KD Bracher
“At a party congress in May 1926 its programme was declared immutable. This helped to muffle theoretical discussions which might deflect the party from its true purpose, the seizure of power.”
AJ Nicholls
“[This] was nothing but a move to solidify Hitler’s authoritarian leadership structure.”
5. The Strassers
Gregor and Otto Strasser were Nazi leaders based in northern Germany. Gregor was more important, joining in 1920, and had risen to prominence while Hitler was in prison. He was a pharmacist and had won the Iron Cross in WW I, rising from private to lieutenant. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1924.
WL Shirer
“Being a Reichstag deputy gave him two immediate advantages over Hitler: he had a free pass on the railways, so travel was no expense to him or the party; and he enjoyed parliamentary immunity. No authority could ban him from public speaking; no court could try him for slandering anyone or anything he wanted to.”
Gregor was more of a socialist than Hitler and most other Nazis (closer to Mussolini’s brand of fascism).
KD Bracher
“The Strassers were inclined to take the ‘socialist’ programme of the party rather seriously; they supported the idea of a fascist-corporate state and the nationalisation of heavy industry and large land-holdings.”
WL Shirer
“The Strassers … wanted to nationalise the big industries and the big estates and substitute a chamber of corporations on fascist lines for the Reichstag.”
In 1925 the KPD and SPD proposed that the landed estates be expropriated and taken over by the state. They raised a petition to force the government to hold a referendum (see the Weimar Constitution).
AJ Nicholls
“[Strasser & north Nazis] pressed for participation in the campaign being organised by the Communists and Social Democrats to dispossess the former German royal houses.”
On November 22nd, 1925, a meeting of northern Nazis in Hannover accepted the proposal to join forces with the Communists and Socialists. Hitler was incensed.
KD Bracher
“He did not want to spoil his chances with the ruling élite; his anti-capitalism was purely anti-Semitic and only allowed for attacks on Jewish ‘capitalists’ … but not for union and syndicalist policies of his own.”
AJ Nicholls
“He had no interest in social revolution for its own sake, and realised that such radical programmes would simply frighten the propertied classes.”
Hitler called a meeting to be held at Bamberg (in the south) on February 14th, 1926. This was a weekday, so it was obviously difficult for northern Nazis to attend (because of work); only two managed to attend: Gregor Strasser and Göbbels, whom Hitler’s supporters greatly outnumbered. After a five-hour haranguing by Hitler, Strasser and Göbbels rejected the policy previously accepted at Hannover. Hitler knew this would offend the northern Nazis, and so attempted to form a reconciliation, in which Göbbels was to be involved.
Joseph Göbbels joined the party in 1922 after hearing Hitler speak in Munich. In 1925, Gregor Strasser heard Göbbels speaking, and asked him to help organise the northern Nazis. Göbbels and Strasser shared the same beliefs and were inclined to the socialist elements of the party’s programme.
J Göbbels (diary, 31st January 1926)
“I think it is terrible that we [the Nazis] and the Communists are bashing in each other’s heads … Where can we get together with the leading Communists?”
Göbbels also wrote an open letter to the papers at the same time. Referring to the Communists, he wrote,
“You and I are fighting one another, but we are not really enemies.”
Hitler believed that he could sway Göbbels’ mind and get him to support Hitler as the true Führer. He invited Göbbels to speak in Munich. Göbbels’ diary entries show his changing mind:
J Göbbels (diary, 29th March 1926)
“This morning a letter from Hitler. I shall make a speech on April 8 at Munich.”
J Göbbels (diary, 7th April 1926)
“Hitler’s car is waiting … What a royal reception! I will speak at the historic Bürgerbräu.”
J Göbbels (diary, 13th April 1926)
“Hitler spoke for three hours. Brilliantly. He can make you doubt your own views … I love him … He has thought everything through.”
Göbbels fell under Hitler’s spell and Hitler realised Göbbels’ potential. In October 1926, Hitler appointed him Gauleiter of Berlin. This was an important position as Berlin was under the influence of socialism.
WL Shirer
“Berlin was Red.”
Hitler also attempted to gain the support of the northern Nazis by gaining Strasser’s support.
Lord Bullock
“He offered Gregor Strasser the post of chief of the party’s propaganda office.”
Strasser accepted and was given the task of reorganising the northern party. Hitler had been able to ‘conquer’ the northern Nazis without losing the talents of their leaders. In fact, it was because the northern Nazi leaders were given positions of power that the northern rank and file were happy.
KD Bracher
“In this period, a new star rose amid the mediocrity of the old and new leadership: Joseph Göbbels, the future propaganda chief … He began his career at the side of Gregor Strasser, and after initial hesitation, he submitted to the Führer cult with all the emotionalism and extremism of which he was capable. With great intensity, he employed his literary and propagandistic skill to create and spread a pseudo-religious Hitler cult.”
6. Growing Support, 1924-29
Hitler left prison determined to achieve power legally; the failure of the Munich Putsch convinced him that power should be attained by popular support. Thus, his methods were designed to gain this popular support.
How is it possible to measure public support?
i. Number of Members
1925 27,000
1926 49,000
1927 72,000
1928 108,000
1929 178,000
ii. Electoral Success*
- 1925 Presidential election
On the death of Ebert, an election was called. The Nazis put up Ludendorff, who won only 200,000 votes.
KD Bracher
“[This was] a sign of the continuing decline of the radical Right”
-
Reichstag Elections, 20th May 1928
The Nazis won 12 (of 491) seats (down two from December 1924). They received only 2.6% of the vote (810,000 of 31,000,000). Regional success in the same elections was also limited:
Franconia 8.2% Upper Bavaria 6.2%
Wesser-Ems 5.2% Hannover 4.4%
Schleswig Holstein 4.0%
Although the Nazis were represented in the Reichstag, it was obvious that they were still a minor party, regionally concentrated in the south, though support was growing in the north.
a. Methods of Gaining Support
The main weapons before the Putsch had been mass meetings and Hitler’s electrifying speeches. However, Hitler had been banned from speaking in the majority of Länder (states / regions).
KD Bracher
“[He] was barred from making public appearances in Bavaria (9 March 1925), and later in almost every other German state; his major weapon was thus blunted until 1927-28.”
Bavaria lifted the ban in May 1927; Prussia lifted its ban in September 1928. Despite these bans, the Nazis were able to use the press as before; on his release from prison, Hitler persuaded the Bavarian Justice Minister, Franz Gürtner, to end the ban on the Völkischer Beobachter. It was relaunched on 26th February 1925. Other Nazi papers were created as well; in Berlin, Göbbels founded Der Angriff (the attack).
KD Bracher
“Göbbels inaugurated a new propaganda style, in which intellectual cunning and the mass appeal of tabloids were combined into an effective amalgam of slander and pathos.”
Meetings and rallies, were held where there were no bans. In July 1926, the first post-Putsch congress was held in Weimar, Thuringia. Another was held in Nuremberg (Aug 27) at which Hitler unified the party.
KD Bracher
“The effect of the congress on the inner cohesion and self-confidence of the party and its leaders was probably of greater significance than its outside impact.”
b. Internal Party Re-Organisation
The internal workings of the party were reorganised in line with the party’s new aim.
i. Political Machinery
This was divided into two groups:
WL Shirer
“P.O. I, designed to attack and undermine the government, and P.O. II to establish a state within a state.”
P.O. I is simple to understand. Its role was to co-ordinate attacks on government policies both in the press and in speeches etc.
P.O. II is more complicated. It was a party bureaucracy, a framework for government once power had been achieved. Government-like ‘ministries' were created to shadow real government department. There were ‘ministries’ for foreign policy, press, industrial relations, agriculture, economy, interior, justice, science and labour etc.
KD Bracher
“There came into being a shadow state which, with the seizure of power, was able to almost automatically take over the reins of government: Reich and regional leaders supplied ministers and government leaders.”
ii. Regional Organisation
To achieve control of the regional branches, Hitler reorganised them to his liking. By 1925 there were 607 local groups; those distant from Munich were almost independent of central party control. Therefore, Hitler divided the country into districts, or Gaue. These corresponded with the 34 Reichstag electoral districts. At the head of each Gau was a Gauleiter, appointed personally by Hitler. Gaue were also created for Austria, Danzig and the Sudetenland.
iii. Professional Groups
In the period 1924-29, specific professional units were created with the aim of brining in more members from the professions concerned. Leagues created included the NS Lehrer Bund (Teachers’ League); NS Rechtwahrbund (Law Officers’ League); NS Arzte Bund (Physicians’ League); NS Frauenschaft (Women’s League, lit. Womanhood); NS Kultur Bund (Culture League, for intellectuals).
iv. Youth
The Hitler Jugend was created before the Putsch, but was expanded and developed upon in this period. This was specifically for boys aged 15-18. Boys aged 10-15 enrolled in the Deutsches Jungvolk. Girls 10-15 joined the Bund Deutscher Mädeln.
KD Bracher
“The NSDAP offered the youth movement, which had never been able to gain a firm foothold in the democratic parties, the most consistent acceptance of its leadership role … The National Socialists concentrated on the recruitment of these young people.”
v. The Sturm Abteilung
During the period of Hitler’s imprisonment, the SA brought the party into disrepute.
WL Shirer
“Many of its top leaders, beginning with Röhm, were notorious homosexual perverts. Lieutenant Edmund Heines … was not only homosexual but a convicted murderer. These two and dozens of others quarrelled and feuded as only men of unnatural sexual inclinations, with their peculiar jealousies, can.”
WL Shirer
“No other party in Germany came near to attracting so many shady characters … a conglomeration of pimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the party as if to a natural haven.”
In May 1925, Hitler fell out with Röhm, removing him from leadership of the SA. In 1928, Röhm left for South America, returning to Germany in 1930. In July 1926, Hitler appointed Franz Pfeffer von Salomon as the new SA leader, and began to expand the SA: 8 new units were created at the Weimar Congress of 1926; 12 at the Nuremberg Congress in 1927. The SA still held the same function: breaking up the opposition and safeguarding party figures.
KD Bracher
“Provocative demonstrations, particularly in ‘Marxist’ working class quarters, were amongst the most effective means … of gaining public notice in the fight between sympathisers.”
Lord Bullock
“In Berlin the violence of the SA’s street battles with the Communists alienated public opinion and led the police to secure a ban on the Nazi organisation in the capital.”
Under the control of the SA was placed the new Schutzstaffeln (SS). Its members wore black uniforms (the SA’s was brown) and swore an oath of loyalty to Hitler personally. Their role was that of an internal police force under Hitler’s control.
c. Leaders
Although the 1928 election saw only 12 Nazis elected to the Reichstag, those elected were good, loyal, party men. Göring (who had returned from Sweden in 1927), Gregor Strasser, Frick, von Epp, Feder and Göbbels all made very good use of their privileges. They attempted to work against the democratic process from within. Speaking on 30th April 1928,
J Göbbels
“We became Reichstag deputies in order to paralyse the Weimar democracy with its own assistance. If democracy is stupid enough to give us free travel privileges and per dium allowances for this service, that is its affair … We come as enemies! Like the wolf tearing into the flock of sheep, that is how we come.”
d. Finance
To change into a mass party, the Nazis needed more than the money obtained from members’ subscriptions. Therefore, contacts were made to find finance from industrialists. This was forthcoming from Emil Kirdorf (the Ruhr ‘coal king’) and Fritz Thyssen (head of Vereinigte Stahlwerke, United Steelworks), who later wrote a book entitled ‘I paid Hitler’. These people were willing to support extremists who opposed the growing support for, and threat of, the Communists.
e. Propaganda
KD Bracher
“The party owed its growth to the application of commercial advertising techniques to political recruitment, which, violating the rules of good taste and acceptable levels of noise, began an assault on the collective unconscious.”
How was this done?
- Use of easily remembered phrases and slogans;
- Implanting ‘facts’ by suggestive repetition;
- Simple symbolism.
A Hitler (in Mein Kampf)
“Every propaganda must be popular and adjust its intellectual level to the receptivity of the most limited person among those to whom it addresses itself.”
f. Summary
The situation in 1929, before the Wall Street Crash, was roughly as follows:
- The Nazis were still a small party, but growing;
- They were dominated by Hitler;
- They held the support of some influential outsiders;
- They had a good presence in the Reichstag, though they were few in number;
- They had significant young membership;
- Internal organisation was good;
- There was no internal dissent or strife.
KD Bracher
“The 100,000 strong NSDAP, unlike the putschist party of 1923, controlled tightly knit cadres in all parts of Germany which, with the approaching economic crisis, stood ready to branch out into a mass organisation.”
AJ Nicholls
“It was apparently classless. It had never been compromised by exercising power in the Republic, nor was it associated with monarchism … Unlike the Communists they did not threaten property, nor were they controlled by a foreign power.”
7. Politics, 1924-29
a. 1924 Elections
Following the economic situation of the previous year, it was expected that the parties of government would suffer in these elections. In the May elections the SPD won only 100 seats; nationalists won many seats from them and other moderate parties, the DNVP winning 106, the Nazis 33. In the December elections the Communists lost a third of their seats, and the Nazis won only 12.
KD Bracher
“The anti-republican trend was halted.”
As the economy improved, Republican parties regained lost ground.
b. The Dawes Plan, 1924
Following the end of passive resistance in the Ruhr, the former Allies realised the seriousness of Germany’s economic problems and determined to attempt to help. A Commission was created under the American General Charles G Dawes, which first met on 14th January 1924. It presented its report in April. The key points were these:
- Germany should adopt a new currency;
- The new currency should be valued at 20 Marks to the pound sterling;
- The central bank should be independent of government control;
- Germany would receive a loan of £40 million.
The loan was ‘floated’ in October 1924. Between 1924 and 1929 Germany received loans to the value of 25,000 million Marks, while, in the same period, she paid only 8,000 Marks’ worth of reparations.
A Wood
“The Dawes Plan was successful in re-creating a sound currency and … enabled her industry to be re-organised and her reparations payments to be met.”
c. Presidential Elections, 1925
Ebert died in the spring of 1925. Elections were therefore held in which many candidates were proposed.
- Dr Karl Jarres, Burgermeister of Duisberg, supported by the DNVP and DVP;
- Otto Braun, Minister President of Prussia, supported by the SPD;
- Wilhelm Marx, former Reich Chancellor, supported by the Zentrum Partei;
- Dr Heinrich Held, Minister President of Bavaria, supported by the BVP;
- Dr Willy Hellpach, Staatspräsident of Baden, supported by the Democrat Party;
- Ernst Thälmann, leader of the KPD;
- General Ludendorff, supported by the NSDAP.
In the first round, no individual candidate was able to secure an overall majority:
- Jarres received 10.7 million votes;
- Braun won 7.8 million votes;
- Marx won 4.0 million votes;
- General Ludendorff got a mere 200,000 votes.
A second round was needed, and a reshuffling of party support occurred. The SPD, ZP and DDP now supported Wilhelm Marx. The parties of the Right felt that Jarres could not beat Marx, so looked for a new candidate. They chose the 78-year-old Field Marshal Paulus von Hindenburg. Thälmann ran for the KPD.
- Hindenburg got 14.6 million votes;
- Marx received 13.7 million votes.
The Right was victorious, and the Army had what it wanted: a World War I hero as President.
d. Locarno and the League
In October 1925, the major European foreign ministers met at Locarno, Switzerland. They ‘initialled’ three sets of agreements, which were officially signed in London in December 1925. They were agreements on Franco-German and Belgian-German frontiers; arbitration agreements between France, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany; agreements on security between France, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
D Thomson
“Germany was brought back into the magic circle of great powers, and seemed likely to take her place in international relations as a conciliatory and unaggressive power.”
In 1926, Germany was accepted into the League of Nations as a permanent member of the Council, with GB, France, Italy and Japan, after a lot of work by Austen Chamberlain and Aristide Briand, the GB and French foreign ministers. It led to Spain and Brazil withdrawing from the League. Both of these ‘successes’ for Germany were brought about by Gustav Stresemann, now Foreign Minister of Germany.
Grant & Temperley
“Stresemann certainly brought Germany back into the orbit of the Great Powers and made her a member of the League.”
e. 1928 Elections*
These reflected the economic improvement, resulting in success for the government parties. The SPD regained their strength of 1919, while extremists lost ground (the Nazis won 800,000 of 30,750,000 votes).
KD Bracher
“The Reichstag elections, in May 1928, also gave no indication that the period of consolidation was about to end.”
f. The Young Plan, 1929
To find a final solution to the reparations question, a Commission of debtors and creditors was set up under Mr Owen D Young. This completed the work begun by Dawes, and a plan was signed in Paris in June. Its main effects were on German politics, not economics. Alfred Hugenberg, leader of the DNVP, controlled the ALA publicity firm (with a monopoly over all German advertising); the Scherl publishing firm; the UFA (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft) film combine and a chain of newspapers. He joined with Hitler to campaign against the plan, promoting a ‘law against the enslavement of the German People’. It gained the support of 10% of the public in a petition, so Parliament had to consider it and call a referendum. Yet, only 13.8% of the electorate supported the petition. The real importance lies in the benefit to the Nazis.
Sir J Wheeler-Bennett
“The only people to benefit from the whole disreputable affair of the Volksbegehren (Referendum) were the National Socialists. Hitler used the money so liberally provided by Hugenberg and the industrialists for the re-equipment and expansion of the SA and for the furtherance of his own propaganda.”
W Carr
“The real victor was … Hitler [who] became a national figure, and for the first time his propaganda reached inaccessible middle class circles, thanks to Hugenberg”
AJ Nicholls
“His first great political opportunity came with the campaign against the Young Plan, when his alliance with Hugenberg’s group enabled him to obtain publicity in the Nationalist press and to make contact with men of wealth and social position.”
g. Economic Growth
KD Bracher
“The year 1924 ushered in a period of economic recovery and stabilisation.”
What was the extent of this success?
- Unemployment was down to 650,000 in 1928, the first time it had been less than 1,000,000 since World War I;
- Industrial output was up by a fifth on the pre-war years:
- Industrial Production Index
1913 100
1923 55
1927 122
- Real wages were 10% higher than in 1924;
- National Income had risen by 12% between 1923 and 1928;
- Output per man-hour was up by 17% in 1929 compared to 1925.
Impressive as these figures seem, they pale in comparison to the boom the rest of the world was enjoying. Between 1913 and 1929, the US economy grew by 70% and the French by 38%, while the German economy grew by a mere 4%. It must not be forgotten that the majority of German growth was also dependent on loans from foreign countries.
h. Rearmament
Despite the limitations imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar governments secretly promoted the expansion of the Reichswehr and armaments manufacturing.
- In 1925, Germany and Russia signed trade treaties (including secret agreements that followed on from Rapallo in 1921), allowing Germany to develop and test armaments in the Soviet Union;
- In 1925, Krupps gained a controlling interest in Bofors, a Swedish arms manufacturer, and began to develop heavy guns, anti-aircraft guns and tanks;
- In 1928, Germany developed the ‘pocket battleship’, which displaced less than 10,000 tonnes (and so was still legal) but was far more capable than anything the Allies had envisaged falling into the ‘acceptable’ category.
The former Allies and the League must have known what was happening but did nothing, despite having evidence in front of them. In January 1927 the Allied Commission of Control was withdrawn from Germany.
Report of the Allied Commission of Control
“Germany had never disarmed, had never had the intention of disarming, and for 7 years had done everything in her power to deceive and ‘counter-control’ the Commission appointed to control her disarmament.”
German budget expenditure was open to public scrutiny. In 1924, the Reichswehr budget was 490 million Marks; in 1928 it was 927 million Marks.
* See also article 1) Election Statistics
* See article 1) Electoral Statistics
* See Article 1) Election Statictics