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Fuehrerstaat or Fuehrerei? The Question of Governance in theThird ReichM. Gregory Kendricks

I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will yield unconditional obedience to thefuehrer of the German Reich and Vollc, Adolf Hitler, the Supreme Commander ofthe Wehrmacht, and as a brave soldier, will be ready at any time to lay down mylife for this oath.

-German Armed Services DeclarationAugust 2, 1934

The men about me are four-square and upstanding men, each of them a powerfulpersonality, each of them a man of will and ambition, if they had not ambition theywould not be where they are today. I welcome ambition. When you have a groupof powerful personalities, it is inevitable that occasionally friction is produced.

-Adolf Hitler

Descrying the essential characteristics of government in the Third Reich is akin toHarry Haller’s journey through the maze of mirrors and rooms in the Magic Club ofHermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwotf: Nothing is as it seems. At first glance, the Naziregime appears to be nothing more than another chapter in the history of Germanauthoritarian government. Monocled barons and bemedaled generals goosestep to thebombast of a would-be Kaiser. The Armed Forces declaration of unconditional loyalty,cited above, is a case in point. For many in the military, this oath was no more than aresurrection of the personal tie that had characterized the traditional relationship betweenmonarch and soldier in both Brandenburg-Prussia and the Kaiserreich.1 While this mayhave been a naive assumption in 1934, it was not an altogether unreasonable one. Fromthe moment he assumed the Chancellorship in January 1933, Adolf Hitler fostered the ideathat National Socialism was no more than a restatement of German nationalism. Byassociating himself with Hohenzollem princes, staging nationalist celebrations at Potsdamand restoring the black, red and white flag of the Empire, Hitler established himself in thepublic mind as the saviour and protector of the German Rechtstaat.2 Nevertheless, behindthe smoke and mirrors of “national revival,” a much more radical process of “nationalreconstruction” was taking place.

1For a thorough account of both the background of the military declaration of August 2, 1934, and itstragic outcome see Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640-1945 (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1964), 479-481.2 Hajo Holbom, A History of Modern Germany 1840-1945 (Princeton, New Jersey: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1969), 726-727.

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The Prussian Rechtstaat and the German Kaiserreich may have been characterizedby authoritarian political systems, but their governance was, nevertheless, an affair thatinvolved the interplay of traditional elites, powerful interest groups, and political parties.Developments in 1933 made it quite clear that the Third Reich would not be governed in thesame manner. With the Enabling Act in March of that year, Hitler removed both ReichPresident and parliament from the legislative process. In April, the German Lander wereplaced under Reich control and the national civil service was “cleansed” of all undesirableelements, i.e., opponents of the regime and Jews. By May all trade unions had beenabolished and in July the remaining political parties followed suit. At the end of this yearof Gleichshattung (coordination), a law of “Guarantees for the Unity of Party and State”proclaimed an indissoluble link between the Nazi movement and the Reich government.With the amalgamation of the offices of Reich President and Chancellor followingHindenburg’s death, Hitler, in less than two years, had concentrated all political,legislative, and executive power in his hands and his hands alone.3 When the ArmedForces pledged themselves unequivocally to their new Führer on August 2, 1934, theiroath was not to a state, a body of law or even to a monarchial figure (for even a monarch isbound by oaths, lawful obligations and traditions) but to a leader whose authority wasextra-legal and unprecedented in German history. The only real link between thegovernment of the Third Reich and its predecessors was the fact that they were Germanstates. One thing, however, was certain; this new Reich was not, and would never be,the venerable Beamtenstaat of Frederick the Great. Like the rooms in the maze of theMagic Club, its nature remained something of a mystery.

According to the popular perception, both in the 1930s and the present, Hitler hadcreated a totalitarian machine state in which the policies of an omniscient Führer werecarried out in an efficient, uniform manner by unquestioning, fanatically loyal lieutenants.Given Hitler’s extraordinary position of power as head of both party and state, the de jurecentralization of the Reich government, and the slavish loyalty of many Germans to theirnew leader, this idea of a Führerstaat is not an outlandish one. Furthermore, thecomplexity of administering a modern state such as Germany, with its large population,vast transportation systems, centralized industries, extensive agricultural sector, and varied

The limitations of this paper necessitate the rather terse treatment of the Nazi Gleichschattungoutlined above. Hitler’s ‘legal revolution’ during 1933-1934 touched every aspect of German life fromagriculture to education. For an excellent overview of this period the reader is directed to Holbom,ModernGermany, 724-750. Detailed, exhaustive accounts of the Nazi reorganization of the German state can befound in Martin Broszat, The Hitter State: The foundation and Development of the Internal Structure ofthe Third Reich (London and New York: Longman Group, 1981), 57-133 and Karl Diethch Bracher, TheGerman Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism (New York: PraegerPublishers, 1970), 199-247.

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business interests, seems to necessitate a well-organized, competent government withclearly delineated areas of jurisdiction and authority. These considerations coupled with thestunning economic and military successes of the 1930s, as well as Germany’s ability tofight a world war on three fronts in the 1940s, has led many to conclude that the ThirdReich was a centralized state govehied by a unified competent leadership.

We know, however, from the memoirs of both Albert Speer and Joseph Goebbels thatthe government of this machine state was more aldn to the fractious courts of the absolutistmonarchies than the bureaucratic regimes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Within the quarrelsome circle of the Führer, intrigue, favoritism and corruption, usually forthe purpose of personal aggrandizement, played a major role in the formulation andexecution of government policies. On more than one occasion, as a result of the egoismand corruption of this circle, policies were formulated, which not only conflicted withHitler’s aims, but contributed markedly to the final collapse of his state.4 Furthermore, theauthority and jurisdiction of state and party offices and bureaucracies was never clearlydefined, resulting in endless disputes, conflicting directives, and a loss of efficiency on alllevels of government. This massive confusion was compounded by Hitler’s propensity forcreating special agencies whose authority cut across, and overlapped with, the jurisdictionof other state entities.5 The resulting institutional “social Darwinism” has led manyhistorians to liken the Third Reich not to a machine but to a morass.. Whether one sees the Third Reich as a monolithic Führerstaat or as a hydra-likeFührerrej at war with itself, the question of its nature, i.e., the essential characteristics ofthe dictatorship, as well as how that nature manifested itself through the administration ofthe state, continues to intrigue historians. Three of the theories that have been advanced toexplain the nature and practice of the German dictatorship deserve further examination: thetheory that the Third Reich was governed by a unified leadership, which shared commonsocial, political and economic goals; the idea of a unified, powerful dictatorship, which,nonetheless, had to share power with a pre-existing collection of governing elites; and,finally, an offshoot of this “dual state” idea, which suggests that the Third Reich was apolycratic or “weak” dictatorship in which authority was exercised by a plethora ofindividuals and groups, sometimes in unison, other times in conflict. By analyzing the

The backbiting, quarrels and vicious infighting that characterized the daily routine of the Nazileadership throughout its twelve years in power is extensively treated in Albert Spear, Inside the ThirdReich (New York: Avon Books, 1970), 176-180, 275-280, 288-291, 332-349. See specifically 275-280and 288-29 1 for examples of how the egoism and selfishness of Hitler’s colleagues adversely affected theGerman war effort.

Goebbels wrote on March 16, 1943: “We live in a state where areas of authority have been unclearlydivided.. .the consequence is a complete lack of direction.” Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries 1942-1943 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948), 301.

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essential features, rationales, and weaknesses of these theories, and by paying specialattention to those elements that are common to all of these explanations, a clearer idea of thenature and practice of government in the Third Reich will emerge.

IIn Fritz Lang’s film classic, Metropolis, we are presented with a vision of a rigidly

hierarchical, oppressive machine state. It is a world in which the commands of an allpowerful elite are instantly obeyed by a populace that is more automaton than human. Ofthe many characters who inhabit this futuristic nightmare, perhaps the most intriguing is thedemented nihilistic scientist, Dr. Rotwang. At first glance, it appears that he is the classicvillain of the piece. After all, it is his boundless hatred, coupled with the wizardry ofscience, that almost destroys the hapless workers. Closer analysis, however, reveals thatRotwang can also be seen as really no more than the pawn of the oppressive sybariticoligarchy, which governs the Metropolis. It is the existence of this oligarchy’s power andprivilege that lies behind the unrest of the masses. Even more to the point, it is thenecessity of protecting that power and privilege, which justifies the existence of such amalevolent figure as Rotwang.

In its various permutations, the theory that the Third Reich was a leviathan Füherstaatpresents a scenario not unlike that in Fritz Lang’s film. In these accounts, society isportrayed as a rigidly hierarchical pyramid with most Germans occupying the lower rungsof the economic ladder. Everyone supported the regime, or pretended to, and its orderswere followed blindly. The only group that is worthy of attention in this theoreticalconstruct is the leadership of the Reich. However, the determination of which groups orindividuals actually constituted this leadership remains as ambiguous a question asdetermining the real villain in Metropolis. One school of thought sees the Third Reich as aNazi state commanded by a Rotwang-like Führer bent on war and extermination. The othercamp downplays the importance of party and Führer, seeing each of them as no more thanpawns of a traditional oligarchy of aristocrats, industrialists and generals who were actuallypulling the sthngs of government from behind the scenes.

The Rotwang school posits a model of the Third Reich in which the state wasgoverned by an omnipresent Führer bent on attaining certain ideological ends such asGerman hegemony in Europe and the extermination of the Jews. To attain, these ends,Hitler had at his command a well-organized, unified and loyal party apparatus thatinfiltrated and took control of the existing state structure following the Nazi seizure ofpower. This party/state apparat was gradually brought under the control of Himmier’s $Sformation, which established an all-pervasive police state throughout Germany. Hitler,

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through Himmler’s organization, was able to crush all opposition and, by terrorizing the

masses and coopting the old elites, he was able to rearm the country and eventually launch

a war that had as its ultimate goal the Final Solution.6There are a number of reasons why this particular paradigm of the Nazi state has

continued to exercise mass appeal. Not the least of these is the fact that it was a model

much favored by the Nazis themselves. In countless propaganda films, Goebbels

hammered home the idea that the new Germany was a place in which the individual had

been submerged into a National Socialist Votksgemeinschaft. The living will of this primal

community was Adolf Hitler and in his name and at his behest the state was commanded by

the party.7 Moreover, in propaganda films and at nationalist celebrations the traditional

representatives of the state were always portrayed as respectful, dutiful servants of both

Hitler and the National Socialist Party.

Nor was this idea of a Führerstaat a mere propaganda ploy, it also had the sanction of

law. Ernst Rudolf Huber in his Verfassungrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches stated:

The office of the Führer emanates from the National Socialist Movement... .The correctterm for political authority in the people’s Reich is therefore not “the authority of theState” but “the authority of the Führer.” This is so because political authority iswielded not by an impersonal entity, the State, but by the Führer as executor of theunited will of the people. The authority of the Führer is total and all-embracing.. .issubject to no checks or controls; it is circumscribed by no private preserves or jealouslyguarded individual tights; it is free and independent, overriding and unfettered.8

This “total and all-embracing” Führer authority was enforced by an all-pervasive

security network comprised of 45,000 officials and employees of the Gestapo, 64,000 men

of the Sicherheitspolizei, 2,800,000 regular police (Ordnungspolizei), and 40,000 guards

who oversaw the operations of twenty concentration camps and 160 labour camps where

thousands (later millions) were systematically brutalized and murdered.9 The fact that a

dictatorship sanctioned by law commanded such a security apparatus, coupled with the

6These sentiments have been expressed in a number of works on the Third Reich: Eugen Kogon, TheTheory and Practice of Hell (London: Heinz Norden, Seches & Warburg, 1950), 18, 29, 32; GeraldReitlinger, The final Solution (London: Valentine Mitchell, 1953), 5; Joseph Kessel, The Man With theMiraculous Hands (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1961), 4.

‘ Leni Riefenstahl’s film, Triumph of the Wilt, is a classic example of this propaganda. Throughoutthe film, the German people are portrayed as an amorphous mass of followers, workers, and soldiers in theservice of the new order. The only individuals that one sees are the party leaders and they are portrayed aslittle more than dutiful servants lost in the shadow of their Führer. In fact, the whole film seems designedto lend credibility to Hess’s statement at the end of the first reel that “The Party is Hitler! Germany isHitler!”

8 Quoted in Helmut Krausnick, et. al., Anatomy of the 5$ State (New York: Walker and Company,1965), 128.

These numbers are found in Heinz Hoehne, The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story ofHitter’s SS(New York: Ballantine Books,1969), 2.

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enormity of the crimes committed against humanity by Himmier’s SS and Gestapo, ledmany at the end of the war to conclude that Goebbels’ propaganda was a precise statementof fact.

Without calling into question either Joseph Goebbels’ skill as a propagandist or thecrimes of his contemporary Heinrich Himmier, the fact remains that the portrayal of theThird Reich as a leviathan Nazi party state is an illusion. Noticably lacking in this scenarioare two of the prerequisites for such a state: a tireless leader attentive to all the details ofgovernment and a unified party capable of governing. While Hitler was capable ofindefatigable efforts, particularly during the struggle for power, his style of leadership isreputed to have been characterized by indolence, disdain for administrative procedure, anda hatred for any and all detailed government paperwork. His preferred method ofgoverning was to avoid decisions where possible and when he did take action it wasusually in the form of an oral directive handed down at the spur of the moment. The resultsof this “intuitive leadership” style were uncertainty and confusion at all levels of both partyand state.10

As for Hitler’s party, it was neither unified or capable of governing. It would actuallybe more correct to speak of Hitler’s “parties.” Although the left wing of the NSDAP(National Socialist German Worker’s Party), was forcibly suppressed during the “Night ofthe Long Knives” in June 1934, there still remained Frick and his statists, Rosenberg,Darre and the völkish mystics, Himmler’s SS “knights,” the “old fighters” who governedthe Gaue and opposed centralization, and the more traditional technocratic elementspersonified by Albert Speer. All of these groups viewed themselves as the heart and soulof National Socialism and they fought against each other’s “heresies” with varying degreesof viciousness and success. Hitler made himself accessible to all of the different factionsand, at one time or another during the history of the regime, they all enjoyed his favor.11None of them, however, ever exercised anything approaching his authority. Wilhelm

10 Speer quotes Hitler at length on his disdain for paperwork and administrative routine. He alsopoints out how Hitler’s amateurish approach to governance worked initially in his favor but: ‘The greaterthe failures became, the more obstinately his incurable amateurishness came to the fore. The tendency towild decisions had long been his forte; now it speeded his downfall.” Speer, Inside, 6$, 306. For adescription of Hitler’s bohemian attitude toward his job see John Toland, Adolf Hitter (New York:Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), 375. Regarding his tendency to issue oral directives on the spur ofthe see Edward N. Peterson, The Limits of Hitter’s Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969),14-16.

The literature regarding the various factions in the Nazi Party is extensive: Joseph Nyomarkay,Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi Party (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1967) is anexcellent account of Hitler’s conflicts with the left wing of the party; Donald M. McKale, The Nazi PartyCourts: Hitter’s Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921-1945 (Lawrence: University of KansasPress, 1974), 65-171 provides details of various intraparty conflicts that were brought before Buch’s partycourts; Peterson, Limits, 16-17, 35-66, 433-435 covers many of the divisions between party members inthe Reich government.

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Frick, for example, basked in Hitler’s good graces when he took measures to “purify” theInterior Ministry and subordinate the state governments to the Reich government.However, his effort to create a legally based, authoritarian state, which would be governedfrom his Ministry of the Interior by well-trained Nazi civil servants, did not meet withHitler’s approval. The price for his indiscretion was the loss of all influence and authoritywithin the state.’2 Even Himmier, the dark eminence of the Reich, had to contend withopposition from both traditional and party authorities. Although he ultimately succeeded increating a unified police apparatus under his control, it was a long and arduous processmarked by frequent clashes with his nominal superior, Frick, and the Minister of Justice,Franz GUnner. Furthermore, the success of Himmier’s police was ultimately dependent onthe degree of support they received from the local Gauteiters, who, by and large, resistedany and all directives from Berlin. Finally, even Himmler’s SS elite was characterized bymany of the same factions and conflicts that characterized the more traditional partymembership.13 Ironically, with its rivafries and ideological conflicts, the party was asfractious an affair as the “chaotic” Republic it helped to overthrow.If not for the existence of the traditional governing elites in the bureaucracy, industry

and military, it is doubtful if the Nazi regime would have survived. The party leadershipwas overwhelmingly lower middle-class in origin and completely lacking in the educationand skills necessary to govern a modem state. 14 Even though Hitler and his Gauteitersdespised and distrusted the German Beamten and the upper classes, they simply did nothave enough trained party personnel to run the ministries of the Reich and Landgovernments.15 This was borne out by the dismal performance of the Gauleiters whowere left in control of their districts by Hitler. Most of these self-styled fUhrers werecrude, abusive, corrupt and completely indifferent to the fate of the areas assigned to theircare.16 Therefore, while the party, in theory, commanded the state, in reality, the the day-to-day affairs of government continued to be handled by the old elites that had, ostensibly,

12 For a detailed account of Frick’s efforts to create an authoritarian state based on a Nazified civilservice see Jane Caplan, “The Politics of Administration: The Reich Interior Ministry and the GermanCivil Service, 1933-1943,” The Historical Journal, 20,3 (1977), 707-736.

13 Hoehne, Order, 12-15. See also Peterson, Limits, ,125-133, 277-285, regarding the battle betweenFrick and Himmier for control of the police and the clash between Julius Streicher, Gauleiter of franconiaand the Gestapo/SS. ft provides the reader with some idea of the strained relationship between police andGauleiters.

14 On the social composition and education of the Nazi Party leadership see Michael H. Kater, TheNazi Party: A Social Profile ofMembers and Leaders 1919-1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1983), 229-233 (Also see his Tables 1-13 and Figures 1-12). Broszat, Hitler State, 33; Bracher, GermanDictatorship, 274.

15 Holborn, Modern Germany, 730-731; Peterson, Limits, 16-17.16 Kater, Nazi Party, 209-212; Peterson, Limits, 433-435; Speer, Inside, 292, 359, 362, 374, 405-

408, 441, 502, 505-506.

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been made superfluous by the Nazi revolution. It was this state of affairs that led many to

conclude that the führerstaat was nothing more than a facade for “business as usual.”

This interpretation, much favored by Marxist historians, contends that National

Socialism “was the creation of monopolists, Junkers, and militarists” and that “it was the

forces of monopoly capitalism, rather than Adolf Hitler, that were chiefly responsible for

the prolongation of the Second World War, as well as for the Final Solution of the Jewish

question.”17 Nicknamed “Stamokap” (State Monopoly Capitalism) by its critics, this

theory maintains that the Third Reich was a monolithic state, whose founders, the Nazis,

were little more than a puppet show put on by the ruling class for the narcotization of the

masses. Non-Marxist historians who hold much the same viewpoint, such as Franz

Neumann, grant the Nazi Party a measure of power and influence in the governance of the

Third Reich but only as junior partners in a coalition that included the bureaucracy, industry

and the military. Hitler was basically a figurehead and his decisions were “merely the

result of compromises among the four leaderships.”18

The appeal of this theoretical approach is two-fold. On the one hand it explains, quite

neatly, how a country, ostensibly governed by incompetents, could effect both a

remarkable economic recovery and launch a world war. If, in effect, Germany was

actually being run by the people who had commanded the armies, directed the industries

and staffed the government offices of the Kaiserreich, then these achievements were not the

products of a Nazi revolution but of old-fashioned Prussian discipline and efficiency.

Furthermore, this explanation also removes the troublesome idea that a messianic madman

at the head of an anti-liberal, anti-modern mass movement could effectively seize control of

a modern state and bend its population and leadership to his will. As sensible and

“scientific” as this explanation may sound, however, it does not take into consideration a

number of variables peculiar to the nature and practice of the German dictatorship.

Central to the Stamokap/oligarchy explanation is the idea that Hitler and his party were

the chosen agents of the German ruling class. In point of fact, this was not the case.

While industry and army were hostile to the Republic, they were certainly not enamored

with National Socialism. From 1928 to 1932, the Army, under the direction of Wilhelm

Gröner, made a spirited effort to stamp out the Nazi SA and end the street violence that

characterized the last years of electoral activity in the Weimar Republic.19 Industry, on the

other hand, largely supported the parties of the center and the nationalist right; giving their

t7Gordon A. Craig, review of German History in Marxist Perspective: The East German Approach,by Andreas Dorpalen, et. at., in New York Review ofBooks, 25 (September 1986): 62.

18 Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933-1944 (NewYork: Oxford University Press. 1942, 1944), 469.

19 Craig, Prussian Army, 427-453.

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support in the early thirties first to the Bruning government and later to the Papen cabinet.

During the presidential and legislative elections of 1932, when it was obvious that the

Nazis would become the majority party in the Reichstag, business money went to secure

the re-election of Hindenburg and the coalition of centrist/right parties that comprised the

Bruning cabinet. It was not until after the Nazi seizure of power that one can speak of

“ruling class” support for Hitler and his movement.20Furthermore, this explanation assumes that this support, belated though it was, resulted

in substantial benefits for these ruling cliques. While it is true that military and business

interests attained a number of their aims, such as rearmament and lucrative government

contracts, there was also a price, sometimes a rather steep one, that had to be paid for these

benefits. The rapid expansion of the army, for example, flooded the officer corps with a

generation of Germans that did not share the ideals and principles of the traditional

Reichswehr. This, inevitably, led to a disintegration of the cohesiveness of the General

Staff and made it easier for Hitler to divide the generals and eventually subordinate them to

his will.21 Concurrently, it is difficult to imagine a ruling business class that would

support controls on profits and hefty annual hikes in their corporation taxes. Nevertheless,

following the Nazi assumption of power, dividends were restricted to 6 per cent (additional

profits had to be invested in Reich bonds with fixed, low interest rates) and “corporate

taxes were increased from 20 per cent in 1934 to 25 per cent in 1936, 30 per cent in 1937,

35 per cent in 1938, and 40 per cent in 1939/40.”22 There were also conflicts between

business leaders and the party in the late thirties over the government policy of autarky.

Even though German industry was dependent on outside trade (73 per cent of Germany’s

trade was with the industrialized world), Hitler forged ahead with his Four-Year Plans to

make the economy of the Third Reich self-sufficient. In the process, German firms were

required to purchase shares with low-interest rates in such unprofitable enterprises as the

Reichswerke-Hermann Goring.23 As for the bureaucracy, from 1933-1939 the income of

civil servants fell 14-16 per cent on top of the salary cuts of 23 per cent, which had been

imposed by the Bruning government during the depression.24 Wilhelm Frick wrote in

20 On the question of business support for the Nazi movement see Richard F. Hamilton, Who Votedfor Hitler? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982),428-430 and Henry Ashby Turner, BigBusiness and the Rise ofHitter (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

21 Craig, Prussian Army, 481-496.22 David Schoenbaum, Hitler’s Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany 1933-1939

(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966), 144-145.23 For an excellent discussion of debates within the Third Reich over economic policy see John Hiden

and John Farquharson, Explaining Hitler’s Germany: Historians and the Third Reich (London: BatsfordAcademic and Educational Ltd., 1983), 131-151. Also see Hamilton, Who Votedfor Hitler, 431-432.

24 Caplan, “Politics of Administration,” 726-727.

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1938: “These measures [i.e., pay improvement] should have been initiated long ago, forday by day the plight of civil servants becomes more oppressive and intolerable, theirindebtedness increases, efficiency and job satisfaction threaten to decline. ..and the moraleand strength of character of civil servants is likely to suffer irreparable damage.”25 Noneof these examples point to a ruling class enjoying the fruits., of a cleverly executed coupd’etat.26

Finally, it is impossible to explain the governance of the Third Reich without takinginto account the enigmatic personality of Adolf Hitler. In spite of the power of hisopponents and in the face of their opposition, he ultimately had the last word on everyissue, be it civil service reform, the pace of rearmament, or the direction of the economy.Nor can his party be discounted as nothing more than the policeman of state monopolycapitalism. Himmier’s Gestapo reported on the activities of aristocrats and industrialists aswell as communists and social democrats. Himmier’s cells and camps operated outside theframework of the traditional German state and, eventually, they came to hold some of themost distinguished representatives of the so-called “ruling class.” Clearly, the governanceof the Third Reich involved a number of actors; some of them in the party and itsformations, others in the traditional offices and posts of the Rechtstaat.

II.

Long after midnight ten thousand people still stand in front of the Chancellery and singthe ‘Horst Wessel Song.’ I deliver a short address to the masses and close with threecheers for Hindenburg and the Führer. This miraculous night ends in a frenzy ofenthusiasm. At length the square is empty. We close the windows and are surroundedby absolute silence. The führer lays his hands on my shoulders in silence...‘The German Revolution has begun!’27

This passage from Joseph Goebbels’ diaries captures, in no uncertain terms, the senseof drama that surrounded Hitler’s appointment to the Chancellorship on January 30, 1933.To Hitler and the party faithful alike, this day seemed to signal the coming of theMillenium. And yet, it is difficult to imagine a more inauspicious beginning for arevolution. Hitler entered the German government, not as the head of a successfulinsurrectionary band or as the popularly acclaimed leader of a revolutionary provisionalgovernment; but as legally appointed head of a cabinet in which his party was a

25 Ibid., 728.26 The debate over the validity of the Stamokap/otigarchy model is summarized beautifully in Hidenand farquharson, Explaining, 153-170.27 Quoted from Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the l920’s (New York:Harper and Row Publishers, 1972), 414-415.

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minority. If indeed a German revolution had begun, it was one in which the governmentalmachinery and personnel of the deposed order remained in place. Even after the passage ofthe Enabling Act and the death of Hindenburg, attempts by members of the party to replaceboth the constitution and state offices of the Weimar Republic were blocked by Hitler.Furthermore, with the exception of the removal of Jews and Social Democrats from thecivil service, there was no great blood purge of the government as in the Soviet Unionunder Stalin. Gauteiters became Reich Governors, auxiliary party formations such as the$5 acquired near absolute power in the conquered territories, and certain party officialscreated semi-independent satrapies, but the state remained an uneasy partner in thegovernance of the Third Reich up until the end of the regime. The Third Reich was not amonolithic state in which either the Nazi Party or the traditional elites exercised absolutepower.

As early as 1941, German emigres were calling attention to this peculiar aspect of theNazi revolution. One such emigre, Ernst Fraenkel, coined the expression “dual state” todescribe the anomalous administrative situation then existing in Germany. According toFraenkel, government in the Third Reich was divided between two states. The first ofthese, which he termed a “normative” state, was staffed with the career civil servants,Junkers and military men of the Kaiserreich and governed through the establishedadministrative procedures and institutions of the Prussian Rechstaat. This normative statecarried on the daily routine of government, oversaw the expansion of the Army, andprotected the property and interests of the old elites. Hitler’s office, the police apparatus,and the Nazi Party comprised the other center of authority in the Third Reich, the“prerogative” state. Operating outside of traditional administrative and legal norms, theprerogative state was a “governmental system which exercised unlimited arbitrariness andviolence unchecked by any legal guarantees.”28 The prerogative state had eliminated thenemeses of its normative ally, i.e., the unions and parties of the Weimar Republic. Thoughthese two states were uneasy partners in government, and, after 1936, the prerogative wingwas on the way to becoming the dominant center of power in the Reich, neither could dowithout the other. The dual state was a symbiotic affair in which the prerogative halfmaintained an authoritarian order while the normative side made the trains run on time.

This theory of the dual state takes into consideration the extraordinary power of theNazi dictatorship without discounting the influence and importance of the old ruling elites.It also implies that, following Hitler’s assumption of the chancellorship, there was aconscious division of administrative spoils between the Nazi Party and its right wing allies,

28 Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State (O.U.P., 1941), xiii.

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which resulted in an oligarchic consular style government along Roman lines. Each partycould veto the actions of the other and government, as in the days of the Roman Senate,was carried on by committee, e.g., affairs of the Armed Forces were handled by theDefense Ministry and police affairs by the Interior Ministry. This was certainly the kind of“cabinet government” that Papen and Hugenburg had in mind and, initially, Hitler’s actionsappeared to support this interpretation.29 The period from 1933 to 1936 was one of dualstate quid pro quo. In exchange for conservative support of the Enabling Act, the Naziseffected the expeditious and thorough destruction of the left parties and their trade unionallies. Hitler’s purge of the SA was rewarded with militaiy support after Hindenburg’sdeath. Schacht’s objections to the “socialist” activities of Ley and his German Labor Frontresulted in the Führer’s reaffirmation of the industrialists’ right to run their factories as theysaw fit.3° Furthermore, within their areas of expertise, each Ministry was allowed a degreeof autonomy, which remained untouched by Hitler.31

Nevertheless, this quid pro quo of the early years of Hitler’s regime might also be seenas nothing more than a facade. As recounted in the introduction of this paper, within amatter of months after the passage of the Enabling Act, the Nazi offensive against theparties of the left was directed against those of the right. Hitler’s actions against the leftwing of his own party conveniently eliminated the threat of a second revolution, whilesolidifying his support among those groups whose expertise would supply him with armiesand armaments. Even if one accepts that there was a Roman Reich of sorts at the beginningof the dictatorship, and, as can be seen, this is a debatable point, its founder soon crossedthe Rubicon.

For a dual state theory to be viable there would have to have been some kind ofeffective collegial government. Under the Weimar constitution and the Enabling Act,government was centered in such a collegial body, the Reich Cabinet, which was requiredto meet, debate and decide by majority vote the legislative proposals that were put forwardby the various ministers. The number of these cabinet meetings declined from a high of 31in February and March of 1933, to 12 in 1934, 4 in 1936, 6 in 1937 and 1 (the last) onFebruary 5, 1938. This decline mirrored Hitler’s growing inclination to exercise his“prerogative” to rule by degree, first as chancellor and chief executive of a defunct Republicand later as President and Fuehrer of a new Reich.32 As Hugenburg and Papen belatedly

29 For a succinct description of the assumptions behind the conservative decision to bring Hider intothe government as well as the wheeling and dealing that led to the Hitler-Papen Cabinet see Holborn,Modern Germany, 707-710.

30 Broszat, Hitler Stare, 151-153.31 Ibid., 262-263.32 Ibid., 280-281.

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came to realize, a collegial government required an agreement on the part of all the

governing parties to observe certain game rules; the most important of which, is the

acceptance of legal and administrative limits on the power of any one player. However,

Hitler’s prerogative state precluded the functioning of a collegial form of governance.

Hitler’s authority was so vast and so unprecedented in German history that to identify it

with a state borders on the absurd. A state, as Max Weber defined it, is characterized by

certain distinct and discernable features. Among these, are institutions and offices whose

existence and functions are based on some kind of statutory authority, which in turn is

rooted in concepts of positive, natural or constitutional law. This legal authority delineates

the jurisdictional areas of these institutions, and only within these judicially prescribed

boundaries may a bureaucracy or official make rules and regulations. Furthermore, these

rules are, of necessity, general enough that they can be learned, thereby guaranteeing a

measure of expertise and continuity over time.33The so-called “prerogative” state of the Fuehrer did not share any of these

characteristics. Even granting Hitler’s constitutional position as Reich Chancellor, the fact

remains that the German Army and government swore their allegiance not to an “office”

based on a law or a constitution but to a “Führer” whose right to lead emanated “from the

National Socialist movement.” As Rudolf Hess so emphatically stated at the 1934 Victory

Congress in Nuremburg, the movement was Hitler and his unique position within it rested

on his conviction, which was shared by his followers, that he was the embodiment of the

will of the German Volk. Hitler’s historic mission, was to lead that Volk into a state of

racial purity and world domination. The prerogative state then was not so much a

government or a set of institutions as it was a charismatic movement, which Nyomarky

defines as “outside the realm of everyday routine, and... sharply opposed both to rational,

and particularly bureaucratic authority.”34 In place of the neatly defined jurisdictions,

clearly outlined hierarchies and general rules of a “normative” state, “overlapping spheres

of competence, private relations, and the lack of any clear-cut hierarchy of officials

characterize charismatically legitimated groups... .The subordinates of the leader are chosen

on personal grounds and partake of the leader’s charisma as his representatives.”35

The dual state model does not adequately convey the charismatic, non-rational nature of

government in the Third Reich or the complexity this led to in the relationships of both

These characteristics of modem bureaucratic government are outlined in Max Weber, Economy andSociety, eds., Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968), 956-958.

This is the position of Joseph Nyomarkay, who, using Weberian theory and terminology, makes aconvincing case that Hitler and his movement can only be understood as a messianic phenomenon.Nyomarkay, Charisma and Factionalism, 19-26. See also Krausnick, Anatomy, 129-133.

Nyomarkay, Charisma and Factionalism, 26.

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traditional and Führer-related centers of power. As the German historian, Helmut

Krausnick, noted:

Neither the general aspects nor the individual manifestations of National Socialistdomination are therefore comprehensible if looked upon merely as an extreme exampleof intensification and concentration of governmental power. Rather it must be realizedthat Nazism’s claim to power and its practice of government were the expression of acompletely novel concept transcending the authority of the State.36

If the idea of Nazism as a statist movement bent on establishing a fascist style

Kaiserreich is abandoned, then “its claim to power and its practice of government” are not

that “novel” at all. If Hitler did indeed envision himself to be a messianic figure and his

anti-modern pronouncements are to be believed, then his aim was to sweep away the

present and with it the state that made the Germany of both Bismark and Ebert possible.

Seen in this light, the government of the Third Reich would be more akin to a theocracy

than a dual state. As such, the “mullahs” and revolutionary formations of the Party, due to

their association with the messianic Führer, would be able to exercise almost untrammeled

power. Their former state adversaries, on the other hand, would be tolerated only insofar

as they were needed. As events turned out, the requirements of the anti-modern leader

required a thoroughly modern state and so a polyglot government of Gauleiters, State

Ministers, Generals, and Reichsfuehrers emerged.

III.One of the labors of Hercules was the slaying of the fearsome Hydra. The Hydra had

nine heads, of which the middle one was immortal. In his battle with the dreaded monster,

Hercules struck off these heads with his club, but in the place where there had been one

head, two new ones sprang forth. Much the same situation has plagued those historians

who have attempted to explain the wherewithal of government in the Third Reich. Every

effort to pinpoint one center of authority has seen two more spring forth to demand equal

attention. Explanations of the Reich as a party state fail to consider that traditional elites

still exercised a measure of authority. Paradigms, which place these elites at the center of

the picture, neglect to give adequate consideration to the numerous ways in which they

were exploited by the party and its formations. Theories, which put party and elites

together in a dual state structure, only serve to obscure the unique character of Hitler’s

power and position in the Reich.

36 Krausnick, Anatomy, 132.

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As a result of these problems, many historians have abandoned altogether the attempt to

locate a center of state authority in the Third Reich and have chosen instead to portray its

governance as a hydra-like affair. According to this interpretation, the lack of a

constitutional administrative structure resulted in an atomization process whereby the state

dissolved into a number of overlapping and competing power centers. This process of

“warlordism” was further exacerbated and encouraged by the presence of a charismatic

Führer whose very existence was antithetical to any and all notions of a modern state.

Even though he was the ultimate authority within the Reich, Hitler, more often than not,

refused to act authoritatively. Whether this inaction rested on a conscious decision to

“divide and rule,” a sincere belief in “institutional Darwinism,” or just plain administrative

inability, the result was governmental chaos.37 Left without a clearly discemable set of

policies initiated by Hitler, and bereft of the routines characteristic of a bureaucratic state,

the various ministries, party offices, auxiliary formations and individuals of the Nazi

regime essentially acted according to their own interpretation of what the Führer wanted.

The result was a “polycratic” or “weak” dictatorship in which arbitrary decisions, all-

pervasive corruption, and a duplication of effort at every level of government became the

norm.38 Instead of a Führerstaat, the Third Reich was essentially a Führerrei.Evidence for such a polycratic state is exemplified by the divisions within the Nazi

Party. For example, Reich Governors and Nazi ministers, such as Wilhelm Frick,

interpreted Gleichschaltung as the beginning of a centralization effort that would destroy

state and local autonomy. The Gauleiters, however, saw the “coordination” process as one

that confirmed their right to control their own baliwicks free of any interference from

Berlin. Hitler initially backed Frick but, in the end, the “old fighters” got their way. The

result was a more fragmented Reich in which the policies and directives of the central

government were either partially initiated or completely ignored by local party leaders.39

Himmler, to cite another example, felt that his position as head of the German Police gave

him unquestioned authority over all intelligence operations in the Reich. Nevertheless, the

Abwehr of Admiral Canaris and the intelligence services of the diplomatic corps paid him

no heed. As a result of this conflict, the Reich found itself with a surfeit of intelligence

agencies all bent on the same task, all collecting extremely important information, and all

On the various discussions regarding Hitler’s refusal to act decisively in the many administrativestmggles that swirled around him see Hiden and Farquharson, Explaining, 64-66.

The idea that the Third Reich was essentially a polyocracy of competing power centers is found inBroszat, Hitter State, ix-xiv, 262-323, 346-361; Bracher, German Dictatorship, 232-233, 235-236, 276-277; Krausnick, Anatomy, 137-140. The idea is also discussed extensively in Hiden and Farquharson,Explaining, 59-82.

Peterson, Limits, 433-434.

r

44

refusing to share or correlate this material with one another.4° Concurrently, von Neurath,

the head of the Foreign Ministry, found himself in competition with Ribbentrop,

Rosenberg and Goebbels. The efforts of these party “foreign ministers” without portfolio

were usually disastrous. One such example was Rosenberg’s trip to London in May 1933.

Billed as an effort to influence British public opinion favorably toward Germany, the trip

only worsened matters. Not only were his actions attacked in the press and the House of

Commons, but Prime Minister MacDonald refused to receive him.41 All of these conflicts

and overlapping jurisdictions put the lie to the contention that Germany under Nazism was

a better organized and more effective “order” than those German regimes that had existed

before it. If anything, these conflicts indicate a government that lacked both a center and a

direction.

Nowhere was this warlordism more apparent, however, than in the eastern territories

during the war. Generals, Reichministers for the various occupied lands, Gauleiters and

5$ Reichsfuehrers all claimed jurisdiction and ultimate authority in these areas, and

conflict, sometimes violent, was not infrequent. These clashes frequently involved policies

that were central to Hitler’s Weltanschauung: race policy and extermination of the Jews.

Albert Forster, Gauleiter of Danzig, insisting on his right to run his Gau as he saw fit,

blocked Himmler’s attempts to remove racially impure elements from the city and turn their

property over to ethnic Germans.42 Similarly, Wilhelm Kube, Commissar General of

White Ruthenia, attempted to block $5 actions directed against the Jews in his territory on

the grounds that they were needed to keep the local economy viable. When Kube

discovered that German Jews were being exterminated, he was so appalled that he took

steps to sabotage all $5 extermination efforts in his jurisdiction.43 Even Reichministers,

such as Rosenberg, who were sympathetic to the aims of the Final Solution, frequently

found themselves at odds with Himmier over the treatment of the conquered slavic

populations. Their reasoning was quite sound: if the object of the war was to defeat the

Soviet Union, then the hostility of the various Soviet nationalities toward Moscow should

be aided and abetted by their German overlords. This could best be affected, not through

harsh treatment and brutality, but by treating these peoples as allies in a common cause.

40lloehne, Order, 547-548.41 Bracher, German Dictatorship, 232-233; Broszat, Hitler State, 215-221 (especially see Note 49 on

p. 239).42 for an excellent account of this bitter feud see Herbert S. Levine, “Local Authority and the SS

State: The Conflict over Population Policy in Danzig-West Prussia, 1939-1945,” Central EuropeanHistory, 2,4 (1969) 33 1-335.

Hoehne, Order, 419-422.

47

more it becomes apparent that old ideas and traditions persisted and new ones were bornwithout reference to system and ideology.48

48 Gordon A. Craig, review, of Nach Hitler: Der Schwierige Umgang mit Unsere Geschichte:Beitrage by Martin Broszat, New York Review ofBooks , 15 (January 1987): 19.