Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

English ‘cultural centres’, seaside resorts, and ‘bourgeois towns’ would be razed to the ground. The psychological impact of this — and that was the key thing — would be far greater than that achieved through mostly unsuccessful attempts to hit armaments factories. German bombing would now begin in a big way. He had already given out the directive to prepare a lengthy plan of attack on such lines.⁷⁷

Goebbels raised — during the midday meal, not in private discussion — the ‘Jewish Question’ once more. By this time some if not all of the slaughterhouses in Poland were in operation. Hitler’s remarks remained, as always, menacingly unspecific. He briefly restated, according to Goebbels, his ‘pitiless (unerbittlich)’ stance: ‘he wants to drive the Jews absolutely out of Europe’. The Propaganda Minister knew, as did other ‘insiders’, what this meant. He had, after all, referred to the liquidation of the Jews in unmistakable terms in his own diary entry only a month earlier.⁷⁸ The ‘hardest punishment’ that could be inflicted on the Jews was ‘still too mild’, he now added.⁷⁹

Why Hitler had chosen this moment to summon the Reichstag was the subject of much speculation and rumour among the mass of the population. But the background to it and the coming assault on the judicial system remained closely guarded secrets.⁸⁰ What turned out to be the last ever session of the Great German Reichstag began punctually at 3p.m. that afternoon. Hitler spoke for little over an hour. He was nervous at the beginning, starting hesitantly, then speaking so fast that parts of his speech were scarcely intelligible.⁸¹ Much of it was taken up with the usual long-winded account of the background to the war. This was followed by a description of the struggle through the previous winter — with a strong hint that the war would not be over before a new winter had to be faced.⁸² He then came to the centrepoint of his address. He implied that transport, administration, and justice had been found lacking. There was a side-swipe (without naming names) at General Hoepner: ‘no one can stand on their well-earned rights’, but had to know ‘that today there are only duties’. He requested from the Reichstag, therefore, ‘the express confirmation that I possess the legal right to hold each one to fulfilment of his duties’ with rights to dismiss from office without respect to ‘acquired rights’. Using the Schlitt case as his example, he launched into a savage attack on the failings of the judiciary. From now on, he said, he would intervene in such cases and dismiss judges ‘who visibly fail to recognize the demands of the hour’.⁸³

As soon as Hitler had finished speaking, Goring read out the ‘Resolution (Beschlu?)’ of the Reichstag. This unusual form of decree — a proposal by the Reichstag President for approval by the members of the Reichstag — had been suggested, then composed, by Lammers at breakneck speed before the session in order to obviate any constitutional problems but also to underline the formal granting by the popular assembly of such far-reaching powers to Hitler.⁸⁴ According to the ‘Resolution’, Hitler was empowered ‘without being bound to existing legal precepts’, in his capacity as ‘Leader of the Nation, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, Head of Government and supreme occupant of executive power, as supreme law- lord (oberster Gerichtsherr) and as Leader of the Party’ (the last an addition specifically inserted by Lammers), to remove from office and punish anyone, of whatever status, failing to carry out his duty, without respect to pensionable rights, and without any stipulated formal proceedings.⁸⁵

Naturally, the ‘Resolution’ was unanimously approved.⁸⁶ The last shreds of constitutionality had been torn apart. Hitler now was the law.

Many people were surprised that Hitler needed any extension of his powers. They wondered what had gone on that had prompted his scathing attacks on the internal administration. Disappointment was soon registered that no immediate actions appeared to follow his strong words.⁸⁷ Lawyers, judges, and civil servants were not unnaturally dismayed by the assault on their professions and standing. What had caused it was in their eyes a mystery. The Fuhrer had evidently, they thought, been crassly misinformed.⁸⁸ The consequences were, however, unmistakable. As the head of the judiciary in Dresden pointed out, with the ending of all judicial autonomy Germany had now become a ‘true Fuhrer state’.⁸⁹

Hitler could ignore the predictable lamentations from judges and lawyers who, with few exceptions, would nevertheless continue to comply with everything demanded of them. In futile attempts to defend status and authority, they would more readily than ever bend over backwards to accommodate every inhumane initiative, thereby undermining precisely what they hoped to preserve — a state based upon the rule of law, however harsh, and the power of the judiciary to interpret and impose that law. Hitler’s populist instincts had not deserted him. Less elevated sections of the population enthused over his assault on rank and privilege.⁹⁰ This had successfully allowed him to divert attention from more fundamental questions about the failures of the previous winter and to provide a much-needed morale-booster through easy attacks on cheap targets.

After his speech, Hitler, warmed by the euphoria in the Reichstag, the enthusiasm of the crowds lining the streets back to the Reich Chancellery, and the fawning congratulations of his entourage, could relax, look forward to a break in his alpine retreat, and unfold his plans for the great refashioning of Linz into ‘the city on the Danube’, a cultural metropolis to outshine Vienna.⁹¹

For the mass of the German people, only the prospect of the peace that final victory would bring could sustain morale for any length of time. Many ‘despondent souls’, ran one Party report on the popular mood, were ‘struck only by one part of the Fuhrer’s speech: where he spoke of the preparations for the winter campaign of 1942-43. The more the homeland has become aware of the cruelty and hardship of the winter struggle in the east, the more the longing for an end to it has increased. But now the end is still not in sight. Many wives and mothers are suffering as a result.’⁹² The hopes briefly raised by the successes of the summer offensive would rapidly give way to despair in the calamities that the coming autumn and winter would bring.

III

Hours after his Reichstag speech, Hitler left for Munich, en route to the Berghof and a meeting with Mussolini. He was in expansive mood next lunchtime at his favourite Munich restaurant, the Osteria.⁹³ He held forth to Hermann Giesler, one of his favoured architects, and his companion-in- arms from the old days of the Party’s early struggles in Munich, Hermann Esser, on his plans for double-decker express trains to run at 200 kilometres an hour on four-metre-wide tracks between Upper Silesia and the Donets Basin. Naturally, there would be difficulties in bringing about this rail programme, he admitted, but one should not be put off by them.⁹⁴ Two days later, at a snow-covered Berghof with Eva Braun acting as hostess, he was regaling his supper guests with complaints about the lack of top Wagnerian tenors in Germany, and the deficiencies of leading conductors Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch. Walter, a Jew who had become renowned as the director of the Bavarian State Opera and Leipziger Gewandhaus before being forced out by the Nazis in 1933 and emigrating to America, was an ‘absolute nonentity’, claimed Hitler, who had ruined the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera to the extent that it was capable only of playing ‘beer music’. Although Walter’s arch-rival Knappertsbusch, tall, blond, blue-eyed, had the appearance of a model ‘aryan’ male, listening to him conduct an opera was ‘a punishment’ to Hitler’s mind, as the orchestra drowned out the singing and the conductor performed such gyrations that it was painful to look at him. Only Wilhelm Furtwangler, who had turned the Berlin Philharmonic into such an outstanding, magnificent orchestra, one of the regime’s most important cultural ambassadors, and acknowledged maestro in conducting the Fuhrer’s own favourite Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Wagner, met with his unqualified approval.⁹⁵

Between monologues, he had had ‘discussions’ with Mussolini in the baroque Klessheim Castle, once a residence of the Prince Bishops of Salzburg, now luxuriously refurbished with furniture and carpets removed from France to make a Nazi guest-house and conference-centre.⁹⁶ The atmosphere was cordial. Hitler looked tired to Ciano, and bearing the signs of the strains of the winter. His hair, Ciano noticed, was turning grey. Hitler’s primary aim was to convey optimism to Mussolini about the war in the east.⁹⁷ Ribbentrop’s message to Ciano, in their separate meeting, was no different: the ‘genius of the Fuhrer’ had mastered the evils of the Russian winter; a coming offensive towards the Caucasus would deprive Russia of fuel, bring the conflict to an end, and force Britain to terms; British hopes from America amounted to ‘a colossal bluff’.⁹⁸

The talks continued the next day, now with military leaders present, at the Berghof. How much of a genuine discussion there was is plain from Ciano’s description: ‘Hitler talks, talks, talks, talks,’ non-stop for an hour and forty minutes. Mussolini, used himself to dominating all conversation, had to suffer in silence, occasionally casting a surreptitious glance at his watch. Ciano switched off and thought of other things. Keitel yawned and struggled to