OXFORD READERS Nazism Edited by Neil Gregor OXFORD READERS Nazism Neil Gregor is Lecturer in Modern German History at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich (1998) and of articles on the history and memory of National Socialism. OXFORD READERS The Oxford Readers series represents a unique resource which brings together extracts of texts from a wide variety of sources, primary and secondary, on a wide range of interdisciplinary topics. Available Aesthetics Edited by Patrick Maynard and Susan Feagin Class Edited by Patrick Joyce Classical Philosophy Edited by Terence Irwin Ethics Edited by Peter Singer Ethnicity Edited by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith Evolution Edited by Mark Ridley Faith and Reason Edited by Paul Helm Fascism Edited by Roger Griffin Feminisms Edited by Sandra Kemp and Judith Squires The Mind Edited by Daniel Robinson Nationalism Edited by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. 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Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Editorial matter and Selection © Neil Gregor, 2000 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First published as an Oxford University paperback 2000 Reprinted 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover And you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978-0-19-289281-2 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Preface I should like to thank Joan Tumblety, Tony Kushner (whose work on old Eastleigh continues to be a source of inspiration), David Cesarani, Jo Reilly, Kendrick Oliver, Edgar Feuchtwanger, Rodney Livingstone, Alan Bance, Tim Reuter, and many other colleagues in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Southampton, not only for their various suggestions for this volume, but also for providing such a stimulating environment for thinking about the history and memory of European fascism; thanks are also due to Jeremy Noakes, both for his many suggestions and comments on this volume, and for his continued support and encouragement. George Miller, Fiona Kinnear, Lesley Wilson, and Jackie Pritchard provided excellent editorial support at OUP. To John Want, Judith Hayward, Sue Young, Beth Linklater, Bella Millet, and most ‘Germanist’ colleagues in the School of Modern Languages here at Southampton I owe gratitude for their help with some of the translation work. I also benefited greatly from the expertise and helpfulness of librarians at the Wiener Library in London, the Parkes Library at the University of Southampton, the German Historical Institute in London, the Ural State University of Ekaterinburg, the British Library, and Cambridge University Library. In Helen Cope I had a tireless and endlessly helpful research assistant for whose hard labours I am also grateful. Last, but by no means least, I should like very much to reaffirm my gratitude to all of my colleagues in the Department of History at the University of Southampton for their collegiality and good humour, and for the stimulus which their own scholarship provides. In an age in which most of what is valuable about British higher education is being vandalized, their support and the intellectual stimulus of their work are particularly important. As I worked on this volume the University of Southampton was hit by the tragic loss of three students in an outbreak of meningitis. One of them, Charlotte Simpkin, was a first-year student in the Department of History. Although she was only with us for a very short time, she impressed all who taught her with her ability, commitment, and enthusiasm, and her loss affected us all deeply. Like so many undergraduates, she had a particular interest in the history of Nazi Germany and had intended to specialize in this field. It thus seems fitting to dedicate this volume to her memory. N.G Contents Preface General Introduction A. Contemporary Characterizations of National Socialism Introduction 1 HERMANN RAUSCHNING , Germany’s Revolution of Destruction 2 EWALD VON KLEIST-SCHMENZIN , National Socialism: A Menace 3 THOMAS MANN , German Address: A Call to Reason 4 THEODOR HEUSS , The Party 5 FRITZ GERLICH , The Impossibility of Constructive Achievement 6 INGBERT NAAB , The Third Reich is Here! 7 ALFONS WILD , Hitler and Christianity 8 ERICH FROMM , The Psychology of Nazism 9 CARL MIERENDORFF , Overcoming National Socialism 10 KARL KAUTSKY , Some Causes and Consequences of National Socialism 11 HAROLD LASKI , The Meaning of Fascism 12 ERNST TOLLER , On the German Situation B. The Emergence of National Socialism Introduction i A Special Path? 13 HANS-ULRICH WEHLER , The German Empire 1871-1918 14 JÜRGEN KOCKA , The Causes of National Socialism 15 GEOFF ELEY , What Produces Fascism: Pre-industrial Traditions or a Crisis of Capitalism? 16 DIETER GROH , The Special Path of German History: Myth or Reality? ii The National Socialist Movement 17 MARTIN BROSZAT , The Social Motivation and Führer Bond in National Socialism 18 JEREMY NOAKES , The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony 19 ALBRECHT TYRELL , The NSDAP as Party and Movement 20 ROGER GRIFFIN , The Rise of German Fascism 21 JÜRGEN FALTER , The NSDAP: A ‘People’s Protest Party’ iii The Failure of Weimar and the Crisis of 1933 22 KARL-DIETRICH BRACHER, Stages of the Seizure of Power 23 HANS MOMMSEN, The National Socialist Seizure of Power and German Society 24 RICHARD BESSEL, Why Did the Weimar Republic Collapse? 25 DETLEV PEUKERT, The Crisis of Classical Modernity 26 IAN KERSHAW, 30 January 1933 iv National Socialism, Civil Society, and the Seizure of Power 1929–1933 27 WILLIAM SHERIDAN ALLEN, The Nazi Seizure of Power 28 ZDENEK ZOFKA, The Growth of National Socialism in the Countryside 29 RUDY KOSHAR, Toward the Mass Party 30 ODED HEILBRONNER, The Abandoned Regulars’ Table 31 WOLFRAM PYTA, Protestant Rural Milieu and National Socialism prior to 1933 C. The National Socialist Regime Introduction i The National Socialist Regime as a Monolith: Theories of Totalitarianism 32 CARLTON J. H. HAYES, The Novelty of Totalitarianism 33 HANNAH ARENDT, Ideology and Terror 34 KARL-DIETRICH BRACHER, Totalitarianism as Concept and Reality ii Marxist Theories of National Socialism 35 WALTER ULBRICHT, The Nature of Hitler Fascism 36 E. PATERNA, W. FISCHER, K. GOSSWEILER, G. MARKUS, AND K. PÄTZOLD , The Beginning of a New Stage of State Monopoly Development 37 ERNST GOTTSCHLING, The Fascist State: The German Example iii The Regime as a Polycratic State a. Wartime Émigré Writers 38 ERNST FRAENKEL , The Dual State 39 FRANZ NEUMANN , Behemoth b. The Regime and the Conservative Establishment 40 TIM MASON, The Primacy of Politics 41 PETER HAYES, The Nazi Empire 1938–1944 42 HANS MOMMSEN, The Civil Service in the Third Reich 43 JANE CAPLAN, State Formation and Political Representation in Nazi Germany 44 DIETER REBENTISCH AND KARL TEPPE , Administration versus Human Leadership 45 KLAUS-JÜRGEN MÜLLER , The Army and the Third Reich 46 WILHELM DEIST , The Gleichschaltung of the Armed Forces 47 MANFRED MESSERSCHMIDT , The Wehrnuuht in the National Socialist State 48 LOTHAR GRUCHMANN , Justice in the Third Reich 49 RALPH ANGERMUND , Jews on Trial c. Charismatic Authority and the Erosion ofRational- Bureaucratic Government 50 ROBERT KOEHL , Feudal Aspects of National Socialism 51 MARTIN BROSZAT , The Hitler State 52 PETER DIEHL-THIELE , Party and State in the Third Reich 53 HANS MOMMSEN , Cumulative Radicalization and Self-Destruction of the Nazi Regime 54 PETER HÜTTENBERGER , National Socialist Polycracy 55 TIM MASON , Intention and Explanation 56 MICHAEL GEYER , The State in National Socialist Germany 57 IAN KERSHAW , Working towards the Führer D. The ‘Seductive Surface’ of National Socialism Introduction 58 ERNST BLOCH , Inventory of Revolutionary Appearance 59 KLAUS VONDUNG , Magic and Manipulation 60 ANSON G. RABINBACH , The Aesthetics of Production in the Third Reich 61 HANS DIETER SCHÄFER , Split Consciousness 62 PETER REICHEL , The ‘Seductive Surface’ of the Third Reich 63 ALF LÜDTKE , The Honour of Labour: Industrial Workers and the Power of Symbols under National Socialism 64 JOST DÜLFFER , The Matrix of Totalitarian Imagery: Public Space, the National Socialist Year, and the Generational Cycle E. National Socialism and German Society Introduction i Resistenz? 65 MARTIN BROSZAT , Resistenz and Resistance 66 KLAUS TENFELDE , The Social Bases of Resistenz and Resistance 67 IAN KERSHAW , Resistance without the People? 68 KLAUS-MICHAEL MALLMANN AND GERHARD PAUL , Resistenz or Loyal Reluctance? ii Participation 69 ROBERT GELLATELY, The Gestapo and Social Cooperation: The Example of Political Denunciation 70 CLAUDIA KOONZ, Mothers in the Fatherland 71 PAUL WEINDLING , Racial Hygiene and Professional Leadership 72 MICHAEL H. KATER, The Problem of Motivation Reconsidered 73 MICHAEL BURLEIGH, Death and Deliverance 74 CHRISTOPHER BROWNING, Reflections on a Massacre 75 OMER BARTOV, The Missing Years: German Workers, German Soldiers 76 MICHAEL ZIMMERMANN, The Conditions for Genocide F. The Impact of National Socialism Introduction 77 DAVID SCHOENBAUM, The Third Reich and Society 78 RALF DAHRENDORF, National Socialist Germany and the Social Revolution 79 DETLEV PEUKERT, Brown Revolution? 80 JENS ALBER, National Socialism and Modernization 81 DETLEV PEUKERT, Persecution and Coordination 82 FALK PINGEL, The Concentration Camps as Part of the National Socialist System of Domination 83 GISELA BOCK, Racial Policy and Women’s Policy 84 HANS-GEORG STÜMKE, The Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany 85 DETLEV GARBE, Between Resistance and Martyrdom 86 ULRICH HERBERT, Hitler’s Foreign Workers 87 CHRISTIAN STREIT, Soviet Prisoners of War—Mass Deportation— Forced Workers 88 LENI YAHIL, Killing Operations 89 RAUL HILBERG , Children 90 FRANCISZEK PIPER, The Number of Victims 91 YITZHAK ARAD, Operation Reinhard 92 FRANK GOLCZEWSKI, Poland 93 MICHAEL BURLEIGH AND WOLFGANG WIPPERMANN , The Persecution of Sinti and Roma G. The Legacy of National Socialism Introduction i Confronting the Past 94 PETER STEINBACH , On the Engagement with National Socialist Violent Crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany 95 WOLFGANG BENZ , Post-warSociety and National Socialism: Memory, Amnesia, Defensiveness 96 NORBERT FREI , The Politics of the Past ii Denazification and War Crimes Trials 97 LUTZ NIETHAMMER , The Fellow-Travellers’ Factory 98 CLEMENS VOLLNHALS , Denazification 99 HERMANN LANGBEIN , In the Name of the German People 100 ADALBERT RÜCKERL , National Socialist Extermination Camps as Reflected in German Trials iii Bitburg, Historicization, and the Historikerstreit 101 CHARLES S. MAIER , Bitburg History 102 RAUL HILBERG , Bitburg as Symbol 103 GEOFF ELEY , Nazism, Politics, and the Image of the Past 104 PETER BALDWIN , The Historikerstreit in Context iv Holocaust Memory in the 1990S 105 JAMES E. YOUNG , Germany: The Ambiguity ofMemory 106 LUTZ NIETHAMMER , Jews and Russians in the Memory of the Germans 107 ISABEL WOLLASTON , A War against Memory? Notes Further Reading Acknowledgements Index General Introduction The ideological origins of National Socialism, the development of a political culture in which it could prosper, and the social formation of its potential constituency all go back to the late nineteenth century. Very rapid and uneven industrialization had created deep social fissures which formed the basis for increasing political conflict. Most importantly, the speed of German industrialization, and the failure of either the state or existing political parties to respond to the challenge of integrating the growing industrial working classes into the existing political framework, had led to the rapid emergence of Social Democracy, which represented a new, radical threat to the propertied classes. Not least as a result of the early introduction of universal male suffrage in 1867 and then in the Reich constitution of 1871, Germany became a highly politicized society. However, the weakness of Germany’s parliamentary institutions was simultaneously such that the Reichstag did not provide the means for the mediation and resolution of political conflict, and all pressure to reform the constitution was vigorously resisted by the landowning conservative classes, whose entrenched power in the Prussian parliament gave them an effective veto over reform. The weakness of Germany’s parliamentary institutions may be seen as having contributed in the last decade of the century to the growth of extra- parliamentary pressure and protest groups whose ideological goals and interests partly coincided with those of the establishment, but whose autonomy and style of populist mobilization and activism represented an additional challenge to the status quo nonetheless. It would be easy to overstate the significance and influence of these groups, but it is worth noting that there were clear lines of continuity in the style of populist agitation, the aims, and the constituencies which they mobilized between groups such as the Pan-German League or the Agrarian League of the pre- 1914 period and the radical nationalist and rural protest movements of the 1920s. Further, we should note that the late nineteenth century witnessed the consolidation within both the political elites and broad sectors of society of a definition of nationhood expressed in the polarized language of inclusion and exclusion, in which marginal or minority political, ethnic, or cultural groups—Socialists, Catholics, Poles or Jews—were stigmatized as ‘enemies of the Reich’. The official sanctioning and popular consolidation of such political, cultural, and ethnic resentments helped to create a climate which, under extreme conditions of crisis and disorientation, could provide fertile ground for a radicalized ideology of community in which the language of exclusion could easily evolve into the rhetoric of eradication. This was particularly ominous when extreme variants of nationalism began to merge with new biological-racial theories of social development which provided pseudo-intellectual underpinning for growing popular anti- Semitism in the late nineteenth century If we wish to find German peculiarities in the late nineteenth century which help to explain the long- term origins of National Socialism we should undoubtedly focus on the emergence of the mixture of ideas of Social Darwinism, nationalism, ‘race science’ and eugenics, and völkisch thinking during that period. Such ideas were not confined to a few cranks, but began to inform the thinking of many in professions such as medicine, psychiatry, and academia. However, it remains hard to define the precise relationship between ideas within specific professional communities, the formation of broader cultural ideologies, and the world of high politics, and it should be noted that many of these ideas were in no sense the preserve of the nineteenth-century radical Right. Darwinist theories could be ideologically allied to laissez- faire liberalism; organicist notions of community could be pressed into the service of internationalist or social-liberal political visions; eugenics and ‘race hygiene’ could be adopted by progressive forces on the Left. Most of all, such ideas were far from peculiar to Germany. Although the political polarization of German society was as great as that of most other European societies immediately prior to the First World War, and although there are grounds for believing that liberal values and liberal politics were facing particular challenges in Germany, Nazism, or a variant of it, was no more likely in Germany at this point than it was elsewhere. What made Nazism possible in Germany was, above all, the experience of the First World War, of defeat, and of national humiliation in the subsequent peace. The hardships imposed on German society by four years of wartime mobilization exacerbated the already deep-seated social and political conflicts which had come to a head in the elections of 1912 and which had been only momentarily submerged by the Burgfrieden (peace at the fortress) of 1914. Although the Social Democratic Party had initially supported the war, the consensus behind it began to break down as the war aims of the Army High Command became more and more expansionist and annexationist. As the war began to place increasing burdens on the German working classes, criticisms of the war grew from the Left, which started to demand ‘peace without annexations’. Eventually the Left split, leading to the formation of the more left-wing and pacifist Independent Social Democratic Party in 1917; this was followed by a further moment of fracture and radicalization on the Left in 1918 with the formation of the Communist Party. Social Democratic support for the war also became increasingly tied up with demands for constitutional reform, which was resisted by the conservative landowning classes since their constitutionally guaranteed effective veto enabled them to enforce the financing of the war by loans, rather than by taxation of their property. This refusal to accept reform, and the ensuing reliance of the government on successive loans, laid the foundations for the subsequent inflation which was to do so much to destroy the fragile legitimacy of the Weimar Republic; in the short term it was instrumental in undermining the fragile consensus behind the war and in fostering growing domestic political polarization. Within the middle classes and on the Right, the war also led to a further moment of populist mobilization and nationalist radicalization, in the shape of the Fatherland Party, which was formed in 1917 to generate support for the military’s annexationist aims. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 also greatly intensified middle-class fears of the spectre of the radical Left. Above all, however, the war, the subsequent defeat, and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles provided the Right with a powerful set of memories and nationalist mythologies which were to become central to Nazism both in its attacks on the Weimar Republic and in its practices and actions once in power. More important than the reality of popular reactions to the outbreak of war, which were in fact mixed, was the myth of the ‘spirit of 1914’—of a moment of national unity in which class divisions were transcended by patriotic fervour as young men rushed to enlist in the defence of the Fatherland. The trench experience itself, the experience of mass slaughter and violence, gave rise to hundreds of thousands of men who found it impossible to readjust to civilian life—many of whom joined the various right-wing paramilitary leagues which contributed so strongly to the culture of violence which bedevilled the Weimar Republic. The first generation of National Socialists, the so-called ‘old fighters’ ( Alte Kämpfer ) from whom the secondary leadership of Gauleiters was heavily drawn, was the generation which had fought in the First World War. But just as important, especially when we bear in mind that most members of the Nazi party or SA were too young to have fought in the First World War, was its subsequent mythologization: just as important were the masculine myths of camaraderie and of a classless community forged in the blood of the trenches which were to form a central part of National Socialism’s self- understanding and of its rhetorical arsenal against democracy. Most important of all, the circumstances of defeat, revolution, and humiliation of 1918–19 laid the foundation for the potent nationalist myth of the ‘stab in the back’—the idea that the German army had been let down by a collapse in the home front treacherously orchestrated by the internal enemies of the people, above all Marxists and Jews. For the radical Right, the German nation at war had been infiltrated and undermined by parasitic enemies who were now in charge of a Republic which represented everything un- German: regenerating and renewing the health of the ‘national body’ would mean above all the eradication of these enemies. The multiple negative legacies of the First World War and the impact of successive crises of capitalism proved too much for a fledgling democracy struggling to establish its legitimacy. Saddled with the burdens of defeat and the peace treaty, weakened by distributional conflicts born of successive economic crises whose origins—in the case of the hyperinflation —pre-dated it, and the object of hostility from powerful economic and functional elites who continued to sustain a culture of deep-seated anti- democratic sentiment shared by Significant sectors of the population, the Weimar Republic singularly failed to establish a Republican political culture. The militarization of political activism and rhetoric, itself a legacy of the First World War, rendered the formation of a democratic political culture difficult; the Republic itself never managed to create a set of Republican symbols or images which inspired popular support. The polarization of Left and Right and the disintegration of the pro-Republican middle-class constituency made the formation of governing coalitions increasingly difficult. The progressive recentering of political debate onto the agenda of the nationalist Right—embodied in the campaign against reparations—meant that the forces of moderacy and political realism were constantly on the defensive. The deep political and ideological divisions which ran through German society were held in check to some extent in the initial years of the Republic by the need to manufacture domestic unity in the face of external pressures, particularly with regard to Germany’s diplomatic position, and by perceived internal threats, particularly that of Communism. The accelerating erosion of the value of Germany’s currency during the inflation also served to take the edge off distributional conflicts and to mask the real costs of the First World War for the German economy. Once the immediate threat of revolution had receded, however, the elites felt able to seek to renege on the compromises of 1918–20 with increasing self-confidence, while the stabilization of Germany’s currency in 1923–4 brought home to German industry the real costs of the concessions made to labour in the revolutionary period. The German military establishment regarded the restoration of authoritarian government as a precondition for rearmament and a more overtly revisionist foreign policy. Although Weimar’s economic problems and welfare commitments were overwhelmingly legacies of the lost war and not of the supposed excessive powers of organized labour, industrialists used the growing unemployment bill caused by the high unemployment of the mid–late 1920s as a stick with which to beat a Republic which they blamed for their elusive profitability. Increasingly, and especially during the Depression, they saw in the Republic a barrier to industrial peace and sustained profitability, and agitated actively for its replacement. Nazism emerged in the context of this crisis of legitimacy of liberal parliamentary democracy in the aftermath of the First World War. It developed by stages over the 1920s and 1930s to fill the vacuum created by the Republic’s failure. As with other fascist ideologies and movements it subscribed to an ideology of national renewaL rebirth, and rejuvenation, manifesting itself in extreme populist radical nationalism, militarism, and— in contradistinction to many other forms of fascism—extreme biological racism, directed above all against the Jews. The movement understood itself to be. and indeed was, a new form of political movement, held together by charismatic leadership and engaging in a new form of revolutionary political activism. central to which was paramilitary mobilization and street violence. The glorification of violence and militarism was particularly evident in the ritual and symbolic practices of Nazism, with their emphasis on rallies, uniforms, and paramilitary display, and with their appropriation of military heroes, military values, and events in the construction of a legitimizing symbolic system. Once in power, violence was used to terrifying effect on the regime’s perceived internal and external enemies, political and ideological. At first this manifested itself in the incarceration of many tens of thousands of political opponents (overwhelmingly supporters of the Left) in concentration camps, alongside growing categories of loosely defined ‘enemies of the people’ such as homosexuals, members of minority sects, or ‘hereditary criminals’. In the case of these latter groups National Socialist ideology provided a rationalization for the brutalization, and often murder, of groups who were socially stigmatized and marginalized by ‘healthy popular opinion’. Later, Nazi aggression was directed outwards as it sought to implement its imperialist goals. Finally, it reached a climax in the ‘euthanasia’ programme, in the murder squads in Poland and on the eastern front, and in the mass extermination of European Jewry. In short, the ritualized martial imagery of the Kampfteit (time of struggle) and of the party rallies after 1933 was not a superficial end in itself but an expression of Nazism’s fundamental nature and intentions. The Nazi movement drew its support from broad sectors of the population, from all socio-cultural milieux, and could claim with some justification to be genuinely transclass in nature. Nonetheless, the social basis of Nazism’s support was still primarily in the middle class, both before and after the seizure of power, and in small-town and rural milieux rather than in the large industrial centres. The anti-Socialist, anti-liberal, and radical nationalist tenets of Nazi ideology appealed particularly to the sentiments of a middle class disorientated by the domestic and international upheavals in the inter-war period. The radical anti-Semitism of the party’s activists was not the prime motive for most people’s support for the party, but neither did it prevent most voters from supporting it. The party appealed particularly to the young, for whom its new style of politics was attractive, and succeeded at key moments in mobilizing large numbers of those who had previously not voted. In rural areas, especially in Protestant north Germany, Nazism’s ideology of renewal mobilized often diffuse cultures of protest in communities where the hostile forces of modernity, embodied in the Weimar Republic, combined with the debilitating impact of the agricultural Depression, appeared to be threatening the rural way of life in its entirety. As the Depression deepened, the movement grew radically in