Hitler’s authority

The limitation of the structuralist case is that, while Hitler may well not have initiated policies, the basic fact remained that such was his political dominance that no policy could proceed unless it met with his approval. Although Nazi Germany was not a clearly defined integrated political structure, everything of note had ultimately to pass the scrutiny of the Fuhrer. The vital thing for any minister was to keep the confidence of the Fuhrer. Those he trusted could approach him and ask for support for their proposals; as Chancellor any instructions he issued had priority over all other orders. That made the policies he backed unchallengeable.

Everything that was done in Germany after 1933 was done in Hitler's name. It is difficult to accept that anything of which he really disapproved would have been pursued. The intentionalist viewpoint is strengthened by a comment of Hitler's in 1939 to the effect that his polices were a compound of planning and the right circumstances. Opportunism, he said, was always the key: 'The actual timing could naturally not be foreseen at the beginning.'

It was in wartime that Hitler's authority showed itself in an absolute form. As Commander-in-Chief of the army, Hitler made himself so central to the strategic planning of the war that everything had to go through him. He ran the war, a situation which left his generals frustrated. They knew he was making major errors yet, short of assassinating him, they felt they could not stop him.

An important observation is one made by Sir Ian Kershaw. He suggests that the weak/strong, intentionalist/structuralist terms are as much complementary as they are contradictory. They are not exclusive. There is no need for an either/or approach. Strengths and weaknesses can exist side by side. It is also too easy to be misled by terms. 'Weakness' conveys the notion of absence of power, whereas Hitler often chose to let others use power in his name, which is not weakness but a delegation of authority. In Hitler's case, it was a style of government.

Third Reich and also make it a racial state. This second demand meant that the persecution of the Jews became the outstanding feature of Nazi Germany, culminating in the Holocaust.

Hitler's political pre-occupation was with foreign affairs. His aim was to restore to Germany the territories and peoples taken from it in 1919. Between 1933 and 1939, when his policies tipped into war, he opportunistically used bluff and threats to get his way. In 1939 he went too far and became involved in a war with France and Britain. Two years later his over-ambition resulted in war with the Soviet Union and the USA. Having won all their major campaigns down to 1942, the German forces then found themselves overstretched in a multi-front struggle and by 1945 they had been defeated.

Until war came, Hitler was hugely popular with the German people who admired him for ending unemployment and raising their living, working and educational levels. Understandably, however, the achievements of the Third Reich in such areas have been overshadowed by the horrors to which he ultimately subjected the peoples of Germany and Europe.

Chapter summary

Germany under Adolf Hitler, 1933-45

Embittered by Germany's humiliating defeat in 1918, Adolf Hitler found an outlet for his bitterness in the Nazi Party whose leader he became. Failing to take power in a putsch in 1923, he cynically resolved to gain office by legal means. Possessed of a deep hatred of Jews and communists, whom he blamed for Germany's ills, he exploited the troubled economic times to develop the Nazi Party to a position in 1932 where it gained a third of the popular vote. Using guile and skilful propaganda he then outmanoeuvred the politicians of the Weimar Republic to become Chancellor in 1933.