Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

Addressing the Gauleiter in mid-March, Hitler announced that he wanted ‘no ordinary victory’ over the Churches. Either one should keep quiet about an opponent (totschweigen), or slay him (totschlagen), was how he put it.

²¹⁵ In April, Goebbels reported with satisfaction that the Führer was becoming more radical in the ‘Church Question’, and had approved the start of the ‘immorality trials’ against clergy.²¹⁶ Goebbels noted Hitler’s verbal attacks on the clergy and his satisfaction with the propaganda campaign on several subsequent occasions over the following few weeks.²¹⁷

Much of the ranting was probably at Goebbels’s prompting. But Hitler was happy to leave the Propaganda Minister and others to make the running. In as divisive an issue as this, Goebbels himself fully recognized that what must be avoided at all costs was ‘to send the Führer into the field’.²¹⁸ Hitler was nevertheless again in the glare of world publicity about the persecution of the clergy when, in early July, Pastor Martin Niemöller, the leading voice of the ‘Confessing Church’, was arrested as part of an assault on ‘disloyal’ Protestant churchmen.²¹⁹ But, if Goebbels’s diary entries are a guide, Hitler’s interest and direct involvement in the ‘Church struggle’ declined during the second half of the year. Other matters were by now occupying his attention.

The ‘Jewish Question’ does not appear to have figured prominently among them. Goebbels, who saw Hitler almost on a daily basis at this time and who noted the topics of many private conversations they had together, recorded no more than a couple of instances where the ‘Jewish Question’ was discussed. On the first day of the Party Rally in Nuremberg, Hitler talked in his hotel to Goebbels about ‘race questions’. ‘There too there’s a lot still to be clarified,’ commented the Propaganda Minister.²²⁰ At the end of November, among ‘a thousand things talked about’ over lunch was the ‘Jewish Question’. The discussion appears to have been prompted by Goebbels’s preparations for legislation to ban Jews from attending theatres and cultural events. ‘My new law will soon be ready,’ he wrote.²²¹ ‘But that is not the goal. The Jews must get out of Germany, yes out of the whole of Europe. That will still take some time. But it will and must happen. The Führer is firmly decided on it.’²²²

It was a statement of belief, not a political decision resting on clearly thought-out strategy. Anti-Jewish policy, as we have seen, had gathered pace since 1933 without frequent or coherent central direction. It was no different in 1937. Hitler’s views, as his comment to Goebbels makes clear, remained unchanged since his first statement on the ‘Jewish Question’ back in September 1919. He gave a clear indication to a gathering of some 800 district leaders (Kreisleiter) in April 1937 of his tactical caution but ideological consistency in the ‘Jewish Question’. Though he made plain to his enemies that he wanted to destroy them, the struggle had to be conducted cleverly, and over a period of time, he told his avid listeners. Skill would help him manoeuvre them into a corner. Then would come the blow to the heart.²²³ It was in line with these precepts that he now sanctioned, following the prompting in June 1937 of the Reich Doctors’ Leader Gerhard Wagner, measures (eventually coming into effect in 1938) to ban all Jewish doctors from medical practice — a step he had regarded as inopportune when the issue had been raised in late 1933.²²⁴

But this was a rare instance of direct involvement around this time. For the most part, he was content to remain for the time being inactive in the ‘Jewish Question’. His tacit approval was all that was required. And no more was needed than his tirade against ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ at the Party Rally in September to act as a green light inviting the new antisemitic wave — even fiercer than that of 1935 — that was to unfold throughout 1938.²²⁵