Answer: The NSDAP and the traditional German government had to merge (”Become one and the same”)
2. How did Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP try to fulfill the aim?
Answer: The answer to this question will be found in the different reforms and laws the new government under Adolf Hitler made. His and the NSDAP’s aim were to make sure that nothing threatened the power of the new government:
Abolish the Federal States:
First Law against the Independence of the Federal States (March 1933)
Abolition of the Federal States (April 1933).The Nazi-dominated state governments enacted legislation without reference to the provisional parliaments (Landtage). By this act Hitler dissolved 17 state governments (diets). The only exception was the one in Prussia which was already in Nazi hands. In January 1934 the Landtage were abolished and the federal governments and governors were strictly subordinated to the Ministry of Interior. This meant that the federal principle of government was dead...
Replacing leading administrators and officials with members of the NSDAP
Göring as the Minister of Interior of Prussia, replaced key Police Chiefs in Prussia with SA Leaders (this started in February 1933)
Law of the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (April 1933): This law enabled the government to dismiss any civil servants who were ”unsuitable” or not of ”Aryan descent”. The civil service was to be purged of Jews and political opponents.
Law of the Admission to the Practice of Law (April 1933): This law restricted Jews from joining the legal profession.
Law – creation of 18 Reichstatthälter (Reich governors) often the local party Gauleiters, with full powers.
Most German Ministries were staffed with NSDAP officials and administrators
Abolish the Trade Unions (May 1-2 1933): At Göbbels initiative Hitler declared May 1 st the Day of National Labor, a paid national holiday. The next day the Nazis occupied union offices throughout the country. Key union officials were arrested and taken to labor camps. The Nazis announced that henceforth there would be only one union - the German Labor Front (DAF - Deutscher Arbeitsfront). The Nazis’ act of force took place without any legal sanction...
Dissolution of the political parties (June-July 1933): The Communist Party was already more or less dissolved after the Reichstag Fire. At the 22 nd of June 1933 SPD was banned. The German National People’s Party followed at the 29 th of June. On July 5 th the Centre Party dissolved itself. On 14 th of July a new law was passed that declared that the NSDAP was the only legal party in Germany. Any separate political activity would result in imprisonment for up to 3 years...
Führer Prinzip. The leader of the NSDAP could not be criticized. After the death of Hindenburg in the beginning of August 1934 Hitler merged the office of Chancellor and President of Germany into one person – himself!
Terror - Heinrich Himmlers SS (Schutzstaffel - Hitler’s Protection Guards) and Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei - Secret State Police). Gordon Craig: ”the force thatprevented the regime from dissolving into chaos was terror and its instrumentwas the SS”. SS was an élite force under Hitler’s direct control. From 1932 the SS dominated the party’s intelligence work, from 1933 the SS controlled the concentration camps, and from 1934 it controlled the nation’s police system. The activities of the SS expanded as war increased. Its members dominated the administration of the occupied territories, and its military wing, the ”Waffen SS”, tried to get more and more influence over military affairs. Both fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany served the purpose to maintain one man’s power. Ernst Huber (Nazi theorist) defines the Nazi constitution of 1939 this way: ”We must speak, not of state power, but of Führer power, if we want describe political power in the national Reich correctly...”.
Censorship -Decree against press and meetings...( February 4 th 1933). The government released a Decree against newspapers and meetings that ”abused or treated with contempt institutions, bureaus or leading officials of state” or broadcasted ”false information”. The new decree was deliberately vague...
Propaganda - Josef Goebbels ministry of Propaganda.
3. What happened to the traditional power structures?
Answer:
Reichstag – The Reichstag granted legislative powers to Hitler through the Enabling Act (March 1933). After that they rarely met. Only seven laws were passed through the Reichstag after March 1933. In November the same year a list of candidates was set up by the Nazi government. This replaced the previous multiparty voting procedure. The population could now choose to either approve or reject the list. The members of the Reichstag were strong supporters of the Nazi government and they now only had an “official role” as an applause machine for the NSDAP speeches!
Cabinet – The Cabinets function decreased gradually after 1933 (even though it had the legislative power according to the Enabling Act from March 1933). From several meetings a week between the Chancellor and the Ministers Hitler gradually cut down the number of meetings – 19 meetings in 1934, 12 meetings in 1935, 4 meetings in 1936, 7 meetings in 1937, 1 meeting in 1938 and no meeting in 1939. The laws were now drawn up by the Reich Chancellery.
Reich Chancellery – Most laws/decrees were drawn up by Chancellery officials. The Head of the Chancellery, Hans Lammers, therefore had a lot of influence over the information that came to and from Hitler which also meant he influenced the policies of the Third Reich.
Civil Service (usually of the different traditional Ministries) – it had always been quite conservative but now it also became more Nazified. Some new administrators were appointed (nearly always members of the NSDAP) and most of the old bureaucrats joined the party. In 1939 it became compulsory to wear a uniform. The Civil Servants generally enacted Nazi laws and decrees. The few ministries that tried to weaken the Nazi influence were bypassed by special agencies that the Nazi government established.
Local Governments – The local State governments were usually taken over by centrally appointed officials. The real local power was exercised by the Reichstatthälter (Reich governors) which most often was the local party Gauleiters.
Courts and Legal System – Franz Gürtner (the non-Nazi Justice Minister) tried to maintain a certain independence of Hitler and NSDAP. This was a lost race:
The People’s Court and Special Courts were created in March 1933 (they started to bypass the ordinary traditional courts).
The Lawyers were coordinated in the German Lawyers Front in October 1933. Now they had to give the Nazi salute and adjust to the NSDAP ideas. The existing law was debased and arbitrary actions were taken by authorities outside the law.
Hitler did not replace the existing legal system. When necessary the Nazis passed new laws according to the ideology and the judges were expected to interpret all laws according to these values.
Foreign Office – One of the few ministries that remained fairly intact was the Foreign Office. Konstantin von Neurath remained the Foreign Minister until 1938. After 1936 several Nazi leaders like Göring, Göbbels and Ribbentrop interfered with German Foreign Policies. Two other offices of Foreign Affairs were created; the Nazi Bureau for Foreign Affairs (headed by Alfred Rosenberg) and the specialist agencies headed by Joachim von Ribbentrop. With the radicalization of the NSDAP several old officials were replaced. Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister 1938 and younger officials belonging to the party were promoted.
Army – The Army was an obstacle for Hitler. In 1934 President Hindenburg together with the Defence Minister von Blomberg gave Hitler a final ultimatum; “Deal strongly with the SA or the army will take over”. Hitler obeyed and purged the SA. The conservatism of the militaries, the general conscription, rearmament and the fact that the Army increased twenty fold between 1933 and 1939 made most militaries positive to the NSDAP and Hitler. In 1938 Hitler replaced von Blomberg and Werner von Fritsch (Commander-in-Chief of the army) as well as 100 other generals. Hitler became the new Commander-in-Chief and his “puppet” Wilhelm Keitel became the head of der WEHRMACHT (OKW). Now Hitler had a more firm grip over the army but there were still several officers who were not followers of the Nazi doctrines.
4. What was the role of the NSDAP in the Third Reich?
Answer: The NSDAP did not run Germany! It was Adolf Hitler and individual party members that ran the country. The NSDAP did not have a policy-making role either (like the POLITBURO in the USSR). Decisions were made by Hitler and the people around him. It was the individual relationship to the leader that decided how much power was given to a person. The party’s main role was:
To help spread Nazi ideas
To help the implementation of government policies
To check up on the population
The party and the state was not one! Alongside the traditional institutions different party bodies and other new agencies existed which created a confusing administrative system. Most of the traditional ministries were headed by Nazis (with a few famous exceptions like the Finance Minister Schwerin von Krosigk…). To be a member of the party was usually a good way to make a career – so when NSDAP took over Germany they increased their membership a lot (1943 – 6.5 million members – about 10% of the population) but several of the new members were not stern believers in the Nazi ideology – they were concerned about their personal advancement. Hitler was highly regarded but the growth of several “little Hitler’s” made the NSDAP much less popular. Inside the NSDAP the Gauleiter (Regional Party Leader) were of big importance. The Gau area normally coincided with the Reichstag electoral district (Germany was divided into 30 Gaue…). A Gauleiter usually also became the Reichstatthälter (Reich Governor) which meant that they had much power/control in the province. The Gauleiter headed a “minibureaucracy” that ensured that the people in the region kept in line. They communicated directly with Hitler and they attended top national party meetings. It was not unusual that they resisted the implementation of central government instructions (but they did not ignore the orders if they came from Hitler) which increased the confusion in the administration of Nazi Germany…
5. How much power did Adolf Hitler have?
Answer: We can basically see three main theories:
Hitler (orthodox view) was a strong leader who made all the major decisions. He was the master in the Third Reich who did not hesitate in breaking all state and legal norms and authorizing all deeds that ensured his position. This was the basic law of the Third Reich.
Hitler (revisionist view) was a weak dictator who did not get much involved in the government work. He usually let somebody else make the decisions. Hitler was mostly concerned with upholding his own prestige and personal authority.
Hitler (Ian Kershaw) was both a strong leader and a weak dictator. He did usually not get involved in decisions but this did not show weakness rather the opposite. By not getting involved he could always choose the “strongest” side in an eventual conflict. His subordinates were eager to fulfill his wishes which meant that they competed for his approval – they “worked towards the Führer”. When ever Hitler intervened in any decision (which was rare) his view was always unchallenged.
6. What were the main problems of the power structure of the Third Reich?
Answer: NSDAP failed to curtail the role and influence of:
ChristianChurches
Army
Big business
Problems with the duality of the NaziState (POLYCRACY).Gordon Craig: ”the smoothly functioning Nazi state was never much more thana myth” - for government consisted largely of a jostling for influence between the old ministerial hierarchies and a variety of party bodies that sought to supervise or to control them.
Ministry of Finance and ministry of Economics worked fine because the head of each department (von Krosigk and Schacht) managed to preserve the traditions of these departments
Party Chancellery (under Martin Bormann) infiltrated the Ministry of Interior (under Wilhelm Frick)
Foreign Office competed with the Nazi Bureau for Foreign Affairs (headed by Alfred Rosenberg) and with specialist agencies headed by Joachim von Ribbentrop (he became foreign minister 1938)
Local administration and Nazi provincial chiefs (Gauleiter) also experienced this dualism in the struggle over the power of the local government
7. How come Hitler accepted these problems?
Answer: Some claim that this confusion arose from Hitler’s great failings, his boredom with administrative detail, and his preference for wider questions like foreign affairs. It seems more like that Hitler was satisfied with this system that enabled him to block and nullify any initiative or individual unacceptable to him...
