1. a salvage operation of bourgeois capitalism;
2. a victory for conservative, racist and militaristic nationalism;
3. the triumph of amoral, bureaucratic technocracy;
4. a revolution of lower, middle-class resentment and avarice;
5. an unprecedented, collective explosion of the diseased, racist German psyche;
6. an expression of anarchic mass democracy in a postindustrial mass society;
7. a modern experiment in totalitarian rule- along with fascism and communism.
I leave it for you to decide which of these interpretations has prevailing
merit. I also leave it for you to decide what my interpretation is and how
much validity it contains in the light of your own knowledge and understanding.
I suspect that one's assessment of the Nazi movement and regime depends
on whether one takes a philosophical, historical, social or more traditional
political approach to the problem.
The ministerial bureaucracy was considerably increased under Hitler. He
followed the basic bureaucratic principle that you never eliminate any position
or program but simply add new offices and positions to effect change, which
becomes thereby less and less likely. There was a real social antagonism
between the academic and non-academic sections of the ministerial bureaucracy
under Hitler as well as under the Weimar Republic. The upper civil servants
regarded the state as a business undertaking, to be run efficiently and
expeditiously. Success was of greater value than right or social justice.
Efficient and incorruptible in the ordinary sense, the ministerial bureaucracy
was the center of every anti-democratic movement in Weimar Germany.
In the Nazi ministries most of the same old bureaucrats were still there,
since Hitler could not run the state without them and since many of them
had helped him come to power. Only one Secretary of State, Ronald Freisler,
was new. Meissner, Lammers and others were holdovers from the old regime.
Meissner, in fact, had served Ebert, Hindenburg and Hitler with equal neutrality.
There was a complete change in the Economics Ministry, in terms of personnel,
but this did not really mean a substantial change in policy. A comparison
of the the bureaucracy of 1931 and 1936 shows a remarkable continuity: from
the academic bureaucracy to the heads of provincial and local finance organizations,
to members of provincial and local financial tribunals, to civil and criminal
advocates and a large percentage of the domestic administrative staffs.
Among the many exceptions to this general rule was the province of Prussia,
where considerable personnel changes took place.
The ministerial bureaucracy was a closed caste, particularly in Germany,
with its long history of bureaucratic efficiency, dating back to Frederick
the Great. This much respected social elite had never shown any peculiar
tendency towards social reform. As the socialists would say, it never tried
to betray capitalism. It was the most important agency in the formation
of policy, especially as it related to economic financial, social and agricultural
matters.
However, this bureaucracy was not unlimited. It had to respond to Hitler's
wishes, since he had popular support. And it had to compete with three civil
bureaucracies, those of the party, the Army and industry. In a sense, you
could say that the Nazi system was an intricate maze of competing, multiple
bureaucracies, which had a tendency to overlap, conflict and occasionally
cancel each other out, thus inhibiting the Führer's wishes and directives.
The system was much less totalitarian than has usually been assumed. It
was much less a Führer-state than the Nazis said it was and naive observers
believed it to be.
The ruling group consisted of Hitler, his deputy Bormann, the Reichsleiter,
Goering, the Gauleiter, cabinet ministers and the secretaries of state.
The influence of the Reichsleiter in most instances was the decisive one.
The 33 district leaders, or Gauleiter, were assuming more and more influence
in the late thirties, although during the war their influence declined.
During the war men like Himmler, Goebbel's and Speer, along with the central
bureaucracy, assumed more and more power.
Before the war, a party hierarchy of about 120 men composed the core of
the ruling group. The central administration was in Munich, although a special
center in Berlin, under Bormann, exercised a decisive lever on party policy.
Rudolf Hess lost his power and influence long before the war and the quixotic
flight to England. Attached to the Berlin Party Center were a series of
offices which maintained close contact with the state ministries. These
offices were usually headed by ministerial bureaucrats or other ranking
civil servants. For instance, foreign policy matters were handled by Bohle,
who was also a secretary of state in the foreign office. Technology was
under Fritz Todt, largely responsible for the building of the Autobahn.
The dualism of party and government had a double function: the bureaucracy
was not disturbed and remained fully responsible for the administration.
The influence of the party was secured through the liaison officers, holding
positions in both party and state. The official propaganda made a big to
do about these dual positions, calling them a kind of "melting station"
(Schmelzstelle) of party and state. This mystical, largely inexplicable
conception was to demonstrate the unique quality of the Nazi system, believed
to be a mystical yet practical political expression of the dynamic, organic
state.
But the party hierarchy really was not very well integrated. Cabals and
intrigue inevitably produced in a closed, hierarchic group, clustered around
a leader, prevented that kind of homogeneity which is the prerequisite of
popular rule. Strangely enough, that infighting and conflict also prevented
the formation of a solid, monolithic, totalitarian structure which the Nazis
wanted to create.
It may come as a surprise to you that teachers in Germany have always been
civil servants. Under Hitler the elementary teachers organization was completely
under Nazi control. Some 160,000 party political functionaries, in 1936-1937,
came from the teaching profession, mostly those engaged in elementary education.
This meant that some 22% of 700,000 political leaders came from the teaching
profession. Their participation in the National Socialist regime demonstrated
the complete deterioration of German philosophical idealism, as officially
taught. It symbolized a decline of Kant's legal and political philosophy.
By banishing the idea of law into the sphere of transcendence, Kant left
actual law and actual morals at the mercy of empiricism and the blind forces
of tradition.
The elementary teachers were separated from high school teachers, with their
university education, by a deep social gulf. Their income was low and their
social status close to that of the proletariat. Under the Empire they used
Army service as a means of social elevation. But under the pacifist Weimar
Republic they were "forced" to join the SS and SA to get some
recognition. The pseudo-equality of National Socialism, and its private
Army of paramilitary troops, thus provided an outlet for massive resentments
accumulated during the Weimar years.
Beside the teachers, the party used three methods of infiltrating the traditional
civil service:
- the revolutionary act of 1933, which expelled non-Aryans and unreliables in the service;
- the systematic indoctrination of the existing personnel; and
- the party monopolization of new openings.
By using these methods effectively the new civil service moved in two
directions: social differences were destroyed to some extent and a new elite
was gradually formed within the civil service. But it was false democratization,
since status and power remained completely unchanged even in the lower ranks
of the civil service.
As we have seen, the upper civil service or ministerial bureaucracy, remained
largely free from old party members. It related to the Nazi regime via liaison
officers or by the assignment of state tasks directly to party officials.
A good example of the latter process are the police (under Himmler's SS),
the youth (under Schirach's Hitler-Jugend) and propaganda (under Goebbels).
In the middle and lower civil service hierarchies, key positions were held
by party men, while the non-party majority was terrorized and indoctrinated
through party cells. The submergence of the civil service in the party was
in full swing by the beginning of the war, since promotions and new positions
were in party control. However, this process was somewhat reversed during
the war, when military demands depleted the civil service and allowed the
older bureaucrats to reassert their authority.
The Army alone knew how to keep itself organizationally free from party
interference. Its complicity in Hitler's appointment as chancellor gave
it greater independence vis-a-vis the party than other institutions. This
independence was further enhanced in 1934, when the Army literally forced
Hitler to eliminate the SA as a rival military group, in order to buy further
Army support. Since Hitler's foreign policy could not possibly be achieved
without the support of the old professionals in the Army, he always treated
the Army with unusual deference. It is noteworthy that among all the various
segments in society only the Army made serious attempts to depose Hitler,
particularly in 1938 and 1944.
For that matter, the Army essentially agreed with Hitler that the frontiers
of 1914 should be restored and colonies should be re-acquired. Close contacts
with industry tended to make the German Army the most powerful arm of imperialist
expansion. Thus, despite its organizational independence, the Army kowtowed
to Hitler like it never did to the Weimar Republic. But the Army was also
out to preserve its existence, its social and political status within society.
Only total defeat finally removed the Army as the predominant force in German
society. So Hitler, finally, did by accident what the Revolution of 1918
failed to do by intent.
The point could be made that private capitalism and bureaucratization of
the economy are essentially incompatible. If this is true, then Hitler's
regime should have begun the process of destroying capitalism in Germany.
But this did not happen, despite the fact that a radical element in the
Nazi Party wanted to do exactly that. But that radical element, led by Otto
Strasser, was already effectively eliminated before Hitler's seizure of
power. What actually developed after 1933 was an interesting demonstration
of how well capitalism and bureaucratization complement each other.
National Socialism was not feudalistic in its economic policy, as some scholars
have suggested, since that would have meant direct human relations, without
the mediation of a market in the economic mechanism. In reality depersonalization
promoted by bureaucratization serves to conceal the seat of economic power.
The real economic rulers operate behind a plethora of organizations surrounding
private property. This fact is responsible for the false interpretation
of bureaucratization of the economy as the disappearance of private ownership.
But industrial leadership, under the Nazis, differed from the Weimar model
in certain respects. Commercial capital was no longer represented. In other
words, free trade did not exist. Commercial capital had lost its predominant
position, and heavy industry was restricted to some degree-at least to the
extent that it could not interfere with the overall objectives of the regime
in foreign and domestic policy. So, industrial leadership, under the Nazi
regime, was smaller and much more integrated than it had been in the Weimar
period.
In a sense, the whole Nazi economy was under the rule of certain monopoly
producers, who made a deal with the political rulers. Although, I hasten
to add, that this does not mean that the Marxists are right in saying that
the Nazi party represented a capitalist plot to save itself from disintegration.
The Nazi movement was much more than a mere salvage operation of monopoly
capitalism. Hitler used the capitalists as much as they used him.
The economic problems of the East-Elbian Junkers was a persistent issue
in the late Weimar Republic. The Osthilfe, a kind of welfare system for
bankrupt landowners, introduced in 1931, was a device to preserve the social
and economic status of the Junkers. There were obvious irregularities in
this scheme, which led Schleicher to call for an investigation of the Osthilfe.
He lost the support of the Junkers for this reason, as well as for the attempt
to get the support of the trade unions. He was vigorously denounced by the
Junkers, as an agrarian Bolshevik, and consequently fell from power.
Hitler's appointment, then, was followed by the revival of political power
for the Junkers. The National Socialists, therefore, did nothing to check
the centralization of agriculture. Instead, the Nazis concentrated on the
deliberate creation of a reliable elite of wealthy peasants, at the expense
of small farmers. They tried to form a solid corps of some 700,000 hereditary
peasants, whose estates could not be encumbered, who could extent their
holdings without restriction, and whose products received price protection.
The Nazis then repaid the Junkers for going along with this, by applying
the Hereditary Estates Act to the feudal lords as well. Thus two anachronism
existed side by side: a Junker class and the hereditary peasants, one was
the remnant of a dying class and the other an elite among independent peasants.
Thus the political system of the Nazi regime was characterized by profits,
power, prestige, and above all, fear. Devoid of the common loyalty, and
concerned solely with the preservation of their own interests, the ruling
groups were bound to break apart as soon as the miracle-working Führer
met a worthy opponent. Since political leadership became more and more a
monopoly of the party, constant efforts had to be made to renew the ruling
class. Thus every youth was compelled to become a member of the Hitler Youth
organization after 1936-1939. Schools became increasingly under party control
and more than 90% of college students were organized in the National Socialist
Student Association.
At the top of the political pyramid stood the living embodiment of Weber's
charismatic leadership-Adolf Hitler. He was really more than a classical
tyrant or a traditional dictator. The Nazis themselves called their system
a Führer-state. The implication of this statement was that the ramshackle
structure really would not survive the life of the current leader. He alone
gave it life and breath. This is the way it turned out. It is doubtful that
the system could have been perpetuated, even if the war had not been lost
under a Goering, Goebbels or Himmler. None of them possessed the kind of
magnetic appeal that Hitler had.
The essential medium of Hitler's power over audiences-and his own temperament-was
speech. Words and facts were only devices for the manipulation of emotions.
He hated intellectuals and practitioners of reason and argument, while revealing
an instinctive sensitivity to the moods of the crowd. He made an extraordinary
impression of force, an immediacy of passion, an intensity of fury, and
conveyed menace by the sound of his voice. His was the magnetism of a hypnotist,
combined with the role of the visionary and the prophet. He wanted to breed
a new biological elite by reducing whole nations to slavery in order to
form an empire. Hitler was always close to the irrational. As long as he
deliberately exploited the irrational side of human nature, he was brilliantly
successful. It was when he began to believe in his own magic, and accepted
the myth of himself as true, that his flair faltered. He was essentially
a mixture of calculation and fanaticism.
His capacity for self-dramatization revealed itself particularly in the
device of always putting himself on the defensive, making himself into a
kind of political martyr. Yet at the same time he gave the impression of
concentrated will power and superhuman intelligence. He was a consummate
actor, a great politician who saw the weaknesses of his opponents. He had
a keen sense of opportunity and timing. He knew how to wait for the right
moment, as in 1932. Surprise was a favorite gambit of his. Above all, he
was the master of mass emotion. No regime in history has ever paid such
careful attention to psychological factors in politics. He used a method
of intoxication with himself and his audiences. Universal distrust characterized
his every move, which was always devoid of any scruples or inhibitions.
All was the result of cold calculation. Divide and rule-the dualism of party
and state-were all deliberate devices to maintain his power. He particularly
distrusted the experts, and acted on the assumption that force and threat
of force would solve all problems.
He had a deep craving to dominate and hence a constant need for praise.
His cynicism finally stopped with his own person. "I go were Providence
dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker," he said. But repeated
success was fatal-he came to believe in his own infallibility. So, failure
came from the same gift for self-dramatization that brought earlier success.
Hitler was a modern example, perhaps even a modern perversion, of what the
Greeks used to call hubris, overweening pride. Among the few things he liked
was baroque architecture, which led him to hate all art from the impressionists
to modern art.
He knew few pleasures and predicted a vegetarian future. He was only impressed
by power. Consequently, he liked the organization of the Roman Catholic
Church, but had nothing but contempt for the Protestant clergy. In religion,
he was a rationalist and materialist, although he opposed the establishment
of pagan rites and made fun of Himmler's silly moves to surround the SS
with primitive pagan symbolism. In practice, he was somewhat restrained
in his anticlericalism for political reasons and even allowed the formation
of a Protestant counter-church, the so-called German Christians. He had
a naive 19th century faith in science, but no understanding of the spiritual
and profoundly emotional side of human nature. Emotion was only the raw
material of power. Perhaps a symptom of his underworld origins, was his
persistent distrust of those who came from the bourgeois world.
His whole cast of mind was historical and his sense of mission derived from
his sense of history. He was dogmatic and intolerant in his simplistic beliefs.
There was an innate vulgarity and coarseness of spirit that constituted
the essential Hitler. A crude belief in Darwinism compelled him to interpret
struggle as the father of all things. This is the key to his racist mania,
since virtue was to be found only in blood and leadership. With this principle
in mind, even in Germany, only part of the population could be considered
to be purely Aryan. Since race justified everything, it was more important
than equality. The superior claims of the racially pure Volk, in Hitler's
view, had prevail over personal liberty. Hence, inferior races and ethnic
groups were disposable, as so much human waste material.
Hitler saw the state as an instrument of power, in which the qualities to
be valued were discipline, unity and sacrifice. His was a plebiscitary and
popular dictatorship, a democratic Caesarism. In fact, his state was based
on popular support to a degree that few people care to admit, particularly
today, when the horrors of the Nazi regime recede into the oblivion of universal
historical myopia. The Führerprinzip, the role of the elites, the personality
in history, these were the simplistic constants of his political theory.
The Kampfzeit, or time of struggle, was a process of natural selection,
which created the elite of the party. That party was held in reserve, to
safeguard the Volk, if the state should fail. The party was the link between
Führer andVolk, an agent for the education of the people in the Nazi
Weltanschauung. He had contempt for liberalism but hostility to Marxism,
because it was a viable rival. His antisemitism was the one most consistent
theme of his career.
There was nothing original in Hitler's political system, or in his basic
ideas. There was, however, something quite new in Hitler's literal translation
of these ideas into reality, and in his grasp of the means to do so.
Send comments and questions to Professor
Gerhard Rempel, Western New England College.