I want to be a prophet again today: if international finance Jewry in Europe and beyond should succeed once more in plunging the peoples into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.213 This threat, broadcast on the weekly newsreel in its entirety, could not have been more public. It was to remembered and cited on numerous subsequent occasions. It deserves, therefore, the closest consideration.
The pogrom of November 1938 reflected the regime"s radicalization in the final stages of preparation for war.214 Part of this preparation in Hitler"s mind had to consist of the neutralization of what he conceived of as the Jewish threat. With a disdain for reality characteristic of paranoid antisemites, he a.s.sumed that "international finance" was working together with international Communism, both steered from behind the scenes by the Jews, to broaden out this European war, which they knew Germany would win, onto a world scale, which could only mean by bringing the United States into it. This would be the only way they would stand any chance of success. By the time it happened, Germany would be master of Europe and have the vast majority of the continent"s Jews in its grasp. Antic.i.p.ating this moment, therefore, Hitler was announcing that he would hold Europe"s Jews hostage as a means of deterring America from entering the war. If the USA did come in on the side of Germany"s enemies, then the Jews, not just in Germany, but in all Europe, would be killed. n.a.z.i terrorism had now acquired an additional dimension: the practice, on the largest possible scale, of hostage-taking. Part of this preparation in Hitler"s mind had to consist of the neutralization of what he conceived of as the Jewish threat. With a disdain for reality characteristic of paranoid antisemites, he a.s.sumed that "international finance" was working together with international Communism, both steered from behind the scenes by the Jews, to broaden out this European war, which they knew Germany would win, onto a world scale, which could only mean by bringing the United States into it. This would be the only way they would stand any chance of success. By the time it happened, Germany would be master of Europe and have the vast majority of the continent"s Jews in its grasp. Antic.i.p.ating this moment, therefore, Hitler was announcing that he would hold Europe"s Jews hostage as a means of deterring America from entering the war. If the USA did come in on the side of Germany"s enemies, then the Jews, not just in Germany, but in all Europe, would be killed. n.a.z.i terrorism had now acquired an additional dimension: the practice, on the largest possible scale, of hostage-taking.215 V I.
The radicalization of antisemitism that took place in 1938 thus formed part of what everybody knew was the final run-up to the long-prepared war for the German domination and racial reordering of Europe. Expelling or, failing that, isolating Germany"s Jewish population was, in the n.a.z.is" paranoid racist ideology, an essential prerequisite for establishing internal security and warding off the threat from within - a threat that, in reality, existed only in their own imaginations. Radicalization occurred in 1938 not least because, indeed, this process of conquest and reorganization had already begun, starting with the annexation of Austria. Germany"s Jewish population had been, by and large, prosperous, and its expropriation by the state, and by numerous private businesses, was accelerated at this time not least because of the increasingly desperate need for hard cash to pay Germany"s rapidly growing armaments bill. It is tempting to describe anti-Jewish violence in the Third Reich as a "regression into barbarism", but this is fundamentally to misunderstand its dynamics. Boycotts and expropriations of Jewish shops and businesses were driven on in particular by lower-middle-cla.s.s small businessmen who may have been disappointed by the regime"s failure to better their economic position by more conventional means. But the social and economic extinction of Germany"s Jewish community was also ordered from above, as part of a general preparation for war. It was justified by a radical nationalist ideology that was linked, not to a vague vision of Germany"s return to some quiet medieval backwater, but on the contrary to a technologically advanced war of European domination, predicated on what counted at the time as the most modern, scientific criteria of racial fitness and racial supremacy.
That antisemitism in its racist guise was a fundamentally modern ideology can also be seen from its manifestations in other East-Central European countries at this time. In Poland, too, there was a rabidly antisemitic party in the form of Roman Dmowski"s Endeks, who attracted a broad coalition of the middle cla.s.ses behind an increasingly fascist ideology during the 1930s. Poland was ruled by a military junta after 1935, and the Endeks were in opposition; nevertheless, they organized widespread boycotts of Jewish shops and businesses, which were often accompanied by considerable violence: one estimate claims that 350 Polish Jews were killed and 500 injured in violent antisemitic incidents in over 150 Polish towns and cities between December 1935 and March 1939. The Endeks pressed for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the Jews, the banning of Jews from the army, the universities, the business world, the professions and much more besides. Poland"s Jews - 10 per cent of the population, some 3.5 million people - were to be herded into ghettoes and then forced to emigrate. Such pressure forced the increasingly weak government, disoriented by the death of the Polish dictator Pisudski in 1935, to consider antisemitic measures to try and stop its support seeping away to the Endeks. Already since the 1920s, Jews had been effectively excluded from employment in the public sector and from receiving government business contracts. Now strict limits were set on Jewish access to secondary and higher education and medical and legal practice. Jewish students in Poland"s universities fell from 25 per cent in 1921-33 to 8 per cent in 1938-9.216 By this time, Polish students had succeeded in forcing their Jewish fellow students to occupy separate "ghetto-benches" in lectures. In addition, increasingly severe restrictions were imposed on Jewish export businesses and artisa.n.a.l workshops - a mainstay of Jewish economic life in a country where the Jews were on the whole not among the better-off sections of society. In 1936 the government outlawed the ritual slaughter of animals according to Judaic prescription, a direct attack not only on Judaic religious tradition but also on the livelihood of the numerous Jews who made a living from it. A ban on Sunday shopping struck at Jewish retailers, who now either had to open on the Jewish Sabbath or lose customers by staying closed two days a week. In 1938 the government party adopted a thirteen-point programme on the Jewish question, proposing a variety of new measures to underline the Jews" status as aliens in the Polish national state. By 1939 the professions had barred Jews from joining them even if they had managed to obtain the requisite qualifications at university. Increasingly, the government party was thus taking on board policies first advanced by the n.a.z.is in Germany: in January 1939, for example, some of its deputies put forward a proposal for a Polish equivalent of the Nuremberg Laws.
Nevertheless, there was one crucial difference. The vast majority of Poland"s Jews spoke Yiddish rather than Polish and adhered strongly to the Judaic religion. They appeared to Polish nationalists, as they did to the Polish Catholic Church, as a major obstacle to national integration. They were in effect treated as a national minority in the new Polish state. Polish antisemitism was thus by and large religious rather than racist, although the boundaries between the two inevitably became more than blurred in the violence of antisemitic rhetoric and following the n.a.z.i example.217 By the late 1930s, the Polish government was pressing the international community to allow ma.s.sive Jewish emigration from the country - a major reason for the summoning of the Evian conference, as we have seen. One idea, a commonplace of antisemites in many parts of Europe since the late nineteenth century, was to send the Jews to the French island of Madagascar, off the east African coast. Lengthy but inconclusive negotiations took place between the Polish and French governments on this issue in the late 1930s. By the late 1930s, the Polish government was pressing the international community to allow ma.s.sive Jewish emigration from the country - a major reason for the summoning of the Evian conference, as we have seen. One idea, a commonplace of antisemites in many parts of Europe since the late nineteenth century, was to send the Jews to the French island of Madagascar, off the east African coast. Lengthy but inconclusive negotiations took place between the Polish and French governments on this issue in the late 1930s.218 Similar ideas and policies could be found in other countries in East-Central Europe that were struggling to build a new national ident.i.ty at this time, most notably Romania and Hungary.219 These countries had their own fascist movements, in the form of the Iron Guard in Romania and the Arrow Cross in Hungary, that yielded little or nothing to the German National Socialists in the virulence of their hatred of the Jews; as in Germany, antisemitism here too was linked to radical nationalism, the belief that the nation had not achieved its full realization and that it was above all the Jews who were preventing it from doing so. In Romania, there were around 750,000 Jews in the early 1930s, or 4.2 per cent of the population, and as in Poland they counted as a national minority. Under increasing pressure from the radical fascist Iron Guard in the later 1930s, King Carol appointed a short-lived right-wing regime that began to enact antisemitic legislation which the King continued to enforce when he took over as dictator in 1938. By September 1939, at least 270,000 Jews had been deprived of their Romanian citizenship; many had been expelled from the professions, including the judiciary, the police, teaching and the officer corps, and all were coming under heavy pressure to emigrate. These countries had their own fascist movements, in the form of the Iron Guard in Romania and the Arrow Cross in Hungary, that yielded little or nothing to the German National Socialists in the virulence of their hatred of the Jews; as in Germany, antisemitism here too was linked to radical nationalism, the belief that the nation had not achieved its full realization and that it was above all the Jews who were preventing it from doing so. In Romania, there were around 750,000 Jews in the early 1930s, or 4.2 per cent of the population, and as in Poland they counted as a national minority. Under increasing pressure from the radical fascist Iron Guard in the later 1930s, King Carol appointed a short-lived right-wing regime that began to enact antisemitic legislation which the King continued to enforce when he took over as dictator in 1938. By September 1939, at least 270,000 Jews had been deprived of their Romanian citizenship; many had been expelled from the professions, including the judiciary, the police, teaching and the officer corps, and all were coming under heavy pressure to emigrate.220 The situation of the 445,000 or so Jews in Hungary was closer to that of Jews in Germany than to that of Jews in Poland: that is, they spoke Hungarian and were strongly acculturated. Most of them lived in Budapest, the capital, and regarded themselves as Hungarians in every respect. The prominence of Jews in the short-lived, radical Communist regime of Bela Kun in 1919 fuelled antisemitism on the right. The state"s counter-revolutionary ruler, Admiral Miklos Horthy, allied Hungary to n.a.z.i Germany in the late 1930s in the hope of winning back territory lost to Czechoslovakia and Romania in the Peace Settlement of 1919. This in turn brought new supporters to the Arrow Cross, whose popularity the government tried to undercut in May 1938 by pa.s.sing the First Jewish Law, which imposed detailed restrictions on the proportion of Jewish employees in businesses, in the professions and other walks of life. Later in the same year a Second Jewish Law was pa.s.sed, coming into effect in May 1939, tightening these quotas from 20 per cent to 6 per cent and barring Jews altogether from running newspapers, cinemas and theatres, from teaching, from buying land, from serving as officers in the army, and from joining the civil service. These laws, clearly reflecting the influence of n.a.z.i Germany, were to a large extent racial in character, affecting for example Jews who had converted to Christianity after 1919. Horthy himself disliked this fact, but was unable to prevent the racial clauses of these laws from coming into force.221 On a broader scale, all the states created or refounded in East-Central Europe at the end of the Second World War on the principle, enunciated by US President Woodrow Wilson, of national self-determination, contained large national minorities, which they attempted with a greater or lesser degree of force to a.s.similate to the dominant national culture. But the Jews in nearly all of them bore the additional burden of being regarded by nationalist extremists as agents of a worldwide conspiracy, allied to Russian Communism on the one hand and international finance on the other, and so posing a threat to national independence many times greater than that of other minorities within their borders. Seen in the context of other countries in East-Central Europe, therefore, the policies adopted and enforced by the n.a.z.is against the Jews between 1933 and 1939 do not seem so unusual. Germany was far from the only country in the region at this time that restricted Jewish rights, deprived Jews of their economic livelihood, tried to get Jews to emigrate in large numbers, or witnessed outbursts of violence, destruction and murder against its Jewish population. Even in France there was a strong current of antisemitism on the right, fuelled by bitter hostility to the Popular Front government of Leon Blum, himself a Jew and a socialist and supported in the Chamber of Deputies by the Communist Party, that came to power in 1936.
Yet there were obviously also real differences, which arose partly out of the fact that Germany was far larger, more powerful and, despite the economic crisis of the early 1930s, more prosperous than other countries in the region, partly out of the fact that Germany"s Jewish minority was far more acculturated than Jewish minorities in Poland or Romania. Only in Germany was racial legislation actually introduced and enforced in the area of marriage and s.e.xual relations, although a law along these lines was proposed in Romania; only in Germany were the Jews systematically robbed of their property, their jobs and their livelihood, although restrictions on all of these were certainly imposed elsewhere; only in Germany did the government organize a nationwide pogrom, although there were certainly pogroms in their hundreds elsewhere; and only in Germany did the country"s rulers succeed in driving more than half the entire Jewish population into exile, although there were certainly powerful political groups who dearly wanted to do this elsewhere. Above all, only in Germany did nationalist extremists actually seize power in the 1930s rather than wield influence; and only in Germany was the elimination of Jewish influence regarded by the state and its ruling party as the indispensable basis for a rebirth of the national spirit and the creation of a new, racially pure human society. The antisemitic policies of the Third Reich became something of a model for antisemites in other countries during these years, but nowhere else was there a regime in power that regarded it as crucial that they should be implemented all the way down the line and extended to the whole of Europe. The time for the Third Reich to take such steps had not yet arrived. It would only come with the outbreak of the Second World War.
PART 7.
THE ROAD TO WAR.
FROM WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH.
I.
Hitler"s working habits were irregular. He had always been a stranger to routine. His Bohemianism was still evident in his lifestyle after he came to power. He often stayed up well into the small hours watching movies in his private cinema, and he was often very late to rise the next day. Generally, he would start work at about ten in the morning, spending two or three hours hearing reports from Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery and Hitler"s princ.i.p.al link with his Ministers, and Walther Funk, Goebbels"s deputy in the Propaganda Ministry. After covering the administrative, legislative and propaganda issues of the day, he would sometimes take time for urgent consultations with individual Ministers, or with State Secretary Otto Meissner, who ran what had once been the President"s office. Lunch was routinely prepared for one in the afternoon, but sometimes had to be postponed if Hitler was delayed. Guests would generally consist of Hitler"s immediate entourage, including his adjutants, his chauffeurs and his photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. Goring, Goebbels and Himmler attended with varying degrees of frequency, and later on Albert Speer, but most senior Ministers were seldom to be seen. If they were out of favour, indeed, they were never admitted to Hitler"s presence at all: Agriculture Minister Walther Darre for instance tried without success for more than two years to see Hitler in the late 1930s to discuss the worsening food supply situation. After lunch, Hitler would hold discussions on foreign policy issues and military matters with a variety of advisers, or pore over architectural plans with Speer. Rather than spend hours wading through mountains of paperwork, Hitler always preferred to talk to people, which he did at great length, and usually without interruption from his sycophantic listeners, over lunch or dinner.1 When Hitler was in residence at his retreat at the Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps his lifestyle was even less regular. Originally a small hilltop chalet, this was reconstructed after 1933 to form a large complex of buildings known collectively as the Berghof ("mountain court" or "mountain farm"), with stunning views across the mountains from a terrace and further buildings down the hill for members of his entourage. Here, he would sometimes fail to emerge from his private quarters until the early afternoon, go for a walk down the hill (a car was waiting at the bottom to take him back up again), greet the streams of ordinary citizens who toiled up the mountain to file silently past him and removed pieces of his fence as souvenirs and take refreshments on the terrace if the weather was good. After dinner there would be more old movies, and he seldom went to bed before two or three in the morning. He was often accompanied here by Eva Braun, an attractive young woman, twenty-three years his junior, and a former employee of Heinrich Hoffmann. Hitler"s s.e.x life, the subject of much lurid speculation then and later, appears to have been completely conventional, except for the fact that he refused to marry or to admit to any relationships to the wider public, for fear that doing so would compromise the aura of lonesome power and invulnerability with which propaganda had surrounded him. Earlier on, in 1931, his niece Angela ("Geli") Raubal was killed in an accident, giving rise to unsavoury, but unfounded, rumours about their relationship. Eva Braun, a naive and submissive young woman, was clearly in awe of Hitler, and felt overwhelmed by his attention. The relationship was quickly accepted by Hitler"s entourage, but kept secret from the public. Living in luxury, with few duties, Eva Braun was present at the Berghof as. .h.i.tler"s private companion, not his official consort.2 The absence of routine in Hitler"s style of leadership meant that he paid little attention to detailed issues in which he was not interested, such as the management of the labour force, or the details of financial management, which he happily left to Schacht and his successors. This could mean on occasion that he put his signature to measures which had to be shelved because of opposition from powerful vested interests, as in a decree on the Labour Front issued in October 1934.3 It also meant that those who had, or controlled, direct personal access to him could wield considerable influence. Access became an increasingly important key to power. Hitler"s Bohemian lifestyle did not mean, however, that he was lazy or inactive, or that he withdrew from domestic politics after 1933. When the occasion demanded, he could intervene powerfully and decisively. Albert Speer, who was with him often in the second half of the 1930s, observed that while he appeared to waste a great deal of time, "he often allowed a problem to mature during the weeks when he seemed entirely taken up with trivial matters. Then, after the "sudden insight" came, he would spend a few days of intensive work giving final shape to his solution." It also meant that those who had, or controlled, direct personal access to him could wield considerable influence. Access became an increasingly important key to power. Hitler"s Bohemian lifestyle did not mean, however, that he was lazy or inactive, or that he withdrew from domestic politics after 1933. When the occasion demanded, he could intervene powerfully and decisively. Albert Speer, who was with him often in the second half of the 1930s, observed that while he appeared to waste a great deal of time, "he often allowed a problem to mature during the weeks when he seemed entirely taken up with trivial matters. Then, after the "sudden insight" came, he would spend a few days of intensive work giving final shape to his solution."4 Hitler, in other words, was erratic rather than lazy in his working habits. He wrote his own speeches, and he frequently engaged in lengthy and exhausting tours around Germany, speaking, meeting officials and carrying out his ceremonial functions as head of state. In areas where he did take a real interest, he did not hesitate to give a direct lead, even on matters of detail. In art and culture, for instance, Hitler laid down the policy to be followed, and personally inspected the pictures selected for exhibition or suppression. His prejudices - against the composer Paul Hindemith, for example - invariably proved decisive. In racial policy, too, Hitler took a leading role, pushing on or slowing down the implementation of antisemitic and other measures as he thought circ.u.mstances dictated. In areas such as these, Hitler was not merely reacting to initiatives from his subordinates, as some have suggested. Moreover, it was. .h.i.tler who laid down the broad, general principles that policy had to follow. These were simple, clear and easy to grasp, and they had been drummed into the minds and hearts of n.a.z.i activists since the 1920s through his book Hitler, in other words, was erratic rather than lazy in his working habits. He wrote his own speeches, and he frequently engaged in lengthy and exhausting tours around Germany, speaking, meeting officials and carrying out his ceremonial functions as head of state. In areas where he did take a real interest, he did not hesitate to give a direct lead, even on matters of detail. In art and culture, for instance, Hitler laid down the policy to be followed, and personally inspected the pictures selected for exhibition or suppression. His prejudices - against the composer Paul Hindemith, for example - invariably proved decisive. In racial policy, too, Hitler took a leading role, pushing on or slowing down the implementation of antisemitic and other measures as he thought circ.u.mstances dictated. In areas such as these, Hitler was not merely reacting to initiatives from his subordinates, as some have suggested. Moreover, it was. .h.i.tler who laid down the broad, general principles that policy had to follow. These were simple, clear and easy to grasp, and they had been drummed into the minds and hearts of n.a.z.i activists since the 1920s through his book My Struggle My Struggle, through his speeches and through the vast and ceaselessly active propaganda machine built up by the Party before 1933 and the Propaganda Ministry after that. Hitler"s underlings did not have to imagine what he would want in any given situation: the principles that guided their conduct were there for all to grasp; all they had to do was to fill in the small print. Beyond this, too, at decisive moments, such as the boycott action of 1 April 1933 or the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938, Hitler personally ordered action to be taken, in terms that necessarily, from his point of view, avoided specifics, but were none the less unmistakeable in their general thrust.5 The area in which Hitler took the most consistent and most detailed interest, however, was undeniably that of foreign policy and preparation for war. It was without question Hitler, personally, who drove Germany towards war from the moment he became Reich Chancellor, subordinating every other aspect of policy to this overriding aim and, as we have seen, creating a growing number of stresses and strains in the economy, society and the political system as a result. The war he envisaged was to be far more extensive than a series of limited conflicts designed to revise the territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. On one of many similar occasions, he announced on 23 May 1928 that his intention was "to lead our people into b.l.o.o.d.y action, not for an adjustment of its boundaries, but to save it into the most distant future save it into the most distant future by securing so much land and ground that the future receives back many times the blood shed". by securing so much land and ground that the future receives back many times the blood shed".6 He did not modify this intention after he came to power. In early August 1933, for instance, he told two visiting American businessmen that he wanted to annex not only Austria, the Polish corridor and Alsace-Lorraine but also the German-speaking parts of Denmark, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania as well. This meant total German domination over Europe. He did not modify this intention after he came to power. In early August 1933, for instance, he told two visiting American businessmen that he wanted to annex not only Austria, the Polish corridor and Alsace-Lorraine but also the German-speaking parts of Denmark, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania as well. This meant total German domination over Europe.7 In the long run, indeed, he intended Germany to dominate the world. In the long run, indeed, he intended Germany to dominate the world.8 But to begin with, of course, Hitler had to contend with the problem that Germany was extremely weak internationally, its armed forces severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, its economy depressed, its internal const.i.tution, as he thought, chaotic and divided, beset by enemies within. Hitler"s initial aim, therefore, which guided his foreign policy for the first two years and more of the Third Reich, was to keep Germany"s potential enemies at bay while the country rearmed. But to begin with, of course, Hitler had to contend with the problem that Germany was extremely weak internationally, its armed forces severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, its economy depressed, its internal const.i.tution, as he thought, chaotic and divided, beset by enemies within. Hitler"s initial aim, therefore, which guided his foreign policy for the first two years and more of the Third Reich, was to keep Germany"s potential enemies at bay while the country rearmed.9 It was in practice not difficult to do this. Germany enjoyed a great deal of sympathy internationally in the early-to-mid-1930s. The idealism that had played such a huge part in the creation of the Peace Settlement of 1918-19 had long turned round to work against it. The principle of national self-determination, invoked to give independence to countries like Poland, had manifestly been denied to Germany itself, as millions of German-speakers in Austria, in the Czech Sudetenland, in parts of Silesia (now part of Poland), and elsewhere had been refused the right for the lands they lived in to become part of the Reich. A widespread feeling amongst British and French elites that the First World War had been the disastrous result of a chapter of accidents and poor decisions fuelled a sense of guilt at the harshness of the peace terms and a general disbelief in the war guilt clause that pinned the blame on Germany. Reparations had been brought to a premature end in 1932, but the continued restrictions on Germany"s armaments seemed unfair and absurd to many, especially in the face of belligerently nationalist and authoritarian governments in countries like Hungary and Poland. For Britain and France the Depression meant financial retrenchment, and a huge reluctance to spend any more money on arms, especially in view of the perceived need to defend and maintain their far-flung overseas empires in India, Africa, Indo-China and elsewhere. In France, the late onset of the Depression, in the mid-1930s, made rapid rearmarment extremely difficult anyway. Most of the postwar generation of politicians in Britain and France were second-rate figures. Having seen the best and brightest of their generation killed on the front in the First World War, they were determined to avoid a repet.i.tion of the slaughter if they were humanly able to. Their reluctance to prepare for, still less to go to, war, over problems of European politics that seemed eminently soluble by other means, with a modic.u.m of goodwill on all sides, was compounded, finally, by a nagging fear of what such a war would bring: not only renewed carnage in the trenches but also ma.s.sive aerial bombardment of the great cities, huge destruction and loss of civilian life, and possibly even social revolution as well.10 [image]
Map 17. Ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe, 1937 Ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe, 1937 Thus in effect all Hitler had to do to get through the initial, dangerous phase of rearmament was to appease international opinion by a.s.suring everybody that all he wanted to do was to redress the wrongs of the Peace Settlement, achieve an acceptable degree of national self-determination for the Germans and restore his country to its rightful, equal place in the world of nations, complete with adequate means with which to defend itself against potential aggressors. And this, essentially, is what he did up to the middle of 1938, with the backing not only of the n.a.z.i Party"s Foreign Policy Office under Alfred Rosenberg but also of the conservative bureaucrats who still dominated the German Foreign Office under Baron Konstantin von Neurath. Nationalists to a man, the officials had chafed at the policy of fulfilment pursued by Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann in the 1920s, and welcomed the change of tack brought about by Reich Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, who had replaced Stresemann"s senior aide with the more aggressively inclined Bernhard von Bulow as State Secretary in 1930. The diplomats welcomed the new regime in January 1933, especially since Neurath, who continued as Foreign Minister from the previous government at the express wish of President Hindenburg, was one of their own. On 13 March 1933 Bulow submitted a memorandum to Neurath and Defence Minister Blomberg in which he stressed that the medium-term aims of foreign policy, now that reparations had been wound up and the French, British and Americans had ended their military occupation of the Rhineland, should be to get back the territory lost to the Poles in 1918-19, and to incorporate Austria into the Reich. In the immediate future, however, he advised, Germany should avoid any aggressive moves until rearmament had restored its strength.11 But the road to achieving this was a rocky one. International disarmament negotiations begun in Geneva early in 1932 had run into the sands because the British and French had been unwilling to allow parity to Germany either by running down their own armed forces or permitting the Germans to build up theirs. Increasingly keen to introduce conscription, particularly in view of the growing threat of Ernst Rohm"s brownshirts as an ersatz ersatz army, Defence Minister Blomberg, with the support of the Foreign Ministry, bypa.s.sed Hitler and encouraged the German representatives in Geneva to take a hard line in the face of continuing Anglo-French objections to the removal of limitations on German arms. As negotiations reached deadlock, Blomberg persuaded Hitler to pull out on 14 October 1933, and to underscore the significance of this move by withdrawing Germany from the League of Nations, the main sponsor of the negotiations, at the same time. army, Defence Minister Blomberg, with the support of the Foreign Ministry, bypa.s.sed Hitler and encouraged the German representatives in Geneva to take a hard line in the face of continuing Anglo-French objections to the removal of limitations on German arms. As negotiations reached deadlock, Blomberg persuaded Hitler to pull out on 14 October 1933, and to underscore the significance of this move by withdrawing Germany from the League of Nations, the main sponsor of the negotiations, at the same time.12 The move was made, Hitler declared, "in view of the unreasonable, humiliating and degrading demands of the other Powers". Protesting his desire for peace and his willingness to disarm if the other Powers did the same, Hitler declared, in a lengthy speech broadcast on the radio the same evening, that the deliberate degradation of Germany could no longer be tolerated. Germany had been humiliated by the Peace Settlement and plunged into economic disaster by reparations; to add insult to injury by refusing to grant equality in disarmament talks was too much to bear. The decision, he announced, would be put to the German people in a plebiscite. The move was made, Hitler declared, "in view of the unreasonable, humiliating and degrading demands of the other Powers". Protesting his desire for peace and his willingness to disarm if the other Powers did the same, Hitler declared, in a lengthy speech broadcast on the radio the same evening, that the deliberate degradation of Germany could no longer be tolerated. Germany had been humiliated by the Peace Settlement and plunged into economic disaster by reparations; to add insult to injury by refusing to grant equality in disarmament talks was too much to bear. The decision, he announced, would be put to the German people in a plebiscite.13 Held a few weeks later, it delivered the predictably overwhelming majority in favour of Hitler"s decision, thanks not least to ma.s.sive intimidation and electoral manipulation. Although it is impossible to say with certainty, it is likely that a majority of the electors would have backed withdrawal in a free vote; only former Communists and left-wing Social Democrats would have been likely to have voted "no" if voting had been free. Held a few weeks later, it delivered the predictably overwhelming majority in favour of Hitler"s decision, thanks not least to ma.s.sive intimidation and electoral manipulation. Although it is impossible to say with certainty, it is likely that a majority of the electors would have backed withdrawal in a free vote; only former Communists and left-wing Social Democrats would have been likely to have voted "no" if voting had been free.14 Departure from the League of Nations was the first decisive step in the foreign policy of the Third Reich. It was followed rapidly by another move that caused general astonishment both within Germany and without: a ten-year non-aggression pact with Poland, signed on 26 January 1934, forced through by Hitler personally over serious reservations on the part of the Foreign Office. For Hitler, the pact"s advantage was that it covered Germany"s vulnerable eastern flank during the period of secret rearmament, improved trade relations, which were extremely poor at the time, and provided some security for the free city of Danzig, which was now run by a n.a.z.i local government under League of Nations suzerainty but was cut off from the rest of Germany by the corridor to the Baltic granted to Poland by the Peace Settlement. The pact could be used to demonstrate to Britain and other powers that Germany was a peaceful nation; even the much-admired Gustav Stresemann, Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic, had not concluded an "Eastern Locarno", only managing to settle matters in the West through the treaty of that name. For the Poles, it served as a subst.i.tute for the security formerly provided by the League of Nations, and replaced the alliance concluded in 1921 with France, whose internal political and economic situation was making it look increasingly unsatisfactory as a defensive support against German aggression (undermining French influence was another bonus for Hitler, of course). The pact was, however, a purely temporary expedient on Hitler"s part: a piece of paper, serving its purpose for the moment, to be torn up without ceremony when it was no longer of any use. There were to be many more like it.15 I I.
For most of 1934, Hitler"s attention was directed towards internal politics, particularly with the tensions that led up to and followed the purge of the SA carried out at the end of June. Just before the purge, Hitler paid his first visit abroad as German Chancellor, to the Fascist leader Mussolini, in Venice, to try and secure his understanding for the events that were about to unfold. Hitler"s admiration for Mussolini was patently sincere. However, the atmosphere at the meeting was distinctly frosty. Mussolini was deeply suspicious of the n.a.z.is" intentions in Austria, which he felt lay within his own sphere of influence. A small, landlocked country half in the Alps bordering Italy, German-speaking Austria had experienced repeated political turbulence since the international rejection of the proposal to merge it into Germany after the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918-19. Few Austrians had much confidence in the viability of their state. Ma.s.sive inflation in the early 1920s had been followed by deflation, and then came the Depression, much as in Germany. The country was divided politically into two great political camps, the Socialists, based mainly in the working cla.s.s of "Red" Vienna, where nearly a third of the country"s seven million inhabitants lived, and the Catholic-oriented Christian Social Party, which drew its strength from the Viennese middle cla.s.ses and from conservative farmers and small-town voters in the provinces. Tension between them had broken out into open hostility in 1933, when the Christian Social Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, permanently dissolved parliament and established an authoritarian regime. Increased police hara.s.sment of the Socialists provoked an armed uprising in the working-cla.s.s districts of Vienna in February 1934. It was put down with brutal force by the Austrian army. Leading Socialists, including their most influential ideologue, Otto Bauer, fled to safety through Vienna"s famous underground sewers. Dollfuss now outlawed the Socialists altogether. Thousands were arrested and put in prison. On 1 May 1934 the Austrian dictator pushed through a new const.i.tution for his country. It abolished elections and established, at least on paper, a pale version of the Corporate State based on the model devised by Mussolini.16 For all their seeming decisiveness, these moves left Dollfuss looking distinctly shaky. The economic situation was worse than ever. The large Viennese working cla.s.s was seething with resentment. On the right, the paramilitary Home Defence Brigades, who wanted a more radical kind of fascism, based more clearly on the Italian model, were causing unrest. The previously tiny Austrian n.a.z.i Party was growing rapidly in size and ambition. Its formal banning by Dollfuss in July 1933 had little effect. Bringing together tradesmen and small shopkeepers in Vienna and the Austrian hinterland, lower civil servants, army veterans, recent university graduates and significant elements of the police and gendarmerie, the Party counted nearly 70,000 members at the time of its banning. It gained a further 20,000 in the following months. Held together, though always somewhat precariously, by a violent, vicious brand of antisemitism, fortified by anticlericalism and anti-Catholicism, it looked back to the pan-Germanism of Georg Ritter von Schonerer, whose ideas had so powerfully influenced the young Adolf Hitler in Linz and Vienna before 1914. Its main aim was immediate unification with the Third Reich. As its members listened to the constant stream of n.a.z.i propaganda poured out by radio stations across the border, they became ever more convinced that unification was imminent. Violence and terror became their favoured means of undermining the Austrian state so as to leave it easy prey for the Third Reich. 17 17 By the early summer of 1934, the moment seemed ripe for action. Fridolin Gla.s.s, leader of the SS Standard 89 in Vienna, decided to overthrow the Austrian government. On 25 July 1934, 150 of his men, mostly unemployed workers and soldiers who had been cashiered from the army because of their n.a.z.ism, dressed themselves in borrowed Austrian army uniforms and entered the Austrian Chancellery. The cabinet had already left the building, but the SS men caught Dollfuss trying to leave by a side-entrance and shot him dead on the spot. Rushing into the neighbouring headquarters of the Austrian broadcasting corporation, the putschists commandeered a radio microphone and announced to the country that the government had resigned. Sympathizers in the police had probably made it easy for them to enter the buildings. But this was about the extent of the backing they got from anybody. The Austrian SA, whose leaders were gathered in a nearby hotel, pretended they had known nothing of the putsch at any stage, and refused to intervene. Less than four weeks after the German SA leaders had been shot by the SS, they could not bring themselves to let bygones be bygones. Uprisings in many parts of the country, triggered off, as arranged, by the putschists" radio broadcasts, were put down by the Austrian army, aided in places by the Home Defence Brigades. There were several hundred deaths and injuries. Where the SA did stage an uprising, the SS refused to support them. Even n.a.z.i officers in the army and police in many places took part willingly in the suppression of the revolt. The Austrian n.a.z.is turned out to be poorly trained and ill prepared for such a venture, over-confident, internally divided and incompetent. In Vienna, the Minister of Justice, Kurt von Schuschnigg, formed a new government and after brief negotiations with the putschists had them all arrested. Hitler abandoned them to their fate. The two men who had fired the fatal shots at Dollfuss were hanged in the yard of the Vienna Regional Court. Their last words were "Hail, Hitler!" The German Amba.s.sador in Rome, who had been implicated in the plot, tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide. Even before these events, an Austrian n.a.z.i had complained that "the Austrian on average is incapable as an organizer. In the organizational field he needs Prussian help! . . . Without the Prussian power of organization there will always be chaos at decisive moments." The b.l.o.o.d.y but farcical putsch seemed to bear him out. From now on, Schuschnigg was able to reconstruct the clerico-fascist dictatorship on a firmer basis, curbing the Home Defence Brigades and sending the n.a.z.is underground, from where they continued to commit acts of violence and sabotage against state inst.i.tutions, for the moment without much effect.18 Hitler undoubtedly knew about these events in advance. The Austrian SS had undergone training for the putsch at the Dachau concentration camp. After the banning of the Austrian n.a.z.i Party in June 1933 Dr Theo Habicht, a German Reichstag deputy whom Hitler had appointed to lead the Austrian n.a.z.is, had organized its underground activities from exile in Munich. He poured clandestine antisemitic propaganda into Austria, accusing Dollfuss of presiding over a regime run by Jews. It was in Habicht"s flat in Munich that leading Austrian n.a.z.is met shortly before the putsch to finalize preparations. He told Hitler what was being planned, and Hitler gave his blessing for a general uprising - though in the belief, evidently inspired by Habicht"s exaggerated optimism on the occasion, that the Austrian army would back the putsch. From his exile in Munich, Habicht in reality was less than well informed about the true state of affairs in Austria. Not only did the putsch fail, and the army stick by the government, but Mussolini moved his troops to the Brenner Pa.s.s and made it abundantly clear that he would intervene on the side of the Austrian government if the situation got out of control. Hitler was beside himself with rage and embarra.s.sment. Amidst a.s.surances of disapproval that convinced n.o.body, he dismissed Habicht and closed down the Munich office of the Austrian Party.19 In one respect, however, the catastrophe provided an opportunity. Such was the gravity of the breach in relations with Germany"s neighbour, Hitler told Deputy Chancellor von Papen, who was still under effective house arrest after the "Night of the Long Knives", that it required a senior statesman to smooth things over: as a personal friend of the murdered Austrian Chancellor, and a well-known Catholic statesman, Papen was the man to pour oil on the troubled waters of Austro-German relations. So Hitler appointed him amba.s.sador in Vienna. Realizing he had little choice, Papen accepted. At his request, his secretary, Gunther von Tschirschky-Bogendorf, was released from the prison where he had been held since the action of 30 June and accompanied him to Austria. The last remaining independent-minded conservative politician in the government was finally out of the way - an unexpected by-product of the mismanaged putsch.20 III.
Germany"s diplomatic isolation in the winter of 1934-5 seemed complete. 21 21 The only light in the gloom was provided by the results of a plebiscite held in the small territory of the Saarland, on the western side of the Rhineland on 13 January 1935. At the peace negotiations in 1919 the French, who clearly hoped they would be able to detach it from Germany, given enough time, had the Saarland mandated to them by the League of Nations, with the commitment that a referendum would be held after fifteen years to give the area"s inhabitants a final choice as to which country they wanted to belong to. The fifteen years were up at the end of 1934. The Saarland"s mainly German-speaking citizens had never wanted to be separated from Germany in the first place: 445,000 Saarlanders, nearly 91 per cent of those who cast their ballots, duly expressed their desire to become citizens of the Third Reich. They did so from a number of motives. The prospect of living as a German-speaking minority in France was not an enticing one: in Alsace-Lorraine, the French authorities had gone to great lengths to try and suppress the German language and culture of the inhabitants and discriminated heavily against those who remained loyal to their heritage. In the Saarland too, the French rulers had been tactless and exploitative. They were almost universally seen not as democrats but as imperialists. In Germany, relations between n.a.z.is and Catholics had not deteriorated at this stage to such a point where the Catholic Church, representing the vast majority of Saarlanders, would have felt it necessary to advise a continuation of the The only light in the gloom was provided by the results of a plebiscite held in the small territory of the Saarland, on the western side of the Rhineland on 13 January 1935. At the peace negotiations in 1919 the French, who clearly hoped they would be able to detach it from Germany, given enough time, had the Saarland mandated to them by the League of Nations, with the commitment that a referendum would be held after fifteen years to give the area"s inhabitants a final choice as to which country they wanted to belong to. The fifteen years were up at the end of 1934. The Saarland"s mainly German-speaking citizens had never wanted to be separated from Germany in the first place: 445,000 Saarlanders, nearly 91 per cent of those who cast their ballots, duly expressed their desire to become citizens of the Third Reich. They did so from a number of motives. The prospect of living as a German-speaking minority in France was not an enticing one: in Alsace-Lorraine, the French authorities had gone to great lengths to try and suppress the German language and culture of the inhabitants and discriminated heavily against those who remained loyal to their heritage. In the Saarland too, the French rulers had been tactless and exploitative. They were almost universally seen not as democrats but as imperialists. In Germany, relations between n.a.z.is and Catholics had not deteriorated at this stage to such a point where the Catholic Church, representing the vast majority of Saarlanders, would have felt it necessary to advise a continuation of the status quo status quo, still less adherence to France, where the Communist Party seemed to be gaining steadily in strength. To encourage priests to advise their flocks to vote for Germany, the n.a.z.is toned down their anti-Catholic propaganda in the run-up to the plebiscite. The clergy duly obliged with their support.22 Moreover, when the Centre Party had voluntarily dissolved itself in Germany in 1933 as a quid pro quo quid pro quo for the Concordat, it had done the same in the Saarland too, though it was not strictly necessary. Throughout the 1920s it had vigorously campaigned for a return of the Saarland to Germany - indeed, every political party in the Saarland had done the same - and in June 1934 it joined forces with the n.a.z.is and the remnants of the Nationalists and other parties to fight for a "yes" vote in a unified "German Front" which projected itself to voters as being above politics. Only the Communists and Social Democrats remained outside, but since they too had fought for reunification for many years, their sudden for the Concordat, it had done the same in the Saarland too, though it was not strictly necessary. Throughout the 1920s it had vigorously campaigned for a return of the Saarland to Germany - indeed, every political party in the Saarland had done the same - and in June 1934 it joined forces with the n.a.z.is and the remnants of the Nationalists and other parties to fight for a "yes" vote in a unified "German Front" which projected itself to voters as being above politics. Only the Communists and Social Democrats remained outside, but since they too had fought for reunification for many years, their sudden volteface volteface confused their supporters and was accepted by few as sincere. Up to this point, indeed, patriotic rituals, war memorials to the German dead, national festivals and much more besides, supported financially and in other ways by nationalist enthusiasts within Germany, had worked to strengthen German national consciousness in the Saar. Their effect was not going to be undone in a couple of years. The n.a.z.i Party in Germany also offered a variety of material inducements to the Saarlanders, sending Winter Aid over the border to help the needy, pointing out to teachers and other state employees the superior pension and other financial arrangements for them that could be obtained in Germany, and contrasting the economic recovery in the Reich with the rapidly deepening Depression in France. Goebbels"s Propaganda Ministry blared out propaganda on German radio and exported large numbers of cheap "People"s Receivers" into the Saar to help the population receive the message. Rhenish printing presses rolled off millions of leaflets that were soon being read all over the Saarland; 80,000 posters went up in the region urging people to vote for Germany. Fifteen hundred public meetings were held to help convince people of the rightness of reunification. For the vote itself, 47,000 Saarlanders living in the Reich were brought in to cast their ballots, further strengthening the nationalists" support. The campaign against reunification scarcely existed in comparison, and was hamstrung by internal divisions over whether to campaign for a continuation of the confused their supporters and was accepted by few as sincere. Up to this point, indeed, patriotic rituals, war memorials to the German dead, national festivals and much more besides, supported financially and in other ways by nationalist enthusiasts within Germany, had worked to strengthen German national consciousness in the Saar. Their effect was not going to be undone in a couple of years. The n.a.z.i Party in Germany also offered a variety of material inducements to the Saarlanders, sending Winter Aid over the border to help the needy, pointing out to teachers and other state employees the superior pension and other financial arrangements for them that could be obtained in Germany, and contrasting the economic recovery in the Reich with the rapidly deepening Depression in France. Goebbels"s Propaganda Ministry blared out propaganda on German radio and exported large numbers of cheap "People"s Receivers" into the Saar to help the population receive the message. Rhenish printing presses rolled off millions of leaflets that were soon being read all over the Saarland; 80,000 posters went up in the region urging people to vote for Germany. Fifteen hundred public meetings were held to help convince people of the rightness of reunification. For the vote itself, 47,000 Saarlanders living in the Reich were brought in to cast their ballots, further strengthening the nationalists" support. The campaign against reunification scarcely existed in comparison, and was hamstrung by internal divisions over whether to campaign for a continuation of the status quo status quo or for absorption into France. or for absorption into France.23 In many parts of the Saarland, the local n.a.z.i Party exerted ma.s.sive intimidation and violence behind the scenes to deter the opposition from voting against reunification with Germany. The terror it unfolded was reminiscent of the early months of 1933 in Germany. Social Democratic meetings were broken up by brownshirts wielding steel bars. People distributing propaganda against reunification were beaten up with rubber truncheons or even shot. Anti-fascist pubs were attacked and their windows shattered in a hail of bullets. Opposition meetings were turned into riots. The atmosphere resembled that of a civil war, as one local inhabitant remarked. The local police stood by while all this went on. While German SS units were sent into the area to help escalate the terror, rumours put about by the "yes" campaign encouraged voters to believe that the ballot would not be secret, a plausible enough suggestion in view of what had been going on in plebiscites and elections in Germany itself. Strong hints were dropped that those known to have voted "no" would be carted off to concentration camps once the Germans came in. Especially in small communities, the ident.i.ty of the local Communists and Social Democrats was generally known anyway, so anti-n.a.z.is were aware that this was no empty threat. The international monitors appointed to oversee the plebiscite admitted that the campaign was violent and called for the terror to stop, but their soldiers on the ground were commanded by officers strongly hostile to the Communists and Social Democrats, and so took no action.24 It was not surprising that a majority of former Communist and Social Democratic voters decided that unity with Germany was the best course; they had not experienced the reality of life in the Third Reich, and their national ident.i.ty as Germans was strong. The labour movement had always been weak in the Saarland, where, one German trade unionist noted, the Prussian state had been a major employer, putting miners in uniform and disciplining dissidents, and the big industrialists had wielded huge influence. "The population of the Saar", he concluded resignedly, "belongs among the politically most backward population in Germany." It was not surprising that a majority of former Communist and Social Democratic voters decided that unity with Germany was the best course; they had not experienced the reality of life in the Third Reich, and their national ident.i.ty as Germans was strong. The labour movement had always been weak in the Saarland, where, one German trade unionist noted, the Prussian state had been a major employer, putting miners in uniform and disciplining dissidents, and the big industrialists had wielded huge influence. "The population of the Saar", he concluded resignedly, "belongs among the politically most backward population in Germany."25 How far it was possible to draw general conclusions from the plebiscite about the att.i.tude of the majority of Germans to the Third Reich must remain in doubt, particularly given the small size of the population and its peculiar political culture as a border region. For most Saarlanders, the vote was a "yes" for Germany irrespective of Hitler and the n.a.z.is. How far it was possible to draw general conclusions from the plebiscite about the att.i.tude of the majority of Germans to the Third Reich must remain in doubt, particularly given the small size of the population and its peculiar political culture as a border region. For most Saarlanders, the vote was a "yes" for Germany irrespective of Hitler and the n.a.z.is.26 Under pressure, the government in Berlin had been obliged to promise that German laws and practices would only be introduced gradually into the Saar, and that Jews in particular would not be exposed to the kind of violence that had been common in the Reich since the end of January 1933. However, it was not long before the Saarlanders began to experience the realities of life in the Third Reich. "Prussian" carpet-baggers moved in to take over offices and jobs, the Gestapo set up its headquarters in the old trade union building, and people suspected of pro-French sympathies were unceremoniously sacked from their jobs. Prominent Communists and Social Democrats fled the country without delay. The ma.s.s of ordinary Saarlanders doubtless never wished they had voted otherwise than for reunification, but all the same, it failed to bring them the immediate improvements they had been promised. Unemployment did not vanish overnight, and food shortages quickly began to affect the region. The region"s Jews were initially allowed to emigrate on more favourable terms than those on offer in the rest of Germany, but from September 1935, with the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, they were exposed to the full rigours of n.a.z.i antisemitism. There were mutterings, even strikes, but no real resistance; conditions in this largely rural and small-town society, with its weak labour movement traditions, made it virtually impossible.27 It was not until 1938 that economic recovery, fuelled by rearmament, began to reconcile the Saarlanders to their lot, and the continuing propaganda barrage from Berlin, the n.a.z.ification of education, and compulsory enrolment in the Hitler Youth, began to spread acceptance of the Third Reich amongst young Saarlanders in particular. It was not until 1938 that economic recovery, fuelled by rearmament, began to reconcile the Saarlanders to their lot, and the continuing propaganda barrage from Berlin, the n.a.z.ification of education, and compulsory enrolment in the Hitler Youth, began to spread acceptance of the Third Reich amongst young Saarlanders in particular.28 All this was still to come when, on 1 March 1935, the day of formal incorporation, Hitler spoke in Saarbrucken of his joy at the Saarlanders" decision. It was a great day for Germany, he said, and a great day for Europe. It showed the power and popularity of the Third Reich and its ideas for all Germans. "In the end", he proclaimed, "blood is stronger than any doc.u.ments of mere paper. What ink has written will one day be blotted out by blood." The implications for German-speaking minorities in other European countries, notably Poland and Czechoslovakia, were unmistakeable.29 The Hamburg schoolteacher Luise Solmitz celebrated the "Day of the Saar"s Homecoming" by hoisting up her old black-white-red Imperial banner for the last time, before raising her new one, decorated with the swastika, over her house. The Hamburg schoolteacher Luise Solmitz celebrated the "Day of the Saar"s Homecoming" by hoisting up her old black-white-red Imperial banner for the last time, before raising her new one, decorated with the swastika, over her house.30 All over Germany, flags were flown to celebrate the event. Correspondingly, the vote spread despondency among the clandestine Social Democratic and Communist opposition in Germany and gave a boost to the self-confidence of the n.a.z.i rank and file. All over Germany, flags were flown to celebrate the event. Correspondingly, the vote spread despondency among the clandestine Social Democratic and Communist opposition in Germany and gave a boost to the self-confidence of the n.a.z.i rank and file.31 It also injected a new boldness in foreign affairs into the German Leader. Hitler was increasingly unable to conceal the pace or extent of rearmament from the world, and indeed the Saar plebiscite provided the spur to fresh demands from the military which would be completely impossible to keep from prying eyes abroad if they were carried out. The success of the Saar plebiscite seems to have prompted his announcement of the existence of a German air force and the introduction of conscription, on 16 March 1935. The army would be expanded to more than half a million men, five times the size permitted by the Treaty of Versailles, he said. The following day saw a grandiose military parade in Berlin, at which Defence Minister General Werner von Blomberg announced that Germany was about to take up its rightful place in the world of nations once again.32 Naturally Hitler a.s.sured everyone that all Germany wanted was peace. Many of his middle-cla.s.s sympathizers believed him. "We"ve got general conscription again!" wrote Luise Solmitz triumphantly in her diary: Naturally Hitler a.s.sured everyone that all Germany wanted was peace. Many of his middle-cla.s.s sympathizers believed him. "We"ve got general conscription again!" wrote Luise Solmitz triumphantly in her diary: The day that we have longed for since the disgrace of 1918 . . . In the morning France had its much-fought-over two-year period of military service in its pocket, in the evening we had general conscription as an answer to it. We would never have experienced Versailles if such actions had always been taken, such answers always given . . . General conscription is to serve not war but the maintenance of peace. For a defenceless country in the midst of heavily armed people must necessarily be an invitation and encouragement to maltreat it as territory to march into or to plunder. We haven"t forgotten the invasion of the Ruhr.33
As the formal announcement came over the radio, Luise Solmitz reported, "I rose to my feet. It overcame me, the moment was too great. I had to listen standing."34 But the announcement sparked widespread anxiety amongst many Germans too, particularly those who had experienced the First World War. Many young men groaned at the prospect of being conscripted after they had already spent many months doing labour service. At the same time, however, some older workers welcomed the relief that would be given to the unemployment situation by the move. And accompanying what one report called a general "really particularly strong war psychosis", often in the very same people, was also a widespread feeling of satisfaction that Germany was at last achieving international respect again. "There is no doubt", reported a Social Democratic agent in Rhineland-Westphalia, "that the perpetual banging-on about equality of honour and German freedom has had an effect far into the ranks of the formerly Marxist working-cla.s.s and caused confusion there."35 International reaction was sobering. The British, French and Italian governments responded by meeting at Stresa, in Italy, on 11 April 1935, and declaring their determination to defend the integrity of Austria against the German threat that had been obvious since July 1934 and now seemed to be looming once again. Less than a week later, the League of Nations formally censured Germany"s rearmament programme. Shortly after this, France concluded an agreement with the Soviet Union. These moves had more rhetorical effect than real clout. Continuing the policy of bilateral neg