Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression 2. ACQUISITION OF TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL CONTROL
A. First Steps in Acquiring Control of State Machinery.
(1) The Nazi conspirators first sought control of State
machinery by force. The Munich Putsch of 1923, aimed at the
overthrow of the Weimar Republic by direct action, failed.
On 8 November 1923 the so-called Munich Putsch occurred.
During the evening, von Kahr, State Commissioner
General of Bavaria, was speaking at the Buergerbraeukeller
in Munich. Hitler and other Nazi leaders appeared, supported
by the Sturmabteilungen (Storm Troops) and other fighting
groups. Hitler fired a shot and announced that a Nationalist
Revolution setting up a dictatorship had taken place. There
followed a conference after which von Kahr, von Lossow, and
Colonel of Police von Seisser, announced they would
cooperate with Hitler and that a "Provisional National
Government" was established, as follows:
Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler
[Page 200]
It was also announced that Kahr would be State Administrator
for Bavaria, Poehner would be Bavarian Prime Minister, and
Frick would be Munich Police President. Kahr, Lossow and
Seisser then departed. During the night the latter group
alerted the police, brought troops to Munich, and announced
that their consent to the Putsch had been obtained by force.
On the afternoon of the next day, Hitler, Ludendorff, and
their supporters attempted to march into the center of
Munich. At the Feldherrnhalle the procession met a patrol of
police, shots were exchanged, and men on both sides were
killed. Hermann Goering was wounded, the Putsch was broken
up, the Party and its organization were declared illegal,
and its leaders, including Hitler, Frick, and Streicher were
arrested. Rosenberg, together with Amann and Drexler, tried
to keep the Party together after it had been forbidden.
Hitler and others later were tried for high treason. At the
trial Hitler admitted his participation in the foregoing
attempt to seize control of the State by force. He was
convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. (252-PS; 2404-PS)
(2) The Nazi Conspirators then set out through the Nazi
Party to undermine and capture the German Government by
"legal" forms supported by terrorism.
(a) In 1925, the conspirators reorganized the Nazi Party and
began a campaign to secure support from Germany voters
throughout the nation. On 26 February 1925, the Voelkischer
Beobachter, the official newspaper of the National Socialist
German Worker's Party (NSDAP) appeared for the first time
after the Munich Putsch, and on the following day Hitler
made his first speech after his release from prison. He then
began to rebuild the Party organization. The conspirators,
through the Nazi Party, participated in election campaigns
and other political activity throughout Germany and secured
the election of members of the Reichstag. (252-PS)
As a reflection of this activity the Nazi Party in May 1928,
received 2.6% of the total vote and obtained 12 out of 491
seats in the Reichstag. In September 1930, the Nazi Party
polled 18.3% of the total vote and won 107 out of 577 seats
in the Reichstag. In July 1932, it received 37.3% of the
total vote cast and won 230 out of 608 seats. In November
1932, it polled 33.1% of the vote and won 196 out of 584
seats in the Reichstag. (2514-PS)
(b) The Nazi conspirators asserted they sought power only by
legal forms. In November 1934, Hitler, speaking of the
Munich Putsch of 1923 said:
"It gave me the opportunity to lay down the new tactics
of the Party and to pledge it to legality". (2741-PS)
[Page 201]
In September 1931, three officers of the Reichswehr were
tried at Leipzig for high treason. At the request of Hans
Frank, Hitler was invited to testify at this trial that the
NSDAP was striving to attain its goal by purely legal means.
He was asked: "How do you imagine the setting up of a Third
Reich?" His reply was, "This term only describes the basis
of the struggle but not the objective. We will enter the
legal organizations and will make our Party a decisive
factor in this way. But when we do possess constitutional rights then we
will form the State in the manner which we consider to be
the right one." The President then asked: "This too by
constitutional means ?" Hitler replied: "Yes." (612-PS)
(c) The purpose of the Nazi conspirators in participating in
elections and in the Reichstag was to undermine the
parliamentary system of the Republic and to replace it with
a dictatorship of their own. This the Nazi conspirators
themselves made clear. Frick wrote in 1927:
"There is no National Socialist and no racialist who
expects any kind of manly German deed from that gossip
club on the Koenigsplatz and who is not convinced of
the necessity for direct action by the unbroken will of
the German people to bring about their spiritual and
physical liberation. But there is a long road ahead.
After the failure of November, 1923, there was no choice but to begin all
over again and to strive to bring about a change in the
spirit and determination of the most valuable of our
racial comrades, as the indispensable prerequisite for
the success of the coming fight for freedom. Our
activities in parliament must be evaluated as merely
part of this propaganda work.
"Our participation in the parliament does not indicate
a support, but rather an undermining of the
parliamentarian system. It does not indicate that we
renounce our anti-parliamentarian attitude, but that we
are fighting the enemy with his own weapons and that
we are fighting for our National Socialist goal from
the parliamentary platform." (2742-PS)
On 30 April 1928, Goebbels wrote in his paper "Der Angriff";
"We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in
the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. We
become members of the Reichstag in order to paralyze
the Weimar sentiment with its own assistance. If
democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and
per diem for the this "blockade" (Barendienst), that is
its own affair."
Later in the same article he continued:
"We do not come as friend nor even as neutrals. we come
[Page 202]
as enemies: As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come." (2500-PS)
In a pamphlet published in 1935, Goebbels said:
"When democracy granted democratic methods for us in
the times of opposition, this was bound to happen in a
democratic system. However, we National Socialists
never asserted that we represented a democratic point
of view, but we have declared openly that we used
democratic methods only in order to gain the power and
that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our
adversaries without any consideration the means which
were granted to us in the times of opposition. (2412-PS)
A leading Nazi writer on Constitutional Law, Ernst Rudolf Huber, later wrote of this period:
"The parliamentary battle of the NSDAP had the single
purpose of destroying the parliamentary system from
within through its own methods. It was necessary above
all to make formal use of the possibilities of the
party-state system but to refuse real cooperation and
thereby to render the parliamentary system, which is by
nature dependent upon the responsible cooperation of the
opposition, incapable of action." (2633-PS)
The Nazi members of the Reichstag conducted themselves as a
storm troop unit. Whenever representatives of the government
or the democratic parties spoke, the Nazi members marched
out in a body in studied contempt of the speaker, or entered
in a body to interrupt the speaker,
thus making it physically impossible for the Reichstag
President to maintain order. In the case of speakers of
opposition parties, the Nazi members constantly interrupted,
often resorting to lengthy and spurious parliamentary
maneuvers, with the result that the schedule of the session
was thrown out of order. The tactics finally culminated in
physical attacks by the Nazis upon members of the house as
well as upon visitors. (L-83)
In a letter of 24 August 1931 to Rosenberg, Hitler deplored
an article in "Voelkscher Beobachter" the effect of which
was to prevent undermining of support for the then existing
form of government, and said: "I myself am travelling all
over Germany to achieve exactly the opposite." (047-PS)
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Volume
I Chapter VII
Means Used by the Nazi Conspiractors in Gaining Control of the German State
(Part 8 of 55)
Leader of the National Army Gen. von Ludendorff
Reich Minister of War von Lossow
Reich Minister of Police von Seisser
Reich Finance Minister Feder