A Look at the Third Reich: 1933-1939

The years from 1933 to 1945 are remembered as one of the most horrific times in human history. The world was gripped in an economic depression only to be followed by the most brutal war in human history. Throughout this time Germany was under the rule of one of the most vicious regimes in history, a regime whose actions would later be viewed as a major cause of the Second World War. The infamy of the Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, is so great that its very symbol, the once innocent swastika, is essentially taboo in Western civilization. Even Hitler's toothbrush mustache, once considered fashionable, is now mainly associated with him. Such was the evil of this regime that it and everything about it is taboo in so many ways.

Much about the Nazis and their regime, particularly their hatred and attempted extermination of all Jews and their instigation of World War II, is widely known and talked about. In fact, if somebody asked me to put money on the single historical event on which more books have been written, films made, discussions had, and of which the general public has the greatest knowledge I would with no hesitation put my money on the Second World War. Though less spoken of than the war, the fall of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi rise to power can be found in most textbooks about world history. The enigmatic character of Adolf Hitler himself also produces a wide range of material.

I myself have always found Adolf Hitler and the events he caused, particularly World War II and the Holocaust, to be events that have always captured my attention. Perhaps it is the sense that this man and the things he created are so beyond the pale that they are almost surreal, perhaps it is simply that something so disturbing has the aura of forbidden knowledge, perhaps it is something else entirely, but I and so many others come back to study these events time and time again. Though I will probably work for the rest of my life to understand the disturbed yet complex psychology and character of Adolf Hitler my basic questions about his regime and the major events surrounding it have mostly been answered; I can tell you all about World War II, I can tell you all about the Holocaust, and I can tell you about the factors the precipitated the Nazi rise to power. In relation to the Nazi regime itself there was, however, one thing I didn't know much about, and perhaps it was the one thing most important.

Though I knew much about the pre-1933 rise to power of the Nazi regime and much about the 1939-1945 war, the one area where my knowledge was lacking was the 1933-1939 period that the Nazis spent in power during peacetime. Essentially the question I asked was, "How did the average German citizen view the Nazi regime during the time before the start of World War II and after their rise to power," Richard J. Evans, a professor at Cambridge University in the UK, almost certainly sought out to answer a question similar to my own when he began work on the second of his three part series on Nazi Germany, The Third Reich in Power.

The Third Reich in Power begins with a synopsis of the first book, outlining the Nazi rise to power and ends with the march toward war. The book itself focuses on the years 1933 to 1939 and as such is focused mainly on life under Nazism in peacetime. Though the book chronicles many of the Nazi policies and the motivations of the architects behind them in great detail, the richest portion of this book is the chronicling of the opinions and views of the average German, as I desired, toward the Nazi regime. The confluence of Evans' goal in writing the book and my own in reading it is revealed in his prologue in which he introduces the vague "central line of argument" in which he recaps from his earlier volumes his view that "the Third Reich was not a static or monolithic dictatorship; it was a dynamic and fast-moving one, consumed at the outset by visceral hatreds and ambitions. Dominating everything was the drive to war... the overriding imperative of preparing Germany and its people for a major war emerges clearly as the common thread." (Evans, p. xvi) This of course, was the primary motivation of the ideologues in the regime itself, and was not the primary motivation of the common man in supporting the said regime.

The two things that seem to collude in the ultimate creation of the Nazi regime are economic self-interest and a populist message that was directed at the middle class but that was able to bring in low-income workers and a few upper-crust conservatives to boot. The Nazis were able to come to power by exploiting racial, rather than class conflicts. However, it is ultimately through class that we must view the Nazis and it is through class interests that Evans analyzes the support or opposition of a particular group to Nazism, which stands in contrast to the general stereotype that Nazis were entirely fixated on race alone, but in truth race simply served as a common scapegoat on which to blame all of Germany's problems. Unlike the radical left-wing movements of the time with their constant critique of "bourgeoisie" and "petite-bourgeoisie" the Nazis not only appealed to the working class but also were dedicated to unity with the Mittelstand, a word that Evans describes as an "untranslatable German appellation" (Evans, p. 435) but referring in some sense to an idea of a middle class, which socialists and communists resented as "petit-bourgeoisie." Perhaps the best explanation of the class aspect, and indeed the best explanation of the view of the average German toward the Nazi regime, was found in the section "Building the People's Community," (Evans p. 415-503).

Though we often understand class in terms of a certain income level, Germans of the era did not, particularly in relation to the Mittelstand. At this time the Mittelstand, Evans writes, "had come... to embody much more than a mere social group, in German politics they stood for a set of values. Located between two great antagonistic classes (aristocracy and peasants or perhaps later, wage laborers) into which society had become divided, they represented people who stood on their own two feet, independent, hardworking, the healthy core of the German people unjustly pushed to the side by the class war that was raging all about them." (Evans p. 435). This was the original base of the Nazi Party, and tended to consist of people such as small businessmen, artisans, and independent farmers. A key to understanding why Nazism specifically appealed to such people was simply put, "The resentments of such groups were many, their perceived enemies legion. Small shopkeepers resented big department stores, artisans hated the mass production of the big factories, peasants grumbled about unfair competition from big estates. All of them were susceptible to the appeal of political rhetoric that blamed scapegoats such as the Jews for their problems."

In a sense the Mittlestand represents an idealized vision of the German to the Nazis and it was the expansion of said class the many of the Nazi policies were aimed toward. This is revealed not only by Evans but in some sense by Hitler himself in his book Mein Kampf. Economically the Nazis and indeed Hitler himself were neither leftists nor conservative champions of aristocratic privilege, which again appeals to the Mittlestand. In the Second Chapter of Mein Kampf, entitled "My Years of Study And Suffering in Vienna" (a chapter which, if there is any in Mein Kampf to understand the political formation of the young Hitler, it is this), Hitler reinforces his populist, middle class oriented message. On one hand Hitler condemns deep class inequalities, something scene as the province of the left, including the socialist and communist movements popular then and when he rose to power, writing, "Dazzling riches and loathsome poverty alternated sharply," he also wrote of his observation of the ring of government offices and the business district in central Vienna, "Outside the palaces of the Ring loitered thousands of unemployed, and beneath the Via Triumphalis of old Austria dwelt the homeless in the gloom and mud of the canals." (Hitler p.23-24)

Hitler was apparently quite angered at the poverty he sees and criticizes the aristocracy for hoarding wealth and power, but at the same time he has disdain for certain members of the lower classes. In this chapter Hitler recounts a lengthy story describing a generic case he had seen repeat itself time and time again, talking of a man whose poverty drives him deeper into alcoholism all while abusing his family. Here he focuses less on his sympathy for the man and more upon his disdain for his alcoholism (Hitler p.29). He later launches into a thirteen page (Hitler p. 37-50) rant complaining about social democrats, socialists, communists, Marxists and their infiltration into trade unions all while critiquing the bourgeois out of the other side of his mouth for not understanding the plight of the worker and as such giving rise to communistic sympathies. It is at this point that he begins railing about Jews and their liberal, bourgeois character at that time.

Moving back to Evans, we find that much of the Nazi attitude toward rich and poor replicates itself in the ideals of the Mittelstand that Hitler sought to create. On one hand they disdained the high concentrations of wealth in the hands of the few and had concern for the plight of the common man, but on the other hand they hated people who saw everything in terms of class war and also disliked those they saw as "dependents" on society, believing the alcoholics and other "deviants," and unfortunately the mentally and physically handicapped were a central problem. All of these problems were, in typical fashion, blamed on Jews. In a sense these were the attitudes of the young Adolf Hitler, and were not uncommon outside of his circles.

The economic policies that the Nazi Party enacted in the 1930s were indeed largely indicative of exactly what the Mittelstand wanted. The government gave backhanded aid to small business by attacking department stores and chain stores, the goal being to drive consumers to small business. They also allowed artisans to establish compulsory trade guilds in order to regulate their own industry. (Evans p. 436).

The Nazi regime also worked to aid peasants and farmers as opposed to the aristocracy, the goal being to break up large parcels and distribute it among peasants. Perhaps here Evans has one of his better quotes, writing of farmers on the North German coast that, "their dissatisfaction with the regime was limited only to instances in which it had an adverse affect on their livelihood." (Evans p. 433) This of course represents the key tension that was always present, between Nazi ideological goals and the simple fact that the common people were more focused on their economic self-interest. This encapsulates the view of the average German better than any; in a time of crisis they mainly were concerned with bread and butter interests, it wasn't that they were bad people, they were simply content to look the other way while bad happened.

There were some classes, however, who did not support the Nazis. Some of the conservative aristocrats despised the Nazis as an essentially egalitarian, base movement not dissimilar from communism and mob rule. Friedrich Reck-Malleczwen, a somewhat mysterious German author of patrician demeanor and a staunch conservative wrote that "he was prisoner of a horde of vicious apes," and referred to Hitler as a "piece of filth." He compared Nazi supporters to "Neanderthals" and claimed the youth of the generation were "savages." He also expressed his desire to kill Adolf Hitler and wrote of his hatred for the man. (Evans p. 415-416). This was much the attitude of the rest of the old aristocracy, who longed for the days of Bismarck under which their spot in society was guarded by the state. They were fearful of much of the egalitarian albeit racially charged Nazi propaganda and feared that the Nazis had created a cult of pure emotion (p. 417).

The analysis of the aristocrats was right on the ball. While the Nazis were able to appeal to the economic self-interest of the Middelstand they were also forced to rely on the idealism of the youth to act as their loyal ideologues. Evans discusses the process by which the young were brainwashed into Nazism under the education policy. Questions on essays for instance, were set up in a sense that the correct answer would be the one that was friendliest to Nazi views. In one example a teacher asked the students to write an essay on Jews, and one young girl wrote the following, "The Jews are our misfortune, unfortunately many people still say that the Jews are God's creatures, so you must respect them too. But we see that vermin are also animals but despite this we exterminate them." (Evans p. 262). Evans quite correctly labels this the "regurgitation of anti-semitic bile."
The aims of Nazism were even reflected in the curriculum of the schools. History was placed at the forefront of all curiculum, but it was expressly stated that the classical ideal of historical studies as objective was a "fallacy of liberalism" and instead the Nazis sought to teach history to young children as a narrative of the struggle between races. Even biology classes were turned upside-down and transformed into platforms for endless garble about alleged differences between Aryans and non-Aryans, the Aryans of course being superior (Evans p. 293). Soon mathematics was corrupted featuring story problems about the cost of keeping mentally ill individuals alive, physics focused on ballistics and other military-related themes. Essentially school was no longer school, but indoctrination camp (Evans p. 294).

The Nazis also engaged in seemingly bizarre behavior in order to purge culture of all things relating to Jews, going as far as deleting the records of the music of composer Felix Mendelssohn and having German's rewrite inferior versions of his music to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. They also went to great pains to insist that a popular poem written by a Jew was in fact a German folk song, they also tried to cover up the fact that a Jew had collaborated with Mozart on some of his most famous operas and burned their German translations because they had been translated by a Jew and then printed a new translation translated by a German. (Evans p. 192).

Ultimately, the appeal to the economic self-interest of the beleagured Mittelstand, the indoctrination of the youth (which in the late 1930s culminated in compulsory induction into the Hitler Youth), and sometimes bizarre propaganda seeking to stir up hatred against Jews and others who served as scapegoats to drive the nation's emotion. Ultimately, however, and much to their discredit, the average German tended to be aloof from public affairs and preferred to let roving bands of ideologues and Nazi Party clubs dominate public life while they benefited from the economic reforms of the regime.

By 1939 the German people would pay the price. At this time Hitler had come to view himself as the savior of Germany and was on an ego trip and came to view his actions as justified by Providence. As such he launched the war before complete rearmament could be completed, probably losing the war in the long run with his excessive ego. By then, however, the average German had grown complacent and it was too late, millions of dead would be on their hands. (p. 712).

Ultimately I think that Evans did a good job of portraying German society. To recap, he illustrates a society containing those who were enemies of the regime, those who were fanatical ideological supporters of the regime, and those, particularly the Mittelstand, who supported its policies either as in their self-interest or as a better alternative to the other alternatives, such as communism, that had been presented. You also found the largest critics of the new regime in those aristocrats and wealthy individuals, such as Friedrich Reck, who had benefited off the old regime and now felt their positions displaced by the new one. In essence Evans illustrates clearly the co-opting of the less enthusiastic supporters into maintaining a fanatical regime that eventually led to World War II.

The main trouble that Evans' work runs into is the fact that this silver thread is relatively difficult to pick up and is more or less interspersed throughout the work rather than the whole work being focused on this central theme. Most of this work is indeed hard facts which meander their way eventually back to the view of the common German of the regime and the reasons of many of them for supporting it.

Additionally, having read Mein Kampf at an earlier point, many of the sentiments within that work reflect sentiments that had already been ingrained in the general public, particularly the Mittelstand, albeit with Hitler's expressed much more radically and fanatically. Once again I cannot help but ask myself if the key to this regime ultimately remains this enigmatic man. Certainly the Nazi era seems to defy the common modern view of history as a series of deterministic events upon the coattails of which certain individuals rise to power. Perhaps a communist regime or something similar would have taken shape in Germany, but it cannot be denied that there is something about Hitler the man that drew people to him. In a sense the Nazi regime represents the idea that a single individual has the power to bring about massive change, for the better, or in their case as the majority of humanity has judged, the worse. Certainly they sought to portray Hitler as a hero and in a sense in our own minds we continue to see him as a quasi-mythical supervillain. He and his regime are the ultimate nightmare of what humanity is capable of and what we must ultimately ask ourselves is how much blame the common man deserves for the actions of their leaders. It is a scary thought to think, for it was not just fanatical support that the Nazis dwelt on, but the complacency of others.

Ultimately, while I had once viewed Germany as a fortress cult over which Hitler had cast his spell Richard J. Evans book has illustrated the fact that the lines were not as black and white as I had originally thought. There were not just fanatics and "enemies of the state," there could not have been. The Nazis really gained their power from a middle class that was seeking economic salvation but who failed to put an end to the unchecked brutality of the fanatics when things got out of hand. By the time of World War II Germany was in the hands of a sizable fanatic minority, the rest were simply swept up.

SOURCES

Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York, NY: The Penguin Press.

Hitler, Adolf (1999). Mein Kampf. New York, NY: Mariner Books.