Germany Under Hitler

001253 GERMANY UNDER HITLER By MILDRED S. WERTHEIMER FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SOCIALIST - lABO COLLECTION A vivid analysis of Germany today-its politi. cal and economic structure and the forces at present controlling its destinies. The author examines in detail the causes of the Nazi revolution and the measures taken by Hitler to realize the aims of National Socialism. Based on the laws and decrees of the Hitler government, this timely study coordinates and amplifies American impressions of Naziism. WORLD AFFAIRS PAMPHLETS No.8 25c WORLD AFFAIRS PAMPHLETS • HE first aim of this series, published by the Foreign Policy T Association and the World Peace Foundation, is to assist the citizen in understanding the forces underlying contemporary international problems, and acquaint him with the results of re search in international relations. To this end, WORLD AFFAIl\S PAMPHLETS are necessarily less detailed and more interpretative than the factual research data published by both organizations. The authors alone are responsible for any judgments or inter pretations which may appear in this series; they will, however, be guided by the standards of objectivity and impartiality which characterize the Foreign Policy Reports and the Worlel Peacl Foundation Publications. The second aim of the series is to secure a greater degree of co operation between the various organizations dealing with foreign affairs. With this end in view, the publishers will consider meet ing the request of any organization which desires the preparation of a pamphlet on a given subject in the international field. WORLD AFFAIRS PAMPHLETS are sent regularly to members of the Foreign Policy Association and to subscribers of the World Peace Foundation. February 1935 GERMANY UNDER HITLER By MILDRED S. WERTHEIMER Research Associate, Foreign Policy Association WORLD AFFAIRS PAMPHLETS No.8 1935 Published jointly by FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION, NEW YORK WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION, BOSTON GERMANY UNDER HITLER Copyright 1935 By FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION and WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION The publishen tak.e pleasure in authorizinl{ reproduction of parts of this book.let provided that due credit is l{iVe11. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY J. J. LITTLE AND rYES COMPANY, NEW YORK CONTENTS Introduction 5 I. Forces Underlying the Nazi Revolution 6 II. Rise of the National Socialist Movement 10 Who Supported Hitler and Why 12 III. The Nazi Revolution. 16 The Brown Terror 19 The Anti-Jewish Boycott 20 The "Cold Pogrom" 21 IV. Establishment of a Totalitarian State . 25 Organization of the Party 26 Political Structure of the Third Reich 29 The "Coordination of Culture" 32 V. Economic Structure of the Third Reich 35 VI. Nazi Foreign Policy 39 VII. Conclusion 46 GERMANY UNDER HITLER INTRODUCTION wo years have elapsed since Adolf Hitler became Chancellor T of the German Reich. In that brief period the entire political structure of the country has been fundamentally changed from a democratic republic to a dictatorship. All opposition to the National Socialists has been ruthlessly crushed; culture and education have been completely Nazified; a totalitarian state has been established in which the Nazi party and the Reich are legally one. The Ger man people have been politically unified, and a large majority have experienced a resurgence of national confidence. According to Hitler, "a Germany of honor, of freedom, of social happiness" has been created. During Hitler's two years in office the character of National Socialism has changed. Hitler remains the mass leader, almost the Messiah of the Third Reich. But as time goes on, nationalism is being emphasized far more than socialism, and economic power has been largely removed from Nazi hands and concentrated in the person of Dr. Schacht, Minister of Economics and president of the Reichsbank. The Third Reich is rapidly tending toward state capitalism. Moreover, the regular army-the Reichswehr-has established itself as the real power behind the Nazi front. The party itself is reported to be honeycombed with internal dissension, and rent by struggles of the various leaders for power and prestige. The interparty quarrels which weakened the Weimar Republic have become intraparty wrangles in the Third Reich. Nazi ideology remains a nationalistic religion permeating every aspect of German life and culture, and provides the fundamental philosophy in which German youth is being reared. 6 GERMANY UNDER HITLER I FORCES UNDERLYING THE NAZI REVOLUTION 1T N order to understand Hitler's rise to power, it is necessary II to recall the mental, physical and material suffering which the Germans have undergone during the past two decades. The roots of National Socialism, however, lie buried deep in past history. Situated in the heart of Europe with no natural frontiers except on the north, the territory which now comprises the German Reich was for centuries the battlefield of Europe. As a result the Ger mans, torn by internal and external strife, were the last great people in Europe to achieve national unity; and even after the foundation of the Empire in 1871, local patriotism and particu larism remained strong. Before the World War, German national feeling was peculiarly assertive, reflecting a subconscious feeling of inferiority characteristic of a people politically united but not sufficiently unified to take its national patriotism for granted. This manifested itself after the death of Bismarck in a zigzag diplomatic course which alternated between sabre-rattling and submissIon. Although in the German Empire the Reichstag was elected by universal male suffrage, its importance in governing the Reich was not great and much of the real power rested in the army, nobility and large landowners. The German middle classes, while numerically large, were politically apathetic. They had not fought successful revolutions for their political rights like the British and French bourgeoisie, and possessed no hard-won and there fore deeply prized heritage of democracy. The German proletariat, organized in the Social Democratic party, was unable to exert much influence on the political life of the country. The discipline of the army permeated the entire nation through universal mili tary service; the people were imbued with the spirit that "order FORCES UNDERLYING THE NAZI REVOLUTION 7 must prevail" and were accustomed to obeying their supenors without question. "This excellent people has no real sense of freedom," wrote Walther Rathenau in November 1914. "It loves authority, it desires to be governed, it resigns itself and wants only to obey." The Germans, especially the ruling classes, had been pro foundly influenced during the nineteenth century by their in tellectuals-historians, philosophers and writers. Hegel, in par ticular, left his mark on German history through his glorification of the state. "The State is God on earth!" he declared, and the "individual exists only to serve the state." Many Germans were convinced of the truth of Hegel's assertion that civilization is spread only by war, and that the triumph of civilization demands the suppression of less capable or less advanced races by more highly cultured ones. War and the doctrine of force thus became the embodiment of progress. Hegel, moreover, portrayed mankind as progressing through the ages, steadily although unconsciously, toward the Germanic perfection of the nineteenth century. Ger man historians, too, had developed the doctrine of the great "mission" of the German people, and their works lauded the Hohenzollerns, the glories of the German medieval period, German prowess in the crusades, and the deeds of the Teutonic knights. Belief in the "mission" of the German people was further strengthened by a new "science" of race which aided German nationalists in explaining the superiority of the German race over all others. In 1854 a Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, published his Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines, which set forth the thesis that racial questions overshadow all other problems of history and hold the key to them. The inequality of races explains the whole course of human destiny, Gobineau argued. Asserting the inherent superiority of the "Aryan" race, he held that racial degeneration was the inevitable result of the mixture of Aryans with inferior races. Gobineau paved the way for the work of an Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whose Foundations of the Nineteenth Century appeared in 1899. Cham- 8 GERMANY UNDER HITLER berlain's main thesis was the assertion of the superiority of the T eutons over all other races of the world, and his book became a best-seller in Germany and was popular with the Kaiser. It is impossible to estimate the extent to which such works as those of Gobineau and Chamberlain actually influenced his torical events, but they were doubtless of considerable importance in nourishing German national egotism, just as Hegelian phi losophy played a part in determining the authoritarian character of the German Empire. The German intellectuals, however, de veloped an intense and intolerant spirit of nationalism among the ruling classes, reflecting, as has been pointed out, a species of national inferiority complex resulting from the tardiness with which the Reich achieved national unity. Thus the concepts of extreme nationalism as well as the doctrine of the superiority of the German-Aryan race were present in German ideology even before the war. Their elevation to the position of primary principles governing the destinies of 65,000,000 Germans, however, is the direct result of the war, the Versailles Treaty, the weakness and ineptitude of the Weimar Republic, and the post-war policy of the Allies. National Socialism is not only a mass protest against the hardships suffered during and since the war-it is also a form of self-vindication for a proud people which, trained and educated in a militarized state, were defeated in a great war. The early post-war years in Germany were marked by the blackest disillusionment and discouragement.

Load more