HIST2125Hitler’s Germany

Lecture 7:

Hitler and the Führer State

11 October 2012

Historiography on Hitler

• Who makes history? Individuals OR structures?

• Who was Hitler? A strong OR

a weak dictator?

→ Intentionalist, programmatist, Hitlerist school/approach/interpretation

≠

→ Structuralist, functionalist

school/approach/interpretation

Schools & Studies (1)

Intentionalist, programmatist, Hitlerist school/approach:

• A. Bullock (Hitler, 1952)• J.C. Fest (Hitler, 1973)• S. Haffner (The Meaning

of Hitler, 1979)• K.D. Bracher (The

German Dictatorship, 1970)

• Structuralist, functionalist school/approach:

• M. Broszat (The Hitler State, 1969)

• H. Mommsen (Beamtentum im Dritten Reich, 1966)

• I. Kershaw (The Hitler Myth, 1987)

Schools & Studies (2)

Integrated school/approach/interpretation:

Ian Kershaw (Hitler, 1998)

= Merge of intentionalist + structuralist approaches

Hitler’s style of government

• Showing image of statesman & Führer

• Disregarding government & bureaucracy

• Opposing daily routine work

• Expressing Bohemian work + life style

• Permitting only limited direct access to him

• Issuing dictatorial orders (Führerbefehle)

= No master-plan: Mostly intuitive actions

Dualism of State and Party (1)

Consolidation/coordination of NS power in Germany’s federal States (1933):

• Sandwiched: SA terror + NS pressure

• Police forces partly taken over by SS

• Dismissal of elected States’ governments

• Appointment of special Commissioners (Reichsstatthalter = NSDAP district Gau leaders)

Dualism of State and Party (2)

→ Dominant position of NSDAP district Gau leaders in States

→ Permanent conflicts: States’ bureaucracies ≠ regional/local NSDAP branches

→ Growing rivalry in better ‘working for Hitler’

► Dualism of State + NSDAP

= First Step into Polycracy

Polycratic system (1)

Rivalling Power groups:

• NSDAP: ‘The Party’ (Die Partei)

• SA (Sturmabteilung): Storm Detachment

• SS (Schutzstaffel): Defence Unit/Elite Guard

• SD (Sicherheitsdienst): Security Service• Army (Wehrmacht)

• Big Business

• Higher levels of government offices

Polycratic system (2)

Gradual power shift of rivalling groups:

• SA ☻→ SS ☺ + Army ☺ (1934)

• Bureaucracy ☻→ NS Special Administrations ☺

• Judiciary + Police ☻→ SS ☺

• Big Business: peace years ☺ → war ☻

Polycracy: Reasons (1)

Intentionalist school:

• A pure chance

• A consequence of H’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy

Structuralist school:

• The inevitable result of H’s government style

• H’s unwillingness + inability to regulate systematically power relations

Polycracy: Reasons (2)

Integrated school/approach:

I. Kershaw (Hitler, 1998):

• H’s chaotic style of government

• H’s dialectic interplay with structures

• H’s responsibility for creating ‘political climate’ of NS dynamic-destructive actions

Conclusion

• NS propaganda slogan ‘unity of party and state’

≠ Dualism / Polycracy

→ Improvisation, conflict, bureaucratic chaos

→ Forms of ‘survival of the fittest’ (Social Darwinism)

→ Hitler not mediating but issuing dictatorial orders

→ NS constitution never realized

= Strong unified Führer State: Only propaganda !