Hitler. Part 10

Hitler was confident and self-a.s.sured when the postponed visit of Simon and Eden eventually took place in the Reich Chancellery, on 25 March. Paul Schmidt, meeting Hitler for the first time and acting as his interpreter, noted the cordial atmosphere at the beginning of the talks. He had expected the 'raging demagogue' he had heard on the radio, but was instead impressed by the skill and intelligence with which Hitler conducted the negotiations. In the first morning session of almost four hours, Simon and Eden could do no more than pose the occasional question during Hitler's monologues on the menace of Bolshevism. Alongside his repeated attacks on Soviet expansionist intentions, Hitler's main theme was equality of treatment for Germany in armaments levels. He insisted to Simon on parity in air-forces with Britain and France. Asked about the current strength of the German air-force, Hitler hesitated, then declared: 'We have already attained parity with Great Britain.' Simon and Eden were sceptical, but said nothing. Nor did they when Hitler named a ratio of 3 5 per cent of English naval strength as the German demand, but their lack of immediate objection gave a hint to their hosts that they were not opposed. The British had shown themselves as pliant, willing to negotiate, insistent on upholding peace, but ready to make concessions at the expense of solidarity with the French. The German stance, on the other hand, had been unyielding, inflexible on all points of substance. The courting of the British appeared to be making headway. The post-war European settlement was visibly crumbling. All Hitler needed to do was to stand firm; all the signs were that the British would move to accommodate him. The seeds of appeas.e.m.e.nt had been sown.

Though British avowals of international solidarity continued, the much-trumpeted Stresa Front the outcome of the meeting in Stresa of the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy on 11 April 1935, at which they pledged to uphold the 1925 Pact of Locarno guaranteeing the western borders of the Reich and to support Austria's integrity existed on paper only. But the isolation arising from Stresa, the League of Nations' condemnation of Germany, and the French pact with the Soviet Union had to be broken. This was the backcloth to Hitler's second 'peace speech' following that of 17 May 1933 to the Reichstag on 21 May 1935. 'What else could I wish for other than calm and peace?' he rhetorically asked. 'Germany needs peace, and wants peace.' He was keen to appear reasonable and moderate while reiterating German demands for equal rights in armament. He dismissed any hint of a threat in the armaments programme. He wanted, he stated (as he had done privately to Simon and Eden), no more than parity in air weaponry and a limit of 35 per cent of British naval tonnage. He scorned press suggestions that this would lead to a demand for the possession of colonies. Nor had Germany any wish or capability for naval rivalry with Great Britain. 'The German Reich government recognizes of itself the overwhelming necessity for existence and thereby the justification of dominance at sea to protect the British Empire, just as, on the other hand, we are determined to do everything necessary in protection of our own continental existence and freedom.' The framework of the desired alliance with Britain had been outlined.

The Foreign Offices of both countries were critical of schemes for a naval accord. But the British Admiralty found the 35 per cent limit acceptable, as long as there was no weakening of the British position vis-a-vis the j.a.panese navy seen as the greater threat. The British cabinet conceded. Despite the fact that Germany had been condemned for its breach of Versailles as recently as mid-April by the League of Nations, the British, following Hitler's 'peace speech' of 21 May, had taken up German feelers for the naval talks in London, first mooted on Simon's visit to Berlin in March.

Leading the German delegation, when the talks began on 4 June, was Joachim von Ribbentrop. The linguistically able but boundlessly vain, arrogant, and pompous former champagne salesman had joined the party only in 1932. But with the pa.s.sion of the late convert he had from the start showed fanatical commitment and devotion to Hitler reminding the interpreter Schmidt, who saw him frequently at close quarters, of the dog on the label of the gramophone company His Master's Voice. In 1934, as newly appointed 'Commissioner for Disarmament Questions', he had been sent by Hitler as a type of roving envoy to Rome, London, and Paris to try to improve relations, though at the time had achieved little. Despite his lack of obvious success, Hitler, distrustful of the career diplomats at the Foreign Office, continued to favour him. On 1 June 1935, he was provided with the grand t.i.tle of 'Amba.s.sador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary on Special Mission'. His moment of triumph in London awaited.

The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was finally concluded on 18 June. Germany could now construct a navy of 35 per cent of the British navy, and a submarine fleet the size of that of Britain. Ribbentrop had covered himself with glory. Hitler had gained a major diplomatic triumph and experienced, he said, the happiest day of his life. For the German people, Hitler seemed to be achieving the unimaginable. The world, meanwhile, looked on in astonishment. Great Britain, party to the condemnation of Germany for breach of treaties, had wholly undermined the Stresa Front, left its allies in the lurch, and a.s.sisted Hitler in tearing a further large strip off the Versailles Treaty. Whether peace would be more secure as a result already gave grave cause for doubt.

Within little over three months, European diplomacy was plunged still further into turmoil. Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia an atavistic imperialist adventure designed to restore Italy's status as a world power and satisfy national pride and a dictator's ambitions was launched on 3 October. The invasion was unanimously condemned by the members of the League of Nations. But their slow and half-hearted application of economic sanctions which left out the key commodity, oil did little but show up once more the League's ineffectiveness. Divisions were once more exposed between the two western democracies.

Mussolini's action had plunged the League into crisis once more. It had blasted apart the accord reached at Stresa. Europe was on the move. Hitler could await rich pickings.

III.

While events on the diplomatic front were turning Hitler's way in the spring and summer of 1935, the new wave of anti-Jewish violence after a relative lull since the later months of 1933 that swept across the land between May and September spurred further radicalization in the area of his chief ideological obsession. Heavily preoccupied with foreign policy at this time, Hitler was only sporadically involved in the months before the hastily improvised promulgation of the notorious Nuremberg Laws at the Party Rally in September. 'With regard to the Jews, too,' Hitler commented at a much later date, 'I had for long to remain inactive.' His inactivity was tactical, not temperamental. 'There's no point in artificially creating additional difficulties,' he added. 'The more cleverly you proceed, the better.' There was little need for him to be active. All he had to do was provide backing for the party radicals or, even less, do nothing to hinder their activism (until it eventually became counter-productive) then introduce the discriminatory legislation which the agitation had prompted. Knowing that actions to 'remove' the Jews were in line with Hitler's aims and met with his approval largely provided its own momentum.

Chiefly on account of foreign-policy sensitivities and economic precariousness, the regime had during 1934 reined in the violence against Jews which had characterized the early months of n.a.z.i rule. Barbarity had merely subsided and far from totally. Ferocious discrimination continued unabated. Intimidation was unrelenting. In some areas, like Streicher's Franconia, the economic boycott remained as fierce as ever and the poisonous atmosphere invited brutal actions. Even so, the exodus of Jews fleeing from Germany slowed down markedly; some even came back, thinking the worst over. Then, early in 1935 with the Saar plebiscite out of the way, the brakes on antisemitic action began to be loosened. Written and spoken propaganda stoked the fires of violence, inciting action from party formations including units of the Hitler Youth, SA, SS, and the small traders' organization, NS-Hago that scarcely needed encouragement. The Franconian Gauleiter, Julius Streicher, the most rabid and primitive antisemite among the party leaders, was at the forefront. Streicher's own quasi-p.o.r.nographic newspaper, Der Sturmer Der Sturmer, which had never ceased dispensing its poison despite frequent brushes even with n.a.z.i authorities, now excelled itself in a new and intensified campaign of filth, centring upon endless stories of 'racial defilement'. Sales quadrupled during 1935, chiefly on account of the support from local party organizations.

The tone was changing at the very top. In March 1934, He had banned anti-Jewish propaganda by the NS-Hago, indicating that Hitler's authorization was needed for any boycott. But at the end of April 1935, Wiedemann told Bormann that Hitler did not favour the prohibition, sought by some, of the anti-Jewish notice-boards 'Jews Not Wanted Here' (or even more threatening versions) on the roadside, at the entry to villages, and in public places. The notice-boards as a result now spread rapidly. Radicals at the gra.s.s-roots gleaned the obvious message from the barrage of propaganda and the speeches of party notables that they were being given the green light to attack the Jews in any way they saw fit.

The party leaders were, in fact, reacting to and channelling pressures emanating from radicals at the gra.s.s-roots of the Movement. The continuing serious disaffection within the ranks of the SA, scarcely abated since the 'Rohm affair', was the underlying impetus to the new wave of violence directed at the Jews. Feeling cheated of the brave new world they thought was theirs, alienated and demoralized, the young toughs in the SA needed a new sense of purpose. Attacking Jews provided it. Given a green light from above, they encountered no barrier and, in fact, every encouragement. The feeling among party activists, and especially stormtroopers, summarized in one Gestapo report in spring 1935, was that 'the Jewish problem' had to be 'set in motion by us from below', and 'that the government would then have to follow'.

The instrumental value of the new wave of agitation and violence was made plain in reports from the Rhineland from Gauleiter Grohe of Cologne-Aachen, who thought in March and April 1935 that a new boycott and intensified attack on the Jews would help 'to raise the rather depressed mood among the lower middle cla.s.ses'. Grohe, an ardent radical in 'the Jewish Question', went on to congratulate himself on the extent to which party activism had been revitalized and the morale of the lower middle cla.s.s reinvigorated by the new attacks on the Jews.

Despite the aims of the n.a.z.i programme, in the eyes of the Movement's radicals little had been done by early 1935 to eradicate the Jews from German society. There was a good deal of feeling among fanatical antisemites that the state bureaucracy had deflected the party's drive and not produced much by way of legislation to eliminate Jewish influence. The new wave of violence now led, therefore, to vociferous demands for the introduction of discriminatory legislation against the Jews which would go some way towards fulfilling the party's programme. The state bureaucracy also felt under pressure from actions of the Gestapo, leading to retrospective legal sanction for police discriminatory measures, such as the Gestapo's ban, independently declared, in February 1935 on Jews raising the swastika flag.

Attempts to mobilize the apathetic ma.s.ses behind the violent antisemitic campaign of the party formations backfired. Instead of galvanizing the discontented, the antisemitic wave merely fuelled already prominent criticism of the party. There was little partic.i.p.ation from those who did not belong to party formations. Many people ignored exhortations to boycott Jewish shops and stores. And the public displays of violence accompanying the 'boycott movement', as Jews were beaten up by n.a.z.i thugs and their property vandalized, met with wide condemnation. Not much of the criticism was on humanitarian grounds. Economic self-interest played a large part. So did worries that the violence might be extended to attacks on the Churches. The methods rather than the aims were attacked. There were few principled objections to discrimination against Jews. What concerned people above all were the hooliganism, mob violence, distasteful scenes, and disturbances of order.

Accordingly, across the summer the violence became counter-productive, and the authorities felt compelled to take steps to condemn it and restore order. The terror on the streets had done its job for the time being. It had pushed the discrimination still further. The radicalization demanded action from above.

At last, Hitler, silent on the issue throughout the summer, was forced to take a stance. Schacht had warned him in a memorandum as early as 3 May of the economic damage being done by combating the Jews through illegal means. Hitler had reacted at the time only by commenting that everything would turn out all right as matters developed. But now, on 8 August, he ordered a halt to all 'individual actions', which He relayed to the party the following day. On 20 August, Reich Minister of the Interior Frick took up Hitler's ban in threatening those continuing to perpetrate such acts with stiff punishment. The stage had now been reached where the state authorities were engaged in the repression of party members seeking to implement what they knew Hitler wanted and what was a central tenet of party doctrine. It was little wonder that the police, increasingly compelled to intervene against party activists engaged in violent outrages against Jews, also wanted an end to the public disturbances. Hitler stood aloof from the fray but uneasily positioned between the radicals and the conservatives. His instincts, as ever, were with the radicals, whose bitter disappointment at what they saw as a betrayal of n.a.z.i principles was evident. But political sense dictated that he should heed the conservatives. Led by Schacht, these wanted a regulation of antisemitic activity through legislation. This in any case fed into growing demands within the party for tough discriminatory measures, especially against 'racial defilement'. Out of the need to reconcile these conflicting positions, the Nuremberg Laws emerged.

Shrill demands for harsh legislation against the Jews had mounted sharply in spring and summer 1935. Frick had appeared in April to offer the prospect of a new, discriminatory law on rights of state citizenship, but nothing had emerged to satisfy those who saw a central feature of the Party Programme still not implemented after two years of n.a.z.i rule. Party organs demanded in June that Jews be excluded from state citizenship and called for the death penalty for Jews renting property to 'aryans', employing them as servants, serving them as doctors or lawyers, or engaging in 'racial defilement'.

The issue of banning intermarriage and outlawing s.e.xual relations between Jews and 'aryans' had by this time gone to the top of the agenda of the demands of the radicals. Racial purity, they claimed, could only be attained through total physical apartheid. Even a single instance of s.e.xual intercourse between a Jew and an 'aryan', announced Streicher, was sufficient to prevent the woman from ever giving birth to a 'pureblooded aryan' child. 'Defilement' of 'German' girls through predatory Jews, a constant allegation of the vicious Sturmer Sturmer and its imitators, had by now become a central theme of the anti-Jewish agitation. and its imitators, had by now become a central theme of the anti-Jewish agitation.

Streicher spoke in May 1935 of a forthcoming ban on marriages between Jews and Germans. In early August, Goebbels proclaimed that such marriages would be prohibited. Meanwhile, activists were taking matters into their own hands. SA men demonstrated in front of the houses of newly-weds where one partner was Jewish. Even without a law, officials at some registry offices were refusing to perform 'mixed marriages'. Since they were not legally banned, others carried out the ceremony. Still others informed the Gestapo of an intended marriage. The Gestapo itself pressed the Justice Ministry for a speedy regulation of the confused situation. A further impulse arose from the new Defence Law of 21 May 1935, banning marriage with 'persons of non-aryan origin' for members of the newly-formed Wehrmacht. By July, bowing to pressure from within the Movement, Frick had decided to introduce legislation to ban 'mixed marriages'. Some form of draft bill had already been worked upon in the Justice Ministry. The delay in bringing forward legislation largely arose from the question of how to deal with the 'Mischlinge' those of partial Jewish descent.

On 18 August, in a speech in Konigsberg, Schacht had indicated that anti-Jewish legislation in accordance with the Party Programme was 'in preparation' and had to be regarded as a central aim of the government. Schacht summoned state and party leaders two days later to the Ministry of Economics to discuss 'the Jewish Question'. He fiercely attacked the party's violent methods as causing great harm to the economy and rearmament drive, concluding that it was vital to carry out the party's programme, but only through legislation. The meeting ended by agreeing that party and state should combine to bring suggestions to the Reich government 'about desirable measures'.

An account of the meeting prepared for the State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry commented: In the main, the departmental representatives drew attention to the practical disadvantages for their departmental work, whilst the Party justified the necessity for radical action against the Jews with politico-emotional and abstract ideological considerations ...

For all the vehemence of his arguments, Schacht had not wanted to, or felt able to, challenge the principle of excluding the Jews. 'Herr Schacht did not draw the logical conclusion,' stated the Foreign Ministry's report, 'and demand a radical change in the party's Jewish programme, nor even in the methods of applying it, for instance a ban on Der Sturmer Der Sturmer. On the contrary, he kept up the fiction of abiding a hundred per cent by the Jewish programme.' Schacht's meeting had clearly highlighted the differences between party and state, between radicals and pragmatists, between fanatics and conservatives. There was no fundamental disagreement about aims; merely about methods. However, the matter could not be allowed to drag on indefinitely. A resolution had to be found in the near future.

The minutes of the meeting were sent to Hitler, who also discussed the matter with Schacht on 9 September. This was a day before Hitler left to join the hundreds of thousands of the party faithful a.s.sembled for the annual ritual in Nuremberg for the 'Reich Party Rally of Freedom' 'the High Ma.s.s of our party', as Goebbels called it. It was not at that point with the intention of proclaiming the anti-Jewish 'citizenship' and 'blood' laws during the Party Rally. A significant part in their emergence was played by the lobbying at Nuremberg of one of the most fanatical proponents of a ban on s.e.xual relations between Germans and Jews, Dr Gerhard Wagner, the Reich Doctors' Leader, who had been advocating a ban on marriages between 'aryans' and Jews since 1933.

Two days into the Party Rally, on 12 September, Wagner announced in a speech that within a short time a 'Law to Protect German Blood' would prevent the further 'b.a.s.t.a.r.dization' of the German people. A year later, Wagner claimed that he had no idea, when making his announcement, that the Fuhrer would introduce the Nuremberg Laws within days. Probably Hitler had given Wagner no specific indication of when the 'Blood Law' would be promulgated. But since Wagner had unequivocally announced such a law as imminent, he must have been given an unambiguous sign by Hitler that action would follow in the immediate future. At any rate, late the very next evening, 13 September, Dr Bernhard Losener, in charge of preparation of legislation on the 'Jewish Question' in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, was, to his surprise, ordered to Nuremberg. He and a colleague, Ministerialrat Franz Albrecht Medicus, arrived in the morning of 14 September to be told by their superiors in the Interior Ministry, State Secretaries Hans Pfundtner and Wilhelm Stuckart, that Hitler had instructed them the previous day to prepare a law to regulate the problems of marriage between 'aryans' and 'non-aryans'. They had immediately begun work on a draft. It seems likely that the urging of Wagner, in Hitler's company for hours at the crucial time and doubtless supported by other n.a.z.i leaders, had been instrumental in the decision to bring in the long-desired law there and then. Wagner was the link between Hitler and those given the task of drafting the law, who were not altogether clear since they had received no written instructions on exactly what came from the Doctors' Leader and what came from Hitler himself.

The atmosphere was ripe. The summer of intimidation and violence towards Jews had seen to that. The increasingly shrill demands for action in the 'Jewish Question' formed a menacing backcloth to the highpoint of the party's year as hundreds of thousands of the faithful arrived in Nuremberg, its walls, towers, and houses bedecked by swastika banners, the air full of expectancy at the great spectacle to follow.

Preparations for the notorious laws which would determine the fate of thousands were little short of chaotic. Losener and Medicus had arrived in Nuremberg on Sat.u.r.day, 14 September. The specially summoned Reichstag meeting was scheduled for 8 p.m. the following day. There was little time for the already weary civil servants to draft the required legislation. Whatever the prior work on anti-Jewish legislation in the Ministries of the Interior and Justice had been, it had plainly not pa.s.sed the initial stages. No definition of a Jew had been agreed upon. The party were pressing for inclusion of Mischlinge (those of mixed descent). But the complexities of this were considerable. The work went on at a furious pace. During the course of the day, Losener was sent more than once to battle his way through the huge crowds to Frick, staying at a villa on the other side of the city and showing little interest in the matter. Hitler, at Wagner's insistence, rejected the first versions Frick brought to him as too mild. Around midnight, Frick returned from Hitler with the order to prepare for him four versions of the Blood Law varying in the severity of the penalties for offences against the law and, in addition, to complete the legislative programme, to draft a Reich Citizenship Law. Within half an hour, they had drawn up in the briefest of terms a law distinguishing state subjects from Reich citizens, for which only those of German or related blood were eligible. Though almost devoid of content, the law provided the framework for the ma.s.s of subsidiary decrees that in the following years were to push German Jews to the outer fringes of society, prisoners in their own land. At 2.30 a.m. Frick returned with Hitler's approval. The civil servants learnt only when the Reichstag a.s.sembled which of the four drafts of the 'Blood Law' Hitler had chosen. Possibly following the intervention of either Neurath or, more likely, Gurtner, he had chosen the mildest. However, he struck out with his own hand the restriction to 'full Jews', adding further to the confusion by ordering this restriction to be included in the version published by the German News Agency. Marriage and extra-marital s.e.xual relations between Jews and Germans were outlawed, and to be punished with stiff penalties. Jews were also barred from employing German women under the age of forty-five as servants.

The Nuremberg Laws, it is plain, had been a compromise adopted by Hitler, counter to his instincts, to defuse the anti-Jewish agitation of the party, which over the summer had become unpopular not merely in wide sections of the population but, because of its harmful economic effects, among conservative sections of the leadership. The compromise did not please party radicals. It was a compromise, even so, which placated those in the party who had been pressing for legislation, especially on 'racial defilement'. And in putting the brakes on agitation and open violence, it had nevertheless taken the discrimination on to new terrain. Disappointment among activists at the retreat from a direct a.s.sault on Jews was tempered by the recognition, as one report put it, 'that the Fuhrer had for outward appearances to ban individual actions against the Jews in consideration of foreign policy, but in reality was wholly in agreement that each individual should continue on his own initiative the fight against Jewry in the most rigorous and radical form'.

The dialectic of radicalization in the 'Jewish Question' in 1935 had been along the following lines: pressure from below; green light from above; further violence from below; brakes from above a.s.suaging the radicals through discriminatory legislation. The process had ratcheted up the persecution several notches.

The Nuremberg Laws served their purpose in dampening the wild attacks on the Jews which had punctuated the summer. Most ordinary Germans not among the ranks of the party fanatics had disapproved of the violence, but not of the aims of anti-Jewish policy the exclusion of Jews from German society, and ultimately their removal from Germany itself. They mainly approved now of the legal framework to separate Jews and Germans as offering a permanent basis for discrimination without the unseemly violence. Hitler had a.s.sociated himself with the search for a 'legal' solution. His popularity was little affected.

The th.o.r.n.y question of defining a Jew had still to be tackled. Drafts of the first implementation ordinances under the Reich Citizenship Law, legally defining a Jew, were formulated to try to comply with Hitler's presumed views. But although Hitler intervened on occasion, even on points of minute detail, his sporadic involvement was insufficient to bring the tug-of-war between He's office and the Ministry of the Interior to a speedy end. The Ministry wanted to cla.s.sify as 'Jews' only those with more than two 'non-aryan' grandparents. The party with Reich Doctors' Leader Wagner applying pressure insisted on the inclusion of 'quarter-Jews'. Numerous meetings brought no result. Meanwhile, without awaiting a definition, some ministries were already imposing a variety of discriminatory measures on those of 'mixed' background, using different criteria. A decision was urgently necessary. But Hitler would not come down on one side or the other. 'Jewish Question still not decided,' noted Goebbels on 1 October. 'We debate for a long time about it, but the Fuhrer is still wavering.'

By early November, with still no final resolution in sight, Schacht and the Reichsbank Directorate, claiming the uncertainty was damaging the economy and the foreign-exchange rate, joined in the pressure on Hitler to end the dispute. Hitler had no intention of being pinned down to accepting security of rights for Jews under the legislation, as the Reichsbank wanted. The prospect of open confrontation between party representatives and state ministers of the Interior, Economics, and Foreign Affairs, and likely defeat for the party, at a meeting scheduled for 5 November to reach a final decision, made Hitler call off the meeting at short notice. A week later, the First Supplementary Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law finally ended the uncertainty. Wagner got his way on most points. But on the definition of a Jew, the Ministry of the Interior could point to some success. Three-quarter Jews were counted as Jewish. Half-Jews (with two Jewish and two 'aryan' grandparents) were reckoned as Jewish only if practising the Jewish faith, married (since the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws) to a Jew, the child of a marriage with a Jewish partner, or the illegitimate child of a Jew and 'aryan'. The definition of a Jew had ended with a contradiction. For legislative purposes, it had been impossible to arrive at a biological definition of race dependent on blood types. So it had been necessary to resort to religious belief to determine who was racially a Jew. As a result, it was possible to imagine descendants of 'pure aryan' parents converted to Judaism who would thereby be regarded as racial Jews. It was absurd, but merely highlighted the absurdity of the entire exercise.

The approach of the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, then the summer games in Berlin, along with the sensitive foreign-policy situation, meant that the regime was anxious to avoid any repet.i.tion of the violence of the summer of 1935. For the next two years, though the wheel of discrimination carried on turning, the 'Jewish Question' was kept away from the forefront of politics. When Wilhelm Gustloff, the leading NSDAP representative in Switzerland, was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a young Jew in February 1936, the circ.u.mstances did not lend themselves to wild retaliation. Frick, in collaboration with He, strictly banned 'individual actions'. Hitler restrained his natural instinct, and confined himself to a relatively low-key generalized attack on Jewry at Gustloff 's funeral. Germany remained quiet. The absence of violence following Gustloff 's murder is as clear a guide as the outrages in the anti-Jewish wave of 1935 to the fact that the regime could control, when it wanted to, the pressures for action within the ranks of the party radicals. In 1935 it had been useful to encourage and respond to such pressures. In 1936 it was opportune to keep them in check.

For Hitler, whatever the tactical considerations, the aim of destroying the Jews his central political idea since 1919 remained unaltered. He revealed his approach to a meeting of party District Leaders at the end of April 1937, in immediate juxtaposition to comments on the Jews: 'I don't straight away want violently to demand an opponent to fight. I don't say "fight" because I want to fight. Instead, I say: "I want to destroy you!" And now let skill help me to manoeuvre you so far into the corner that you can't strike any blow. And then you get the stab into the heart.'

In practice, however, as had been the position during the summer of 1935 before the Nuremberg Rally, Hitler needed do little to push forward the radicalization of the 'Jewish Question'. By now, even though still not centrally coordinated, the 'Jewish Question' pervaded all key areas of government; party pressure at headquarters and in the localities for new forms of discrimination was unceasing; civil servants complied with ever tighter constraints under the provisions of the 'Reich Citizenship Law'; the law-courts were engaged in the persecution of Jews under the provisions of the Nuremberg Laws; the police were looking for further ways to hasten the elimination of Jews and speed up their departure from Germany; and the general public, for the most part, pa.s.sively accepted the discrimination where they did not directly encourage or partic.i.p.ate in it. Antisemitism had come by now to suffuse all walks of life. 'The n.a.z.is have indeed brought off a deepening of the gap between the people and the Jews,' ran a report from the illegal socialist opposition for January 1936. 'The feeling that the Jews are another race is today a general one.'

IV.

Hitler, by late 1935, was already well on the way to establishing backed by the untiring efforts of the propaganda machine his standing as a national leader, transcending purely party interest. He stood for the successes, the achievements of the regime. His popularity soared also among those who were otherwise critical of National Socialism. With the party, it was a different matter. The party could be, and often was, blamed for all the continuing ills of daily life for the gulf between expectations and reality that had brought widespread disillusionment in the wake of the initial exaggerated hopes of rapid material improvement in the Third Reich.

Not least, the party's image had badly suffered through its attacks on the Christian Churches. The dismal mood in those parts of the country worst affected by the a.s.sault on the Churches was only part of a wider drop in the popularity of the regime in the winter of 19356. Hitler was aware of the deterioration in the political situation within Germany, and of the material conditions underlying the worsening mood of the population. Anger, especially in the working cla.s.s, was rising by autumn 1935 as a result of food shortages, rising food-prices, and renewed growth in unemployment.

As the domestic problems deepened, however, the Abyssinian crisis, causing disarray in the League of Nations, presented Hitler with new opportunities to look to foreign-policy success. He was swiftly alert to the potential for breaking out of Germany's international isolation, driving a further deep wedge between the Stresa signatories, and attaining, perhaps, a further revision of Versailles. Given the domestic situation, a foreign-policy triumph would, moreover, be most welcome.

Under the terms of the 1919 peace settlement, the German Reich had been prohibited from erecting fortifications, stationing troops, or undertaking any military preparations on the left bank of the Rhine and within a fifty-kilometre strip on the right bank. The status of the demilitarized Rhineland had subsequently been endorsed by the Locarno Pact of 1925, which Germany had signed. Any unilateral alteration of that status by Germany would amount to a devastating breach of the post-war settlement.

The remilitarization of the Rhineland would have been on the agenda of any German nationalist government. The army viewed it as essential for the rearmament plans it had established in December 1933, and for western defence. The Foreign Ministry presumed the demilitarized status would be ended by negotiation at some point. Hitler had talked confidentially of the abolition of the demilitarized zone as early as 1934. He spoke of it again, in broad terms, in summer 1935. However likely the reoccupation would have been within the next year or two, the seizing of that opportunity, the timing and character of the coup, were Hitler's. They bore his hallmark at all points.

The opportunity was provided by Mussolini. As we have noted, his Abyssinian adventure, provoking the League of Nations' condemnation of an unprovoked attack on a member-state and the imposition of economic sanctions, broke the fragile Stresa Front. Italy, faced with a pessimistic military outlook, sanctions starting to bite, and looking for friends, turned away from France and Britain, towards Germany. The stumbling-block to good relations had since 1933 been the Austrian question. Since the Dollfuss a.s.sa.s.sination in mid-1934, the climate had been frosty. This now swiftly altered. Mussolini signalled in January 1936 that he had nothing against Austria in effect becoming a satellite of Germany. The path to the 'Axis' immediately opened up. Later the same month he publicly claimed the French and British talk of possible joint military action against Italy in the Mediterranean not that this was in reality ever likely had destroyed the balance of Locarno, and could only lead to the collapse of the Locarno system. Hitler took note. Then, in an interview with Amba.s.sador Ha.s.sell, Mussolini acknowledged that Italy would offer no support for France and Britain should Hitler decide to take action in response to the ratification of the Franco-Soviet mutual a.s.sistance pact, currently before the French Chamber of Deputies, and viewed by Berlin as a breach of Locarno. The message was clear: from Italy's point of view, Germany could re-enter the Rhineland with impunity.

The Abyssinian crisis had also damaged Anglo-French relations, and driven the two democracies further apart. The French government realized that a move to remilitarize the Rhineland was inevitable. Most observers tipped autumn 1936, once the Olympics were out of the way. Few thought Hitler would take great risks over the Rhineland when conventional diplomacy would ultimately succeed. Ministers rejected independent military action against flagrant German violation. In any case, the French military leadership grossly exaggerating German armed strength had made it plain that they opposed military retaliation, and that the reaction to any fait accompli fait accompli should be purely political. The truth was: the French had no stomach for a fight over the Rhineland. And Hitler and the German Foreign Office, fed intelligence from Paris, were aware of this. Soundings had also led Hitler and von Neurath to a strong presumption that Britain, too, would refrain from any military action in the event of a coup. They saw Britain as for the time being weakened militarily, preoccupied politically with domestic affairs and with the Abyssinian crisis, unwilling to regard the preservation of the demilitarization of the Rhineland as a vital British interest, and possessing some sympathy for German demands. The chances of success in a swift move to remilitarize the Rhineland were, therefore, high; the likelihood of military retaliation by France or Britain relatively low. That was, of course, as long as the a.s.sessment in Berlin of the likely reactions of the European powers was correct. Nothing was certain. Not all Hitler's advisers favoured the risk he was increasingly prepared to take without delay. But Hitler had been proved right in his boldness when leaving the League of Nations in 1933 and reintroducing conscription in 1935. He had gained confidence. His role in the Rhineland crisis was still more a.s.sertive, less than ever ready to bow to the caution recommended by the military and diplomats. should be purely political. The truth was: the French had no stomach for a fight over the Rhineland. And Hitler and the German Foreign Office, fed intelligence from Paris, were aware of this. Soundings had also led Hitler and von Neurath to a strong presumption that Britain, too, would refrain from any military action in the event of a coup. They saw Britain as for the time being weakened militarily, preoccupied politically with domestic affairs and with the Abyssinian crisis, unwilling to regard the preservation of the demilitarization of the Rhineland as a vital British interest, and possessing some sympathy for German demands. The chances of success in a swift move to remilitarize the Rhineland were, therefore, high; the likelihood of military retaliation by France or Britain relatively low. That was, of course, as long as the a.s.sessment in Berlin of the likely reactions of the European powers was correct. Nothing was certain. Not all Hitler's advisers favoured the risk he was increasingly prepared to take without delay. But Hitler had been proved right in his boldness when leaving the League of Nations in 1933 and reintroducing conscription in 1935. He had gained confidence. His role in the Rhineland crisis was still more a.s.sertive, less than ever ready to bow to the caution recommended by the military and diplomats.

Rumours were rife in Berlin at the beginning of February that Hitler was planning to march troops into the Rhineland in the near future. Nothing at that point had been decided. Hitler pondered the matter while he was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the opening of the Winter Olympics on 6 February. He invited objections, particularly from the Foreign Office. During February, he discussed the pros and cons with Neurath, Blomberg, Fritsch, Ribbentrop, Goring, then with Ha.s.sell, the amba.s.sador in Rome. A wider circle within the Foreign Office and military leadership were aware of the pending decision. Fritsch and Beck were opposed; Blomberg as usual went along with Hitler. Foreign Minister Neurath also had grave doubts. He thought 'speeding up' the action was not worth the risk. Though it was not likely that Germany would face military retaliation, further international isolation would be the result. Ha.s.sell also argued that there was no hurry, since there would be future chances to abolish the demilitarized zone. Both were of the view that Hitler should at least await the ratification of the French-Soviet Pact by the Senate in Paris. This, as an alleged breach of Locarno, was to serve as the pretext. Hitler preferred to strike after ratification by the Chamber of Deputies, without waiting for the Senate. Whatever the caution of the career diplomats, Hitler was, as always, egged on in the most unctuous fashion by the sycophantic Ribbentrop.

Hitler told Ha.s.sell that the reoccupation of the Rhineland was 'from a military point of view an absolute necessity'. He had originally had 1937 in mind for such a step. But the favourable international constellation, the advantage of the French-Soviet Pact (given the anti-Soviet feeling in Britain and France) as the occasion, and the fact that the military strength of the other powers, especially of the Russians, was on the increase and would soon alter the military balance, were reasons for acting sooner, not later. He did not believe there would be military retaliation. At worst there might be economic sanctions. At discussions on 19 February, Ha.s.sell argued that the change for the better in Italy's fortunes in Abyssinia and the dropping of oil sanctions had lessened the chances of Italian support. Hitler countered by stressing the disadvantages of delay. 'Attack in this case, too,' he characteristically argued to 'lively a.s.sent from Ribbentrop' 'was the better strategy.'

But he continued to waver. His arguments had failed to convince the diplomats and military leaders. The advice he was receiving favoured caution, not boldness. This was the case as late as the end of February. However determined Hitler was on an early strike, the precise timing still had to be decided. At lunch on 29 February, he had yet to make up his mind.

But the following day, Sunday 1 March, with Munich bathed in beautiful spring-like weather, Hitler turned up at the hotel where Goebbels was staying in a good mood. The decision had been taken. 'It's another critical moment, but now is the time for action,' wrote Goebbels. 'Fortune favours the brave! He who dares nothing wins nothing.'

The next day, 2 March, Goebbels attended a meeting in the Reich Chancellery at 11 a.m. The heads of the armed forces Goring, Blomberg, Fritsch, and Raeder were there. So was Ribbentrop. Hitler told them he had made his decision. The Reichstag would be summoned for Sat.u.r.day, 7 March. There the proclamation of the remilitarization of the Rhineland would be made. At the same time, he would offer Germany's re-entry into the League of Nations, an air pact, and a non-aggression treaty with France. The acute danger would thereby be reduced, Germany's isolation prevented, and sovereignty once and for all restored. The Reichstag would be dissolved and new elections announced, with foreign-policy slogans. Fritsch had to arrange for the troop transport during Friday night. 'Everything has to happen as quick as lightning.' Troop movements would be camouflaged by making them look like SA and Labour Front exercises. The military leaders had their doubts. Members of the cabinet were informed individually only on the afternoon of the following day, Frick and He as late as the evening. By then, invitations to the Reichstag had already gone out but, to keep up the deception, only to a beer evening. By Wednesday Hitler was working on his Reichstag speech; Goebbels was already preparing the election campaign. Warning voices from the Foreign Ministry could still be registered on the Thursday. By Friday evening Hitler had completed his speech. The cabinet met to be informed for the first time collectively of what was planned. Goebbels announced that the Reichstag would meet at noon the next day. The only item on the agenda was a government declaration. Plans for the election campaign were finalized. Workers in the Propaganda Ministry were not permitted to leave the building overnight to prevent any leaks. 'Success lies in surprise,' noted Goebbels. 'Berlin trembles with tension,' he added next morning.

The Reichstag, too, was tense as. .h.i.tler rose, amid enormous applause, to speak. The deputies, all in n.a.z.i uniform, still did not know what to expect. The speech was aimed not just at those present, but at the millions of radio listeners. After a lengthy preamble denouncing Versailles, restating Germany's demands for equality and security, and declaring his peaceful aims, a screaming onslaught on Bolshevism brought wild applause. This took Hitler into his argument that the French-Soviet Pact had invalidated Locarno. He read out the memorandum which von Neurath had given to the amba.s.sadors of the Locarno signatories that morning, stating that the Locarno Treaty had lost its meaning. He paused for a brief moment, then continued: 'Germany regards itself, therefore, as for its part no longer bound by this dissolved pact ... In the interest of the primitive rights of a people to the security of its borders and safeguarding of its defence capability, the German Reich government has therefore from today restored the full and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland.' At this, wrote the American journalist, William Shirer, witnessing the scene, the 600 Reichstag deputies, 'little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the n.a.z.i salute, and scream "Heil's"'. When the tumult eventually subsided, Hitler advanced his 'peace proposals' for Europe: a non-aggression pact with Belgium and France; demilitarization of both both sides of their joint borders; an air pact; non-aggression treaties, similar to that with Poland, with other eastern neighbours; and Germany's return to the League of Nations. Some thought Hitler was offering too much. They had no need to worry. As. .h.i.tler knew, there was not the slightest chance of his 'offer' proving acceptable. He moved to the climax. 'Men, deputies of the German Reichstag! In this historic hour when in the western provinces of the Reich German troops are at this moment moving into their future peacetime garrisons, we all unite in two sacred inner vows.' He was interrupted by a deafening tumult from the a.s.sembled deputies. 'They spring, yelling and crying, to their feet,' William Shirer recorded. 'The audience in the galleries does the same, all except a few diplomats and about fifty of us correspondents. Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new G.o.d, the Messiah. The Messiah plays his role superbly.' sides of their joint borders; an air pact; non-aggression treaties, similar to that with Poland, with other eastern neighbours; and Germany's return to the League of Nations. Some thought Hitler was offering too much. They had no need to worry. As. .h.i.tler knew, there was not the slightest chance of his 'offer' proving acceptable. He moved to the climax. 'Men, deputies of the German Reichstag! In this historic hour when in the western provinces of the Reich German troops are at this moment moving into their future peacetime garrisons, we all unite in two sacred inner vows.' He was interrupted by a deafening tumult from the a.s.sembled deputies. 'They spring, yelling and crying, to their feet,' William Shirer recorded. 'The audience in the galleries does the same, all except a few diplomats and about fifty of us correspondents. Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new G.o.d, the Messiah. The Messiah plays his role superbly.'

Around 1.00 p.m., just as. .h.i.tler was reaching the highpoint of his peroration, German troops approached the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne. Two plane-loads of journalists, hand-picked by Goebbels, were there to record the historic moment. Word had quickly got round Cologne that morning. Thousands packed the banks of the Rhine and thronged the streets near the bridge. The soldiers received a delirious reception as they crossed. Women strewed the way with flowers. Catholic priests blessed them. Cardinal Schulte offered praise to Hitler for 'sending back our army'. The 'Church struggle' was temporarily forgotten.

The force to be sent into the demilitarized zone numbered no more than 30,000 regulars, augmented by units of the Landespolizei. A mere 3,000 men were to penetrate deep into the zone. The remainder had taken up positions for the most part behind the eastern bank of the Rhine. The forward troops were to be prepared to withdraw within an hour in the event of likely military confrontation with the French. There was no chance of this. As we have seen, it had been ruled out in advance by French military leaders. French intelligence counting SA, SS, and other n.a.z.i formations as soldiers had come up with an extraordinary figure of 295,000 for the German military force in the Rhineland. In reality, one French division would have sufficed to terminate Hitler's adventure. 'Had the French then marched into the Rhineland,' Hitler was reported to have commented more than once at a later date, 'we would have had to withdraw again with our tails between our legs. The military force at our disposal would not have sufficed even for limited resistance.' The forty-eight hours following the entry of the German troops into the Rhineland were, he claimed, the most tense of his life. He was speaking, as usual, for effect.

The risk had, in fact, been only a moderate one. The western democracies had lacked both the will and the unity needed to make intervention likely. But the triumph for Hitler was priceless. Not only had he outwitted the major powers, which had again shown themselves incapable of adjusting to a style of power-politics that did not play by the rules of conventional diplomacy. He had scored a further victory over the conservative forces at home in the military and the Foreign Office. As in March 1935 the caution and timidity in the armed forces' leadership and among the career diplomats had proved misplaced. The Rhineland was the biggest reward yet for boldness. His contempt for the 'professionals' in the army and Foreign Office deepened. His boundless egomania gained another ma.s.sive boost.

The popular euphoria at the news of the reoccupation of the Rhineland far outstripped even the feelings of national celebration in 1933 or 1935 following previous triumphs. People were beside themselves with delight. The initial widespread fear that Hitler's action would bring war was rapidly dissipated. It was almost impossible not to be caught up in the infectious mood of joy. It extended far beyond firm n.a.z.i supporters. Opposition groups were demoralized. New admiration for Hitler, support for his defiance of the west, attack on Versailles, restoration of sovereignty over German territory, and promises of peace were sometimes grudgingly recorded by opponents of the regime.

The 'election' campaign that followed the Rhineland spectacular new elections had been set for 29 March was no more than a triumphant procession for Hitler. Ecstatic, adoring crowds greeted him on his pa.s.sage through Germany. Goebbels outdid himself in the saturation coverage of his propaganda carried into the most outlying villages by armies of activists trumpeting the Fuhrer's great deeds. The 'election' result 98.9 per cent 'for the List and therefore for the Fuhrer' gave Hitler what he wanted: the overwhelming majority of the German people united behind him, ma.s.sive popular support for his position at home and abroad. Though the official figures owed something to electoral 'irregularities', and a good deal more to fear and intimidation, the overwhelming backing for Hitler his enormous popularity now further bolstered by the Rhineland coup could not be gainsaid.

The Rhineland triumph left a significant mark on Hitler. The change that Dietrich, Wiedemann, and others saw in him dated from around this time. From now on he was more than ever a believer in his own infallibility. A sense of his own greatness had been instilled in Hitler by his admirers since the early 1920s. He had readily embraced the aura attached to him. It had offered insatiable nourishment for his already incipient all-consuming egomania. Since then, the internal, and above all the foreign-policy successes, since 1933, accredited by growing millions to the Fuhrer's genius, had immensely magnified the tendency. Hitler swallowed the boundless adulation. He became the foremost believer in his own Fuhrer cult. Hubris that overweening arrogance which courts disaster was inevitable. The point where hubris takes over had been reached by 1936.

Germany had been conquered. It was not enough. Expansion beckoned. World peace would soon be threatened. Everything was coming about as he alone had foreseen it, thought Hitler. He had come to regard himself as ordained by Providence. 'I go with the certainty of a sleepwalker along the path laid out for me by Providence,' he told a huge gathering in Munich on 14 March. His mastery over all other power-groups within the regime was by now well-nigh complete, his position una.s.sailable, his popularity immense. Few at this point had the foresight to realize that the path laid out by Providence led into the abyss.

13.

Ceaseless Radicalization

I.

To shrewd observers, it was clear: Hitler's Rhineland coup had been the catalyst to a major power-shift in Europe; Germany's ascendancy was an unpredictable and highly destabilizing element in the international order; the odds against a new European war in the foreseeable future had markedly shortened.

To the German public, Hitler once more professed himself a man of peace, cleverly insinuating who was to blame for the gathering storm-clouds of war. Speaking to a vast audience in the Berlin l.u.s.tgarten (a huge square in the city centre) on 1 May once an international day of celebration of labouring people, now redubbed the 'National Day of Celebration of the German People' he posed the rhetorical question: 'I ask myself,' he declared, 'who are then these elements who wish to have no rest, no peace, and no understanding, who must continually agitate and sow mistrust? Who are they actually?' Immediately picking up the implication, the crowd bayed: 'The Jews.' Hitler began again: 'I know ...' and was interrupted by cheering that lasted for several minutes. When at last he was able to continue, he picked up his sentence, though the desired effect achieved now in quite different vein: 'I know it is not the millions who would have to take up weapons if the intentions of these agitators were to succeed. Those are not the ones ...'

The summer of 1936 was, however, as. .h.i.tler knew only too well, no time to stir up a new antisemitic campaign. In August, the Olympic Games were due to be staged in Berlin. Sport would be turned into a vehicle of nationalist politics and propaganda as never before. n.a.z.i aesthetics of power would never have a wider audience. With the eyes of the world on Berlin, it was an opportunity not to be missed to present the new Germany's best face to its hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the globe. No expense or effort had been spared in this cause. The positive image could not be endangered by putting the 'dark' side of the regime on view. Open anti-Jewish violence, such as had punctuated the previous summer, could not be permitted. With some difficulties, antisemitism was kept under wraps. The antisemitic zealots in the party had temporarily to be reined in. Other objectives were for the time being more important. Hitler could afford to bide his time in dealing with the Jews.

The Olympics were an enormous propaganda success for the n.a.z.i regime. Hitler's Germany was open to viewing for visitors from all over the world. Most of them went away mightily impressed. Away from the glamour of the Olympic Games and out of the public eye, the contrast with the external image of peaceful goodwill was sharp. By this time, the self-induced crisis in the German economy arising from the inability to provide both for guns and b.u.t.ter to sustain supplies of raw materials both for armaments and for consumption was reaching its watershed. A decision on the economic direction the country would take could not be deferred much longer.

II.

Already by spring 1936, it had become clear that it was no longer possible to reconcile the demands of rapid rearmament and growing domestic consumption. Supplies of raw materials for the armaments industry were sufficient for only two months. Fuel supplies for the armed forces were in a particularly critical state. Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht was by now thoroughly alarmed at the accelerating tempo of rearmament and its inevitably damaging consequences for the economy. Only a sharp reduction in living standards (impossible without endangering the regime's stability) or a big increase in exports (equally impossible given the regime's priorities, exchange rate difficulties, and the condition of external markets) could in his view provide for an expanding armaments industry. He was adamant, therefore, that it was time to put the brakes on rearmament.

The military had other ideas. The leaders of the armed forces, uninterested in the niceties of economics but fully taken up by the potential of modern advanced weaponry, pressed unabatedly for rapid and ma.s.sive acceleration of the armaments programme. The army leaders were not acting in response to pressure from Hitler. They had their own agenda. They were at the same time 'working towards the Fuhrer', consciously or unconsciously acting 'along his lines and towards his aim' in the full knowledge that their rearmament ambitions wholly coincided with his political aims, and that they could depend upon his backing against attempts to throttle back on armament expenditure. Reich War Minister Werner von Blomberg, Colonel-General Werner Freiherr von Fritsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the Army General Staff, were thereby paving the way, in providing the necessary armed might, for the later expansionism which would leave them all trailing in Hitler's wake.

Even so, the economic impa.s.se seemed complete. Huge increases in allocation of scarce foreign currency were demanded by both the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Armaments. The position could not be sustained. Fundamental economic priorities had to be established as a matter of urgency. Autarky and export lobbies could not both be satisfied. Hitler remained for months inactive. He had no patent solution to the problem. The key figure at this point was Goring.

Hoping to keep the party off his back, Schacht helped persuade Hitler to install Goring at the beginning of April as Plenipotentiary for the Securing of the Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange Demands of the Reich. Goring's brief was to overcome the crisis, get rearmament moving again, and force through a policy of autarky in fuel production. But by now Goring was in the driving-seat. Schacht was rapidly becoming yesterday's man. In May, shocked at the new power-base that his own machiavellian manoeuvrings had unwittingly helped to create for Goring, the Economics Minister protested to Hitler. Hitler waved him away. He did not want anything more to do with the matter, he was reported as telling Schacht, and the Economics Minister was advised to take it up with Goring himself. 'It won't go well with Schacht for much longer,' commented Goebbels. 'He doesn't belong in his heart to us.' But Goring, too, he thought would have difficulties with the foreign-exchange and raw-materials issue, pointing out: 'He doesn't understand too much about it.'

It was not necessary that he did. His role was to throw around his considerable weight, force the pace, bring a sense of urgency into play, make things happen. 'He brings the energy. Whether he has the economic know-how and experience as well? Who knows? Anyway, he'll do plenty of bragging,' was Goebbels's a.s.sessment.

Goring soon had a team of technical experts a.s.sembled under Lieutenant-Colonel Fritz Lob of the Luftwaffe. In the research department of Lob's planning team, run by the chemical firm IG-Farben's director Karl Krauch, solutions were rapidly advanced for maximizing production of synthetic fuels and rapidly attaining self-sufficiency in mineral-oil extraction. By midsummer, Lob's planners had come up with a detailed programme for overcoming the unabated crisis. It envisaged a sharp tilt to a more directed economy with distinct priorities built on an all-out drive both to secure the armaments programme and to improve food provisioning through maximum attainable autarky in specific fields and production of subst.i.tute raw materials such as synthetic fuels, rubber, and industrial fats. It was not a war economy; but it was the nearest thing to a war economy in peacetime.

At the end of July, while Hitler was in Bayreuth and Berchtesgaden, Goring had a number of opportunities to discuss with him his plans for the economy. On 30 July he obtained Hitler's agreement to present them with a splash at the coming Reich Party Rally in September.

Hitler had meanwhile become increasingly preoccupied with the looming threat, as he saw it, from Bolshevism, and with the prospect that the mounting international turmoil could lead to war in the nearer rather than more distant future. Whatever tactical opportunism he deployed, and however much he played on the theme for propaganda purposes, there is no doubt that the coming showdown with Bolshevism remained as it had been since the mid-1920s at the latest the lodestar of Hitler's thinking on foreign policy. In 1936, this future t.i.tanic struggle started to come into sharper focus.

After meeting the j.a.panese amba.s.sador in Berlin early in June, Hitler repeated his view that deepening conflict was on the way in the Far East, though he now thought that j.a.pan would 'thrash' Russia. At that point, 'this colossus will start to totter. And then our great hour will have arrived. Then we must supply ourselves with land for 100 years,' he told Goebbels. 'Let's hope we're ready then,' the Propaganda Minister added in his diary notes, 'and that the Fuhrer is still alive. So that action will be taken.'

By this time, events in Spain were also focusing Hitler's attention on the threat of Bolshevism. Until then, he had scarcely given a thought to Spain. But on the evening of 25 July, his decision against the advice of the Foreign Office to send aid to General Franco committed Germany to involvement in what was rapidly to turn into the Spanish Civil War.

On 17 July army garrisons in Spanish Morocco rose against the elected government. The Commander-in-Chief of the army in Morocco, General Francisco Franco, put himself next morning at the head of the rebellion. But a mutiny of sailors loyal to the Republic denied him the transport facilities he needed to get his army to the mainland, most of which remained in Republican hands. The few planes he was able to lay hands upon did not amount to much in terms of an airlift. In these unpropitious circ.u.mstances, Franco turned to Mussolini and Hitler. It took over a week to overcome Mussolini's initial refusal to help the Spanish rebels. Hitler was persuaded within a matter of hours. Ideological and strategic considerations the likelihood of Bolshevism triumphing on the Iberian peninsula were uppermost in his mind. But the potential for gaining access to urgently needed raw materials for the rearmament programme an aspect emphasized by Goring also appears to have played its part in the decision.

In contrast to the position of the Foreign Ministry, Hitler had convinced himself that the dangers of being sandwiched between two Bolshevik blocs outweighed the risks of German involvement in the Spanish crisis even if, as seemed likely, it should turn into ful