Hitler Never Gave the Order – So Who Did? – WW2 Special — Transcript

German propaganda depicts Adolf Hitler as the almighty savior of Germany and the German people. His legacy will be as the main ideologue of Nazism, a ruthless autocrat, instigator of World War II and the Holocaust. He will leave behind a lasting image of a strong German state that was driven by cruel strength, mindless obedience and brutal order. But in reality, Nazi government, or rather the lack thereof, is built on deconstruction of the state, deliberate chaos, individual interpretation of vague directives and violent escalation.

I'm Spartacus Olsson, and this is a World War II in Real Time special episode about the system of Nazi government.

We have already covered a lot of the main characters of the Nazi organizations in our Between Two Wars series and in some of our specials and bios.

In this episode, I will mainly talk about the essence of the process of decision-making in the Nazi Party and German state.

Let's talk about the origins of Nazi ideology first.

Already before Adolf Hitler arrives at the National Socialist movement, it holds firm anti-Semitic, racist and nationalist views.

Adolf Hitler does expand on that, though.

His ideas are not really that new or original.

The ways he sells them are.

Hitler becomes central in the design and spread of the Nazi ideology.

He publishes Mein Kampf in 1925 and spreads his thoughts in numerous speeches and addresses.

Tapping into the most recent mass media developments for his propaganda.

His radical ideas on racial hierarchy, anti-Semitism, anti-Bolshevism, social morals, reactionary values and expansionism into the East are out there for anyone to see.

But the exact ways in which Hitler hopes to achieve his long-term goals remain ambiguous.

A clique of loyal supporters forms around Hitler, all holding their own beliefs and each having their own personal and political goals.

But as they all assume high positions in the Nazi Party and the German state, the ideas and wishes of Hitler remain at the core of all that is decided.

This is known as the Führerprinzip.

The idea that, in this case, Adolf Hitler is a highly gifted individual who is born to lead the German people to victory.

His word or wishes are therefore regarded higher than any written law.

This discards any barriers for any behavior as long as it is done in the name of the Führer.

The Nazis develop a whole machine of government around the Führer principle already before they seize power.

Its architect is Gregor Strasser, ironically one of Hitler's ideological enemies.

Strasser believes in the third way, a hybrid of far right-wing reactionary social values and far left fiscal ideas.

Hitler, on the other hand, has settled the party staunchly in a sphere of fiscal and social ideas that are only reactionary.

And in all ways opposed to anything that might even smell of Marxism.

Strasser is purged from the party in late 1932 and then assassinated in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.

Together with the rest of the more centrist, even at times left-leaning faction of the party.

But before he goes, he has primed the organization to a mirror of the German federal system.

The Nazis have a shadow police and armed militia force, the SA and SS.

They have a top-level government with responsibilities that mimic the ministries of federal government.

And on the state level, they have the Gauleiter organization mirroring the German state and county governments.

What they do not have is a judicial and a legislative body.

To put it bluntly, they don't believe in the value of judicial branch.

Instead, rules that will soon become the equivalent of law are set by the actors of each institution according to the wishes of the Führer.

Or at best, as they interpret those.

The legislative body of the NSDAP is made up of one man, and his name is Adolf Hitler.

It's a lean form of government that depends on individual initiative and allows, even promotes, the creation of competing bodies striving for the same goal.

The Führer's vision.

This ideological approach of government causes a dichotomy between state and party.

See, when the Nazis come to power, they leave the bureaucracy of the Weimar Republic largely intact.

Most of the ministries and their employees stay in place, continuing their job.

But it becomes completely unclear who is running the show.

In essence, they insert civil servants that are Nazi loyalists and non-Nazi bureaucrats have to maneuver a highly politicized landscape.

Where they are left to bend to the will of the party or be purged, perhaps even murdered.

But in essence, Germany keeps its deeply rooted bureaucracy, which just continues to do its job.

While Nazi forces keep tugging and pulling to dictate its direction.

Strasser's mirror organization now kicks in and starts controlling the bureaucracy, but not from within it and not from the top.

Orders and instructions come from the side, from all the Nazi leaders at all levels.

There are the cabinet members, Reich offices such as that of the Four Year Plan under Hermann Göring.

The Reich ministries, many of which are chaired by Nazi Party Reich leaders like the Interior Ministry under Heinrich Himmler.

They now seize control of what was state machine without actually being part of it.

The 33 Nazi Gauleiter are on paper just advising regional governments.

But in reality, this means that they are in more or less full control.

Perhaps counterintuitively, neither does Hitler control this organization with an iron fist.

Nor is there a central government that streamlines all this.

Instead, he gives each of the people appointed to lead a part of the organization enormous autonomy.

Which they in turn seize for two purposes: fulfill the Führer's wishes as best they understand them and serve their own personal interests.

Including lining their own pockets by robbing both state and citizenry.

It's a pact of thieves and murderers that allows the Nazi officials to run roughshod over the country.

As long as they give ideological and material kickbacks to the top.

Hitler even deliberately pits them against each other.

Like in 1940, when he directs the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, his second in command Hermann Göring, and Reichführer SS Heinrich Himmler to set up plans how to deal with ethnic cleansing of the Slavs in the upcoming invasion of the USSR.

Without telling each of them that the others have received the same task.

He does the same with the Jewish question, by the way.

Inevitably, it sees them come up with completely different, often incompatible plans.

When it all comes to light, he simply reaffirms his wishes.

And lets them fight out a compromise plan.

It might seem insanely inefficient, but the effect is remarkable.

He automatically stymies any opposition to his own person by keeping his minions in constant conflict with each other.

The autonomy of each of them creates a climate of action-driven decision-making.

Where they compete to be the first to reach the Führer's goal.

And the goals justify the means at every turn.

To have the means, the Nazis simply use and abuse the government structures they now control.

This anarchic system of a marketplace of terror based on decentralized autonomous bureaucracy is a stark contrast to the Soviet system.

That instead depends on the creation of a centralized bureaucracy and government machine.

Where every detail is planned and decided by the leadership.

And the minions are kept in check by fear of becoming victims to the bureaucracy.

So while the Soviet state apparatus explodes in size under Stalin, under Hitler, the German state machinery doesn't grow at all.

It's even slightly downsized.

But what about the armed forces?

Well, like the German bureaucracy, the army remains mostly the same as the one in the Weimar Republic.

Its generals aren't necessarily Nazis, and many value the independence of the army as a non-political organization.

After the transformation of the Reichswehr into the Wehrmacht in 1935, they first hold on to their system of command and effectively push back on the influence of the Nazi paramilitary movements under Himmler.

However, with a common cause, the restoration of German military glory and specifically the pre-Versailles Treaty borders, the Wehrmacht willingly enables Hitler to wage his wars.

And as the war moves on, the Wehrmacht becomes increasingly ideological, as we saw in the fall of 1941.

When the Wehrmacht enables and participates in the Holocaust of bullets, and Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Reichenau issues the Severity Order.

Which is then circulated through the entire Wehrmacht.

The explicit power that the Nazis hold over the army also increases over time, for example, through the appointment of Göring to the newly created office of Reichsmarschall.

The highest available military rank in Germany.

Or when Hitler himself assumes the role of Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in December 1941.

This practically means that the Wehrmacht as an institution is no longer just the German army.

It is the Nazi German army.

But is Hitler really in control?

Is anyone really in control?

Actually, Hitler asks himself a similar question in 1941, saying:

"I've totally lost sight of the organizations of the party.

When I find myself confronted by one or other of these achievements.

I say to myself, 'By God, how that has developed!'

See, Hitler himself is notoriously anti-bureaucratic.

He rarely visits cabinet meetings and seldom puts pen to paper.

When Hitler rules, he often does so through ambiguous spoken directives conveyed through Martin Bormann or Hans Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery.

He is not involved in a lot of policymaking, and he doesn't really know the details of what happens in his ministries either.

One aide writes how, "He disliked the study of documents.

He took the view that many things sorted themselves out on their own if one did not interfere."

That might make it sound as if Hitler's role is pretty passive, even to the point of absolving him of responsibility.

Well, while the full and real extent of his influence is still debated by historians to some degree.

Most agree that his role is vital, to not say instrumental.

He set and popularized the Nazi agenda: expansion East, the removal of the Jews.

War on Bolshevism, the creation of a German Volk, and so on.

He built a system of loyal henchmen who do his bidding for him. He brought together a broad coalition of Nazis, German bureaucrats, army officers, and popular support in Germany.

To rally behind his ideas that he vocally and expressly publicized as his own personal wishes.

Initiatives to take those ideas to the next level are rewarded, not only enabling but instigating excessive behavior.

As long as it somehow fits Hitler's ideology, anything is permitted.

No, encouraged.

And this trickles down all the way to the boots on the ground.

Hitler might not be interested in micromanaging, but as per the Führerprinzip, his subordinates take his word for law.

And because Hitler only sporadically hands out vague orders, it leaves much open to interpretation.

This causes a decentralized system of initiatives and interpretations, or rather systemless Wild West, where pretty much anything goes.

A rat race which has been described by historian Ian Kershaw as "working towards the Führer" unfolds.

Where different individuals try to outdo each other in what they believe is the best thing for Germany, the Nazi Party, and Adolf Hitler.

The internal struggle as results is merely in line with Hitler's social Darwinist thinking.

In which the most brilliant or successful one will ultimately come to the top.

Kershaw sees it as a spiral of irrational decisions and policies.

Not a well-designed roadmap to reach certain feasible goals, but short-term actions to reach long-term ideals gain most attention with the Führer.

See, Hitler is preoccupied with long-term goals, like the different wars that Germany should win.

And the material benefits that will reap, the removal of the Jews from the German Reich.

Or the creation of a thousand-year German ethno-state.

This causes attention, resources, and time to shift away from more rational short and mid-term goals.

There are countless examples of where irrational priorities affect the direction of resources and time.

For instance, Operation Sealion, the planned land war on Britain and the preliminary Battle of Britain in the air, costs the Germans vital airplanes in an irrational effort to reach a long-term fantasy.

The invasion of Britain, which was already known by most career officers to be far from feasible.

Another one is the Holocaust.

The deployment of Einsatzgruppen in the East not only diverts valuable resources and manpower to an ideological goal that does not contribute to military victory, but also takes a huge toll on the physical and mental well-being of the perpetrators.

Causing it to become a costly and hugely demoralizing enterprise for both the SS and the Wehrmacht.

It is a system of escalation.

Where those with bolder and harsher methods, with more visibility or short-term success, gain the most praise and attention.

There are but few breaks in place because anything that works towards the end goals of the Nazi ideology can't be bad.

Right?

Well.

In the summer of 1941, this system is seen in action when multiple Nazis are searching for ways to work towards the Final Solution of the Jewish problem.

Even if there is no formal decision to kill the Jews, many of Himmler's men and parts of the Wehrmacht simply decide that shooting male Jews works towards this solution.

Individuals like Friedrich Jeckeln then decide that shooting women and children too is a more effective way to reach the goals.

Encouraged by the praise lavished on him and other perpetrators, more and more join the circus and hundreds of thousands perish.

And still, there is no formal order.

But when the Führer nods in appreciation and affirms that it is indeed his wish, geniuses of bureaucracy like Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann take the ad hoc system and turn it into the systematic, industrialized slaughter of millions of ordinary, defenseless human beings.

In the 1930s, the Nazi system of chaos and lawlessness is applied to the German economy according to the Führer's whim.

With catastrophic effect.

It eventually leads to the situation where war is the only solution.

We made a Between Two Wars episode documenting that.

You can find it here.

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