Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

The ‘nationalization of the masses’ — the prerequisite for German power and expansion, which he had posited since the early 1920s — he thought well on the way to being accomplished. At his three-hour speech to the Reichstag on 30 January 1937, the anniversary of the takeover of power, giving account of his first four years in office, he claimed he had restored German honour through the reintroduction of conscription, the creation of the Luftwaffe, the rebuilding of the navy, and the reoccupation of the Rhineland, and announced that he was solemnly withdrawing the German signature from the admission of war-guilt in the Versailles Treaty, ‘wrung out of a then weak government’.¹⁹⁹ On 1 May, he lauded Germany as a classless society where individuals from all backgrounds had a chance to rise to the top through their own achievements — as long as they were in the collective interest of the nation, and as long as the total subservience such as he had himself practised for almost six years as a soldier was forthcoming.²⁰⁰ Wholly detached from the practical considerations of day-to-day politics, he held out a breathtaking vision of German grandeur, power, and dominance enshrined in heroic art and architecture which would monumentalize Teutonic cultural achievements for 1,000 years. ‘The building of a temple’ for ‘a true and eternal German art’ was how he described the ‘House of German Art’ at its opening in July.

²⁰¹ Presenting ‘a thousand-year people with a thousand-year historical and cultural past’ with a fitting ‘thousand-year city’ was what he foresaw in November as the task of turning Berlin into the world-capital ‘Germania’.²⁰² At the Reich Party Rally at Nuremberg in early September, the themes of great national and social achievements in the past years were coupled with the aims of a racial revolution whose profound consequences would ‘create the new man’ (Menschen).

²⁰³ His lengthy concluding speech to the Party Congress was an onslaught on ‘Jewish Bolshevism’.²⁰⁴ In passages at times reminiscent of

Mein Kampf, and in his fiercest public attack on the Jews for many months, he portrayed them as the force behind Bolshevism and its ‘general attack on the present-day social order’, and spoke of ‘the claim of an uncivilized Jewish-Bolshevik international guild of criminals to rule Germany, as an old cultural land of Europe, from Moscow’.²⁰⁵ This is what the Party faithful wanted to hear. But it was far more than window-dressing. Even in private, dictating the speeches to his secretary, when it came to passages on Bolshevism Hitler, red-faced and eyes blazing, would work himself to a frenzy, bellowing at full volume his thunderous denunciations.²⁰⁶

VI

Away from the continual propaganda activity revolving around speeches and public appearances, Hitler was largely preoccupied in 1937 with keeping a watchful eye on the changing situation in world affairs and with his gigantic building plans. The continuing conflict with both the Catholic and Protestant Churches, radical though his own instincts were, amounted to a recurrent irritation, especially in the first months of the year, rather than a priority concern (as it was with Goebbels, Rosenberg, and many of the Party rank-and-file). With regard to the ‘Jewish Question’ — to go from the many private discussions with Goebbels which the Propaganda Minister reported in his diary notes — Hitler, unchanged though his views were, showed little active interest and seldom spoke directly on the subject. But however uninvolved Hitler was, the radicalization of the regime continued unabated, forced on in a variety of ways by Party activists, ministerial bureaucracy, economic opportunists, and, not least, by an ideologically driven police.