Source: K. D. Bracher, The German Dictatorship (London, 1971), pp.228-247.
The consolidation of the totalitarian regime, following the establishment of the one-party state in the summer of 1933, brought with it problems bearing on the relationship of party and state, the institutionalisation of domestic Gleichschaltung, the economy, rearmament and foreign policy. On July 6, 1933, before the proclamation of the one-party decree, Hitler told his Reich governors that the task that lay ahead of them was the 'winding-up of the revolution': 'We now must eliminate the last remnants of the democracy . . . The Achievement of outward power must be followed by the inner education of the people.' The next phase involved the consolidation and expansion of autocratic rule, the transition of the revolution 'into the secure bed on evolution.' Therefore, only replaceable specialists were to be gotten rid of. To 'secure position after position,' The National Socialists would have to 'set their sights far ahead and make long-range plans.' Instead of overthrowing existing ideologies and doctrines, what was needed was practical thinking and 'clever and careful' action 1 . The slogan 'the winding-up of the revolution' was adopted for tactical reasons. It was meaningless as far as the radical long-range goals, the ideological content, and the revolutionary character of National Socialist rule were concerned. The barely veiled revolutionary acts of the first power-seizure phase were replaced by the principle of the 'permanent revolution' as the policy tool of totalitarian rule. This is the meaning of the call for evolution and consolidation with which the power seizure was modified and restrained on all levels, with the result that new illusions supplanted the old. Many both inside Germany and abroad continued to see Hitler as a moderate statesman (in contrast to the 'radicals,' especially in the SA leadership) whom reality would steer onto a sensible course. This error led to the fatal mis-judgement of the 'second revolution' ΓÇô the bloodbath of June 30, 1934, and its consequences. The illusions found expression in sayings such as 'the Leader knows nothing about this', which were meant to deflect any criticism of the regime; then as before, the brutal reality was explained as the regrettable but understandable excesses of lower-ranking chieftains, inevitable in the initial period of so dynamic a policy.
State and Party
Vital to its successful seizure of power was the fact that the National Socialist leadership, through threat and seduction, was able to take over the machinery of state intact. The reluctance with which large portions of the civil service had accepted the democratic Republic was matched by their readiness to co-operate with a new regime that promised to substitute order, stability, efficiency, and 'national values' for the disturbing innovations of a crisis-ridden, 'un-national' parliamentary democracy. The national-authoritarian new order of 1933 derived its precepts, justification, and popularity from the tradition of the authoritarian state, and apparently followed this tradition, even though it might not bring the hoped-for restoration of the monarchy. Many a bystander (including Bruening) who expected the regime to collapse in short order because of its technical incompetence was hoodwinked. The new rulers could rely completely on the efficient functioning of the government machinery on which they were so dependent if: (1) They limited the administrative 'purge' to a democratic minority, many of whom, being appointees, were looked on as irksome outsiders by the closed caste of civil servants (a fact which was cleverly exploited by the very name of the Law for the Restoration of a Professional Civil Service of April 7, 1933); (2) the relationship to the one and only party was regulated in such a way as not to impair the civil service's traditional claim to embody the 'state above parties.'
In the first months, the National Socialist leadership did everything in its power to ward off conflicts, above all those arising out of the violent activities of the SA, through a seemingly workable delimitation and consolidation of the relationship of party and state. Rigid control of the party from above and support of the civil servant's faith in status and order ΓÇô these were the foundations of the solution offered by the new order of 1933-34 under the slogan 'unity of party and state,' once the 'troublesome' parliaments and political pluralism had been wiped out. The solution was based on Hitler's ideological dictum: 'The party now has become the state. All power rests with the Reich Government.' 2 And even before the promulgation of the one-party law, Minister of the Interior Frick, in a letter to the Reich Governors and state governments (July 11, 1933), declared that the one-party state had been erected 'for all eternity' and that through it 'all power' was vested in the Hitler government, 'in which all vital positions are filled by reliable National Socialists.' The task was 'to provide intellectual and economic underpinnings for the total power incorporated in [the Hitler government].' 3 This meant expansion instead of continued revolution, taut party discipline instead of arbitrary and overbearing acts on the part of commissars, the men who, as executors of the revolution, had played so vital a role in the political co-ordination of the country. Everything was now directed toward protecting the power won against unchecked inroads by the party. Now and later, Wilhelm Frick, who as a not overly loyal civil servant had joined Hitler in 1923, championed not only the tactical line of the moment ΓÇô the winning-over of the bureaucratic specialists and the regimentation of the revolution ΓÇô but quite obviously also the self-interest of his office and of a ministerial bureaucracy concerned with self-preservation and co-operation. His objective was a strong civil-service state, and in fact the staff of the ministries multiplied within a few years. That is the explanation for Frick's sharply worded announcement that 'any type of collateral government is incompatible with the authority of the total state.' Soon thereafter (July 17), Goebbels also proclaimed the 'winding-up of the National Socialist revolution' and warned against 'camouflaged Bolshevik elements who talk about a second revolution.' Hitler has 'stopped our revolution at exactly the right moment.
Now that we have possession of the state with all its powers, we no longer have to capture by force positions, which are legally ours.' 4 That most certainly was not an apt summation of the facts. It did not hold true for the legality, which was being claimed, nor did the leadership in the future refrain from intimidation and force. But it did show up the fictitious character of the 'unity of party and state,' a slogan which was meant to resolve the tension between the sovereignty claims of the NSDAP and an indispensable state apparatus, between National Socialist ideology and traditional governmental practices. In a speech at the fifth party congress in Nuremberg, The 'Congress of Victory,' Hitler sought to solve the problem by a sort of division of labour. The turgid phrases of the ceremonial opening address of September 1, 1933 5 , contained the statement that with the abolition of the parliamentary multiparty democracy and the right to public criticism, the NSDAP had become the 'sole representative of state power' insofar as it now was charged with the intensive 'political education of the German people.' Its task was to establish authority, discipline, and the general validity of the leader principle this, according to Hitler's grotesque definition, consisted of the exercise of 'responsible authority downward and authoritarian responsibility upward.' Whatever the specific intent of this may have been, it did mean the inversion of the democratic principle. The party was assigned the function of 'finding and uniting the most capable persons in Germany through a selection conditioned by day-to-day struggle,' to carry out elite training for the leadership hierarchy, to serve as the 'political selection organisation' for the authoritarian regime. That was to be the task for the NSDAP after the seizure of power. The state, on the other hand, was charged with the 'continuation of the historic and developed administration of the governmental agencies within the framework and by virtue of the laws.'
This sort of jurisdictional division into political training on the one hand and administration on the other opened up wide possibilities for a future dualism of party and state, and consequently for the discretionary powers of the Fuehrer. Hitler continued to invoke vague formulas: 'That which can be solved by governmental action will be solved by governmental action, and that which the state by its very nature is not able to solve will be solved by the movement.' 6 A meaningless definition. The National Socialist idea of the state remained as vague as the promised and never realised new National Socialist constitution. The Third Reich remained in a state of permanent improvisation. True, the concept 'movement,' whatever that may have meant at any given moment, was placed above a state relegated to 'administration.' But the vast expansion of the administrative apparatus in the totalitarian Obrigkeitsstaat , which encompassed both the executive and legislative, left the dualism unresolved. The official commentary on the 1933 party congress was able to disguise this tension euphemistically but could not do away with it 'In this polarity between political movement and governmental bureaucracy, the life of the nation will in future find its expression.' 7
Such vague formulas could not define the relationship between party and state. But the National Socialist leadership was of course incapable of defining it, and probably not even interested in any ultimate clarification. Here as in other cases, it was easier and at the same time more effective to let the issue hang fire, to decide on competencies from case to case to demonstrate the superiority of a Fuehrer ruling over both movement and state. The tension also was not really resolved by the apparently definitive Law on the Securing of the Unity of Party and State promulgated on December 1, 1933. To be sure, the law clearly stated that 'after the victory of the National Socialist revolution,' the NSDAP was to be 'the representative of the German state idea and military party organisations ΓÇô Rudolf Hess as Hitler's deputy and Ernst Roehm as chief of staff of the SA ΓÇô were taken into the government to symbolise the close connection of party and state.' The party also now dominated numerically in the Cabinet. But at the same time the autonomy of the NSDAP, now an institution of public law subordinate solely to Hitler, was confirmed and the party given its own legal jurisdictional sphere (including the imposition of prison sentences); in exercising this jurisdiction, it could call upon public officials. Party judges thenceforth were 'responsible only to their National Socialist conscience . . . and subordinate only to the Fuerher.' The lapidary formula of unity of party and state as stated in the law did not clearly define the jurisdictional spheres, either. The purpose of the law was to confirm the co-ordination, which offered continued opportunities to the dualism of a dynamic-revolutionary political movement and a regimented authoritarian state order. Amid this tension, the numerous existing personal and institutional conflicts were exacerbated and further complicated by the rise of the SS, with its own bureaucracy and quasi-governmental powers.
Numerous German constitutional lawyers, in a feat of rapid readjustment, tried to fit the reality of the one-party authoritarian state into a systematic theory encompassing all components of the regime. The first one to do so was the flexible, opportunistic Carl Schmitt, the leading professor of international and public law at Berlin University. Once a conservative Catholic, pupil of Erich Kaufmann, and admirer of Hugo Preuss, the author of the Weimar Constitution Schmitt turned his back on his Jewish mentors to champion the Hindenburg-Papen version of authoritarianism. Now his essay Staat, Bewegung, Volk (State, Movement, Nation; 1933) celebrated the trinity of the new system, the 'tripartite of political unity.' Ultimately the National Socialist idea of the civil service was to bring the quad-repartition of Leader, movement, Nation, state 8 . Other young law professors steered a direct course toward the 'total state,' as for example Ernst Forsthoff, in his Der totale Staat (The Total State; 1933). Yet none of the theoretical constructions for the sanctioning of National Socialist rule solved the question of which functions were to be retained by the victorious monopoly party if it was to preserve its separate existence and continue to develop and escape complete absorption by the totalitarian state.
The NSDAP of the 'fighting years: had patterned its structure on that of the state, in line with Hitler's dictum 'that all future institutions of this state must grow out of the movement itself.' 9 Accordingly, the separate departments on foreign policy, economics, finance, labour, agriculture, and military affairs were set up and staffed. But the rapid and smooth take over of the governmental apparatus, which played so vital a role in the successful seizure of power, was not accompanied by a merger of the state and party bureaucracies. In their drive for state office, only a few party heads succeeded in taking the hurdles, as for example Darre in his contest with Hugenberg. Generally speaking, the conflict between the party and Government continued, and a number of apparatuses became involved in costly rivalries. This sort of 'institutional Darwinism' 10 was strikingly exemplified by the coexistence of the Foreign Office under Neurath with the 'unofficial' foreign policy pursued by the offices of Ribbentrop and Rosenberg and Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. This situation prevailed until Ribbentrop's appointment to the Foreign Ministry in 1938. Of even weightier consequence was the coexistence of Army, the SA party troops, and later the SS.
All these instances involved both organisational and personnel problems; the fight of job- and influence-hungry party officials who saw the state as their booty continued even after the officially mandated unity of party and state. In the realm of military policy, the decision in favour of the state was reached within six months ΓÇô in the summer of 1934 ΓÇô when Hitler sacrificed the ambitions of the SA leadership to the Army, although this decision also did not prove to be final. At the same time, the rise of the SS as the political-military elite organisation of the party meant a new rival for the Army. And after consolidating his power, Hitler did not cease to assign central functions to the NSDAP. The tasks of the dictatorial monopoly party which he re-emphasised at the party congress of 1935 included above all the formation of a new elite and the 'creation of a stable, self-perpetuating eternal nucleus of National Socialist teachings,' the control and indoctrination ('education') of the masses, the linking and transmitting of the Leader's will to society and state to achieve co-ordination, and the consolidation and expansion of the new power and elite structure through the ever-present activities of the one party and its all-encompassing organisations.
The party of 1933-34, assigned this position and these tasks, was in the process of a profound transformation. The victory over all opponents and rivals, the rapid growth of membership and party auxiliaries, the personnel changes and the official functions acquired by the NSDAP on the road toward officialdom ΓÇô all these confronted the 'movement' for the second time since its breakthrough to a mass organisation (1929-30) with the problem of how to carry out its dual function of elite and mass party. Between 1928 and 1932, the membership had grown from 108,000 to almost 1.5 million. Between January 30,1933, and the end of 1934, it increased by almost 200 per cent. The 'old fighters,' now one-third of the membership, we confronted with two-thirds new party recruits 11 .
The enormous change also was reflected in the social composition and background of the membership. The proportion of working-class members, though it still fell far below their share in the population (46 per cent), increased from 28 per cent in 1930 to 32 per cent in 1934, while the percentage of white-collar workers fell off (from 25.6 to 20.6 per cent), although it remained far above their share in the population (12.4 per cent). The number of independent businessmen remained disproportionately high (20 per cent, as compared to their population proportion of 9 per cent). The membership increase of civil servants and teachers was particularly steep (from 8.3 per cent to 13 per cent compared with their 5 per cent representation in the population); they of course were most exposed to direct pressure. Farm membership, on the other hand, declined from 14 per cent to 10.7 per cent (population share, 10 per cent). It should be borne in mind that professional and class differences played a part in the proportion between followers and membership. The relatively small number of farmers in the party says nothing about the tremendous rallying of voters from this sector after the elections of 1929-30. The middle-class structure of the NSDAP became even more apparent in the leadership. White-collar workers predominated, particularly among the Kreisleiter (district chiefs) (37 per cent), followed by civil servants and independent businessmen, while the farmers were found mainly in the many lower-ranking positions. The NSDAP continued to build its image as the 'party of the youth.' More than 37 per cent of its members were under thirty; more than 65 per cent had not yet reached forty; barely 15 per cent were over forty. The average age of the National Socialist elite also was below that of their forty-five-year-old Leader. The growth of the Hitler Youth was enormous, not least through the absorption of the pre-Hitler youth movement; in 1933-34, the membership increased from 108.000 to nearly 3.6 million.
Regional differences persisted both in the numerical strength of the party and in the relationship between old and new party members. Almost analogous to the elections after 1930, the NSDAP registered its relatively largest gains in the party regions of Schleswig-Holstein, southern Hanover, Main-Franconia, and Hesse (as well as in Danzig), and its smallest in Westphalia, Silesia, Pomerania, Baden, Berlin, Munich, and southern Bavaria. After 1923-24, the weight of the movement had shifted northward from its birthplace and the 'capital of the movement' (Bavaria and Munich). Only Central and Upper Franconia, the land of Julius Streicher and the national party congresses, remained a stronghold of the NSDAP after the seizure of power.
The question of which party region showed the greatest membership increase after January 30, 1933, is of still greater interest. Here the lead was held by Main-Franconia, where by the end of 1934, the membership had multiplied more than sevenfold (740 per cent), followed by Cologne-Aachen (458 per cent) and Coblenz-Trier (448 per cent). In a process of rapid adjustment, these predominantly Catholic areas compensated for their initially low membership, while, conversely, the high membership of Schleswig-Holstein increased by a scant 80 per cent, though it continued to lead. The agricultural and middle-class regions retained their large lead over the industrial cities: even now, inroads into the working class were not as easily made as the program and propaganda of the party pretended.
The enormous increase in membership and restructuring of the NSDAP into the sole, official party not only altered the proportion between old and new party members but also made possible the eradication of sources of party strife and rebellion that had survived the bloody purge of June 30, 1934. Almost 20 per cent of the political leaders who had belonged to the NSDAP before 1933 had left by the end of 1934. Significantly, the turnover was greatest in Berlin (more than 50 per cent), followed by Main-Franconia (35 per cent), Hamburg and Duesseldorf (27 per cent each), and other large cities, in which the transition from 'old fighters' to newly discovered 'leaders' was most apparent. The 'old fighters' were either replaced (more than one-fourth) or retired. The reasons for these changes were organisational and political, connected either with the old Left course of the Strasser camp, with socialism, or with the problem of the SA and revolution. At any rate, with the influx of new members, the NSDAP had turned into a mass organisation, which the state leadership was able to steer easily through the course changes of the early period. By the end of 1934, almost 80 per cent of the political leaders were people who had joined the party after 1933; only the Gauleiter corps was still made up of self-assertive, self-confident old fighters. Thenceforth the party became the instrument of totalitarian rule; not political conflict but personal and organisational rivalries marked the further expansion of the NSDAP ΓÇô the victorious and all-embracing state party and the instrument of change of the Fuehrer state all in one. Only the SS was able to develop and independent position as the avant-garde of the National Socialist Empire, and it too never rebelled against Hitler.
The fact that even in the future the party never achieved clear-cut primacy testifies to the ambiguous character of the National Socialist system. The formula of the party issuing orders to the state was true of the Communist one-party state, which had smashed the old governmental machinery and the traditional elite structure, although even there the future might see a return to dual structures. But in the Third Reich, where traditional and revolutionary elements continued to exist partly fused and partly as rivals, the primacy of the party was established only in specific instances; at times it almost seemed as if the opposite were the case, and often enough it was not even the party and state but rival party bigwigs who found themselves on opposite sides. The party did not issue orders to the state but rather gained quasi-governmental privileges and pushed through the total claims of the system in the social sphere as well by carrying out the extra governmental functions of 'education,' co-ordination and control, and recruitment of youth. 12
The 'state' itself also was divided into different power groups. The claims of the Presidential and Fuehrer dictatorship, of the corporate organisations and of the growing police state were in competition, while the Reich Cabinet lost its leading function and after 1937 no longer even met. The Fuehrer constituted the only definite link between and above the jurisdictional thicket of party agencies and state machinery. The omnipotence of his position rested not least on the ill-defined relationship of party and state; he alone was able to solve the costly jurisdictional conflicts, which were part of the system. Regardless of whether this was an unavoidable dilemma of totalitarian dictatorship of a consciously wielded tool of dictatorial rule, the widespread idea about the better organised and more effective 'order' of totalitarian one-man rule is a myth all too easily believe in crisis-ridden democracies. It is the lie that animates all authoritarian movements, then and now; its matrix is an ideology of order, which vilifies the pluralistic character of modern society, subjugating it to a misanthropic as well as unreal ideal of efficiency modelled on technical perfection and military order.
Army and Second Revolution: The Seizure of Power Completed
By the fall of 1933, national Socialist Gleichschaltung was officially completed on all levels of public life. With the claim to the total incorporation of all citizens, accomplished with the help of the dismal, unresisting capitulation of the German elite, National Socialist doctrine also captured the culture and values of German society. To what extent total rule posturing as a revolutionary 'upheaval' was actually realised than merely externally institutionalised in the social and economic as well as in the intellectual and moral spheres is debatable. There undoubtedly were unconquered areas, and not only with regard to the churches. But by the end of 1933, it appeared that after the complete collapse of the Weimar establishment, the regime was faced with only two possible sources of disquiet: the self-assurance of the Army, which based itself on the legendary authority of Hindenburg, and the latest, persistent tensions among the activists in the NSDAP and above all in the SA, to whom the proclamation about the 'end of the revolution' was addressed. The clash of these two power centres in the brutal events of the summer of 1934 ended the final phase of the seizure of power.
Between 1918 and 1945, the German Army went through four major phases. The first, beginning with the revolutionary situation at the end of World War I and ending with the fall of General von Seeckt in 1926, was marked by an almost forced though wavering co-operation with the Weimar Government: in the ensuring course of events, the gap between military and civilian power, which manifested itself in the crises of 1920 (Kapp Putsch) and 1923, widened. Hinderburg's presidency and the political role of General von Schleicher marked the second phase ΓÇô from 1926 to the National Socialist take over ΓÇô which saw the direct participation of the Army command in policy-making and, after 1930, its vital contribution to extra parliamentary crisis governments. The National Socialist regime, on the other hand, in the course of its rearmament policy sought to push the expanded Army back into a more limited, purely military realm and to exclude it from political decision-making. In this third phase, from 1933 to 1938, the Army wavered between the desire to protect itself against National Socialist encroachment and its readiness to make common cause with a regime so assertively military-minded (in contrast to Weimar). The final phase, following the ouster of Generals Blomberg and Fritsch in 1938, was marked by Hitler's increased interference in the Army command structure, which more and more became the tool of National Socialist war and extermination policies and simultaneously was threatened by the rival party army, the SS. The vacillation between acquiescence and resistance showed up the impotence of this proud, tradition-rich power; in the conditions of the totalitarian state, its claim to independence turned out to be an illusion. In fact, the trend toward interference became apparent quite early, even though the Army seemed to be the only power factor outside the reach of Gleichschaltung , and even, so it was thought, seemed to offer the best opportunity for 'inner emigration.' As a matter of fact, the National Socialist take over would probably not have been possible had it not been for the deep gulf and alienation between the Army and the Republic that began with Seeckt's command. The attitude of the military in many ways resembled that of the civil service. In line with his strategy, Hitler initially seemed to respect the Army's desire for separation and independence. This was made easier by his knowledge that in Werner von Blomberg and Walter von Reichenau he had two uncritical supporters in key positions, and that for the rest he could rely on the drawing power of his championship of revision and rearmament, which was as welcome to the military as the suspension of parliamentary democracy was to the civil service. In harmony with Seeckt's above-party ideology, Blomberg on February 1, 1933, in his first proclamation expressed his pleasure that the Army now finally would be able to rid itself of political intrigue and, standing 'above parties,' devote itself to its unique tasks 13 . There began that devotion to the special tasks of military re-organisation and rearmament by which the officer corps thought it could avoid political co-ordination. This was in line with the 'soldier only' attitude maintained by General Werner von Fritsch, the successor to General Kurt von Hammerstein during party intrigues in 1938, up to his ignoble end and alleged suicide during the Polish campaign in 1939. 'We cannot change politics [only] do our duty,' Fritsch told a high-level Army conference after the June, 1934, bloodbath 14 . Given this aloofness, the Army was as little able to cope with the dictatorship as earlier it had been unable to cope with its tasks in the democratic Republic.
References:
1. Voelkischer Be , July 6, 1933.
2. Ibid., July 8, 1933.
3. Ibid., Jul 12, 1933.
4. Der Angriff , July 18, 1933.
5. Der Kongress des Sieges (Dresden, 1934), p. 8.
6. Der Parteitag der Freiheit vom 10. bis 16. September 1935 (Munich, 1935), pp. 283 f.
7. Der Kongress des Sieges , p. 7.
8. Der Beamte im Geder Zeit, Wvon Hermann Neess (Berlin, 1936). (300,000 copies of this were distributed by the National Socialist Organization of Civil Servants.) Cf. also Hans Mommsen, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 21 ff.
9. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich, 1925ΓÇô28), p. 673.
10.David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution (New York, 1966), p. 206.
11.Wolfgang Schaefer, NSDAP, Entwicklung und Struktur der Staatspartei des Dritten Reiches (Hanover, 1956), pp. 17 ff.
12.Schoenbaum, op. cit., pp. 71 ff., gives somewhat different figures on the basis of material in the Document Centre Berlin (the main archive of the NSDAP), but the picture of the composition is the same. Thus also Robert Pelloux, Le parti national-socialiste et ses rapports avec l'État (Paris, 1936), pp. 35 ff.
13. Voelkischer Beobachter , February 2, 1933.
14.Hermann Foertsch, Schuld und Verhaengnis (Stuttgart, 1951), p. 58. Thus Hans Frank, 'Der deutsche Rechtsstaat Adolf Hitlers,' in Deutsches Recht IV (1934), p. 120.
