Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

In such ways, Hitler’s fixed points of ideology — ‘removal of the Jews’ and preparations for a future titanic struggle to attain ‘living-space’ — acted as such broad and compelling long-term goals that they could easily embrace the differing interests of those agencies which formed the vital pillars of the Nazi regime. As a result, the instruments of a highly modern state — bureaucracy, economy, and, not least, army — in the heart of Europe increasingly bound themselves to Hitler’s ‘charismatic’ authority, to the politics of national salvation and the dream of European mastery embodied in the personalized ‘vision’ and power of one man. Hitler’s essential, unchanging, distant goals had inexorably become the driving-force of the entire Nazi regime, constituting the framework for the extraordinary energy and dynamism that permeated the entire system of rule. It was a dynamism which knew no terminal point of domination, no moment where power-lust could be satiated, where untrammelled aggression could lapse into mere oppressive authoritarianism.

The ‘good times’ which the first three years of Hitler’s dictatorship had seemingly brought to Germany — economic revitalization, order, prospects of prosperity, restored national pride — could not last indefinitely. They were built on sand. They rested on an illusion that stability and ‘normality’ were within reach. In reality, the Third Reich was incapable of settling into ‘normality’. This was not simply a matter of Hitler’s personality and ideological drive — though these should not be underestimated. His temperament, restless energy, gambler’s instinctive readiness to take risks to retain the initiative, were all enhanced through the gain in confidence that his triumphs in 1935 and 1936 had brought him. His expanding messianism fed itself on the drug of mass adulation and the sycophancy of almost all in this company. His sense that time was against him, the impatience to act, were heightened by the growing belief that he might not have much longer to live. But beyond these facets of Hitler’s personality, more impersonal forces were at work — pressures unleashed and driven on by the chiliastic goals represented by Hitler. A combination of both personal and impersonal driving-forces ensured that in the ‘quiet’ two years between the march into the Rhineland and the march into Austria the ideological dynamism of the regime not only did not subside but intensified, that the spiral of radicalization kept turning upwards.

The triumph of 1936, which had given Hitler’s own self-confidence such a huge boost, proved in this way not an end but a beginning. Most dictators would have been content to relish such a momentous triumph — and to draw the line. For Hitler, the remilitarization of the Rhineland was merely an important stepping-stone in the quest for mastery in Europe. The months that followed paved the way for the sharp radicalization of all aspects of the regime that became noticeable from late 1937 onwards, and which would take Germany and Europe two years later into a second cataclysmic conflagration.

1. CEASELESS RADICALIZATION

‘The showdown with Bolshevism is coming. Then we want to be prepared. The army is now completely won over by us. Führer untouchable… Dominance in Europe for us is as good as certain. Just let no chance pass by. Therefore rearm.’

‘The Jews must get out of Germany, yes out of the whole of Europe. That will still take some time. But it will and must happen. The Führer is firmly decided on it.’

Goebbels’s diary entries of 15 November 1936 and 30 November 1937, indicating Hitler’s views

I

Hitler was more convinced than ever, following the Rhineland triumph, that he was walking with destiny, guided by the hand of Providence. The plebiscite of 29 March 1936 was both at home and outside Germany a demonstration of Hitler’s enhanced strength. He could act with new confidence. During the summer, the international alignments that would crystallize over the next three years began to form. The balance of power in Europe had unmistakably shifted.¹