History in the Making Volume 10 Article 8 January 2017 Dark Apostles – Hitler’s Oligarchs: Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich and Revolutionary Totalitarian Oligarchy in the Third Reich Athahn Steinback CSUSB Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Steinback, Athahn (2017) "Dark Apostles – Hitler’s Oligarchs: Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich and Revolutionary Totalitarian Oligarchy in the Third Reich," History in the Making: Vol. 10 , Article 8. Available at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/history-in-the-making/vol10/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in History in the Making by an authorized editor of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Athahn Steinback Dark Apostles – Hitler’s Oligarchs: Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich and Revolutionary Totalitarian Oligarchy in the Third Reich By Athahn Steinback Abstract: In popular memory, the Third Reich and the Nazi party are all too often misremembered as a homogenous entity, entirely shaped and led by the figure of Adolf Hitler. This paper challenges the widely held misconception of a homogenous Nazi ideology and critically re-examines the governance of Nazi Germany by arguing that the Third Reich was not a generic totalitarian dictatorship, but rather, a revolutionary totalitarian oligarchy. The unique roles and revolutionary agendas of Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich, provide case studies to demonstrate the nature of this revolutionary totalitarian oligarchy. The role of Hitler as the chief oligarch of Nazi Germany remains critical to the entire system of governance.