Jan. 30



GERMANY:

THE FUHRER MYTH
How Hitler Won Over the German People

There were still many Germans who were skeptical of Hitler when he became
chancellor in 1933. But Fuhrer propaganda and military success soon turned
him into an idol. The adulation helped make the Third Reich catastrophe
possible.

"Today Hitler Is All of Germany." The newspaper headline on Aug. 4, 1934
reflected the vital shift in power that had just taken place. Two days
earlier, on the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler had
lost no time in abolishing the Reich Presidency and having the army swear
a personal oath of unconditional obedience to him as "the Fhrer of the
German Reich and People." He was now head of state and supreme commander
of the armed forces, as well as head of government and of the monopoly
party, the NSDAP. Hitler had total power in Germany, unrestricted by any
constitutional constraints. The headline implied even more, however, than
the major change in the constellation of power. It suggested an identity
of Hitler and the country he ruled, signifying a complete bond between the
German people and Hitler.

The referendum that followed on 19 August 1934, to legitimize the
power-political change that had occurred, aimed at demonstrating this
identity. "Hitler for Germany -- all of Germany of Hitler" ran the slogan.
As the result showed, however, reality lagged behind propaganda. According
to the official figures, over a sixth of voters defied the intense
pressure to conform and did not vote "yes." In some big working-class
areas of Germany, up to a third had not given Hitler their vote. Even so,
there were one or two tantalizing hints that Hitler's personal appeal
outstripped that of the Nazi regime itself, and even more so of the Party.
"For Adolf Hitler yes, but a thousand times no to the brown big-wigs" was
scribbled on one ballot-paper in Potsdam. The same sentiment could be
heard elsewhere.

Beneath the veneer of Fhrer adulation constantly trumpeted by the uniform
propaganda of the mass media, there are numerous indicators that Hitler's
appeal remained far less than total, even in what later memory often
recalled as the "good years" of the mid-1930s. One example of strong
criticism leveled at Hitler can be seen in a report from the Gestapo in
Berlin in March 1936. Hitler's toleration of the corruption and luxury
life-style of the Party big-wigs at a time when poor living standards
still afflicted most ordinary Germans was, the report noted, heavily
criticized. "Why does the Fhrer put up with that?" was a question on many
people's lips, noted the report, and it was evident "the trust of the
people in the personality of the Fhrer is currently undergoing a crisis."

Forgotten in Euphoria

One day after this report was submitted, however, German troops marched
into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. In a spectacular move that
fully exposed the weakness of the western democracies, Hitler could
celebrate his greatest triumph in foreign policy to date. The domestic
problems of previous months -- shortage of foodstuffs, high prices, low
wages and, in Catholic areas, much antagonism towards the regime over the
struggle between the church and state were temporarily forgotten in the
euphoria.

Despite the absurdity of the "election" result at the end of the month,
when -- amid ballot-rigging, electoral manipulation and intense propaganda
to conform -- according to the official figures 98.9 per cent voted "for
the list and thus for the Fhrer," the re-militarization of the Rhineland
was unquestionably a hugely popular move, and one widely attributed to
Hitler's bold and skilful leadership. Much suggests, in fact, that between
the death of Hindenburg in August 1934 and the expansion into Austria and
the Sudetenland four years later Hitler was indeed successful in gaining
the backing of the vast majority of the German people, something of
immeasurable importance for the disastrous course of German policy ahead.
Apart perhaps from the immediate aftermath of the astonishing victory in
France in summer 1940, Hitler's popularity was never higher than at the
height of his foreign-policy successes in 1938.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in
winning the support of "the great majority of that majority who had voted
against him in 1933." Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had
united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90
percent of Germans were by that time "believers in the Fhrer." In the
absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation
and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda,
when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime's
agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high.
At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much
support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal
"achievements" of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime's
"successes" reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been
consciously directed to creating and building up the "heroic" image of
Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in
1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Fhrer Myth to have
been his greatest propaganda achievement.

The propaganda image was never better summarized than by Hitler himself in
his Reichstag speech of 28 April 1939 (which Haffner also cited):

'By My Own Efforts'

"I overcame chaos in Germany, restored order, enormously raised production
in all fields of our national economy...I succeeded in completely
resettling in useful production those 7 million unemployed who so touched
our hearts...I have not only politically united the German nation but also
rearmed it militarily, and I have further tried to liquidate that Treaty
sheet by sheet whose 448 Articles contain the vilest rape that nations and
human beings have ever been expected to submit to. I have restored to the
Reich the provinces grabbed from us in 1919; I have led millions of deeply
unhappy Germans, who have been snatched away from us, back into the
Fatherland; I have restored the thousand-year-old historical unity of
German living space; and I have attempted to accomplish all that without
shedding blood and without inflicting the sufferings of war on my people
or any other. I have accomplished all this, as one who 21 years ago was
still an unknown worker and soldier of my people, by my own efforts..."

The claim that the change in Germany's fortunes had been achieved
single-handedly was, of course, absurd. Fascinating, nevertheless, in this
litany of what most ordinary Germans at the time could only have seen as
astonishing personal successes of the Fhrer, is that they represented
national "attainments" rather than reflecting central tenets of Hitler's
own Weltanschauung. There was not a word in this passage of the
pathological obsession with "removing" the Jews, or of the need for war to
acquire living space. Restoration of order, rebuilding the economy,
removal of the scourge of unemployment, demolition of the restrictions of
the hated Versailles Treaty, and the establishment of national unity all
had wide popular resonance, ranging far beyond die-hard Nazis, appealing
in fact in different ways to practically every sector of society. Opinion
surveys long after the end of the Second World War show that many people,
even then, continued to associate these "achievements" positively with
Hitler.

Compared with the state of Germany six years earlier, it was hard for
those listening to Hitler's 1939 speech, even many who had earlier opposed
the Nazis, not to admit that Hitler had accomplished something
extraordinary. Few were clear-sighted or willing enough to analyze what
lay behind the "achievements," to reject the gross inhumanity on which
Germany's rebuilding had been founded, to perceive the undermining of
governmental structures and ruination of Reich finances that was taking
place, above all, to comprehend the colossal risks for the country's very
existence involved in the regime's course of action. And few were in any
position to contradict the fundamental lie in the claim that Hitler had
constantly endeavored to avoid bloodshed and to spare his people (and
others) the suffering of war. What for most Germans in spring 1939 were
aims in themselves, which Hitler appeared triumphantly to have
accomplished, were for Nazi leaders merely the platform for the war of
racial-imperialist conquest which they were preparing to fight.

But, however false their underlying basis, the claims in this speech point
to areas of great success in winning over the mass of the population to
support for Hitler. With all the caveats that are necessary for
generalizations about approval, where those disapproving were mainly
forced into silence, it is surely not mistaken to speak of a wide-ranging
consensus which the integrative force of the Hitler Myth had cemented
during the peace-time years of the dictatorship.

It was a manufactured consensus, a propaganda construct, with repression
of political opponents, "racial enemies" and other outsiders to the
proclaimed "national community" as the other side of the coin. The
"superman" image of Hitler amounted to the central component of the
fabrication. Already before the "takeover of power" it had been the
creation of the most modern, hugely successful, political "marketing"
strategy of its time, masterminded by Goebbels. And once the monopoly of
state control of propaganda fell into Nazi hands in 1933, there was no
obstacle in the mass media to the rapid spread of Hitler's "charismatic"
appeal.

But even the slick and sophisticated techniques behind the creation of the
Fuhrer Myth would have been ineffective, had not fertile terrain been
prepared long before Hitler became Reich Chancellor. Expectations of
national salvation were by 1933 widespread, not just among Nazi
supporters, and had already become vested in the person of Hitler. By the
time that he took power, over 13 million voters had at least partially
swallowed the Fhrer cult, which was more fully embraced by the huge (if
fluctuating) mass membership of the Party and its myriad subordinate
affiliations. The organizational basis was therefore laid for the wider
transmission of the Fhrer cult.

Given the failure of Weimar democracy and the crisis conditions in which
the Hitler government came to power, it was clear that if the new Reich
Chancellor could swiftly attain some successes, he would substantially
increase his popularity. The scope for the rapid widening of the adulation
of Hitler, the winning of "the majority of the majority" who had not voted
for him in March 1933 had been laid. The speed with which the Hitler cult
now spread has to be seen from this background, as well as from the
masterly deployment of propaganda imagery.

There were a number of crucial areas where Hitler could win great support
by acting in what seemed to be the national, not partisan party-political,
interest, and through converting his image from that of Party to national
leader. Even his opponents recognized the growth of his popularity. The
exiled Social Democratic organization, the Sopade, based in Prague,
acknowledged in April 1938 the widely-held view it had repeatedly echoed,
"that Hitler could count on the agreement of the majority of the people on
two essential points: 1) he had created jobs and 2) he had made Germany
strong."

Readily Accepted the Acclaim

In the early years of the Third Reich, most people sensed that after the
dismal years of hopelessness there was new direction, energy, and
dynamism. There was a widespread feeling that finally a government was
doing something to get Germany back on her feet. Of course, Hitler, whose
knowledge of economics was primitive, had not personally guided the
economic recovery in the early years of the Third Reich. The reasons for
the rapid revival were complex and varied. If any single individual could
be said to have masterminded the recovery, then it was Hjalmar Schacht,
President of the Reichsbank and Reich Minister of Economics. Hitler's
contribution was above all to alter the climate, to build an air of
confidence that Germany was being revitalized. But propaganda portrayed
the economic upturn as Hitler's own achievement. He readily accepted the
acclaim, and most people thought it was warranted.

It was the first major step towards winning over those who had not
supported him in 1933. It seemed undeniable: while other European
countries (and America) still suffered drastically from mass unemployment,
Hitler had removed the scourge from Germany and ushered in a kind of
"economic miracle". A Sopade report from the Ruhrgebiet in late summer
1934 acknowledged that even "the neutral labor force" largely believed in
Hitler, adding: "The 'work creation' by which the unemployed had landed in
jobs, even if badly paid ones, has greatly impressed them. They believe
that Hitler's 'quick decision-making' will lead him one day, if he is
'properly informed,' to change taxes in their favor." On a clandestine
visit to Germany from his Norwegian exile in the second half of 1936,
Willi Brandt, no less, admitted much the same: that providing work had won
the regime support even among those who had once voted for the Left.

Left a Lasting Mark

By 1936, there was full employment. Of course, by now, rearmament,
containing grave dangers for the future, was driving the labor market. But
few Germans worried much about where the opportunities were work came
from. The fact was, where in the past there had been immense misery
through mass unemployment, there was now work. That was seen as largely
Hitler's personal achievement. And if image differed from reality, it was
the image that left the lasting mark.

That Hitler had rid Germany of mass unemployment and rescued the country
from the depths of the depression was seen by many Germans long after the
war as a major achievement, whatever disasters had later followed. Good
living conditions and full employment were among the positive attributes
of Hitler recorded in opinion surveys in the American occupied zone in the
late 1940s, while a sample of young Germans in north Germany around a
decade later thought Hitler had done much good in abolishing unemployment.
As late as the 1970s, Ruhr workers still had positive memories of the
peacetime years of the Third Reich, which they associated with full
employment and the pleasures of excursions with the Nazi leisure
organization, "Kraft durch Freude," or Strength Through Joy.

The second point singled out by the Sopade as the basis of Hitler's
support was without doubt a key factor. Hitler never ceased to hammer home
the humiliation Germany had suffered in defeat in 1918 -- allegedly the
work of the "November criminals" -- and in the Treaty of Versailles signed
the following year. The detestation of the Treaty and its perceived
unfairness crossed the political spectrum in Germany. The reduction of the
army to a mere 100,000 men was the lasting manifestation of national
weakness. The bold moves in foreign policy that Hitler undertook to
overthrow the shackles of Versailles and reassert Germany's national
strength and prestige were, therefore, guaranteed massive popular support
as long as they could be accomplished without bloodshed.

The withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, the Saar plebiscite in
1935, the re-introduction of compulsory military service and announcement
of a big new Wehrmacht the same year, the re-militarization of the
Rhineland in 1936 and the "Anschluss" or annexation of Austria 2 years
later were all seen as huge national triumphs, openly demonstrating the
weakness of the western powers which had lorded it over Germany since the
war, and a feat -- unimaginable only a few years earlier -- solely
possible through Hitler's "genius" as a statesman. Even oppositional
circles were forced to concede this, as a Sopade report on the reactions
to the introduction of the military conscription in March 1935
illustrates:

"Enormous enthusiasm on March 17. All of Munich was out on the streets.
You can force a people to sing, but you can't force them to sing with that
kind of enthusiasm. I experienced the days of 1914 and I can only say,
that the declaration of war didn't make the same impression on me as the
reception for Hitler on March 17. ... The trust in Hitler's political
talent and honest will is becoming greater, as Hitler has increasingly
gained ground amongst the people. He is loved by many."

The Sudetenland crisis in the summer of 1938, as the threat of war loomed
ever larger, posed the first significant challenge to the image, which
Hitler had earlier sought to cultivate, of the fanatical defender of
Germany's rights who had restored his country's standing in the world but
had striven to avoid bloodshed. The western powers then, at Munich at the
end of September, allowed Hitler one final great triumph in foreign policy
-- even if it was one which, inwardly, he resented, since he had been set
on war over Czechoslovakia.

The resignation, rather than enthusiasm, that greeted war when it finally
arrived in September 1939 again shows that Hitler had extended his popular
support during the Third Reich's peacetime years on a false prospectus.
Most people wanted the preservation of peace. Hitler had sought war. He
effectively admitted the need to mislead the public in a confidential
address to representatives of the German press in November 1938, when he
remarked:

Unlimited German Conquest

"Circumstances have forced me to almost only speak of peace for decades.
It was only through the continued emphasis on the German desire for peace
and peaceful intentions that it was possible to give the German people the
arms that were always a requirement for the next step."

For the vast majority of Germans, the restoration of national pride and
military strength, the overthrowing of the Versailles Treaty and the
expansion of the Reich to incorporate ethnic Germans from Austria and the
Sudetenland were goals in themselves. Most could not, or would not,
comprehend, that for Hitler and the Nazi leadership they were the prelude
to a war of unlimited German conquest.

In addition to his presumed achievements in bolstering Germany's external
standing, Hitler unquestionably won much support through what was taken to
be the restoration of "order" at home. Nazi propaganda had been
influential in the last, crisis-ridden years of the Weimar Republic, in
instilling in much of the population an exaggerated image of criminality,
decadence, social disorder and violence (much of which the Nazis
themselves had instigated). Once in power, Hitler had much to gain through
seeming to represent "people's justice," and the "wholesome national
sensibility." His public image was that of the upholder of public morality
who would clamp down, wherever he encountered it, on those posing a threat
to law and order.

At the end of June 1934, Hitler took what many thought was ruthless but
necessary action to crush the leadership of the SA, an increasingly
unpopular sector of his own Movement. In his Reichstag speech of 13 July
1934, Hitler took personal responsibility for the murders that had taken
place. What had in reality been a brutal, Machiavellian power-political
coup was portrayed as a necessary move to crush an imminent internal
threat to the nation and to root out corruption and immorality. Hitler
emphasized the homosexuality, loose living and extravagant life-style of
Ernst Rhm and other SA leaders. Playing on existing, commonly-held
prejudice, he was able to override any adherence to fundamental legal
principles by claiming to have acted in the national interest as the
highest judge of the German people.

Upswing in Support

Instead of condemnation for his authorization of mass murder, he reaped
extensive approval for appearing to have acted ruthlessly to eradicate the
evils and misdeeds that endangered the nation. "Through his energetic
actions the Fhrer has hugely won over the broad masses, particularly those
who had still reacted hesitantly to the Movement; he is not only admired,
he is idolized," was the verdict in one confidential report from within
the lower levels of the regime's bureaucracy. Many other reports echoed
the same sentiments. Reports filtering out of Social Democrat oppositional
circles -- whose main thrust was, naturally, criticism of the regime --
acknowledged the upswing in support for Hitler.

According to one report from Bavaria: "In general, it has unfortunately
become clear that the people don't think politically. They think, 'now
Hitler has created order, now things will go forward -- the saboteurs who
sought to hinder his work have been destroyed.'" A report from Berlin
added: "Hitler's authority is strengthened in the widest circles.
Increasingly, one hears people saying: 'Hitler is cracking down.'"

The view that Hitler had brought order to Germany was one that persisted
well into the postwar era. That, despite "mistakes" (presumably those
which had brought his country's ruination through war, and death and
destruction to millions) he had "cleaned up" Germany, putting an end to
disorder, stamping out criminality, making the streets safe to walk again
at night, and improving moral standards, belonged -- together with the
credit for eradicating mass unemployment and building the motorways -- to
the lasting elements of the Fhrer Myth.

Alongside economic recovery, rebuilding military strength and restoring
"order," Hitler gained support by personifying the "positive" values
invested in national unity and the "Volksgemeinschaft" or national
community. Propaganda incessantly depicted him as the stern but
understanding paterfamilias, prepared to sacrifice normal human
contentments and to work day and night for no other end than the good of
his people. Whatever the frequent criticism of his underlings and the
negative image of the "little Hitlers" -- the Party functionaries whom
people daily encountered and often found wanting -- Hitler himself was
widely perceived as standing aloof from sectional interests and material
concerns, his selflessness contrasting with the greed and corruption of
the Party big-wigs.

Goebbels' published ritual incantations to "our Hitler" each year on his
birthday, and the popular photographic books mass produced by Heinrich
Hoffmann (each selling in huge numbers) which seemingly revealed the
"private" Hitler -- "The Hitler Nobody Knows" (1932), "Youth Around
Hitler" (1934), "Hitler in his Mountains" (1935) and "Hitler Off Duty"
(1937) -- all aimed to highlight the "human" side of the Fhrer and show
that his "heroic" qualities arose from the very fact that he was a "man of
the people."

How many fully swallowed the nauseating personality cult can, of course,
never be established. Not a few obviously did. Unctuous letters, doggerel
poems and other eulogies, photographs and gifts -- including in one case
the offer of a sack of potatoes which the Fhrer apparently liked -- poured
in, to be dealt with by Hitler's adjutants. There was a rise in the early
years of the Third Reich in the numbers of parents naming their new-born
babies Adolf, even though a decree of 1933 had instructed local registry
offices to discourage the practice to protect the Fhrer's name. Such
effusions of the Fhrer cult were doubtless confined in the main to a
fanatical, Nazified minority. But even those able to keep the full
excesses of the personality cult at arm's length nevertheless often
accepted at least some parts of Hitler's positive image.

The national community gained its very definition from those who were
excluded from it. Racial discrimination was inevitably, therefore, an
inbuilt part of the Nazi interpretation of the concept. Since measures
directed at creating "racial purity," such as the persecution later of
homosexuals, Roma and "a-socials," exploited existing prejudice and were
allegedly aimed at strengthening a homogeneous ethnic nation, they
buttressed Hitler's image as the embodiment of the national community.
Even more so, the relentless denunciation of the nation's alleged powerful
enemies -- Bolshevism, western "plutocracy," and most prominently the Jews
(linked in propaganda with both) -- reinforced Hitler's appeal as the
defender of the nation and bulwark against the threats to its survival,
whether external or from within.

Though Hitler's anti-Semitic paranoia was not shared by the vast bulk of
the population, it plainly did not weigh heavily enough in the scales on
the negative side to outweigh the positive attributes that the majority
saw in him. The widely prevalent latent dislike of Jews, even before
monopolistic Nazi propaganda got to work to drum in the messages of
hatred, could offer no barrier to the "dynamic" hatred present in a
sizeable minority -- though after 1933 a minority holding power. Much
research has illustrated a diversity of attitudes towards the persecution
of the Jews (most plainly visible in varied reactions to the promulgation
of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and "Kristallnacht" in November
1938). Nevertheless, the Nazis appear to have been successful in
establishing, in most people's eyes, that there was a "Jewish Question",
and in deepening the anti-Jewish feeling at the time that the external
threat of imminent war was growing.

An Irrelevant Consideration

When the open violence of Kristallnacht proved unpopular, even within Nazi
circles, Hitler took care to distance himself publicly from the pogrom
which he himself had commissioned. But, despite extensive disapproval of
the methods, there was by now a general feeling that Jews no longer had
any place in Germany, and Hitler's association of Jews with the growing
international danger (which he had done more than anyone to foster)
strengthened -- at least did not weaken -- his image as the fanatical
defender of his nation's interests.

Materially, too, many had benefited from the exclusion of Jews from German
society, their economic dispossession, and their expulsion. The "boycott
movement" which had begun as soon as Hitler became Reich Chancellor and,
in waves, had effectively driven Jews out of commercial life, eventually
ushering in the "aryanization" program of 1938 that robbed Jews of their
possession, operated to the profit of large numbers of Germans. Here, too,
many felt reason to be grateful to Hitler. The human cost, paid by an
unpopular minority, was for them an irrelevant consideration.

The apparently unending run of successes that Hitler could claim during
the "peacetime" years of the Third Reich had a further reinforcing
by-product. After 1933, affiliations of the NSDAP could spread their
tentacles to almost all sectors of society. Millions of Germans were
"organized" by the Nazi Movement in some fashion or another, and in each
affiliation it was difficult fully to escape the clammy embrace of the
Fhrer cult. Armies of petty apparatchiks and careerists owed position and
advancement to the "system" that Hitler led. The emphasis upon
"leadership" and "achievement" invited ruthless competition, played upon
everyday ambition and opened up unheard of possibilities, unleashing a
vast outpouring of energy in the broad endeavor to promote the vision of
national renewal embodied in Hitler himself. Literally or metaphorically,
many individuals at every level of the regime operated along the
guidelines laid down by Werner Willikens, state secretary in the Prussian
Agriculture Ministry in February 1934 when he declared:

"Everyone who has the opportunity to observe it knows that the Fhrer can
hardly dictate from above everything which he intends to eventually
accomplish. On the contrary, up till now everyone with a post in the new
Germany has worked best when he has, so to speak, cooperated with the
Fuhrer."

Willikens added that it was "the duty of everybody to try to cooperate
with the Fuhrer"-- a key to how the Third Reich functioned, and to an
important bond between "Fuhrer" and society.

Deflated and Isolated

These bonds were not, of course, of uniform strength. Alongside the
fanatics were the skeptics and, though they could not express themselves
in any meaningful fashion, the dissenters. Nor was it possible to sustain
the enthusiasm for Hitler at a constant height. The outpourings of elation
at moments of triumph, such as the announcement of the re-militarization
of the Rhineland in 1936, were peaks. They subsided again as soon as the
gray everyday returned for most people.

Nevertheless, the affective integration which Hitler's mounting popularity
during the first years of the dictatorship undoubtedly created was of
immeasurable importance. Whether the adulation of Hitler was genuine or
contrived (as it doubtless was in many cases), it had the same function.
Millions of Germans who might otherwise have been opposed to, doubtful
about, or only marginally committed to the regime and Nazi doctrine were
publicly seen to give Hitler their backing. This was crucial to the
dynamic of Nazi rule.

At the grass roots, the growth of the Fuhrer cult meant that Hitler could
detach himself from policy areas which were unpopular and exploit immense
reserves of personal support practically at will. The negative impact, for
example, of the "Church struggle" was directed away from Hitler and
towards subordinate leaders, such as Goebbels and Rosenberg. When popular
morale sagged in the spring of 1936, the Rhineland spectacular, focused
directly on Hitler's "great achievement," served to re-galvanize support
for the regime. The very purpose of the Reichstag "election" of March 29,
1936 was to demonstrate the unity of the people behind Hitler for internal
as well as foreign consumption. Not for the last time during the Third
Reich, opponents of the regime felt deflated and isolated. And Hitler had
the backing he needed for further advancement of his expansionist goals.
"The Fhrer allows the people to demand that he implement the policies he
wanted," was the perceptive insight of one Sopade report.

Deposing Him Was Impossible

The plebiscitary acclamation which Hitler could summon on such occasions
massively strengthened his own position against the different groupings
within the regime's power elite. Among the narrower elite of Nazi leaders,
Hitler's immense popularity made him in every respect unchallengeable in
his dogmatically held views and in his steerage of policy, even when, by
1938-9 some Nazi leaders, including Gring, were having cold feet about the
dangers of embroilment in a war with the western powers.

More important still, Hitler's popularity made him untouchable for those
groupings within the national-conservative power-elite, above all in the
Wehrmacht leadership and parts of the Foreign Ministry, where fears of a
future disastrous war were leading by 1938 to the first embryonic signs of
opposition to the dangerous course of foreign policy. When the western
powers played into Hitler's hands and given him yet another "triumph
without bloodshed", it was plain to the nascent oppositional circles at
the end of September 1938, that any move to depose him was impossible (a
realization which helped to paralyze the conservative resistance
throughout the first, victorious phase of the war).

Hitler's conquest of the masses had the vital consequence, therefore, of
extending his autonomy from any possible constraints within other sections
of the regime. This helped to ensure that the ideological fixations which
Hitler obsessively maintained since the beginning of his political
"career" -- the "removal" of the Jews and the pursuit of "living space" --
were by the later 1930s emerging not simply as distant utopian dreams, but
as realizable policy objectives. The process had been promoted at all
levels of the regime through a readiness to "work towards the Fhrer." But
this in itself was a reflection of the dominance that Hitler had so
rapidly established after taking over power, then consolidated and
extended, backed at crucial stages by the plebiscitary acclamation which
the expansion of his popularity had produced.

Finally, there was the impact of the expanded Fuhrer cult on Hitler
himself. Some of those in his close proximity later claimed to have
detected a change in Hitler around 1935-6. He became, so it was said, more
dismissive than earlier of the slightest criticism, more convinced of his
own infallibility. His speeches started to develop a more pronounced
messianic tone. He saw himself ever more -- the tendency had been long
implanted in his personality, but was now much exaggerated -- as chosen by
Providence. When, following the successful Rhineland coup, he remarked, in
one of his "election" speeches: "I follow the path assigned to me by
Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker," it was more
than a piece of campaign rhetoric. Hitler truly believed it. He
increasingly felt infallible.

By the mid-1930s, at the latest, the narcissistic trait in his own
personality, the extreme flattery and sycophancy that surrounded him, and
the immense adulation of the masses that repeatedly stimulated him,
combined to magnify the belief that Germany's destiny lay in his own
hands, and that he alone could guide his country to final victory in the
ever closer great conflict. "It depends essentially on me, on my being, on
my political skills," he told his generals on the eve of the war. He
stressed, as part of this reasoning, "the fact that no one else will ever
have the trust of the whole German people as I do. There will never be a
man in the future, who has more authority than me. My being is therefore a
huge value factor ... No one knows how much longer I will live. Therefore,
it is better to have the conflict now."

By this time, August 1939, all sections of the regime, and the masses who
had been so jubilant at Hitler's every "success," had ensured that their
fate was tied to the decisions of the Fhrer. So it would remain down to
1945. In the wartime years, as seemingly glorious victory gave way to
mounting, inexorable calamity, as defeat on defeat inevitably eroded the
charismatic basis of his leadership, and as it became plain that he was
leading Germany into the abyss, the fateful bonds with Hitler that had
been sealed in the "good years" of the 1930s ensured that there was now no
way back. The German people, having supported Hitler's triumphs, were now
condemned to suffer the catastrophe into which he had led them.

(source: Der Spiegel)



***************

German far-right party boycotts holocaust tribut ---- Far-right German
party members boycott silence in honor of Nazi victims


The 6 lawmakers were from the far-right National Democratic Party

They refused to participate in a ceremony that did not honor Germans as
well

Lawmakers from other parties were disgusted with the boycott


Members of a far-right German party boycotted a moment of silence at a
state parliament held in honor of Nazi victims Wednesday, the 75th
anniversary of Adolf Hitler's elevation to German chancellor.

The ministers of the new cabinet of Germany's new Chancellor Adolf Hitler
in Berlin, Jan. 30, 1933.

The 6 lawmakers of the far-right National Democratic Party from the
northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania refused to rise from
their seats during a moment of silence.

Lawmakers from other parties said they were disgusted with the boycott,
causing the parliamentary session to be temporarily interrupted.

The NPD leader for the state said his party was not willing to participate
in a memorial that only honored victims of the Nazis and not Germans who
died as well.

Hitler's accession to chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, gave the Nazi party its
"in" to eventually consolidate absolute control over the country in the
months soon after, setting it on the path to World War II and the
Holocaust that left millions of people dead.

The day is not largely marked in Germany, although schools planned extra
lessons on the event nationwide.


*****************

Date of Hitler's elevation to chancellor remains indelible----January 30
marks 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's elevation to German chancellor


Hitler's accession to the post gave Nazi party its chance to consolidate
state control

Few public events planned to mark the anniversary; schools to hold special
sessions

German students learn about Hitler's rise to power in aim to prevent
repeat of history


The 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's elevation to German chancellor on
Wednesday is one the country would prefer to forget, but the ignominious
event that ultimately led to the deaths of millions remains part of the
nation's weighted history.

Hitler's accession to the post gave the Nazi party its "in" to eventually
consolidate absolute control over the country in the months soon after,
setting it on the path to World War II and the Holocaust.

The Holocaust remains "for us Germans an indelible part of our history,"
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Sunday, as the country
marked the 63rd year since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in
annual Holocaust remembrance ceremonies.

"The memory of the genocide committed by the Germans serves to keep us
alert and fight anti-Semitism and racial hatred around the world," he
said.

Few public events are planned to mark Wednesday's anniversary, although
many schools received letters from state governments asking them to hold
special sessions in class.

German students spend at least half a school year learning about Hitler's
rise to power and the Third Reich, part of a concerted effort on the part
of modern Germany to prevent history from repeating itself.

"It is a very important day in German history, but of course it's not as
easily remembered as, for example, Kristallnacht on November 9, because
nobody was hurt on January 30," said Frank Rudolph, 44, a history teacher
at a Berlin high school.

The rise of Hitler, and the Nazis, is viewed with a national shame and
horror, but its reasons for happening were complex, said Hans Ottomeyer,
director of Berlin's German Historical Museum.

Ottomeyer cited World War I, the rampant inflation in the postwar years,
the world economic collapse of 1929 and the country's massive unemployment
as factors that led people to vote for extremist parties.

"The general fear of social and economic decline was stirred from both the
left and the right," he said. "They all tried to consolidate their
positions with violence, and that opened the flank to this seizure of
power."

About a month after being appointed chancellor, Hitler used the torching
of the Reichstag parliament building -- blamed on a Dutch communist
Marinus van der Lubbe -- to strengthen his grip on power, suspending civil
liberties and cracking down on opposition parties.

Van der Lubbe, a bricklayer, was convicted of arson and high treason in
December 1933 and executed on January 10, 1934.

In a move earlier this month -- evidence that Germany's rehabilitation is
still going on 75 years later -- German prosecutors formally overturned
van der Lubbe's conviction.

Prosecutors said his death sentence resulted from measures introduced
under the Nazis "that were created to implement the National Socialist
regime and enabled breaches of basic conceptions of justice."

At the same time, other prosecutors are still trying to track down Nazis
believed to be hiding out in other corners of the world and bring them to
justice.

A spokesman of the federal ministry of justice confirmed Tuesday the
existence of an informal request for extradition regarding war criminal
Aribert Heim, believed to be in Brazil. A court in the southwestern city
of Baden-Baden has had a case open on Heim for several decades.

In accepting responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust, in which 6 million
people, primarily Jews, were killed, Germany has established scores of
memorials and museums across the country.

2 new memorials are planned for the capital near the Reichstag building:
one commemorating Roma and Sinti, or Gypsy, victims of the Nazis and
another remembering homosexual victims.

The Reichstag building -- which again became the seat of the lower house
of parliament after reunification -- already hosts a memorial to political
victims of the Nazis. The much bigger Memorial to the Murdered Jews of
Europe -- 2,711 concrete slabs in undulating rows that opened in 2005 --
sits nearby on the other side of the landmark Brandenburg Gate.

"The important thing is to never forget, to never erase the memory of the
Holocaust -- not to punish future generations of Germans, but to serve as
a warning to us all," said Rabbi Burt Schuman, an American who leads
Poland's Reform Jewish community. "I can't think of a society that Hitler
would have hated more than the Germany of Angela Merkel or most of her
predecessors."

(source for all: Associated Press)





OHIO:

Rebuff for Man Called a Nazi Guard

A former autoworker from Cleveland who is accused of being a Nazi death
camp guard lost another battle in his 30-year fight to maintain his
American citizenship and residence. The United States Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit rejected a challenge from the man, John Demjanjuk, to a
final deportation order by the nation's chief immigration judge. The order
would send Mr. Demjanjuk to Germany, Poland or his native Ukraine.

The government initially claimed Mr. Demjanjuk was the notoriously sadistic
guard at the Treblinka camp known as Ivan the Terrible. Officials later
concluded that he was not, but a judge ruled in 2002 that documents from
World War II prove Mr. Demjanjuk was a Nazi guard. Mr. Demjanjuk, 87, has
denied that he ever helped the Nazis. The Justice Department first sought
to deport him in 1977.

(source: Associated Press)