Bruning was appointed Chancellor on 30 March 1930. His problems soon became apparent. By June, he was running into serious difficulties in his attempts to reduce public spending through emergency decrees. When an SPD motion, supported by the NSDAP, to withdraw his proposed decree to impose swingeing cuts in public expenditure and higher taxes was pa.s.sed by the Reichstag, Bruning sought and received, on 18 July 1930, the Reich President"s dissolution of parliament. New elections were set for 14 September. For democracy"s prospects in Germany, they were a catastrophe. They were to bring the Hitler Movement"s electoral breakthrough.
The decision to dissolve the Reichstag was one of breathtaking irresponsibility. Bruning evidently took a sizeable vote for the n.a.z.is on board in his calculations. After all, the NSDAP had won 14.4 per cent of the vote only a few weeks earlier in the Saxon regional election. But in his determination to override parliamentary government by a more authoritarian system run by presidential decree, Bruning had greatly underestimated the extent of anger and frustration in the country, grossly miscalculating the effect of the deep alienation and dangerous levels of popular protest. The n.a.z.is could hardly believe their luck. Under the direction of their newly-appointed propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, they prepared feverishly for a summer of unprecedented agitation.
II.
In the meantime, internal conflict within the NSDAP only demonstrated the extent to which Hitler now dominated the Movement, how far it had become, over the previous five years, a "leader party". The dispute, when it came to a head, crystallized once more around the issue of whether there could be any separation of the "idea" from the Leader.
Otto Stra.s.ser, Gregor"s younger brother, had continued to use the publications of the Kampfverlag, the Berlin publishing house which he controlled, as a vehicle for his own version of National Socialism. This was a vague and heady brew of radical mystical nationalism, strident anti-capitalism, social reformism, and anti-Westernism. Rejection of bourgeois society produced admiration for the radical anti-capitalism of the Bolsheviks. Otto shared his doctrinaire national-revolutionary ideas with a group of theorists who used the Kampfverlag as the outlet for their views. As long as such notions neither harmed the party nor impinged on his own position, Hitler took little notice of them. He was even aware, without taking any action, that Otto Stra.s.ser had talked of founding a new party. By early 1930, however, the quasi-independent line of Otto Stra.s.ser had grown shriller as. .h.i.tler had sought since the previous year to exploit closer a.s.sociation with the bourgeois Right. A showdown came closer when the Kampfverlag continued to support striking metal-workers in Saxony in April 1930, despite Hitler"s ban, under pressure from industrialists, on any backing of the strike by the party.
On 21 May Hitler invited Otto Stra.s.ser to his hotel for lengthy discussions. According to Stra.s.ser"s published account the only one that exists, though it rings true and was not denied by Hitler the key points were leadership and socialism. "A Leader must serve the Idea. To this alone can we devote ourselves entirely, since it is eternal whereas the Leader pa.s.ses and can make mistakes," claimed Stra.s.ser. "What you are saying is outrageous nonsense," retorted Hitler. "That"s the most revolting democracy that we want nothing more to do with. For us, the Leader is the Idea, and each party member has to obey only the Leader." Stra.s.ser accused Hitler of trying to destroy the Kampfverlag because he wanted "to strangle" the "social revolution" through a strategy of legality and collaboration with the bourgeois Right. Hitler angrily denounced Stra.s.ser"s socialism as "nothing but Marxism". The ma.s.s of the working cla.s.s, he went on, wanted only bread and circuses, and would never understand the meaning of an ideal. "There is only one possible kind of revolution, and it is not economic or political or social, but racial," he avowed. Pushed on his att.i.tude towards big business, Hitler made plain that there could be no question for him of socialization or worker control. The only priority was for a strong state to ensure that production was carried out in the national interest.
The meeting broke up. Hitler"s mood was black. "An intellectual white Jew, totally incapable of organization, a Marxist of the purest ilk," was his withering a.s.sessment of Otto Stra.s.ser. On 4 July, antic.i.p.ating their expulsion, Stra.s.ser and twenty-five supporters publicly announced that "the socialists are leaving the NSDAP". The rebels had in effect purged themselves.
The Stra.s.ser crisis showed, above all, the strength of Hitler"s position. With the elimination of the Stra.s.ser clique, any lingering ideological dispute in the party was over. Things had changed drastically since 1925 and the days of the "Working Community". Now it was clear: Leader and Idea were one and the same.
III.
During the summer of 1930, the election campaign built up to fever pitch. The campaign was centrally organized by Goebbels, under broad guidelines laid down by Hitler. Two years earlier, the press had largely ignored the NSDAP. Now, the Brownshirts forced themselves on to the front pages. It was impossible to ignore them. The high level of agitation spiced with street violence put them on the political map in a big way. The energy and drive of the National Socialist agitation were truly astonishing. As many as 34,000 meetings were planned throughout Germany for the last four weeks of the campaign. No other party remotely matched the scale of the NSDAP"s effort.
Hitler himself held twenty big speeches in the six weeks running up to polling-day. The attendances were ma.s.sive. At least 16,000 came to listen to him in the Sportpalast in Berlin on 10 September. Two days later, in Breslau, as many as 2025,000 thronged into the Jahrhunderthalle, while a further 56,000 were forced to listen to the speech on loudspeakers outside. In the early 1920s, Hitler"s speeches had been dominated by vicious attacks on the Jews. In the later 1920s, the question of "living s.p.a.ce" became the central theme. In the election campaign of 1930, Hitler seldom spoke explicitly of the Jews. The crude tirades of the early 1920s were missing altogether. "Living s.p.a.ce" figured more prominently, posed against the alternative international compet.i.tion for markets. But it was not omnipresent as it had been in 19278. The key theme now was the collapse of Germany under parliamentary democracy and party government into a divided people with separate and conflicting interests, which only the NSDAP could overcome by creating a new unity of the nation, transcending cla.s.s, estate, and profession. Where the Weimar parties represented only specific interest groups, a.s.serted Hitler, the National Socialist Movement stood for the nation as a whole. In speech after speech, Hitler hammered this message home. Again and again he pilloried the Weimar system, not now crudely and simply as the regime of the "November Criminals", but for its failed promises on tax reductions, financial management, and employment. All parties were blamed. They were all part of the same party system that had ruined Germany. All had had their part in the policies that had led from Versailles through the reparations terms agreed under the Dawes Plan to their settlement under the Young Plan. Lack of leadership had led to the misery felt by all sections of society. Democracy, pacifism, and internationalism had produced powerlessness and weakness a great nation brought to its knees. It was time to clear out the rot.
But his speeches were not simply negative, not just an attack on the existing system. He presented a vision, a utopia, an ideal: national liberation through strength and unity. He did not propose alternative policies, built into specific election promises. He offered "a programme, a gigantic new programme behind which must stand not the new government, but a new German people that has ceased to be a mixture of cla.s.ses, professions, estates". It would be, he declared, with his usual stress on stark alternatives (and, as it turned out, prophetically) "a community of a people which, beyond all differences, will rescue the common strength of the nation, or will take it to ruin". Only a "high ideal" could overcome the social divisions, he stated. In place of the decayed, the old, a new Reich had to be built on racial values, selection of the best on the basis of achievement, strength, will, struggle, freeing the genius of the individual personality, and re-establishing Germany"s power and strength as a nation. Only National Socialism could bring this about. It was not a conventional political programme. It was a political crusade. It was not about a change of government. It was a message of national redemption. In a climate of deepening economic gloom and social misery, anxiety, and division, amid perceptions of the failure and inept.i.tude of seemingly puny parliamentary politicians, the appeal was a powerful one.
The message appealed not least to the idealism of a younger generation, not old enough to have fought in the war, but not too young to have experienced at first hand little but crisis, conflict, and national decline. Many from this generation, born between about 1900 and 1910, coming from middle-cla.s.s families, no longer rooted in the monarchical tradition of the pre-war years, outrightly rejecting Socialism and Communism, but alienated by the political, economic, social, and ideological strife of the Weimar era, were on the search for something new. Laden with all the emotive baggage that belonged to the German notions of "Volk" (ethnic people) and "Gemeinschaft" (community), the aim of a "national community" which would overcome cla.s.s divisions seemed a highly positive one. That the notion of "national community" gained its definition by those it excluded from it, and that social harmony was to be established through racial purity and h.o.m.ogeneity, were taken for granted if not explicitly lauded.
The rhetoric of the "national community" and the Fuhrer cult stood for a rebirth for Germany in which all the various sectional interests would have a new deal. As the economic and political situation deteriorated, the rationality of voting for a small and weak interest party rather than a ma.s.sive and strong national national party upholding interests but transcending them was less and less compelling. A vote for the n.a.z.is could easily seem like common sense. In this way, the NSDAP started to penetrate and destroy the support of interest-parties such as the Bayerischer Bauernbund (Bavarian Peasants" League) and seriously to erode the hold of the traditional parties such as the national-conservative DNVP in rural areas. This process was only in its early stages in summer 1930. But it would make rapid advances following the n.a.z.i triumph of 14 September 1930. party upholding interests but transcending them was less and less compelling. A vote for the n.a.z.is could easily seem like common sense. In this way, the NSDAP started to penetrate and destroy the support of interest-parties such as the Bayerischer Bauernbund (Bavarian Peasants" League) and seriously to erode the hold of the traditional parties such as the national-conservative DNVP in rural areas. This process was only in its early stages in summer 1930. But it would make rapid advances following the n.a.z.i triumph of 14 September 1930.
IV.
What happened on that day was a political earthquake. In the most remarkable result in German parliamentary history, the NSDAP advanced at one stroke from the twelve seats and mere 2.6 per cent of the vote gained in the 1928 Reichstag election, to 107 seats and 18.3 per cent, making it the second largest party in the Reichstag. Almost 6 million Germans now voted for Hitler"s party eight times as many as two years earlier. The n.a.z.i bandwagon was rolling.
The party leadership had expected big gains. The run of successes in the regional elections, the last of them the 14.4 per cent won in Saxony as recently as June, pointed to that conclusion. Goebbels had reckoned in April with about forty seats when it looked as if there would be a dissolution of the Reichstag at that time. A week before polling-day in September he expected "a ma.s.sive success". Hitler later claimed he had thought 100 were possible. In reality, as Goebbels admitted, the size of the victory took all in the party by surprise. No one had expected 107 seats. Hitler was beside himself with joy.
The political landscape had dramatically changed overnight. Alongside the n.a.z.is, the Communists had increased their support, now to 13.1 per cent of the vote. Though still the largest party, the SPD had lost ground as, marginally, did the Zentrum. But the biggest losers were the bourgeois parties of the centre and Right. The DNVP had dropped in successive elections since 1924 from 20.5 to only 7.0 per cent, the DVP from 10.1 to 4.7 per cent. The n.a.z.is were the main profiteers. One in three former DNVP voters, it has been estimated, now turned to the NSDAP, as did one in four former supporters of the liberal parties. Smaller, but still significant gains, were made from all other parties. These included the SPD, KPD, and Zentrum/BVP, though the working-cla.s.s milieus dominated by the parties of the Left and, above all, the Catholic sub-culture remained, as they would continue to be, relatively unyielding terrain for the NSDAP. The increased turn-out up from 75.6 to 82 per cent also benefited the n.a.z.is, though less so than has often been presumed.
The landslide was greatest in the Protestant countryside of northern and eastern Germany. With the exception of rural parts of Franconia, piously Protestant, the largely Catholic Bavarian electoral districts now for the first time lagged behind the national average. The same was true of most Catholic regions. In big cities and industrial areas though there were some notable exceptions, such as Breslau and Chemnitz-Zwickau the n.a.z.i gains, though still spectacular, were also below average. But in Schleswig-Holstein, the NSDAP vote had rocketed from 4 per cent in 1928 to 27 per cent. East Prussia, Pomerania, Hanover, and Mecklenburg were among the other regions where n.a.z.i support was now over 20 per cent. At least three-quarters of n.a.z.i voters were Protestants (or, at any rate, non-Catholics). Significantly more men than women voted n.a.z.i (though this was to alter between 1930 and 1933). At least two-fifths of n.a.z.i support came from the middle cla.s.ses. But a quarter was drawn from the working cla.s.s (though the unemployed were more likely to vote for the KPD than for Hitler"s party). The middle cla.s.ses were indeed over-represented among n.a.z.i voters. But the NSDAP was no mere middle-cla.s.s party, as used to be thought. Though not in equal proportions, the Hitler Movement could reasonably claim to have won support from all sections of society. No other party throughout the Weimar Republic could claim the same.
The social structure of the party"s membership points to the same conclusion. A ma.s.sive influx of members followed the September election. As with voters, they came, if not evenly, from all sections of society. The membership was overwhelmingly male, and only the KPD was as youthful in its membership profile. The Protestant middle cla.s.ses were over-represented. But there was also a sizeable working-cla.s.s presence, even more p.r.o.nounced in the SA and the Hitler Youth than in the party itself. At the same time, the political breakthrough meant that "respectable" local citizens now felt ready to join the party. Teachers, civil servants, even some Protestant pastors were among the "respectable" groups altering the party"s social standing in the provinces. In Franconia, for example, the NSDAP already had the appearance by 1930 of a "civil-service party". The penetration by the party of the social networks of provincial towns and villages now began to intensify notably.
There are times they mark the danger point for a political system when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing. The politicians of Weimar"s parties were well on the way to reaching that point in 1930. Hitler had the advantage of being undamaged by partic.i.p.ation in unpopular government, and of unwavering radicalism in his hostility to the Republic. He could speak in language more and more Germans understood the language of bitter protest at a discredited system, the language of national renewal and rebirth. Those not firmly anch.o.r.ed in an alternative political ideology, social milieu, or denominational sub-culture found such language increasingly intoxicating.
The n.a.z.is had moved at one fell swoop from the fringe of the political scene, outside the power-equation, to its heart. Bruning could now cope with the Reichstag only through the "toleration" of the SPD, which saw him as the lesser evil. The Social Democrats entered their policy of "toleration" with heavy hearts but a deep sense of responsibility. As for Hitler, whether he was seen in a positive or a negative sense and there was little about him that left people neutral or indifferent his name was now on everyone"s lips. He was a factor to be reckoned with. He could no longer be ignored.
After the September elections, not just Germany but the world outside had to take notice of Hitler. In the immediate aftermath of his electoral triumph, the trial of three young Reichswehr officers from a regiment stationed in Ulm, whose n.a.z.i sympathies saw them accused of "Preparing to Commit High Treason" through working towards a military putsch with the NSDAP and breaching regulations banning members of the Reichswehr from activities aimed at altering the const.i.tution, gave Hitler the chance, now with the eyes of the world"s press on him, of underlining his party"s commitment to legality. The trial of the officers, Hanns Ludin, Richard Scheringer, and Hans Friedrich Wendt, began in Leipzig on 23 September. On the first day, Wendt"s defence counsel, Hans Frank, was given permission to summon Hitler as a witness. Two days later, huge crowds demonstrated outside the court building in favour of Hitler as the leader of the Reichstag"s second largest party went into the witness-box to face the red-robed judges of the highest court in the land.
Once more he was allowed to use a court of law for propaganda purposes. The judge even warned him on one occasion, as he heatedly denied any intention of undermining the Reichswehr, to avoid turning his testimony into a propaganda speech. It was to little avail. Hitler emphasized that his movement would take power by legal means and that the Reichswehr again becoming "a great German people"s army" would be "the basis for the German future". He declared that he had never wanted to pursue his ideals by illegal measures. He used the exclusion of Otto Stra.s.ser to dissociate himself from those in the movement who had been "revolutionaries". But he a.s.sured the presiding judge: "If our movement is victorious in its legal struggle, then there will be a German State Court and November 1918 will find its atonement, and heads will roll." This brought cheers and cries of "bravo" from onlookers in the courtroom and an immediate admonishment from the court president, reminding them that they were "neither in the theatre nor in a political meeting". Hitler expected, he continued, that the NSDAP would win a majority following two or three further elections. "Then it must come to a National Socialist rising, and we will shape the state as we want to have it." When asked how he envisaged the erection of the Third Reich, Hitler replied: "The National Socialist Movement will seek to attain its aim in this state by const.i.tutional means. The const.i.tution shows us only the methods, not the goal. In this const.i.tutional way, we will try to gain decisive majorities in the legislative bodies in order, in the moment this is successful, to pour the state into the mould that matches our ideas." He repeated that this would only be done const.i.tutionally. He was finally sworn in on oath to the truth of his testimony. Goebbels told Scheringer, one of the defendants, that Hitler"s oath was "a brilliant move". "Now we are strictly legal," he is said to have exclaimed. The propaganda boss was delighted at the "fabulous" press reportage. Hitler"s newly appointed Foreign Press Chief, Putzi Hanfstaengl, saw to it that there was wide coverage of the trial abroad. He also placed three articles by Hitler on the aims of the movement in the Hearst press, the powerful American media concern, at a handsome fee of 1,000 Marks for each. Hitler said it was what he needed to be able now to stay at the Kaiserhof Hotel plush, well situated near the heart of government, and his headquarters in the capital until 1933 when he went to Berlin.
What Hitler said in the Leipzig Reichswehr trial which ended on 4 October in eighteen-month custodial sentences on each of the three Reichswehr officers and the cashiering from the army of Ludin and Scheringer was nothing new. He had been anxious for months to emphasize his "legal" path to power. But the ma.s.sive publicity surrounding the trial ensured that his declaration now made maximum impact. The belief that Hitler had broken with his revolutionary past helped to win him further support in "respectable" circles.
There were those who encouraged Bruning after the election to take the NSDAP into a coalition government, arguing that government responsibility would put the n.a.z.is to the test and limit their agitation. Bruning rejected such a notion out of hand, though he did not rule out cooperation at some future date should the party hold by the principle of legality. After deflecting Hitler"s request for an audience immediately after the election, Bruning did arrange to see him as he did the leaders of the other parties in early October. Their meeting on 5 October, which took place to avoid publicity in the apartment of Reich Minister Trevira.n.u.s, established, however, that there was no prospect of cooperation. A chasm separated them. After Bruning"s careful statement of the government"s foreign policy a delicate strategy aimed at acquiring a breathing-s.p.a.ce leading to the ultimate removal of reparations. .h.i.tler responded with an hour-long monologue. He simply ignored the issues Bruning had raised. He was soon haranguing the four persons present Frick and Gregor Stra.s.ser were there as well as Bruning and Trevira.n.u.s as if he were addressing a ma.s.s rally. Bruning was struck by the number of times. .h.i.tler used the word "annihilate" ("vernichten") ("vernichten"). He was going to "annihilate" the KPD, the SPD, "the Reaction", France as Germany"s arch-enemy, and Russia as the home of Bolshevism. It was plain to the Chancellor, so Bruning later remarked, that Hitler"s basic principle would always be: "First power, then politics." Bruning clearly saw Hitler as a fanatic unsophisticated, but dangerous. Though they parted amicably enough, Hitler formed a deep loathing towards Bruning, one taking on manic proportions and permeating the whole party.
Hitler was left to continue his relentless, unbridled opposition to a system whose symbolic hate-figure was now Chancellor Bruning. Continuing the agitation was, in any case, what Hitler, like Goebbels, preferred. That was his instinct. "Don"t write "victory" on your banners any longer," Hitler had told his supporters immediately after the election. "Write the word in its place that suits us better: "struggle!"" In any case, it was the only option available. As one contemporary put it, the n.a.z.is followed the maxim: ""After a victory, fasten on the helmet more tightly" ... Following the election victory they arranged 70,000 meetings Again an "avalanche" pa.s.sed through the Reich ... Town after town, village after village is stormed." The election victory made this continued high level of agitation possible. The new interest in the party meant a vast influx of new members bringing new funds that could be used for the organization of still further propaganda and new activists to carry it out. Success bred success. The prospect of victory now presented itself as a real one. Everything had to be subordinated to this single goal. The ma.s.sive but shallow, organizationally somewhat ramshackle, protest movement a loose amalgam of different interests bonded by the politics of utopia could be sustained only by the NSDAP coming to power within a relatively short time, probably something like the s.p.a.ce of two or three years. This was to create mounting pressure on Hitler. All he could do for the present was what he had always done best: step up the agitation still further.
V.
Behind the public persona, the private individual was difficult to locate. Politics had increasingly consumed Hitler since 1919. There was an extraordinary gulf between his political effectiveness, the magnetism not just felt by ecstatic crowds in ma.s.s rallies but by those who were frequently in his company, and the emptiness of what was left of an existence outside politics. Those who knew Hitler personally around this time found him an enigma. "In my recollection, there is no rounded image of Hitler"s personality," reflected Putzi Hanfstaengl many years later. "Rather, there are a number of images and shapes, all called Adolf Hitler and which were were all Adolf Hitler, that can only with difficulty be brought together in overall relation to each other. He could be charming and then a little later utter opinions that hinted at a horrifying abyss. He could develop grand ideas and be primitive to the point of ba.n.a.lity. He could fill millions with the conviction that only his will and strength of character guaranteed victory. And at the same time, even as Chancellor, he could remain a bohemian whose unreliability drove his colleagues to despair." all Adolf Hitler, that can only with difficulty be brought together in overall relation to each other. He could be charming and then a little later utter opinions that hinted at a horrifying abyss. He could develop grand ideas and be primitive to the point of ba.n.a.lity. He could fill millions with the conviction that only his will and strength of character guaranteed victory. And at the same time, even as Chancellor, he could remain a bohemian whose unreliability drove his colleagues to despair."
For Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, the head of the SA until his dismissal in August 1930, Hitler combined the qualities of common soldier and artist. "A trooper with gypsy blood" was, given n.a.z.i racial thinking, Pfeffer"s reported extraordinary characterization. He thought Hitler had something like a sixth sense in politics, "a supernatural talent". But he wondered whether he was at bottom only only a type of Freikorps leader, a revolutionary who might have difficulty in becoming a statesman after the movement had taken power. Pfeffer took Hitler to be a genius, something the world might experience only once in a thousand years. But the human side of Hitler, in his view, was deficient. Pfeffer, torn between adulation and criticism, saw him as a split personality, full of personal inhibitions in conflict with the "genius" inside him, arising from his upbringing and education, and consuming him. Gregor Stra.s.ser, retaining his own critical distance from the fully-blown Fuhrer cult, was nevertheless also, Otto Wagener recounted, prepared to see "genius" of a kind in Hitler. "Whatever there is about him that is unpleasant," Otto Erbersdobler, Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria, later recalled Gregor Stra.s.ser saying, "the man has a prophetic talent for reading great political problems correctly and doing the right thing at the opportune moment despite apparently insuperable difficulties." Such unusual talent as Stra.s.ser was ready to grant Hitler lay, however, as he saw it, in instinct rather than in any ability to systematize ideas. a type of Freikorps leader, a revolutionary who might have difficulty in becoming a statesman after the movement had taken power. Pfeffer took Hitler to be a genius, something the world might experience only once in a thousand years. But the human side of Hitler, in his view, was deficient. Pfeffer, torn between adulation and criticism, saw him as a split personality, full of personal inhibitions in conflict with the "genius" inside him, arising from his upbringing and education, and consuming him. Gregor Stra.s.ser, retaining his own critical distance from the fully-blown Fuhrer cult, was nevertheless also, Otto Wagener recounted, prepared to see "genius" of a kind in Hitler. "Whatever there is about him that is unpleasant," Otto Erbersdobler, Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria, later recalled Gregor Stra.s.ser saying, "the man has a prophetic talent for reading great political problems correctly and doing the right thing at the opportune moment despite apparently insuperable difficulties." Such unusual talent as Stra.s.ser was ready to grant Hitler lay, however, as he saw it, in instinct rather than in any ability to systematize ideas.
Otto Wagener, who had been made SA Chief of Staff in 1929, was among those totally entranced by Hitler. His captivation by this "rare personality" had still not deserted him many years later when he compiled his memoirs in British captivity. But he, too, was unsure what to make of Hitler. After hearing him one day in such a towering rage it was a row with Pfeffer about the relations between the SA and SS that his voice reverberated through the entire party headquarters, Wagener thought there was something in him resembling "an Asiatic will for destruction" (a term still betraying after the war Wagener"s entrenchment in n.a.z.i racial stereotypes). "Not genius, but hatred; not overriding greatness, but rage born of an inferiority complex; not Germanic heroism, but the Hun"s thirst for revenge" was how, many years later, using n.a.z.i-style parlance in describing Hitler"s alleged descent from the Huns, he summarized his impressions. In his incomprehension a mixture of sycophantic admiration and awestruck fear Wagener was reduced to seeing in Hitler"s character something "foreign" and "diabolical". Hitler remained for him altogether a puzzle.
Even for leading figures in the n.a.z.i movement such as Pfeffer and Wagener, Hitler was a remote figure. He had moved in 1929 from his shabby flat in Thierschstrae to a luxury apartment in Prinzregentenplatz in Munich"s fashionable Bogenhausen. It matched the change from the beerhall rabble-rouser to politician cavorting with the conservative establishment. He seldom had guests, or entertained. When he did, the atmosphere was always stiff and formal. Obsessives rarely make good or interesting company, except in the eyes of those who share the obsession or those in awe of or dependent upon such an unbalanced personality. Hitler preferred, as he always had done, the usual afternoon round in Cafe Heck, where cronies and admirers would listen fawningly, attentively, or with concealed boredom to his monologues on the party"s early history for the umpteenth time, or tales of the war, "his inexhaustible favourite theme".
Only with very few people was he on the familiar "Du" terms. He would address most n.a.z.i leaders by their surname alone. "Mein Fuhrer" had not yet fully established itself, as it would do after 1933, as their normal mode of address to him. For those in his entourage he was known simply as "the boss" (der Chef). Some, like Hanfstaengl or "court" photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, insisted on a simple "Herr Hitler". The remoteness of his personality was complemented by the need to avoid the familiarity which could have brought with it contempt for his position as supreme Leader. The aura around him dared not be sullied in any way. Along with the remoteness went distrust. Important matters were discussed only with small and changing groups or individuals. That way, Hitler remained in full control, never bound by any advice of formal bodies, never needing to adjudicate on disagreements between his paladins. With his fixed views and dominant personality, he was able, as Gregor Stra.s.ser pointed out, to overwhelm any individual in his presence, even those initially sceptical. This in turn strengthened his self-confidence, his feeling of infallibility. In contrast, he felt uncomfortable with those who posed awkward questions or counter-arguments. Since his "intuition" by which, between the lines, Stra.s.ser meant his ideological dogmatism coupled with tactical flexibility and opportunism could not in itself be combated by logical argument, the party"s organizational leader went on, Hitler invariably dismissed any objections as coming from small-minded know-alls. But he registered who the critics were. Sooner or later, they would fall from grace.
Some of the most important matters, he discussed, if at all, only with those in his close circle the group of adjutants, chauffeurs, and long-standing cronies such as Julius Schaub (his general factotum), Heinrich Hoffmann (his photographer), and Sepp Dietrich (later head of his SS bodyguard). Distrust and vanity went hand in hand with his type of leadership, in Gregor Stra.s.ser"s view. The danger, he pointed out with reference to the dismissal of Pfeffer, was the self-selection of what Hitler wanted to hear and the negative reaction towards the bearer of bad tidings. There was something other-worldly about Hitler, thought Stra.s.ser; a lack of knowledge of human beings, and with it a lack of sound judgement of them. Hitler lived without any bonds to another human being, Stra.s.ser went on. "He doesn"t smoke, he doesn"t drink, he eats almost nothing but greenstuff, he doesn"t touch any woman! How are we supposed to grasp him to put him across to other people?"
Hitler contributed as good as nothing to the running and organization of the ma.s.sively expanded n.a.z.i movement. His "work-style" (if it could be called such) was unchanged from the days when the NSDAP was a tiny, insignificant volkisch volkisch sect. He was incapable of systematic work and took no interest in it. He was as chaotic and dilettante as ever. He had found the role where he could fully indulge the unordered, indisciplined, and indolent lifestyle that had never altered since his pampered youth in Linz and drop-out years in Vienna. He had a huge "work-room" in the new "Brown House" a building of tasteless grandiosity that he was singularly proud of. Pictures of Frederick the Great and a heroic scene of the List Regiment"s first battle in Flanders in 1914 adorned the walls. A monumental bust of Mussolini stood beside the outsized furniture. Smoking was forbidden. To call it Hitler"s "work-room" was a nice euphemism. Hitler rarely did any work there. Hanfstaengl, who had his own room in the building, had few memories of Hitler"s room since he had seen the party leader there so seldom. Even the big painting of Frederick the Great, noted the former foreign press chief, could not motivate Hitler to follow the example of the Prussian king in diligent attention to duty. He had no regular working hours. Appointments were there to be broken. Hanfstaengl had often to chase through Munich looking for the party leader to make sure he kept appointments with journalists. He could invariably find him at four o"clock in the afternoon, surrounded by his admirers, holding forth in the Cafe Heck. Party workers at headquarters were no more favoured. They could never find a fixed time to see Hitler, even about extremely important business. If they managed, clutching their files, to catch him when he entered the Brown House, he would as often as not be called to the telephone and then apologize that he had to leave immediately and would be back the next day. Should they manage to have their business attended to, it was normally dispatched with little attention to detail. Hitler would in his usual manner turn the point at issue into a matter on which, pacing up and down the room, he would pontificate for an hour in a lengthy monologue. Often he would completely ignore something brought to his attention, deviating at a tangent into some current whim. "If Hitler gets a cue to something he is interested in but that"s something different every day," Pfeffer is reported to have told Wagener in 1930, "then he takes over the conversation and the point of the discussion is shelved." On matters he did not understand, or where a decision was awkward, he simply avoided discussion. sect. He was incapable of systematic work and took no interest in it. He was as chaotic and dilettante as ever. He had found the role where he could fully indulge the unordered, indisciplined, and indolent lifestyle that had never altered since his pampered youth in Linz and drop-out years in Vienna. He had a huge "work-room" in the new "Brown House" a building of tasteless grandiosity that he was singularly proud of. Pictures of Frederick the Great and a heroic scene of the List Regiment"s first battle in Flanders in 1914 adorned the walls. A monumental bust of Mussolini stood beside the outsized furniture. Smoking was forbidden. To call it Hitler"s "work-room" was a nice euphemism. Hitler rarely did any work there. Hanfstaengl, who had his own room in the building, had few memories of Hitler"s room since he had seen the party leader there so seldom. Even the big painting of Frederick the Great, noted the former foreign press chief, could not motivate Hitler to follow the example of the Prussian king in diligent attention to duty. He had no regular working hours. Appointments were there to be broken. Hanfstaengl had often to chase through Munich looking for the party leader to make sure he kept appointments with journalists. He could invariably find him at four o"clock in the afternoon, surrounded by his admirers, holding forth in the Cafe Heck. Party workers at headquarters were no more favoured. They could never find a fixed time to see Hitler, even about extremely important business. If they managed, clutching their files, to catch him when he entered the Brown House, he would as often as not be called to the telephone and then apologize that he had to leave immediately and would be back the next day. Should they manage to have their business attended to, it was normally dispatched with little attention to detail. Hitler would in his usual manner turn the point at issue into a matter on which, pacing up and down the room, he would pontificate for an hour in a lengthy monologue. Often he would completely ignore something brought to his attention, deviating at a tangent into some current whim. "If Hitler gets a cue to something he is interested in but that"s something different every day," Pfeffer is reported to have told Wagener in 1930, "then he takes over the conversation and the point of the discussion is shelved." On matters he did not understand, or where a decision was awkward, he simply avoided discussion.
This extraordinary way of operating was certainly built into Hitler"s personality. Masterful and domineering, but uncertain and hesitant; unwilling to take decisions, yet then prepared to take decisions bolder than anyone else could contemplate; and refusal, once made, to take back any decision: these are part of the puzzle of Hitler"s strange personality. If the domineering traits were signs of a deep inner uncertainty, the overbearing features the reflection of an underlying inferiority complex, then the hidden personality disorder must have been one of monumental proportions. To ascribe the problem to such a cause re-describes rather than explains it. In any case, Hitler"s peculiar leadership style was more than just a matter of personality, or instinctive social-Darwinist inclination to let the winner emerge after a process of struggle. It reflected too the unceasing necessity to protect his position as Leader. Acting out the Leader"s role could never be halted. The famous handshake and steely blue eyes were part of the act. Even leading figures in the party never ceased to be impressed with the apparent sincerity and bond of loyalty and comradeship that they thought accompanied Hitler"s unusually long handshake and unblinking stare into their eyes. They were too in awe of Hitler to realize what an elementary theatrical trick it was. The greater became the nimbus of the infallible leader, the less the "human" Hitler, capable of mistakes and misjudgements, could be allowed on view. The "person" Hitler was disappearing more and more into the "role" of the almighty and omniscient Leader.
Very occasionally, the mask slipped. Albert Krebs, the one-time Gauleiter of Hamburg, related a scene from early 1932 that reminded him of a French comedy. From the corridor of the elegant Hotel Atlantik in Hamburg he could hear Hitler plaintively shouting: "My soup, [I want] my soup." Krebs found him minutes later hunched over a round table in his room, slurping his vegetable soup, looking anything other than a hero of the people. He appeared tired and depressed. He ignored the copy of his speech the previous night that Krebs had brought him, and to the Gauleiter"s astonishment, asked him instead what he thought of a vegetarian diet. Fully in character, Hitler launched, not waiting for an answer, into a lengthy diatribe on vegetarianism. It struck Krebs as a cranky outburst, aimed at overpowering, not persuading, the listener. But what imprinted the scene on Krebs"s memory was how Hitler revealed himself as an acute hypochondriac to one to whom he had presented himself up to then "only as the political leader, never as a human being". Krebs did not presume that Hitler was suddenly regarding him as a confidant. He took it rather as a sign of the party leader"s "inner instability". It was an unexpected show of human weakness which, Krebs plausibly speculated, was over-compensated by an unquenchable thirst for power and resort to violence. According to Krebs, Hitler explained that a variety of worrying symptoms outbreaks of sweating, nervous tension, trembling of muscles, and stomach cramps had persuaded him to become a vegetarian. He took the stomach cramps to be the beginnings of cancer, leaving him only a few years to complete "the gigantic tasks" he had set himself. "I must come to power before long ... I must, I must," Krebs has him shouting. But with this, he gained control of himself again. His body-language showed he was over his temporary depression. His attendants were suddenly called, orders were given out, telephone calls booked, meetings arranged. "The human being Hitler had been transformed back into the "Leader"." The mask was in place again.
Hitler"s style of leadership functioned precisely because of the readiness of all his subordinates to accept his unique standing in the party, and their belief that such eccentricities of behaviour had simply to be taken on board in someone they saw as a political genius. "He always needs people who can translate his ideologies into reality so that they can be implemented," Pfeffer is reported as stating. Hitler"s way was, in fact, not to hand out streams of orders to shape important political decisions. Where possible, he avoided decisions. Rather, he laid out often in his diffuse and opinionated fashion his ideas at length and repeatedly. These provided the general guidelines and direction for policy-making. Others had to interpret from his comments how they thought he wanted them to act and "work towards" his distant objectives. "If they could all work in this way," Hitler was reported as stating from time to time, "if they could all strive with firm, conscious tenacity towards a common, distant goal, then the ultimate goal must one day be achieved. That mistakes will be made is human. It is a pity. But that will be overcome if a common goal is constantly adopted as a guideline." This instinctive way of operating, embedded in Hitler"s social-Darwinist approach, not only unleashed ferocious compet.i.tion among those in the party later in the state trying to reach the "correct" interpretation of Hitler"s intentions. It also meant that Hitler, the unchallenged fount of ideological orthodoxy by this time, could always side with those who had come out on top in the relentless struggle going on below him, with those who had best proven that they were following the "right guidelines". And since only Hitler could determine this, his power position was ma.s.sively enhanced.
Inaccessibility, sporadic and impulsive interventions, unpredictability, lack of a regular working pattern, administrative disinterest, and ready resort to long-winded monologues instead of attention to detail were all hallmarks of Hitler"s style as party leader. They were compatible at least in the short term with a "leader party" whose exclusive middle-range goal was getting power. After 1933, the same features would become hallmarks of Hitler"s style as dictator with supreme power over the German state. They would be incompatible with the bureaucratic regulation of a sophisticated state apparatus and would become a guarantee of escalating governmental disorder.
VI.
At the beginning of 1931, a familiar, scarred face not seen for some time returned to the scene. Ernst Rohm, recalled by Hitler from his self-imposed exile as a military adviser to the Bolivian army, was back. He took up his appointment as new Chief of Staff of the SA on 5 January.
The case of Otto Stra.s.ser had not been the only crisis that the party leadership had had to deal with during 1930. More serious, potentially, had been the crisis within the SA. It had been simmering for some time before it exploded in the summer of 1930, during the election campaign. In reality, the crisis merely brought to a head not for the last time the structural conflict built into the NSDAP between the party"s organization and that of the SA. Impatience at the slow, legal route to power coupled with a sense of being undervalued and financially disadvantaged had prompted a short-lived, but serious, rebellion of the Berlin SA in late August. It had ended with an oath of loyalty to Hitler on behalf of all SA men, together with substantial financial improvements for the SA deriving from increased party dues. Pfeffer, the SA leader, resigned. Hitler himself had taken over the supreme leadership of the SA and SS. The claim within the SA leadership for a high degree of autonomy from the party leadership was, however, undiminished. The scope for continued conflict was still there.
This was the situation awaiting the return of Rohm, not as supreme head but as chief of staff, which was announced by Hitler to a.s.sembled SA leaders in Munich on 30 November 1930. Rohm"s high standing from the pre-putsch era, together with his lack of involvement in any of the recent intrigues, made his appointment a sensible one. However, his notorious h.o.m.os.e.xuality was soon used by those SA subordinates who resented his leadership to try to undermine the position of the new chief of staff. Hitler was forced as early as 3 February 1931 to refute attacks on "things that are purely in the private sphere", and to stress that the SA was not a "moral establishment" but "a band of rough fighters".
Rohm"s moral standards were not the real point at issue. Hitler"s action the previous summer had defused the immediate crisis. But it was papering over the cracks. The tension remained. Neither the precise role nor degree of autonomy of the SA had been fully clarified. Given the character of the n.a.z.i Movement and the way the SA had emerged within it, the structural problem was insoluble. And the putschist strain, always present in the SA, was resurfacing. The advocacy of taking power by force, advanced in articles in February 1931 in the Berlin party newspaper Der Angriff Der Angriff by Walter Stennes, the SA leader in the eastern regions of Germany and the chief instigator of the 1930 SA rebellion, was increasingly alarming to the n.a.z.i leadership. Such noises flatly contradicted, and directly placed in question, the commitment to legality that Hitler had made, most publicly and on oath, following the Reichswehr trial in Leipzig the previous September, and had stressed on numerous occasions since then. The spectre of a ban on the party loomed very much larger with the promulgation of an emergency decree on 28 March, giving the Bruning government wide-ranging powers to combat political "excesses". "The party, above all the SA, seems to be facing a ban," wrote Goebbels in his diary. Hitler ordered the strictest compliance with the emergency decree by all members of the party, SA, and SS. But Stennes was not prepared to yield. "It is the most serious crisis the party has had to go through," commented Goebbels. by Walter Stennes, the SA leader in the eastern regions of Germany and the chief instigator of the 1930 SA rebellion, was increasingly alarming to the n.a.z.i leadership. Such noises flatly contradicted, and directly placed in question, the commitment to legality that Hitler had made, most publicly and on oath, following the Reichswehr trial in Leipzig the previous September, and had stressed on numerous occasions since then. The spectre of a ban on the party loomed very much larger with the promulgation of an emergency decree on 28 March, giving the Bruning government wide-ranging powers to combat political "excesses". "The party, above all the SA, seems to be facing a ban," wrote Goebbels in his diary. Hitler ordered the strictest compliance with the emergency decree by all members of the party, SA, and SS. But Stennes was not prepared to yield. "It is the most serious crisis the party has had to go through," commented Goebbels.
When the Berlin SA occupied party headquarters in the city then directly attacked Hitler"s leadership, it was high time to take action. Stennes was deposed as SA leader in eastern Germany. Hitler and Goebbels worked hard to ensure declarations of loyalty from all the Gaue. Stennes, increasingly revolutionary in tone, succeeded in winning support from parts of the SA in Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Silesia, and Pomerania. But his success was short-lived. A full-scale rebellion did not occur. On 4 April, Hitler published in the Volkischer Beobachter Volkischer Beobachter a lengthy and cleverly constructed denunciation of Stennes and an emotional appeal to the loyalty of SA men. Even before he wrote, the revolt was crumbling. Support for Stennes evaporated. About 500 SA men in north and eastern Germany were purged. The rest came back into line. a lengthy and cleverly constructed denunciation of Stennes and an emotional appeal to the loyalty of SA men. Even before he wrote, the revolt was crumbling. Support for Stennes evaporated. About 500 SA men in north and eastern Germany were purged. The rest came back into line.
The crisis was over. The SA had been put back on the leash. It would be kept there with difficulty until the "seizure of power". Then, the pent-up violence would only be fully released in the first months of 1933. Under Rohm"s hand, nevertheless, the SA was returning to its character as a paramilitary formation and now a much more formidable one than it had been in the early 1920s. Rohm had behaved with exemplary loyalty to Hitler during the Stennes crisis. But his own emphasis on the "primacy of the soldier", and his ambitions, suppressed as they were in 1931, for the transformation of the SA into a popular militia, bore the seeds of conflict still to come. It prefigured the course of events which would reach their denouement only in June 1934.
VII.
Not only political, but personal crisis beset Hitler in 1931. On moving in 1929 into his s.p.a.cious new apartment in Prinzregentenplatz, his niece, Geli Raubal, who had been living with her mother in Haus Wachenfeld on the Obersalzberg, had come to join him. During the following two years she was frequently seen in public with Hitler. Rumours already abounded about the nature of her relations with "Uncle Alf ", as she called him. On the morning of 19 September 1931, aged twenty-three, she was found dead in Hitler"s flat, shot with his pistol.
Hitler"s relations with women, as we have already remarked, were in some respects abnormal. He liked the company of women, especially pretty ones, best of all young ones. He flattered them, sometimes flirted with them, called them in his patronizing Viennese petty-bourgeois manner "my little princess", or "my little countess". In the mid-1920s, he encouraged the infatuation of a lovestruck young girl, Maria (Mizzi or Mimi) Reiter. But the devotion was entirely one-sided. For Hitler, Mimi was no more than a pa.s.sing flirtation. Occasionally, if the stories are to be believed, he made a clumsy attempt at some physical contact, as in the case of Helene Hanfstaengl and Henrietta Hoffmann, the daughter of his photographer who was to marry Baldur von Schirach (from 30 October 1931 the Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP). His name was linked at various times with women from as diverse backgrounds as Jenny Haug, the sister of his chauffeur in the early years, and Winifred Wagner, the Bayreuth maestro"s daughter-in-law. But, whatever the basis of the rumours often malicious, exaggerated, or invented none of his liaisons, it seems, had been more than superficial. No deep feelings were ever stirred. Women were for Hitler an object, an adornment in a "men"s world". Whether in the Men"s Home in Vienna, the regiment during the war, the Munich barracks until his discharge, and his regular gatherings of party cronies in Cafe Neumaier or Cafe Heck in the 1920s, Hitler"s environment had always been overwhelmingly male. "Very occasionally a woman would be admitted to our intimate circle," recalled Heinrich Hoffmann, "but she never was allowed to become the centre of it, and had to remain seen but not heard ... She could, occasionally, take a small part in the conversation, but never was she allowed to hold forth or to contradict Hitler." Beginning with the semi-mythical Stefanie in Linz, Hitler"s relations with women had usually been at a distance, a matter of affectation, not emotion. Nor was his long-standing relationship with Eva Braun, one of Hoffmann"s employees whom he had first met in autumn 1929, an exception. "To him," remarked Hoffmann, "she was just an attractive little thing, in whom, in spite of her inconsequential and feather-brained outlook or perhaps just because of it he found the type of relaxation and repose he sought ... But never, in voice, look or gesture, did he ever behave in a way that suggested any deeper interest in her."
It was different with Geli. Whatever the exact nature of the relationship and all accounts are based heavily upon guesswork and hearsay it seems certain that Hitler, for the first and only time in his life (if we leave his mother out of consideration), became emotionally dependent on a woman. Whether his involvement with Geli was explicitly s.e.xual cannot be known beyond doubt. Some have hinted darkly at the incestuous relationships in Hitler"s ancestry. But lurid stories of alleged deviant s.e.xual practices put about by Otto Stra.s.ser ought to be viewed as the fanciful anti-Hitler propaganda of an outright political enemy. Other tales, also to be treated with scepticism, circulated of a compromising letter and of p.o.r.nographic drawings by Hitler that had to be bought off a blackmailer by the Party Treasurer Schwarz. But whether actively s.e.xual or not, Hitler"s behaviour towards Geli has all the traits of a strong, latent at least, s.e.xual dependence. This manifested itself in such extreme shows of jealousy and domineering possessiveness that a crisis in the relationship was inevitable.
Geli, broad-featured, with dark-brown, wavy hair, was no stunning beauty but nonetheless, all accounts agree, a vivacious, extrovert, attractive young woman. She livened up the gatherings in Cafe Heck. Hitler allowed her, something he permitted no one else, to become the centre of attraction. He took her everywhere with him to the theatre, concerts, the opera, the cinema, restaurants, for drives in the countryside, picnics, even shopping for clothes. He sang her praises, showed her off. Geli was in Munich ostensibly to study at the university. But little studying was done. Hitler paid for singing lessons for her. But she was clearly never going to make an operatic heroine. She was bored by her lessons. She was more interested in having a good time. Flighty and flirtatious, she had no shortage of male admirers and was not backward in encouraging them. When Hitler found out about Geli"s liaison with Emil Maurice, his bodyguard and chauffeur, there was such a scene that Maurice feared Hitler was going to shoot him. He was soon forced out of Hitler"s employment. Geli was sent to cool her ardour under the watchful eye of Frau Bruckmann. Hitler"s jealous possessiveness took on pathological proportions. If she went out without him, Geli was chaperoned, and had to be home early. Everything she did was monitored and controlled. She was effectively a prisoner. She resented it bitterly. "My uncle is a monster," she is reported as saying. "No one can imagine what he demands of me."
By mid-September 1931 she had had enough. She planned to return to Vienna. It was later rumoured that she had a new boyfriend there, even that he was a Jewish artist whose child she was expecting. Geli"s mother, Angela Raubal, told American interrogators after the war that her daughter had wanted to marry a violinist from Linz, but that she and her half-brother, Adolf, had forbidden her to see the man. At any rate it seems certain that Geli was desperate to get away from her uncle"s clutches. Whether he had been physically maltreating her is again impossible to ascertain. It was said that her nose was broken and there were other indications of physical violence, when her body was found. Once more the evidence is too flimsy to be certain, and the story was one put out by Hitler"s political enemies. The police doctor who examined the body, and two women who laid out the corpse, found no wounds or bleeding on the face. But that Hitler was at the very least subjecting his niece to intense psychological pressure cannot be doubted. According to the version put out a few days later by the Socialist Munchener Post Munchener Post vehemently denied in a public statement by Hitler during a heated argument on Friday 18 September he refused to let her go to Vienna. Later that day, Hitler and his entourage departed for Nuremberg. He had already left his hotel the next morning when he was urgently recalled to be told the news that Geli had been found dead in his apartment, shot with his revolver. He immediately raced back to Munich in such a rush that his car was reported by the police for speeding about halfway between Nuremberg and Munich. vehemently denied in a public statement by Hitler during a heated argument on Friday 18 September he refused to let her go to Vienna. Later that day, Hitler and his entourage departed for Nuremberg. He had already left his hotel the next morning when he was urgently recalled to be told the news that Geli had been found dead in his apartment, shot with his revolver. He immediately raced back to Munich in such a rush that his car was reported by the police for speeding about halfway between Nuremberg and Munich.
Hitler"s political enemies had a field day. There were no holds barred on the newspaper reports. Stories of violent rows and physical mistreatment mingled with s.e.xual innuendo and even the allegation that Hitler had either killed Geli himself or had had her murdered to prevent scandal. Hitler himself was not in Munich when his niece died. And it is not easy to see the reasoning for a commissioned murder to prevent a scandal being carried out in his own flat. As it was, the scandal was enormous. The party"s own line that the killing had been an accident, which had occurred when Geli was playing with Hitler"s gun, also lacked all conviction. The truth will never be known. But suicide possibly intended as a cri de coeur cri de coeur that went wrong driven by the need to escape from the vice of her uncle"s clammy possessiveness and perhaps violent jealousy, seems the most likely explanation. that went wrong driven by the need to escape from the vice of her uncle"s clammy possessiveness and perhaps violent jealousy, seems the most likely explanation.
To go from later, perhaps exaggerated, reports, Hitler appears to have been near-hysterical, then fallen into an intense depression. Those close to him had never seen him in such a state. He seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He allegedly spoke of giving up politics and finishing it all. There were fears that he might be suicidal. Hans Frank"s account implies, however, that his despair at the scandal and press campaign against him outweighed any personal grief during these days. He took refuge in the house of his publisher, Adolf Muller, on the sh.o.r.es of the Tegernsee. Frank used legal means to block the press attacks.
Whatever the depth of Hitler"s grief, politics came first. He did not attend Geli"s funeral in Vienna on 24 September. He was speaking that evening before a crowd of thousands in Hamburg, where he received an even more rapturous reception than usual. According to one person who was there, he looked "very strained" but spoke well. He was back in business. More than ever, the orgiastic frenzy he worked himself up into during his big public addresses, and the response he encountered in what he saw as the "feminine ma.s.s", provided a subst.i.tute for the emptiness and lack of emotional bonds in his private life.
Two days later, with permission of the Austrian authorities, he visited Geli"s grave in Vienna"s sprawling Central Cemetery. Thereafter, he was suddenly able to snap out of his depression. All at once, the crisis was over.
Some who saw Hitler at close quarters were convinced that Geli could have exerted a restraining influence upon him. It is a highly dubious theory. His emotional involvement with Geli, whatever its precise nature, was everything points to this more intense than any other human relationship he had before or after. There was something both obsessive and cloyingly sentimental about the way her rooms in the Prinzregentenplatz apartment and in Haus Wachenfeld were turned into shrines. In a personal sense, Geli was indeed irreplaceable (though Hitler soon enough had Eva Braun in tow). But it was a purely selfish dependency on Hitler"s part. Geli had been allowed to have no existence of her own. Hitler"s own extreme dependency insisted that she should be totally dependent upon him. In human terms, it was a self-destructive relationship. Politically, apart from the short-lived scandal, it was of no significance. It is difficult to imagine Geli turning Hitler away from his deeper, less personal, obsession with power. Nor was his embittered thirst for vengeance and destruction altered by her death. History would have been no different had Geli Raubal survived.
VIII.
Little over a week after Geli"s death, the city elections in the relatively unresponsive territory of Hamburg gave the n.a.z.is 26.2 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Communists and only fractionally behind the SPD. With as high a vote as 37.2 per cent in rural Oldenburg the previous May, the NSDAP had become for the first time the largest party in a state parliament. The electoral landslide showed no signs of abating. With the Bruning government under siege, ruling by emergency decree and its policies calculated to demonstrate Germany"s inability to pay reparations sending the economy plummeting to disaster in a catastrophic downward spiral of cascading production levels and soaring levels of unemployment and social misery, more and more voters were cursing the wretched Republic. By the time of the calamitous bank crash in July, when two of Germany"s major banks, the Darmstadter and the Dresdner, collapsed, those voters looking to the survival and recovery of democracy were in a dwindling minority. But what sort of authoritarian solution might follow the liquidation of the Weimar Republic was still anything but clear. Germany"s power elites were no more united on this issue than were the ma.s.s of the population.
With the levels of popular support the n.a.z.is now enjoyed, no potential right-wing solution could afford to leave them out of the equation. In July, Hugenberg, the leader of the DNVP, and Franz Seldte, the head of the huge veterans" organization, the Stahlhelm, had renewed their alliance with Hitler resurrecting the former grouping to fight the Young Plan in the "National Opposition". Hugenberg a.s.suaged the criticisms of Reich President Hindenburg, who thought the n.a.z.is not only vulgar but dangerous socialists, by a.s.suring him that he was "politically educating" them towards the national cause to prevent them slipping into Socialism or Communism. Hitler"s line was