By Veronica Clark
Published: 2011-10-01
What exactly
did the NSDAP (National Socialist German Worker's Party) represent and who were
its founding members? Why and how did Adolf Hitler transform the party from an
unimpressive proletariat workers’ party to a full-fledged political machine
that obtained absolute power in Germany? Perhaps more important, how was it
funded? We answer these questions in this introduction. But first, we begin
with an examination of the early stages of the NSDAP and its recruiting
process. One must understand how this process unfolded if one is to understand
the NSDAP’s position on Judaism and Freemasonry as well as the prevailing
social and political order of the day. Naturally, we also reveal some of the
other important aspects of its early development, which necessitates a fair
amount of myth busting about Hitler, including who actually gave him money.
Triumvirate: Leadership, development and unity
Adolf Hitler, contrary to his
own self-myths and the myths of others, was not poor—at least not until he had
drained his savings and entitlements gallivanting in Vienna. Many historians
have written that Hitler simply lived day-to-day wasting both his money and
time, but in so doing they overlook Hitler’s experiences and ‘life education’
that later played such an important role in the development and direction of
National Socialism as well as the Second World War. The development and
direction of both can be traced to Hitler’s experiences during those “lost”
years.
Hitler, like so many other
young German men and women of his day, fell from middle-class status into that
of the “wretched proletariat.” This was something that young Hitler refused to
accept. He was deeply embittered by his Vienna experiences, which offered false
promises of prosperity and hope for young people with enough willpower and talent.
The prevailing dissonance of the time and place in which he grew up inculcated
in him a burning desire to change these circumstances, which is precisely what
he did after 1933. Hitler was so resentful of the class-ridden society that was
Vienna, and Austria and Europe generally, that one of his key aims throughout
both the peace and war years was cultivating a system of merit. One’s birth
station was not what mattered. What mattered were one’s talent, loyalty,
dependability and fortitude, notably in the face of adversity and uncertainty.
Hitler was able to overcome most imbedded class barriers in two distinct ways:
1. He recruited both men and
women from all social classes and accordingly tailored his speech and
disposition to each, depending on his/her social standing.
2. He supplanted economic
valuation with racial valuation.
Let’s look at the first point.
Hitler needed the broadest spectrum of German society he could get, so this
meant that he needed to appeal to men, women, young, old, wealthy, poor, unemployed
and employed alike. Women were amongst Hitler’s most devoted and fervent
supporters in the early years. So were low-wage earners, small businessmen and
foreign nobles, such as White Russian émigrés who wished to see the return of
the Russian monarchy. They provided Hitler with a physical audience, elite and
business connections and monetary support, most of which ended up being granted
in the form of loans. Hitler needed industrialists as much as he needed the
workers, elites and disenfranchised foreigners. Since his goal was to raise the
station of all lower-class ethnic Germans, he had to win them all together,
which required a strategy of multi-class appeal. When he met and spoke with
counts, duchesses and other members of the former royalty, he addressed them in
a royal manner. His etiquette, speech and personal manners proved impeccable in
such company. When he met or spoke with industrialists, such as Fritz Thyssen,
he tailored his behavior and manner to match that of the hopes and fears of industrialist
Germany. At the same time he was careful to scale back his socialistic language
in such company, so that the industrialists would not misidentify him as a
Marxist-Communist. He had to convince them that he would crush
Marxist-Communism and uphold their industrial power base in the face of the
growing mass of disenchanted, underpaid workers who felt they were being
cheated and exploited by German industry. Whenever things got economically
tough, the workers suffered wage and benefit cuts. They blamed the
industrialists, but Hitler saw that the industrialists were also suffering:
many went bankrupt during the inflation as well as during the Great Depression.
The crippling Versailles reparations forced most German industrialists and
exporters into an untenable economic position, which in turn harmed German
workers. This meant that Hitler had to at least hint at future German
rearmament, which was covertly occurring anyway. On the other hand, Hitler had
to promise the workers, his single largest and most important support base in
almost every respect in the formative years, that he would not allow the state
or industry to exploit them or continue treating them as automatons. We can see
that balancing the wants and needs of these three core sectors of class-ridden
Germany was far from simple. But Hitler did it, and nearly bloodlessly
(relative to the Communist revolutions in Russia and throughout Eastern
Europe).
Now to the second point:
Hitler had to come up with a unifying ideology for Germanic peoples. This task
seems simple in retrospect, because Germany was a homogenous society by today’s
standards. However, back then this was not how the German situation was seen.
Germany may have been racially homogenous, but class antagonisms were so
deep-seated that few if any German elites and nobles were interested in sharing
political or social power with lower-class and middle-class Germans. The
Junkers (estates Lords) treated their farmhands (serfs) as second- or
third-class citizens and ordered them to pack up and get out if they dared to
vote against their landlord employers. According to James and Suzanne Pool's
research, many of the Junkers, notably the friends of von Hindenburg, refused
to discontinue living the feudal order, which helped fuel the growing mass
discontent for monarchy. This only served the interests of republicans and
Freemasons, both of whom wished to see the end of monarchy for good. We will
discuss their motivations later. For now it is enough to say that their motives
were far from benevolent. German class divisions trumped any sort of racial or
ethnic solidarity. Not surprisingly, one finds that the desire to unite all
Germans as racial comrades was a desire shared almost entirely amongst the
lower and middle classes, and even many middle-class Germans did everything
they could to cling to their bourgeois life station, even if it meant keeping
the lower-classes downtrodden. As one can see, Hitler’s goal was anything but
simple.
How, then, did Hitler unite
Germans? And how successful was he? Hitler united Germans by invoking an
ideological concept similar to Italy’s Romanita, as espoused by Benito
Mussolini. Hitler’s concept was Nordicism: the basic, simplified premise
of which was that all Germanic peoples were united by their Nordic racial
component, and because they were united by this common “race soul” or blood
component, how could they fight or be divided? While such a unifying idea
sounded feasible and reasonable to many, some resisted nonetheless. The
Junkers, former nobility, and many other business elites in Germany saw Hitler
as nothing other than a lowly former corporal who had no clout given his petit
bourgeois (lower middle-class) upbringing. Hitler was only partially successful
in uniting all Germans as Volksgenossen. His lack of complete success in
this regard, an unattainable goal to be sure, later proved to be his undoing.
Elites amongst the officer corps did immeasurable damage to Hitler and his war
effort, but the story of their treachery and sabotage is beyond the scope of
this discussion.
Might Hitler have been more
successful had he been more racially inclusive early on? Not necessarily.
Mussolini, unlike Hitler, was not racially exclusive at any point and expended
a great deal of effort and time attempting to recruit non-Italians to the
Italian fascist cause. He was largely unsuccessful, especially in Ethiopia—this
in spite of the fact that he had Ethiopians trained as pilots (before the
Tuskegee Airmen even came into being) and promised them higher status within a
Fascist Italian Empire. We may deduce from this example that Hitler having
merely extended his hand openly in the beginning to non-Germans would not have
guaranteed National Socialism’s political or military success. Mussolini did so
and his tolerant hand was rejected. Indeed the U.S. and Britain did not win the
Second World War due to non-white conscription, but because they supported and
funded the Soviet war machine and were willing to bomb Germany
indiscriminately. Anyway, this brings us back to our main point, which is that
unifying a body of people, regardless of whether it is homogenous or diverse,
is no easy task. Hitler was only able to convince the lower and middle classes
that racial value must supersede economic (class) value. Most of the German
elites were never won over to his Nordicism.
So, what does all of this
mean? First, it means that a party that wishes to succeed in a Western
Liberal-Democratic context must appeal to women and men both, citizens of all
ages, and all social classes. A sensible and serious leader and party cannot
afford to leave any group out. Naturally this all depends on the individual
nation and citizenry in question, as Hitler’s brand of politics and leadership
were formed with a specific time, culture, people and place in mind. It was not
intended for export, but for adaptation in multiple contexts. Hitler’s brand of
politics was in fact largely modeled after Mussolini’s as well as the
leadership of the Austrian mayor Karl Lueger.
Second, it means that the
masses are more important to a party’s success than the elites, because of
their numbers. Only the masses have the power to invoke fear in the upper-class
by threatening to support violent revolutionary parties and organizations,
which are often led and funded by hostile fifth-columnists. The Communist Party
(KPD) was the only party besides Hitler’s that evoked genuine fear in the elite
classes of Germany. Hitler and the NSDAP could not be ignored for the very
reason that they, besides the Marxist-Communists, had the largest mass
following in Germany at the time. Industrialists could not afford to anger or
rebuff Hitler and the NSDAP; if they did, then Hitler’s followers would quickly
have swelled the ranks of the Communists or perhaps have even overthrown him,
as Ernst Röhm and many SA members wished to do. Hitler’s party was the only
non-Communist, nationalist party that offered the lower and middle classes a
better standing in German society. Given Hitler’s ability to keep the
overwhelming majority of his followers in line and loyal meant that he alone
could prevent a transitional bloodbath, which is what most of the upper-class
Germans feared the most. And this is exactly what he did. What’s important to
bear in mind, however, is that Hitler needed a credible threat to maintain his
personal and political leverage over the upper classes and big business.
Without the Communists to threaten them via mass upheaval and bloodshed, the
industrialists and former nobility had little reason other than patriotism to
support Hitler and the NSDAP.
Third, a citizenry that wishes
to remain united needs a party that can accomplish this. Bavarians wanted to
secede from Germany and become an independent state. Big business demanded an
end to the Junker estates that squandered numerous government bailouts and
demanded trade tariffs that harmed German industry. The Junkers did not care
whether the industrialists suffered, so long as their estates were still in
their name and they could live a lavish lifestyle of luxury at the German
taxpayers’ expense. To mediate such divisiveness, Hitler invoked Nordicism,
which called on Germans to recognize and value their blood ties instead of
their social standing (based on wealth). This unifying ideology provided Hitler
with the necessary means to develop a system of merit: one could rise to the
top of National Socialist society regardless of one’s parents’ or personal
finances, because one was equal to all other Germans from the racial
point-of-view. Hitler’s German racialism and anti-Semitism were the practical
means for achieving classless unity among formerly divided Germans. Hitler used
a similar approach later on with the Waffen-SS. He turned an exclusively German
organizational concept (the Allgemeine SS) into an international, multiethnic
idea by uniting everyone who participated against Jewish-Bolshevism, the enemy
of “all peoples.”
Hitler salutes marching
National Socialists in Weimar, October 1930.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-10541 / Unknown / CC-BY-SA [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons
Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-10541 / Unknown / CC-BY-SA [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons
Initial member recruitment
Like any grassroots party, the
NSDAP developed organically from amongst a handful of hardcore ideologues, the
primary catalyst having been Adolf Hitler. But the NSDAP did not spring up on
its own; it instead arose from out of a party that already had a platform,
leadership core, and small committed following. This was the German Workers’
Party led by Anton Drexler. Hitler was actually appointed by the Army to spy on
the German Workers’ Party. The Army was interested in two things: locating
nationalists for its own designs and rooting out Communists who threatened to
turn Germany into a subservient satellite of Moscow. Hitler’s speaking skills
and interest in politics led the Army to select him for this covert task. He
took a liking to Drexler and many of his ideas, so he finally signed up and was
issued a membership card with his name and membership number on it, a tradition
that Hitler maintained in his NSDAP. While Hitler began his political career as
the propagandist for the Workers’ party, he was quick to identify the party’s
main problems: it appealed to too few and had no outreach venue other than
speaking engagements, which were often drab. He therefore focused on developing
his own talents, which surpassed Drexler’s, and forming his own designs for the
Workers’ party; hence the birth of the NSDAP. Hitler was quick to capitalize on
Drexler’s connections to wealthy Thule Society members. He did not join Thule,
but requested their patronage. They alone significantly enhanced the potential
for what was now his party to appeal to upper-class Germans, who, in
turn, also helped fund the party. After he quit the Army, Hitler threw himself
into the development of the NSDAP with unbounded determination.
While Drexler and his core
focused entirely on winning over German workers, Hitler had eyes for larger
audiences and outreach. His relationships with White Russian émigrés, wealthy
Thule members, and especially Gottfried Feder (economist) and Dietrich Eckart
(philosopher and writer) proved invaluable in his acquisition of the bankrupt Völkischer
Beobachter (VB). Feder together with two other early NSDAP members
owned 30,000 shares of the VB. Dietrich Eckart was able to obtain a loan
for RM 60,000 from the sympathetic General Ritter von Epp to acquire the VB.
The rest of the RM 120,000 price tag came from an industrialist named Dr.
Gottfried Grandel, who was won over by Hitler’s personal appeal to him. Eckart
likely helped out too, along with Dr. Gutberlet (who pledged RM 5,000).
According to the Pools,
Hitler’s early supporters came from a wide range of classes, nationalities and
ethnic backgrounds. Numerous wealthy White Russian émigrés, who had Thule
contacts, formed an alliance with the NSDAP and allegedly raised “vast sums of
money” for Hitler—i.e. according to an official 1923 file note. There was Henry
Ford, who was anti-Jewish and wished to spread his message to receptive
nations. Benito Mussolini’s personal agents were known to have established
contact with NSDAP members in Germany, likely in order to arrange the transfer
of financial support from the Duce. The Russian Grand Duchess Victoria, who was
pro-monarchy and anti-Bolshevik, gave Hitler money. Sir Henry Deterding of
Royal Dutch Shell Corporation offered Hitler vast amounts of money in 1931, ‘32
and ‘33 in exchange for a guarantee that he would regain his expropriated oil
interests from the Bolsheviks at some future point in time. The amount was
likely between 30 and 55 million pounds sterling. Deterding was so pro-German
that he ended up marrying a National Socialist woman and even moved to Germany.
He, like so many other German elites, realized that only an assertive foreign
policy could secure Germany’s economic survival in a world in which France and
England had a monopoly over one-quarter of the globe and were determined to
crush Germany’s global competitiveness.
The Germans had tried
everything else, including complying with the Versailles reparations, which was
de facto theft. This “treaty” was in fact designed with one goal in
mind: the permanent crippling of German industrial competition. Ernst Röhm was
a fervent German nationalist who channeled Army funds to the NSDAP via various
front organizations. The Thule Society, which was pan-Germanic and nationalist,
not only contributed members to the NSDAP but helped it raise a lot of money.
The two German jewelers Josef Füss and Herr Gahr supported Hitler. A certain
Mr. Pöschl, a small businessman, gave to Hitler early on. Quirin Diestl was
another early supporter who gave small funds. Oscar Koerner, a toy shop owner,
likewise gave money to the NSDAP. Dr. Friedrich Krohn, a dentist, gave as much
as he could. Adolf Müller helped the NSDAP keep the VB going by endlessly
extending credit to Hitler. Ms. Hoffmann, the widow of a headmaster,
contributed regularly. Numerous friends of General Ludendorff, a Thule member,
provided the NSDAP with funding. A significant number of prominent foreigners
and German nationals living or working in Austria, Britain, Czechoslovakia,
Finland, France, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Switzerland, Sweden and America gave
Hitler money, much of it via Winifred Wagner, Kurt Lüdecke and Hungarian
nationalists like Gömbös. The German Free Corps members gave Hitler money, and
so did many Stahlhelm members. Several right-wing German business interests,
such as Emil Kirdorf of the covert Ruhrlade group, gave Hitler money, along
with many business interests that usually supported Alfred Hugenberg (a man who
tried to use Hitler for his own ends). There was also General Ritter von Epp,
who helped Dietrich Eckart and the NSDAP purchase the VB; Dr. Emil Gansser, who
had connections to wealthy Protestants; Admiral Schröder, a former naval
commander; Baron Sebottendorf, who had connections to J. F. Lehmann (a Thule
member, financier and publisher for the German Navy) and sympathetic naval
officers; Herr Schaffer, who acquired weapons for Hitler’s SA; Kurt Lüdecke,
and through him two Jewish arms dealers who were either 1) not privy to who
Lüdecke was or 2) had no reason to fear Hitler (this was the early 1920s after
all); possibly the Duke of Anhalt and Count Fugger; Ernst Hanfstaengl, a
wealthy Harvard graduate with numerous American connections and some wealth of
his own; the wealthy Magda Quandt, who married Joseph Goebbels and who had
elite connections; Fritz Thyssen, who later denied that he gave substantial
sums to Hitler and Göring, in 1929 and off and on throughout the 1930s, both of
whom he liked very much; and so forth.
No Warburgs. No Rothschilds.
No Rockefellers. While the Rockefellers indirectly came into Hitler’s financial
sphere by way of Standard Oil technical investments and the Warburgs via I. G.
Farben and J. H. Stein later on, neither gave Hitler any financial
support before 1933. And neither directly supported or paid Hitler at any point
in time. The Sidney Warburg story is pure fabrication. Fritz Thyssen and some
of Hugenberg’s heavy industrial connections, not James Warburg, gave Hitler
substantial monetary gifts in 1929 (at least RM 1,250,000) and Deterding and
several German coal companies took care of Hitler in the early 1930s. While
Hitler spent a vast amount on campaigning, he was by no means rolling in
untraceable money. All of his funding was carefully accounted for and most of
it came from VB advertising; party dues, insurance, and speaking fees; Gregor
Strasser’s left-wing faction, which received RM 10,000 per month in 1931; the
good will of VB publisher Adolf Müller; and the financial frugality of party
treasurer Franz Schwarz, whose meticulous party financial records were
destroyed. The Americans interrogated him so brutally that he died in 1946 in
British captivity. His records denoting even Hitler’s anonymous donors never
turned up anywhere. The Pools suspect that the American occupiers destroyed
them.
As for Goebbels’s remark on 17
January 1932 that the finances of the party “suddenly improved,” this was not
exactly true. The truth is that the party’s credit line suddenly improved, and
this was thanks to the maneuverings of Franz von Papen and Baron Kurt von
Schröder with his syndicate of investors, including a number of prominent heavy
industrialists, the Hamburg-America Steamship Line, the Stein Bank of Cologne,
Commerz und Privat Bank, the Gelsenkirchen Mine Company, Deutsche Bank,
Reichskredit-Gesellschaft Bank, Allianz Insurance, members of the potash
industry, the Brabag Coal Company, Deutsches Erdöl, and a number of other
brown-coal industrialists. While Hitler tolerated fifth-column banks like M. M.
Warburg and the Temple Bank (a special account created for the Temple Society
by the Reichsbank to fund Ha’avara emigration), he eventually restricted and
regulated their business opportunities and forced them to assist with financing
Jewish emigration. Hitler’s goal was to increasingly inhibit and thereby
financially squeeze the foreign banks until they were unable to exist any
longer and had to relocate outside Germany—the same policy he employed to
encourage Jewish emigration and business closures. One such example was the
Germanization (i.e. German takeover) of two Jewish ironworks plants in the Rhön
region in 1937.
Moving on to the actual
recruitment process, potential recruits were approached on the streets and at
meetings and speaking engagements. They were given flyers or pamphlets.
Sometimes Hitler or other core members of the party were invited to speak or
converse privately with industrialists or nobles who were interested in a
non-Communist, nationalist party. Contrary to myths like that concerning Sidney
Warburg, Hitler and the right-wing faction of the NSDAP did not receive as much
industrial or banker funding, before 1933, as the Strasser brothers, the Social
Democrats (SPD) or even Hugenberg’s Nationalist Party. The reason why Hitler
and the NSDAP never received the same level of financial or moral support early
on was three-fold: (a) the industrialists and many Junkers did not trust Hitler
given his socialist stance on many issues; (b) most industrialists and Junkers
were not financially threatened enough to back a revolutionary party like Hitler’s
(they were still satisfied with the status quo); and (c) they were leery of his
anti-Jewish stance.
Back to recruitment: most
potential recruits and financial supporters heard about Hitler and the NSDAP
via word of mouth. Nothing else was as effective as this. When men like
Scheubner-Richter, Schacht, Borsig, Kirdorf and Thyssen recommended the NSDAP
and personally endorsed Hitler, wealthy and other upper- and middle-class
Germans were willing to seriously consider Hitler and his party. Hitler was
invited to speak to heavy industrialists in 1927 by word of mouth in fact. He
even wrote a secret pamphlet intended only for this industrial-capitalist
audience, which they then passed around to others. Besides active word-of-mouth
campaigning, the NSDAP also placed posters everywhere they could, promoted
speaking engagements and other party activities and viewpoints in their
newspaper, sold various odds and ends to raise small funds (e.g. various items
like soap with NSDAP packaging), and sent wealthier members abroad to raise
funds from German expats and foreign sympathizers. Kurt Lüdecke excelled at
this form of campaigning.
In the very beginning, Hitler
and the NSDAP targeted veterans, farmers, workers, young men, noblemen and
-women, small businessmen and -women and pensioners. These were the social
classes who were initially the most receptive, due to the economy and
prevailing anti-monarchism, but later on Hitler’s support base included wealthy
elites, heavy industrialists, fascist and monarchist foreigners, landed
Junkers, veterans’ organizations, the German Army and Navy and even Montagu
Norman, a prominent English banker and personal friend of Hjalmar Schacht who,
according to both his private secretary Ernest Skinner and Émile Moreau,
despised Jews, the French and Roman Catholics. He unabashedly refused to assist
France’s treasury with anything and proved willing and able to arrange
financing for the NSDAP by way of his connections to Bruno von Schröder
(Schroder Bank), Kurt von Schröder (Stein Bank) and the Bank of England (F. C.
Tiarks and M. Norman himself). Norman had strong sympathy for the Germans which
dated back to his days as a student in Dresden, and naturally offered to
financially assist and thereby stabilize the new government that his friend
Schacht had openly supported since 1931. Since Hitler was hostile to France (he
saw the French as Foreign Enemy Number One), friendly to Britain (which he did
not feel was a threat), and discriminatory towards Jews, the three things that
Norman found favorable, he recommended that Kurt von Schröder extend credit to
Hitler’s party, which now controlled the government. Schacht was Hitler’s de
facto lifeline in this respect, a nationalist German banker who had his own
designs for German recovery, but who was also personally impressed with
Hitler’s speeches and mass appeal, which no other politician possessed.
As for Hitler’s initial
support, many farmers were burdened by debt, and most, including landed
Junkers, felt threatened by Communist expropriation and insufficient protective
agricultural tariffs. The veterans were receptive because they felt betrayed by
the ruling class, especially the liberal-democrats of the SPD, and because they
had a difficult time finding work. Workers, who were mostly young men, were
receptive because they felt they were being exploited by the business class,
but primarily because they were the most negatively affected by the inflation
and unemployment. Pensioners on fixed incomes were receptive to Hitler’s
socialist stance. Noblemen and -women were interested in Hitler because he
opposed Freemasonry and expropriation of their landed estates, and because he
hinted at restoration of the monarchy. Additionally, all of these groups
generally opposed Marxist-Communism. Most of the German masses were not
interested in a revolutionary bloodbath or agricultural collectivism, but
economic and social security as well as justice and prosperity for themselves;
the German elites did not support expropriation and collectivization. Hitler’s main
opposition in the formative years came from the Communists, who denounced him
as a tool of capitalism and from the former nobility; the heavy industrialists,
who distrusted his socialism and the SA (they feared the SA was nothing but a
Communistic horde); and the left-wing faction within his own party, who
questioned Hitler’s financial sources and pro-business stance.
When someone requested to join
the NSDAP, one paid one’s initial annual dues and was then given a membership
card and asked to perform some service or task for the party. This could be
anything from putting up posters before speaking engagements to spreading the
word by simply talking about the NSDAP or handing out flyers on street corners
and at beer halls. After the Hitler-Strasser break, he or she was asked to
swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler. Vetting was likely performed by those members
doing the actual talking and recruiting in the streets, as there was no known
formal vetting procedure. As long as a person paid his annual dues and served
the party loyally, he or she was trusted. Those who wished to break with the
party were actually told to leave by Hitler himself at a rally that took place
after the Strasser and Stennes affairs. We’ll revisit this topic later on.
Along these lines, Kurt
Lüdecke, Otto Wagener and Ernst Röhm played leading roles in arming, training
and drilling SA men. Their personal fundraising; their secret dealings with the
German Army (Reichswehr), which had many prominent sympathizers of the
NSDAP and SA; and Lüdecke’s connections to black-market Jewish arms dealers
proved essential to building a credible paramilitary threat to the status quo.
The government in Berlin tended to ignore SA violence against Communists
because it opposed a Communist takeover. Also, Hitler’s party supported German
national unity at all costs, so Hitler and his SA were worth tolerating to
prevent Bavarian secession. Hitler’s real bargaining base was his SA and the
masses. Without both, he could afford to be ignored by the elites, government
and industry; however with both he was a true threat, like the Communists.
Lüdecke, Wagener and Röhm all led, at one point or another, regular drilling
and paramilitary basic training at a large hall funded by party members and
various supporters. Marching in formation and drills also took place in the
forests and countryside when possible, but mostly it occurred in the party’s
own rented hall or on a wealthy sympathizer’s private estate. Fortunately for
unemployed and poor members, the party paid for everyone’s uniforms.
When SA and SS ranks were
introduced, the requirements were loyalty and leadership aptitude. The SS
consisted of men handpicked by Hitler himself. Thus, he vetted them personally.
As a matter of fact, Hitler usually personally appointed leaders to their
positions even in the SA. He recalled Röhm from Bolivia, for instance, to
reorganize and lead the SA. Hitler tended to choose people who he felt would
resist falling prey to groupthink. Historians have tended to characterize this
as Hitler’s “divide and rule” policy, but in-depth study of the party’s early
development suggests instead that Hitler chose people who would (a) not
challenge or question his leadership, and (b) not fall prey to the “yes man”
temptation. This appointment procedure did two things: it prevented serious
intraparty division by subordinating all to Hitler himself, while at the same
time it encouraged intraparty rivalries, which prevented groupthink. Leaders
could disagree and even challenge one another’s authority without destroying
the party. Hitler based promotion solely on performance, not status. This
tendency increased later on during the war especially after Hitler established
the NSFO (National Socialist Commanding Officer Corps). This NS-high command
was likely enacted to replace or take over the OKW (Armed Forces High Command).
Hitler wanted select NSFO officers to undergo a 4- to 18-hour course in
political-ideological instruction. He himself appointed the head of the NSFO,
Hermann Reinecke, in December 1944.
The NSDAP expanded into cities
and states outside of Munich (Bavaria), where it had its Brown House
headquarters, by appointing certain members to run party operations and perform
party services in their own states, cities, towns and villages. The most well-known
example of an NSDAP member-cum-leader who acquired almost enough personal
power, financial backing and mass following to challenge Hitler himself was
Gregor Strasser. Hitler was able to prevent a crisis from developing with his
gifts for clever maneuvering and personal appeal, but such risks are inherent
in any organization that becomes as powerful as the NSDAP. And they are risks
that must be taken if a party’s leadership wishes it to develop and grow.
Talented, committed and qualified speakers and leaders were appointed to run
operations in every location possible. But Berlin NSDAP members also traveled
around giving speeches and lectures and soliciting financial support. All
speaking engagements required admittance fees. Hitler himself was constantly
traveling and meeting with workers and elites alike to recruit new members and
bolster his finances.
At the end of 1920, the NSDAP
had about 3,000 members. Membership then grew from 27,000 in 1925 to 108,000 in
1928. In August 1931 the NSDAP created its own intelligence and security
sector. Heinrich Himmler established the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) and
Reinhard Heydrich was appointed head of the organization, which was kept
separate from the SS (Schutzstaffel). By the time of the Strasser
crisis, the SA was some 400,000 members strong and the party itself had grown
to 2 million by 1933. In 1932, it was large enough to achieve control of 37% of
the Reichstag.
Here are the election results
from 1920 to 1933:
Adapted from James E. and
Suzanne Pool. Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler’s Rise to
Power 1919 – 1933, p. 494.
|
||||||||
Political Parties in the Reichstag
|
June
1920 |
May
1924 |
Dec.
1924 |
May
1928 |
Sep.
1930 |
July
1932 |
Nov.
1932 |
Mar.
1933 |
Communist Party (KPD)
|
4
|
62
|
45
|
54
|
77
|
89
|
100
|
81
|
Social Democratic Party (SPD)
|
102
|
100
|
131
|
153
|
143
|
133
|
121
|
120
|
Catholic Center Party (BVP)
|
65
|
81
|
88
|
78
|
87
|
97
|
90
|
93
|
Nationalist Party (DNVP)
|
71
|
95
|
103
|
73
|
41
|
37
|
52
|
52
|
National Socialist Party (NSDAP)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
12
|
107
|
230
|
196
|
288
|
Other Parties
|
98
|
92
|
73
|
121
|
122
|
22
|
35
|
23
|
One can see that the NSDAP
lost most of its former 230 seats as of July 1932 to the even more
radical-revolutionary Communist Party (KPD) in November 1932, not to
conservative Catholics or social-democrats. The conservative nationalists (DNVP)
only gained 15 seats. These results, contrary to most historiography, do not
imply the demise of the NSDAP, but the masses’ disaffection with any party that
was not willing to promise sweeping social and economic change for the
majority, even if change meant bloodshed. Hitler and the NSDAP were not viewed
as extreme enough, so they lost seats to the KPD! This alarmed men like Hjalmar
Schacht and Franz von Papen so much that they were finally willing to give
Hitler the opportunity to become chancellor.
He actually should have
received the chancellorship in July 1932 when his party had the most seats in
the Reichstag, but the industrialists and noblemen surrounding General
Schleicher, Franz von Papen and President Hindenburg opposed his appointment to
the chancellorship. So much for James Warburg’s and the Rothschilds’ “magical
funding.”
Hitler faced so much
resistance at this stage that he, like others, resorted to blackmail. Hitler
arranged a private meeting with President Hindenburg’s son Oskar, during which
he is suspected to have threatened to expose his father’s role in the repeated
taxpayer bailouts of the Junkers’ mismanaged, bankrupted estates. Since
blackmail and intrigue had been used to cheat Hitler of his due appointment, he
decided that he could also play such a game. Hindenburg appointed him
chancellor shortly thereafter, which most historians claim was at the behest of
von Papen. We see that von Papen’s desire to prevent a Communist majority by
giving Hitler the chancellorship was only partly why Hindenburg appointed him.
Hitler won, but not because he received covert funding. Franz von Papen
continued to intrigue against Hitler and urged industrialists to withdraw their
financial support of the NSDAP! The goal of this so-called “cabinet of barons”
was to give Hitler just enough power to satisfy him personally without actually
allowing him to attain a majority strong enough to overthrow the status quo,
but just strong enough to prevent a Communist majority.
Given this context of
stalemate, the speed of the NSDAP’s growth in just 6 years and its subsequent
attainment of absolute power were only possible with an authoritarian leader in
a crooked political situation in which blackmail, corruption and political
sleight-of-hand were the order of the day. What had started as a
democratic-style workers’ party with a simple executive committee to which
Hitler was appointed in the early 1900s became an authoritarian-style
organization with its own uniforms, offices, training facilities, insurance company,
merchandise, newspaper, propaganda machine, army (the SA) and security
apparatus (SS and SD). This was nothing short of impressive and most of the
credit for its success goes to those leaders and members like Hitler, Hess,
Gansser, Eckart, Funk, Schwarz, Feder, Keppler, Himmler, Rosenberg, Goebbels,
the Strassers (before 1932), Scheubner-Richter, Hanfstaengl, Lüdecke, Göring
and Röhm, all of whom literally devoted their lives to the party.
NSDAP events were staged as
often as they could be afforded. The newspaper was of course always
available—it was a daily—so the public and members always knew what was going
on from day to day. Hitler gave speeches and met with important wealthy persons
almost non-stop after his release from prison. He was keen enough to purchase
motor vehicles, which were rare in those days. Speedy travel was vital to
defeating rival parties like the Communists, who still had to walk to their
various speaking engagements and meetings. The NSDAP’s doors, so to speak, were
always open to receive new recruits. Interested persons either signed up at
simple on-site recruitment centers or they mailed their applications to the
party’s headquarters in Munich.
Inconvenient facts about Hitler and the NSDAP
The following is a list of
important facts gleaned from the Pools’ Who Financed Hitler. This list
clarifies and summarizes our introduction to the NSDAP’s development, support
and financing. More importantly, this list exposes numerous myths
associated with Hitler and the NSDAP, such as Hitler’s “militatarism,” NSDAP
funding via Paul or Sidney (James) Warburg and the Rothschilds, and Hitler’s
unpopularity amongst most Germans.
· Gustav Stresemann was as
militarily inclined as Adolf Hitler. Thus the idea that Hitler’s appointment to
the chancellorship meant war in future is moot.
· Upper-class hostages,
including members of Thule, were literally lined up and murdered in 1918 by the
Communists. A total of 12 hostages were shot in a schoolyard in Munich.
· The Pools noted that since the
German economy was not harmful to most industrialists’ profits overall, they as
a group wished to uphold the status quo. And that was the problem with
them from the perspective of revolutionary parties like Hitler’s, as well as
the impoverished, unemployed millions.
· Hitler and Hess, not Göring
and Goebbels as claimed by “Sidney Warburg,” solicited money in 1929. German
industrialist Emil Kirdorf likely gave the NSDAP money at this time.
· Radek, Levine and Axelrod, all
Communists, were Jewish. These three men and the terror they inflicted upon
Fritz Thyssen and his father personally, including imprisonment and death
threats, changed Thyssen’s life. From that point on he supported Hitler, and
fervently so.
· French martial law and Ruhr
resource demands were too much for Fritz Thyssen. He was arrested and fined
300,000 gold marks for encouraging German workers to passively resist French
military occupation. The French opened fire on these German workers killing and
wounding hundreds.
· Thyssen downplayed his support
of the National Socialists. He gave 1,250,000 Reichsmarks between 1928 and
1929. This was the exact timing of Sidney Warburg’s alleged covert cash
transfers to Hitler.
· Kirdorf had Jewish friends and
bank connections, including Dr. Arthur Salomonsohn. In spite of these big money
connections, Kirdorf gave very little to Hitler and the NSDAP.
· Thyssen and Kirdorf saw little
hope for Germany. France and England had a monopoly over one quarter of the
world and were determined to crush Germany’s global competitiveness.
· The Versailles Dictate was
Germany’s economic end—really, truly and totally.
· The “Treaty” was actually an
economic weapon designed to permanently cripple Germany as an industrial
competitor. Germany’s total reparations payments amounted to $32 billion, which
equates to $425 billion today, or $6.6 billion per year.
· The NSDAP was not put into
power by international Jewish interests as some researchers suggest. The NSDAP
fought for its power. For example, in just a single street battle between the
National Socialists and Communists, 300 men were killed. Hitler struggled for
14 years to achieve power and was nearly shot dead during his attempted putsch,
facts which challenge this thesis.
· The I. G. Farben conglomerate
and high finance never factored into the Hitler-NSDAP equation before
1933.
· According to the Pools, since
nothing Germany did had worked to relieve the unemployment and trade imbalance,
an imperialist policy was necessary for Germany’s economic survival. She had
earnestly tried everything else.
· Big business’s main motive for
supporting Hitler and the NSDAP was to prevent Communism at all costs.
· General von Seeckt operated
under a façade of pro-democracy (like Hitler) until the day when all democratic
chains could be broken. Indeed the intellectual demilitarization of
Germany was, to von Seeckt, the greatest threat of all.
· Russo-German military
collaboration was championed by von Seeckt, not Hitler, and started in 1921.
(Before the Treaty of Rapallo). Von Seeckt was instrumental in this
collaboration. Lest we overlook it: Hitler, and no one else, had a reserve
army—the SA. Thus the years 1921 to 1922 saw some degree of Russian funding of
the NSDAP via the Reichswehr’s secret Russian collaboration efforts.
· The Allies destroyed Krupp’s
industry, which provided Krupp with a key motive for later supporting the
NSDAP. Krupp, with the help of foreign subsidies, established anonymous
companies to carry out arms construction and testing in neutral countries long
before Hitler came to power.
· Stresemann, like Hitler,
wanted to see Germany reemerge as a world power. Neither von Seeckt nor
Stresemann was a liberal-democrat (i.e. neither supported democracy, which was imposed
upon Germany against her will.)
· Holding companies were used to
rebuild the German Navy in the early 1920s, long before Hitler’s ascension.
· “Liberal-Democratic” Weimar
Germany was providing covert assistance to German rearmament efforts in every
way possible. Krupp was subsidized by the Weimar regime, not by Hitler.
· Given the industrial context
of that time period, Thyssen’s industry would die without total rearmament.
This was a consequence of Germany’s overdependence on industrialization,. As
suggested by Lawrence Dennis in The Dynamics of War and Revolution, a
developed nation like Germany had the choice to contract severely in every way,
including population-wise, or expand. Most German leaders opted for the latter.
· German rearmament began
earnestly “production-wise” in 1928—five full years before Adolf Hitler was
appointed chancellor.
· The Social Democrats, SPD,
supported rearmament.
· Rearmament does not prove that
Germany was planning aggressive warfare or that Germany was “militaristic.”
· Both France’s and Poland’s
militaries were threatening to encircle and occupy Germany in 1919.
· All of the German power elite
had the same goal, only different methods of achieving that goal—to reestablish
Germany as a world power. However, only Adolf Hitler understood international
power politics or “economy by the sword.” Hitler asked the industrialists in
1927: Does it benefit our nationality now or in the future, or will it
be injurious to it? Expediency is the basis of all alliances.
· France, not England, was Enemy
Number One in Hitler’s view.
· Political bribes were not
illegal in the Weimar Republic.
· The rule of special interest
groups and the power of money (with which to buy Reichstag deputies) destroyed
the Weimar Republic’s chances of survival. Both are, in fact, inherent features
of all democracies, which intentionally give the masses the illusion of power
and voice in government to prevent their discontent.
· The SPD was the political
instrument of the trade unions and the bureaucracy of organized labor. All of
the rest, save the KPD, were big business’s interest groups incognito.
· Walther Rathenau set the
Weimar “big business” precedent, not Hitler or the NSDAP.
· The Ruhrlade was a secret
society of heavy industrialists, with 12 members, who met secretly to set joint
economic and political policy.
· Hugenberg and the Nationalist
Party had far more big business and discreet financial backing and prestige
than the NSDAP. But not even Hugenberg was an industrialist's tool. He opposed
the Anglo-Freemasonic Dawes Plan while several of his industrialist backers
supported the plan.
· The Anglo-Freemasonic Young
Plan was enacted 11 years after the war, which demanded that Germans pay
“reparations” for the next 59 years!
· Hugenberg and Strasser both
underestimated Hitler. He was no one’s “pawn.” This was already evident around
the time of the passing of the Freedom Law in 1929, right around the time of
Sidney Warburg’s alleged cash promise to Hitler. The Warburg myth was used to
discredit Hitler by the Strasser-Stennes faction of the NSDAP. Stennes, with
80,000 SA men under his command, seized the NSDAP headquarters in Berlin and
occupied it to destroy Hitler, but Hitler was able to largely circumvent
recapturing the headquarters via violent means by establishing his right of
ownership of the Berlin headquarters. He did this simply by presenting his
ownership proof to the courts after the holidays ended. The police were
therefore obliged to retake the headquarters for him and Captain Walther
Stennes’ attempted anti-Hitler coup fell apart. Interestingly, Stennes was
never even an NSDAP member.
· Hitler used Karl Lüger’s
methods: utilize the existing implements of power.
· Thyssen admitted to funding
the NSDAP. His continuous support and Hitler’s strategic alliance with
Hugenberg and the Nationalist Party meant money for Hitler in 1929—none of
which was from Sidney Warburg.
· After 1930, the Völkischer
Beobachter generated day-to-day revenue and paid off all of its outstanding
debts.
· There was no “secret” funding
early on. Max Amann mortgaged all of the NSDAP’s property and forestalled all
financial obligations until after the elections in 1930, which surprised
everyone, including Hitler. Rallies and occasional donations by the wealthy
supplemented funds after September 1930.
· NSDAP memberships swelled due
to the “bandwagon effect” after the party’s huge electoral success. The VB
also started generating substantial advertising revenue. At one point Hitler
actually let his prohibitionist idealism go too far with the brewers and they
canceled all their VB ads. Fellow party members had to coax them back.
· Adolf Müller helped the Nazis
with the VB, the only paper that did not drop in circulation after the
Depression began.
· The United States likely
destroyed Party Treasurer Franz Schwarz’s records, which were meticulous:
Hitler had even told him to denote names of anonymous donors! All of the
records are gone. Americans brutally interrogated Schwarz and likely murdered
him in 1946. The Anglo-Americans were determined to incriminate only German
big business for funding the NSDAP at the IMT. Given that the United States did
this, one suspects that there was more American-based funding than just Henry
Ford and Teutonia behind the NSDAP, but what that was we will never know. The
Anglos were likely trying to cover up American industrial involvement with
NS-Germany after 1933, such as that of Standard Oil which we’ve already
discussed.
· Generals, namely Alfred Jodl,
were won over by Hitler at his Leipzig trial.
· Big business was reassured by
Hitler’s total party control and non-Communist stance after he ordered his 107
deputies to vote against the Nazis’ own “left-wing” bill, introduced by
Strasser et al.
· The German economy was
controlled by the government and a private bank cartel 2,500 banks strong before
Hitler assumed power.
· In the summer of 1931, the
Ruhrlade made its first contribution to the NSDAP, and Göring was being paid by
Thyssen at this time as well.
· Frau Quandt joined the NSDAP
in 1930 and brought lots of wealthy influence with her.
· Hitler recalled Ernst Röhm in
1930 to lead the SA. He had been living in Bolivia.
· Kaiser Wilhelm and his sons
supported the NSDAP in an effort to try and convince Hitler to reestablish the
monarchy.
· Brüning was a de facto
dictator but was failing, because the Depression was worsening.
· The Credit-Anstalt, a
Rothschild bank branch in Austria, experienced a devastating run in May 1931,
which crashed all German banks and eventually even London’s banks. So much for
the Rothschilds’ endless, untouchable wealth!
· Freemasonic France and America
exacerbated the German collapse by recalling short-term loans to Germany and
Austria and with the passing of the Hawley-Smoot tariff.
· The German People’s Party,
which enjoyed more conservative support than Hitler, demanded constitutional
revision terminating the parliamentary system and giving Hindenburg the power
to appoint a government.
· Other nationalist parties got
a lot more money and support than Hitler, but they maintained the status quo
and displeased the masses immensely. Thus only Hitler had the masses’ support
and could therefore not be brushed aside or ignored, not even by the moneyed
elite.
· Big business, namely
industrialists, was paying the NSDAP by 1931.
· The Harzburg Front organized
and rallied in 1931. Hjalmar Schacht gave a speech at this event and shockingly
declared that the Weimar government was truly and utterly bankrupt. He, more
than anyone else that day including Hitler, brought incalculable benefit to the
NSDAP. He was after all the man who had saved the German economy before by
introducing the Rentenmark.
· Hitler had his man Keppler
meet informally with businessmen to create the NSDAP’s economic policy. This
was known as the “Circle of Friends for the Economy.” This is actually where
Reinhardt comes into play, the man behind the Reinhardt Plan which Hitler
enacted shortly after coming to power. Reinhardt, not Hitler or an NSDAP
member, openly called for rearmament in 1932.
· Walther Funk met with Kurt von
Schröder, a partner in J. H. Stein of Cologne. A man with great skill for
negotiation, Funk was able to “satisfy Schröder” of Hitler’s “good will”
towards “international banking.”
· Mussolini gave unofficial
support to the NSDAP. France backed the Bavarian separatists while Italy
supported the Bavarian nationalists. Hitler was the only nationalist who
opposed France and was willing to let Italy keep control of the South Tyrol
(with a population of 250,000 Germans).
· Hitler received Italian
fascist funding, which only came to light in 1932. Mussolini also sent the
NSDAP weapons in the 1920s.
· The U.S.-based Teutonia gave
Hitler regular donations.
· Montagu Norman was the
governor of the Bank of England for 24 years. He was anti-France, disliked Jews
immensely, was opposed to Versailles, and favored Germany due to his earlier
studies there. Norman lent money to the Nazis after 1933 via his personal
friend Schacht. He may have channeled funds via Baron Kurt von Schröder
and J. H. Stein and Company in 1932, but this is not proven. Schröder
was a German partner in J. H. Stein.
· Viscount Rothermere of the Daily
Mail gave Ernst Hanfstaengl money. He was a staunchly pro-German Anglo who
despised Jews.
· It is crucial to understand
that Anglo-Saxon foreign policy was designed to prevent any single
power—whether France, Germany or Russia—from attaining formidable power enough
to rival that of Britain. This was the real reason why King Edward VIII was
forced to abdicate; he was simply too pro-German. His sympathy as well as that
of Montagu Norman, the Mosleys, the Mitfords and Viscount Rothermere made
Hitler miscalculate on Britain. He thought he had more Anglo-Saxon support than
he really did.
· Deterding met Alfred Rosenberg
in Britain and likely promised him funding. Deterding controlled oil interests
in Romania, Russia, California, Trinidad, the Dutch Indies and Mexico. He also
had pumps in Mesopotamia and Persia. The Soviets seized his oil fields in Baku,
Grozny and Miakop and nationalized them, thereby becoming a serious competitor
to Deterding with his own former oil lands.
· Georg Bell was Deterding’s
contact agent with the NSDAP. Deterding did not just back the NSDAP, but also
White Russians and Ukrainian nationalists, as well as anti-Soviet Georgian
rebels.
· Deterding married a
pro-National Socialist woman and moved to Germany. He was the one who gave the
real ‘big money’ to the NSDAP in 1931, 1932, and 1933—£30 to £55 million. Dr.
Kahr claimed that French money flowed to Hitler after going through nine
exchanges, but this has not been proven. In fact, Bavarian parties like the BVP
were backed by France only because they wished to break away from Berlin!
· The Treaty of Trianon was even
worse and more unjust than Versailles. Hungary lost population and territory
and was completely impoverished. This treaty soured most Hungarians on
democracy. In 1919, Bela Kuhn ruled ruthlessly for three months in Hungary: he
confiscated and expropriated private land, slaughtered peasants
indiscriminately and further destroyed the economy, which resulted in famine.
Hungarians were overwhelmingly anti-Communist, anti-Freemason and anti-Jewish
after that. Most of these Communists, including Bela Kuhn, were Jewish
Freemasons. This experience is what led the Hungarian nationalist Gyula
(Julius) Gömbös to finance the NSDAP.
· Hitler aimed for “careers open
to talent” according to Otto Dietrich, a policy opposed to hereditary power.
· Here is the explanation for
one of Goebbels’s economic improvement references in his diary: Hitler’s
Düsseldorf Industry Club speech of January 27. This fundraising event explains
Goebbels’s entry of February 8.
· To give people some
perspective on the German economy before Hitler: there were 17,500,000 unemployed
Germans over the winter of 1931 to 1932. This was nearly one third of the
entire population of Germany!
· Stennes’s rebellion is very
important, but all too often overlooked. Stennes was a paid agent of Strasser
and Captain Ehrhardt, both of whom had big business (industrialists) and one
(Otto Wolff) Jewish backers.
· As a result of this rebellion
and other street violence, the SA, SS and HJ were all banned by a Brüning
decree signed by President Hindenburg. This was in 1932. So much for Rothschild
and Warburg supporting Hitler! Why would they let their “pawn” get banned? This
ban was an attempt to destroy the NSDAP and Hitler for good. Besides, if Hitler
was really just a “tool” of a vast international entity as researchers like Jim
Condit and Guido Preparata suggest, then why didn’t he win the presidency in
1932? What was this entity’s motive for forestalling his “power grab” if it was
in fact behind him?
· Paul Silverberg, Jewish,
financed Gregor Strasser, not Hitler. Silverberg was head of the R.A.G., one of
the largest coal companies in the entire world. He supported the
chancellor ruling by presidential decree (Brüning in particular).
· Brüning, not Hitler, asked the
question: is democracy able to work in Germany?
Concluding thoughts
Paul Silverberg was extremely
liberal, except for his own business enterprise. He naturally favored “equal
rights” for Jews and big business, but not for anyone else; he likewise favored
“individual rights over national rights” and was therefore completely opposed
to the NSDAP. Silverberg was angry at Brüning’s ouster. He opposed von Papen,
supported General Schleicher as chancellor, and gave both Schleicher and
Hitler’s rival Gregor Strasser large sums of money.
Gregor Strasser received
10,000 marks per month, beginning in the spring of 1931, for the NSDAP from
heavy industry. So much for Sidney Warburg! Walther Funk got 3,000 marks per
month in 1931 and Hitler got 100,000 marks from various coal companies that
same year, shortly before the Reichstag elections. As one can see his alleged
1931 “miracle financing” was no miracle at all. It came from German coal
companies, not Sidney Warburg. In fact, most of the NSDAP’s money came from the
party itself: insurance premiums, dues, speaking fees, etc. Brüning, not
Hitler, was backed by I. G. Farben. Chancellor Schleicher, with Silverberg’s
and other industrial bigwigs’ money, conspired with Ernst Röhm on a plan to
incorporate the SA into the German Army and thereby betray Hitler.
Clearly, Franz von Papen was
no puppet either, contrary to the thesis of Guido Preparata (Conjuring
Hitler). He refused to lift the SA ban until June 15. He also banned
political parades until after 30 June 1932 and made himself Reich Commissioner
of Prussia. He enjoyed widespread support among industrialists, big business,
Hindenburg and the Army officer corps. His intent was to block Hitler from ever
attaining more than nominal power in government. Hitler was so financially
strapped thanks to this intrigue against him that he ended up signing contracts
amounting to giving away everything the party owned to finance his 1932
election: he won over 13 million votes and 230 seats in the Reichstag. This was
nothing short of impressive. He should’ve been appointed chancellor right then
and there.
The real question was whether
Hitler could be bought. That was the question that Franz von Papen and
Chancellor Schleicher were asking. Since it did not seem likely, both opposed
his chancellorship as long as possible. Von Papen conceded in the end: he
wanted power for himself and he did not want a Communist majority in the
Reichstag. By agreeing to appoint Hitler chancellor in 1933, von Papen thought
that he could satisfy Hitler’s personal power needs and keep the NSDAP in check,
while at the same time use Hitler’s party as a means to prevent the Communists
from ever achieving a majority. Only Hitler had the mass following to pull off
such a plan. And only von Papen could secure for Hitler the appointment,
funding and support of industrialists he needed to become chancellor with a
stable government. Indeed Hitler deserved the chancellorship, and was fully
entitled to it, since he had the masses’ support and the largest number of
seats in the Reichstag. The rest, as they say, is history.
Sources:
· Dennis, Lawrence. The
Dynamics of War and Revolution. New York: Revisionist Press, 1975.
· Gregor, Dr. A. J. National
Socialism and Race. London: Steven Books, 2009.
· Pool, James E. and Suzanne
Pool. Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler’s
Rise to Power 1919 – 1933. New York: The Dial Press, 1978.
· Pudor, Dr. Heinrich. “The High
Financiers of France.” In Warwolves of the Iron Cross: The Hyenas of High
Finance, edited by Veronica Kuzniar Clark and Luis Muñoz, 51-66. United
States: Vera Icona Publishers, 2011.
· Schinnerer, Erich. German
Law and Legislation. Edited by Richard Mönnig. Berlin: Terramare
Publications, 1938.
· Schwarz, Dieter. Freemasonry:
Ideology, Organization and Policy. 6th ed. Berlin: Central Publishing House
of the NSDAP, 1944.
· Schwarzwäller, Wulf. The
Unknown Hitler: His Private Life and Fortune. Translated by Aurelius von
Kappau. Edited by Alan Bisbort. Bethesda, Md.: National Press Inc and Star
Agency, 1989.
· Warburg, Sidney. The
Financial Sources of National Socialism: Hitler’s Secret Backers.
Translated by J. G. Schoup. Palmdale, Cal.: Omni Publications, 1995.
Copyright © 2011. Veronica
Kuzniar Clark. All Rights Reserved. None of this text may be published,
broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication, or redistributed directly or
indirectly in any medium without prior permission from the author. Please
e-mail Inconvenient History for contact information. The full introductory text
is featured in The Nazi SS Manual on Freemasonry (Martinson Edition) by
Dieter Schwarz.
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