The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Chapter 7: The Nazification of Germany: 1933 – 1934 Summary

Book Two: Triumph and Consolidation

• Hitler had now achieved a fair bit of success in his plan to become Germany's dictator, but he still shared his political power with three other authorities in Germany: The President, the Reichstag, and the armed forces.
• With that in mind, Hitler's goal was to get rid of them and make himself, as head of the party, the absolute authoritarian head of state.
• First, Hitler manipulated both the parliamentary members of the Reichstag and President Paul von Hindenburg into calling another election.
• In these elections, the Nazi Party had more influence and resources at its disposal than it ever had before. Not surprisingly, it made full use of them.
• Hitler and his cronies were now convinced that the time had come to squash the "Red terror" once and for all—not only because they opposed Communist ideology, but because the Communist Party stood in the way of further Nazi gains in the polls.
• The government, under Hitler, began to ban Communist meetings and the Communist press, and also banned or broke up Social Democratic rallies, among others. During this period, at least 51 "anti-Nazis" were murdered.
• On top of that, Hermann Goering—whom Hitler had made Minister of the Interior of Prussia—removed hundreds of members of the republican government and replaced them with S.A. and S.S. members.
• As Shirer explains, the Nazis were trying to provoke a Communist revolution—one that they could then shoot down. When it didn't materialize, they decided to take matters into their own hands.

The Reichstag Fire

• In February 1933, the Reichstag was set on fire.
• The Nazis immediately declared that it was the work of Communists, and set about rounding up Communist officials to punish.
• Although Shirer admits that the we'll never know the whole truth about the fire, it's pretty clear that the Nazis were the arsonists.
• Shirer pieces together what can be known for sure about the Reichstag fire, arguing that the idea for it almost certainly started with Goebbels and Goering.
• He then describes the public fallout from the fire, and explains how Hitler used it as an excuse to remove the German people's civil liberties.
• On February 28, the day after the fire, President Hindenburg signed a decree which not only suspended all sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties, but also empowered the Reich to impose the death penalty for crimes such as seriously disturbing the peace.
• Very scary.
• Not only was Hitler now able to arrest his opponents at will, but he made sure that the people would be so afraid of a Communist takeover that they'd vote or the Nazi Party in the next elections.
• As the Nazi election campaign continued, there were mass arrests of Communists, Social Democrats, and liberal leaders.
• Meanwhile, the Nazis continued to disseminate their own propaganda, holding rallies and parades plastering posters everywhere, and making good use of the state-controlled radio.
• Even with all the propaganda and intimidation, most Germans still rejected Hitler at the polls.
• The Nazi Party had increased its votes, but it still won only 44% percent of the grand total.
• In the end, however, the seats won by the Nationalists and the National Socialists combined gave Hitler enough of a majority in the Reichstag to be in control of the day-to-day operations of the government.

Gleichschaltung: The 'Co-Ordination' of the Reich

• Hitler convinced the Reichstag to grant him even more power than he already had.
• "The plan was deceptively simple," Shirer writes, "and had the advantage of cloaking the seizure of absolute power in legality. The Reichstag would be asked to pass an 'enabling act' conferring on Hitler's cabinet exclusive legislative powers for four years. Put even more simply, the German Parliament would be requested to turn over its constitutional functions to Hitler and take a long vacation." (2.7.41)
• A long vacation for sure.
• As Hitler plotted the upcoming downfall of the Reichstag, he also made a grand symbolic gesture—totally false, of course—that was meant to demonstrate his respect for German tradition.
• As Shirer explains, he decided to stage an elaborate ceremony to open the new Reichstag (which he was about to destroy) in the Garrison Church at Potsdam.
• This church had been the parish church of the Prussian royals, so Hitler hoped the ceremony would bring back Germans' memories of the good old days of German glory and grandeur.
• Shirer then turns back to the Nazi "Enabling Act," and explains the political and legal powers that it gave to Hitler. When it passed, Shirer argues, that was the end of parliamentary democracy in Germany.
• Germany's other institutions rapidly dissolved, and Hitler took control of Germany's individual states by deposing their governments and replacing them with Nazi regimes.
• It took Hitler just two weeks to abolished the separate powers of the German states and subordinate them to the Reich, which he now controlled.
• Next, Hitler oversaw the dissolution of Germany's other major political parties, so that by the end of July 1933, only the Nazi Party remained.
• After Germany's non-Nazi political parties, the trade unions were the next to go.
• At this point, though, tensions started to brew in the Nazi Party once more, as there were still some factions that believed in the "socialist" aspect of the party's name.

"No Second Revolution!"

• In this section, Shirer explains how Hitler stamped out the remaining factions in the National Socialist Party who still believed that the party should take its "socialism" seriously.
• He sums up the political situation in the summer of 1933: "The Nazis had destroyed the Left, but the Right remained: big business and finance, the aristocracy, the Junker landlords and the Prussian generals who kept tight rein over the Army. Roehm, Goebbels and the other 'radicals' in the movement wanted to liquidate them too." (2.7.86)
• But did Hitler? Not so much. The would-be Fuehrer had no truly socialist values, and he preferred to appease the leaders of Germany's remaining institutions—for the time being, at least. Hitler was savvy enough to know that he should not do anything that might bankrupt the country and put his regime at risk.
• With this in mind, Hitler commanded the Nazi Party's members to abandon any ideas about a "second revolution"—i.e., a revolution that would redistribute land and capital in Germany in a socialist action.
• Tensions were also rising between Hitler and Ernst Roehm, who was running the S.A. Roehm wanted to do away with the traditional German Army and put the Nazi S.A. in its place, creating a new fighting force which he himself would lead.
• Hitler, on the other hand, knew that he'd only come to power because the Army had allowed it, and that they could depose him at any time.
• He also knew that he'd need their support when the time came for him to seize even greater power—a time that he predicted would occur when the aging President Hindenburg finally died.
• Hitler and Roehm, close friends, were at odds in this power struggle.

The Beginnings of Nazi Foreign Policy

• In this section, Shirer examines how the "Nazification" of Germany affected the nation's foreign policy.
• He begins by reviewing Germany's relationship to the world at large, and to Europe especially, noting that in 1933, the Third Reich was isolated and had little power on the world stage. Its army was small compared to others in Europe.
• Hitler developed a strategy that would aim to reassure and confuse his international counterparts.
• What was that strategy? Lies, natch.
• He decided to begin by giving speeches about peace and disarmament.
• One of his first tactical maneuvers was the "Peace Speech" that he delivered in May 1933.
• The American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had recently sent out a statement to the leaders of 44 nations about disarmament and peace.
• Hitler's speech responded in kind, and declared to the world that Germany was totally willing to participate in disarmament.
• In return, he demanded that Germany be treated equally to other nations, especially in their acquisition of arms.
• If that demand wasn't met, he'd pack up his briefcase and go home, withdrawing from the League of Nations and any disarmament agreements.
• In other words, Hitler was announcing his refusal to abide by the dictates of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany would disarm if everyone else did, but in the meantime, it demanded the right to arm itself like everyone else.
• In Shirer's view, this subtle warning was forgotten because other nations were happily surprised at how reasonable Hitler sounded.
• The rejoicing was premature, of course—a fact which became obvious just five months later, when the Allies made it clear that they'd bring their military resources down to Germany's level—in about eight years.
• Hitler seized the Allied announcement as the excuse he needed, and announced Germany's withdrawal from both the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations.
• Although Hitler was now openly in defiance of the Versailles conditions, no international sanctions were applied to Germany.
• In Shirer's view, this was one of the many opportunities that the Allies lost in the years when they could have curbed Hitler's ambitions without resorting to bloodshed.
• Hitler now began to set the stage for his future dealings with Poland.
• In the middle of November 1933, the German and Polish governments issued a joint communiqué in which they declared their intentions to deal with their problems diplomatically and set aside the use of force.
• As Shirer reminds us, Hitler's ultimate goal was to destroy Poland, but before he could do that, he'd need to make sure that the country's alliance with France was ended.
• By pretending to lay the groundwork for strong one-on-one relations between Germany and Poland, Shirer argues, Hitler hoped to create rifts in Europe's united front.
• Shirer sums up this section by recapping all of Hitler's significant accomplishments during his first year as Chancellor.
• He concludes that not only had Hitler managed to quickly bring "under Nazi rule the political, economic, cultural and social life of an ancient and cultivated people," he'd done it all with next to no resistance. (2.7.123)

The Blood Purge of June 30, 1934 

• Hitler may not have met with strong resistance during his first year as Chancellor, but by the summer of 1934, Shirer tells us, clouds were gathering on the horizon.
• As Shirer explains, those clouds were caused by three unresolved issues: the radical wing of the party clamoring for the socialist revolution; the rivalry between the S.A. and the Army; and the question of who would succeed President Hindenburg.
• Ernst Roehm—whom Hitler had recently appointed to a cabinet position—had continued to agitate for the creation of a new People's Army. The officers of the actual German army were appalled.
• Hitler himself refused to satisfy his friend's ambitions, and, as Shirer explains, he was finding himself in a politically sticky situation.
• President Hindenburg was obviously on his last legs, and Hitler knew that both the President himself and many other powerful conservatives wanted to see the Hohenzollern monarchy restored after the Hindenburg passed away.
• Hitler didn't want to see the monarchy restored: he wanted to claim absolute power for himself. In order to do so, he'd need the German Army's backing, and he knew it.
• Not only was Hitler unwilling to support Roehm's proposal to create a People's Army, but he was willing to do almost anything to ensure that the Army would help him to gain the power he wanted.
• As Shirer explains, Hitler arranged to meet with the top brass of Germany's armed forces, and he assured them that if they'd support his bid for power after President Hindenburg's death, he'd drastically reduce the S.A. and guarantee the Army and Navy they'd be the only armed force in Germany.
• The ruse worked.
• The most senior officers of the German Army unanimously endorsed Hitler as President Hindenburg's successor.
• Hitler was now faced with a difficult decision. Roehm and Goebbels were still pushing for the second revolution. Other struggles for power were erupting within the Nazi Party, and the party's stability was being threatened from the outside, too.
• Shirer describes the measures that Hitler took during the last weekend of June 1934 to rid himself of his troublesome problems once and for all.
• Those measures have gone down in history as a "blood purge": a weekend of death and terror in which Hitler arranged for the murder of any people—Roehm among them—who stood in his way.
• It's hard to give us a precise figure for the number of murders that occurred during the purge, but Shire estimates it to be anywhere from 77 to over 1000.
• What's certain is that Roehm, General Schleicher, Gregor Strasser, and Gustav von Kahr were among the dead.
• As Shirer notes, most of the murdered were killed because of their opposition to Hitler or because they knew too much about Hitler's underhanded dealings.
• Although Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Heinrich Himmler claimed that Roehm had been planning to carry out an armed coup with the Nazi Storm Troopers, Shirer argues that there's no evidence to support this.
• Hitler received no condemnation for his actions. In fact, he received the hearty congratulations of President Hindenburg, who, having swallowed the lies about Roehm's planned coup, thanked Hitler for having rescued the German people from the danger posed by all these traitors.
• Shirer concludes this section by evaluating the actions of the Army in encouraging, and then condoning, an unprecedented massacre. He wonders again about how the German Army ever thought it could control Hitler.

The Death of Hindenburg

• Three hours after Hindenburg's death, a public announcement declared that a law had been passed merging the offices of Chancellor and President and that you-know-who had installed himself in that position. Interestingly, the law had been passed the day before.
• Hitler had no plans to call himself the President of the Republic, and instead took the title of Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor. He was now the head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
• Shirer spends some time discussing the political testament that the late President Hindenburg had left behind, and explains that Hitler suppressed aspects of it from public view—like the fact that Hindenburg had called for a restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy.
• Next, Shirer notes that although Hitler's law merging the offices of the Chancellor and the President was illegal, no one in any position of power seems to have raised any objections.
• He then recounts the plebiscite that Hitler held in August 1934, in which 90% of the voters approved Hitler's annexation of total power.
• At a Nuremburg rally in early September 1934, the Nazis declared triumphantly that the German way of life was now set for the next thousand years.