4 A ‘National Community’? State, Economy and Society, 1933–1939
Gleichschaltung and Hitler’s State
Hitler became Chancellor on 30 January 1933; but he had by no means actually ‘seized power’, as the myth of the Machtergreifung (seizure of power), supported by the celebrations and propaganda of the Nazis themselves at the time, would suggest. He still had much to do to consolidate his hold over German administration, government and people; indeed, at this time many still felt that he could be harnessed and restrained, and his popular support co-opted and redirected.
However, in the course of 1933–4 Hitler systematically pursued a policy of so-called Gleichschaltung (literally, putting everyone ‘into the same gear’; coordinating, or bringing into line), in order to consolidate his hold on German politics and society. Even then, however, Hitler’s power was by no means absolute. His state was a complex system, riddled with rivalries among competing centres of power and influence, in which the notion of a charismatic Führer, above the fray, played a key role in maintaining a degree of cohesion. Equally important was the extent to which this system was, almost to the last, sustained by key elite groups (particularly in the army and industry) who, while not necessarily themselves ‘Nazi’, must bear a large degree of responsibility for the functioning and consequences of the regime.
Hitler had declared that the elections following his appointment as Chancellor would be the last free elections in a parliamentary state. In the event, the elections of 5 March 1933 were less than ‘free’. On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag was set on fire. While uncertainty still surrounds the circumstances of the arson attack, there is no doubt that it was the Nazis who obtained the utmost benefit from the consequences of the fire. It was used as the pretext for an emergency decree on 28 February, which suspended most civil liberties and legitimized mass arrests of Communists and Social Democrats. In conditions of mounting tension, with rising violence on the streets, and left-wingers no longer able to express their opinions freely, the elections of 5 March were held under highly intimidating conditions. Nevertheless, Hitler and the NSDAP still failed to gain an overall majority: with 43.9% of the vote, the Nazis won 288 seats, while the Left gained over 30% of the vote (128 votes for the SDP and 81 for the KPD) and the Centre (73 seats) and Liberals together won 18% of the vote. Even with the votes for the right-wing DNVP the Nazi-dominated ‘government of national concentration’ could only barely command an absolute majority and could not achieve the two-thirds necessary to pass an Enabling Law (Ermächtigungsgesetz) to alter the constitution and ‘legalize’ the destruction of democracy. Yet by 23 March this had become possible.
On 21 March the Reichstag was formally opened in the Garrison Church at Potsdam. Much was made of this carefully stage-managed ‘Day of Potsdam’ by the Nazis, who attempted to emphasize continuities between Frederick the Great, Hindenburg and Hitler, with the great traditions of German and Prussian history culminating in the figure of Hitler. Somewhat relieved by these appearances, the Bavarian People’s Party, the German State Party and the Centre Party were prepared to consider voting for the Enabling Law. The Catholics in particular were rather reassured by Hitler’s insistence that the position of Christianity would be untouched in the future; and Centre Party politicians also felt that their willingness to ally with the Nazis might help to moderate the government – as had their former cooperation with Social Democrats in 1919, although in a rather different direction. The Communist Deputies were prevented from attending the Reichstag vote, as were twenty-one of the Social Democrats. In the event, when the Reichstag convened in the Kroll Opera on the evening of 23 March, the only members courageous enough to vote against the Enabling Act were the Social Democrats. Otto Wels read out their reply to Hitler, in which he stated: ‘At this historical hour, we German Social Democrats pledge ourselves to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and Socialism. No Enabling Law can give you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible…’1 But this protest was ultimately to no avail.
With the passage of this law, Hitler was able – with all the appearance of legality – to overthrow the remnants of any form of parliamentary democracy. He no longer needed to pay attention to the views of most of the nationalist members of the government, nor did he need President Hindenburg’s signature for the passage of legislation. Henceforth, ‘law’ could be used to justify any arbitrary act of the regime. But this garb of legality, while reassuring to moderate, middle-class Germans, did not preclude the use of violence and terror; it simply accompanied it.
Map 4.1 The Reichstag elections, 5 March 1933.
From spring 1933 the Nazis engaged in a series of moves to extend and consolidate their power. Initial measures were taken to purge the civil service in the ‘Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service’ of 7 April 1933. Having survived the transition from Imperial Germany to the Weimar Republic relatively unscathed, the German professional civil service found itself under stronger attack in this new revolutionary upheaval. Jews were removed from positions in the civil service and related state professions (under the broad German categorization of state servants, or Beamten), as were political opponents of the regime. The purge was, however, by no means as thorough as many NSDAP members would have liked, since considerations of administrative efficiency in some cases outweighed Nazi credentials. Furthermore, some civil servants who harboured misgivings about the Nazi regime justified their decision to stay as ‘preventing something worse’. Yet the overall record of civil servants in the Third Reich remains one of compromise rather than subversion of the regime. Recent exhaustive works by independent historians’ commissions tasked with researching the involvement of Reich ministries in the Nazi regime have demonstrated the extent to which they were not merely depressingly compliant but actively complicit in furthering Nazi goals across a wide range of areas, including racial discrimination and persecution in both peacetime and during the war.
At the same time, the traditional decentralization of the relatively recently unified Germany was attacked – a continuation of tendencies already evident towards the end of the Weimar Republic. The powers of the Länder were reduced by the Nazi seizure of power in the regional states in March 1933. (The takeover of Prussia the previous summer, with the installation of a Reich Commissioner in place of the elected government, had provided a useful precedent.) On 7 April 1933 10 so-called Reichsstatthalter (Reich governors) were appointed, usually the senior Gauleiter of each state, except in the cases of Bavaria (Ritter von Epp) and Prussia (Hitler). The takeover was by no means smooth: as at national level, there were perpetual tensions between party and state. Frictions varied from place to place, depending on preexisting political configurations and circumstances. Curiously, the heavy-handed actions of local party officials were often dissociated in people’s minds from the regime as a whole, and the person of Hitler in particular: people frequently asserted that ‘if only the Führer knew’, things would not be allowed to go on in the way they were locally.
While the Nazis made strenuous efforts to woo economic elites – many of whom had been belatedly persuaded to give financial support to the Nazi election campaign in the spring of 1933 – they had no such tender consideration for the bulk of the German people, and notably the workers. Giving the appearance of populism by proclaiming 1 May a national holiday on full pay, the Nazis rapidly proceeded to dismantle and destroy the autonomous workers’ organizations. Trade unions were wound up and replaced by a body spuriously claiming to represent the interests of all German workers in the new ‘national community’, the German Labour Front (DAF) under Robert Ley. Walther Darré took control of the Reich Food Estate (Reichsnährstand), dealing with the peasantry and agriculture, while small traders were organized into the HAGO (Handwerks-, Handelsund Gewerbe-Organisation). While in appearance developing a form of corporatism, in practice this was a coercive system in which none of the Nazi organizations actually represented the real interests of their ‘members’.
