limelight and the best street orator in his party. They did not make sure of his convictions but were interested in the way and manner he created and changed convictions.

And at that time there was a spectacle in Munich that in part bore all the features of a Wagnerian opera. In the Bavarian state capital two extreme political models were tried within a short space of time as if in fast forward mode. A particularly radical version of the councils idea in line with the Soviet model was to gain the upper hand in this for a short time in April 1919. Hitler was mesmerised by the general strikes and mass rallies even though he despised the chaos of the same. On the other hand, the soldier back from the Front may no longer have had the same enthusiasm for the stiff and sterile ritual of military parades he had in the beginning. With march music one had set off for a war, the brutality of which had not been seen previously in the history of war. In the trenches of the Western Front the mass slaughter had dragged on for years. Prior to that, the military had been the unchallenged ruling and identity-shaping caste for the outside world. Brisk marching in rank and file and the movements of the trained bodies, which had the effect of wheels in a colossal machine, enthused the populace, who had apparently become bored of the quiet harmony of a decade of peace.

Hitler was at first fascinated to see how communist street orators and agitators communicated with the masses. To see how the spark leapt between the two, speaker and listeners, “ merged “ into an “ action community” 48enthused him and lodged deep in his mind as an aspirational model. His mind, full of urgent impatience, sought fresh excitement.

NSDAP

On 24 February 1920 at a mass gathering in the Munich Hofbräuhaus the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party [= the Nazi Party], would be created from the DAP. For this occasion a flag had been designed for the new party: a swastika with straight arms bent to the right. Since the end of the 19th century it had been used as a symbol for Aryanism and anti-Semitism in nationalist circles. There it now stood, black in a white circle on a red background. Hitler had copied the white from the nationalists, the signal red from the communists. The abbreviation NS – for national socialist – was supposed to emphasise the distinctiveness of the party with its social principles which are at the same time nationalist in tone. Four notable points in its programme, just to mention a few, were:

•the abolition of the treaty of Versailles

•the withdrawal of German citizenship for Jews and

•the strengthening of the national community by, amongst other things, participation in the profits of major concerns.

•new legislation on foreigners seized on the anxieties existing subliminally amongst the population, by putting non-citizens in a worse position right from the outset and even authorised their “deportation in the event of insufficient food for the population as a whole”.

Already at this event its unique feature was evident. The clearly planned course of the proceedings was adhered to with strict discipline. The bar room brawls normally usual in these bierkeller sessions were blocked.

Hitler’s venue protection, the steward squad, consisting mostly of younger party members, saw to this. Anyone, who was disruptive, was beaten out of the hall by them. The SA, the Sturmabteilung, would be created from them not long afterwards.

First party conference of the NSDAP on the Munich Mars Field from 27-29 January 1923.

Weeping clown

That Hitler was tolerated as a leading light in a party, which stood for pure Aryanism, may well be astonishing in retrospect. This fact also preoccupied his contemporaries as there was a lot of talk in the inner circle about Adolf Hitler’s dubious origins. He, the Jew-hater, was said to have Jewish origins himself or even to be the child of an incestuous relationship. Adolf Hitler did not dispute this. Even defamation of him as a “ weeping clown” 49could not irritate him. A sentence of his companion’s, Hermann Göring, has frequently been repeated: “ Hitler needs to come here and weep .” 50The former is bound to have meant this sympathetically. The dashing officer pilot and bearer of the significant Pour le mérite order had seen Hitler at some NSDAP party events before he asked him for a meeting in October 1922. He must have really impressed Hitler, so much so that, only a few weeks later, Hitler appointed him to head of the SA in December 1922. In contrast, a rival from within the party, Otto Strasser, expressed himself on the subject in less than flattering terms: “ Hitler cried deliberately and overdid it .” 51And Carl Zuckmayer even called him a “ howling dervish” 52. That the person thus described could apparently switch human feelings on and off, turned out to be very advantageous at party rallies.