PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland

Source D
A Nazi theorist explains that Hitler’s dictatorship is not ‘legal’.
The office of Fuhrer has developed out of the National Socialist movement. In its
origins it is not a state office. The office of Fuhrer has grown out of the movement
into the Reich … The position of Fuhrer combines in itself all sovereign power of the
Reich: all public power in the state as in the movement is derived from the Fuhrer’s
power …’Fuhrer power’ is comprehensive and total: it unites within itself all means
of creative political activity: it embraces all spheres of national life.
(from Politics and Economics in the Nazi State, 1933-45, G Layton, Hodder and
Stoughton 1992)
Source E
Vice Chancellor von Papen on Hitler’s rule in November 1933.
We, your nearest and most intimate colleagues, are still spellbound by the
unparalleled, most overwhelming recognition, a nation has ever rendered its leader.
In nine months the genius of your leadership and the ideals which you newly placed
before us have succeeded in creating, from a people internally torn and without hope,
a Reich united in hope and faith in its future. Even those who hitherto stood apart
have now unequivocally professed their loyalty to you …
(from National Socialist Rule in Germany, Norbert Frei, Blackwall, 1993)
Source F
A contemporary on the responsibility for the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934.
The suppression of the Rohm revolt has been like a purifying thunderstorm. The
nightmare which has burdened the people has been followed by a liberating sign of
relief … Wide sections of the population, however, have been deeply shocked by the
shooting of persons completely unconnected with the Rohm revolt. It is realised that
these were excesses, which took place without the knowledge and against the will of
the Fuehrer and leading figures.
(from National Socialist Rule in Germany, Norbert Frei, Blackwall, 1993)
Source G
Albert Speer on Hitler’s lifestyle in the 1930s.
When, I would often ask myself, did he really work ? Little was left of the day; he
rose late in the morning, conducted one or two official conferences; but from the
subsequent dinner on he more or less wasted his time until the early hours of the
evening. His rare appointments in the late afternoon were imperilled by his passion
for looking at building plans. The adjutants often asked me: ‘please don’t show any
plans today’… In the eyes of the people Hitler was the Leader who watched over the
nation day and night. This was hardly so … According to my observations, he often
allowed a problem to mature during the weeks when he seemed to be entirely taken up
with trivial matters. Then after the ‘sudden insight’, he would spend a few days of
incisive work giving final shape to his solution … Once he had come to a decision, he
lapsed again into his idleness.
(from Hitler and Nazism, Jane Jenkins, Longman, 1998)
History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 75