National Socialism

A

The Gestapo

The Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), known as the Gestapo, was created in 1933 to suppress opposition to the Hitler regime. In 1936, when it was incorporated into the state, the Gestapo was declared not subject to legal restraints and responsible only to its chief, Heinrich Himmler, and to Hitler.

B

Centralization and Coordination

From 1933 to 1935 the democratic structure of Germany was replaced with a completely centralized state. The autonomy previously exercised in many matters by the provincial governments was eliminated, and these subnational governments were transformed into strictly controlled instruments of the central government. The Reichstag retained only a ceremonial, not a legislative, function. By a process of coordination (Gleichschaltung), all private organizations of business, labor, and agriculture, as well as education and culture, were subjected to party control and direction. Even the Protestant church was infiltrated by National Socialist doctrines. Special legislation excluded Jews from the protection of German law.

C

The Economy and the Purge of 1934

The most crucial problem the party leadership confronted on coming to power was unemployment. German industry was then operating at about 58 percent of capacity. Estimates of the number of unemployed people at that time in Germany vary from 6 to 7 million. Among them were tens of thousands of party members who expected Hitler to carry out the anticapitalist promises of National Socialist propaganda, put an end to the monopolistic enterprises and cartels, and revive industry through the establishment of a large number of small businesses. The party rank and file demanded a “second revolution.” The SA, led by Ernst Röhm, included control of the Reichswehr (the army) in the program of the second revolution. Hitler had to choose between a “plebeian” National Socialist regime and an alliance with the industrialists of the country and the general staff of the Reichswehr. He chose the latter course. On the evening of June 30, 1934, later known as the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler ordered the SS to murder members of the unruly SA, a group Hitler feared would agitate the Reichswehr. A number of SA and party leaders (including Röhm) and between 400 and 1000 of their followers, many of them innocent of any opposition to Hitler, were killed. Also included in the purge were other enemies such as General Kurt von Schleicher and some monarchists who had advocated restoration of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

X

The “New Order”

Suppression of opposition parties and blood purges, however, did not solve the unemployment problem. To eliminate unemployment, Hitler had to revive German industry. His solution was to create the “new order,” the basic premises of which were the following: that the full and profitable utilization of the capacity of German industry could be achieved only by restoring Germany to a position of leadership in world trade, industry, and finance; that necessary sources of raw materials of which Germany had been deprived had to be reacquired, and control of other necessary sources had to be established; that an adequate merchant fleet and modern rail, air, and motor-transport systems had to be constructed; and that industry had to be reorganized for the greatest possible efficiency.

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Two necessary sets of conclusions were drawn from these premises. The first set recognized that carrying out the entire plan required eliminating the economic and political restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, and that ultimately this step would result in war. Therefore the economy was to be reorganized essentially as a war economy. Germany had to become completely self-sufficient in strategic raw materials by developing synthetic substitutes for those materials in which the country was deficient and that could not be secured from abroad. An adequate supply of food was to be assured by the controlled development of agriculture. The second set of conclusions concerned eliminating obstacles to the realization of the plan, arising from the struggle of the workers to improve their condition and embodied organizationally in the trade unions and their auxiliary organizations.

XI

Trade Unions

Concretely, the “new order” involved abolishing trade unions and cooperatives, confiscating their financial and other assets, eliminating collective bargaining between workers and their employers, prohibiting strikes and lockouts, and requiring membership by law of all German workers in the state-controlled Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labor Front), or DAF. Wages were determined by the ministry of national economy. Government officials, called trustees of labor and appointed by the minister of national economy, handled all questions relating to wages and hours and conditions of work.

The trade associations of business owners and industrialists of the Weimar Republic were transformed into organs of state control. Membership by employers was compulsory. Supervision of these associations was vested in the ministry of national economy, which had the power to recognize trade organizations as the sole representatives of their respective branches of industry, organize new associations, dissolve or merge existing ones, and appoint and recall the leaders of all the associations. Through the exercise of these powers and also as specifically empowered by law, the ministry of economy greatly expanded existing cartels and cartelized entire industries. The banks were similarly “coordinated.” Private property rights were preserved, and previously nationalized enterprises were “reprivatized”—that is, returned to private ownership but all owners were subject to rigid state controls. By all of these and related means the Hitler regime eliminated competition. Ultimately the “new order” was economically dominated by four banks and a relatively small number of huge conglomerates, including the vast munitions and steel-manufacturing empire of the Krupp family and the notorious Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie, known as I. G. Farben, which produced dyes, synthetic rubber, oil, and other products and participated in or dominated almost 400 enterprises. Some of these enterprises made use of millions of prisoners of war and inhabitants of conquered countries as slave laborers in German industry. The cartels also supplied materials for the systematic and scientific extermination by the Hitler government of millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, and others. See Genocide; Holocaust.

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