Longerich Peter. Heinrich Himmler: A Life

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retired Lieutenant-General Bruno Heinemann, who was also head of the

party’s Investigation and Conciliation Committee. Gregor Strasser was to

replace Heinemann as head of the Reich Organization in 1928.AsReich

Treasurer, Franz Xaver Schwarz had been responsible for the party’s

ﬁnances since 1925. Schwarz, who was considered honest and efﬁcient,

was to retain this position until the end of the so-called Third Reich in 1945.

To begin with, a trainee schoolteacher, Hermann Schneider, acted as Party

Secretary until he was replaced by Karl Fiehler, a low-ranking local gov-

ernment ofﬁcial.

And, ﬁnally, as chief of the SA, Franz von Pfeffer was a

member of the party leadership from the end of 1926.

Max Amann, with

whom Himmler had crossed swords the previous year, was closely linked

with the party leadership; Hitler’s former sergeant from his Regiment No. 12

was responsible for the party’s publishing house, the Eher Verlag.

Apart from the politically ambitious Strasser and the SA chief von Pfeffer,

who was politically aware and, in seeing the SA as a paramilitary league,

wanted as far as possible to maintain its autonomy, the party leadership was

largely composed of people with limited leadership potential who as a rule

concentrated on their speciﬁc tasks. In doing so, however, they could, as

was the case with Himmler, work largely independently, covered by the

authority of the party leader; the individual heads of department were

authorized by Hitler to act in his name vis-a

-vis the party organizations in

their particular spheres of operation.

This arrangement reﬂected Hitler’s style of leadership and his aim, if

possible, to avoid getting involved in the numerous arguments, struggles

over competence, and rivalries which went on within the party and instead

to await their conclusion from afar. In this way he succeeded in avoiding

having his leadership aura, the Fu

hrer principle, degraded by the day-to-day

conﬂicts within the party. Moreover, Hitler, who during these years was

travelling extensively in order to win support for the party, spent compara-

tively little time at party headquarters and was difﬁcult to reach, even for his

closest colleagues.

His correspondence was mainly dealt with by his faithful

private secretary Rudolf Hess, who was, however, regarded by many as a

strange person.

Since Himmler and the other functionaries in the party headquarters

always used Hitler’s authority to back their instructions, they did everything

they could to secure his position vis-a

-vis the party comrades outside. This

was clearly, from Hitler’s point of view, a further positive aspect of his

working methods. Himmler had exceptional freedom of action because the

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propaganda chief, Strasser, was frequently engaged in party activities else-

where through the responsibilities imposed by his seat in the Reichstag and

as one of the foremost party agitators.

When Strasser was appointed head of

the Reich Party Organization in January 1928 and Hitler provisionally,

though in fact only nominally, took over the role of R eich Propaganda

Chief himself, Himmler increased his freedom of action still further.

Himmler was mainly concerned with organizational matters: he con-

ducted the correspondence with the local branches, sent them propaganda

material, assessed propaganda suggestions from party comrades, requested

reports, and so on. In the process he endeavoured above all to unify the

party’s various propaganda activities and to bring them under the control of

party headquarters. For this purpose, from 1926 onwards a series of num-

bered ‘Instructions and Announcements’

appeared in party newspapers

which unmistakably bore Himmler’s signature, as did the pamphlet Propa-

ganda issued in spring 1928, in which practical suggestions were given for

the organization of the party’s propaganda.

In addition, he was responsible, together with the various Gau headquar-

ters, for coordinating the deployment of party speakers throughout the

Reich. Naturally, he paid particular attention to the preparation of the—as

he put it in his correspondence—‘Hitler meetings’, which were still the

most important means of propaganda for the party. While he was often not

in a position to meet the requests of the local branches for Hitler to come

and speak, particularly since the latter was careful only to make a limited

number of speeches, nevertheless he could not resist sending out to the local

branches ‘Directives for Meetings involving the Party Leader’ and also

questionnaires for the preparation of the, often long-awaited, speech.

The demand of local party organizations for other speakers could often

not be met because of a lack of attractive party speakers capable of being

deployed outside their home territory.

In particular, Himmler endeavoured to use his role as deputy Reich

Propaganda Chief to construct a comprehensive, internal party reporting

service. Over two full sides of the pamphlet he listed thirteen different types

of report which had to be regularly sent in by the local branches, insisting

that ‘failure to keep to the deadlines will result in a stern warning and, where

necessary, be reported to the Fu

hrer’.

Among the things to report were:

‘all Jews living in the area of the local branch or Gau, including if possible

Jews who have been baptized, with exact details of name, age, occupation,

and domicile. This report is necessary for us to be able at last to produce an

the party functionary 91

accurate statistical breakdown of the number of Jews in the population.’

Also, they were to provide details of all Freemasons, the names of the locally

‘most vicious opponents’, all ‘the known addresses of Germans living

abroad’, all cases of the ‘mistreatment of, attacks on, and terrorist acts against

party comrades that have been committed by opponents in the respective

district or Gau since the founding of the party’, and ‘all sentences of

imprisonment or ﬁnes imposed on party comrades on the basis of political

interrogations or charges’. Finally, ‘where necessary’ further reports on

other topics should be submitted, which Himmler did not omit to list in

detail. The pamphlet documents Himmler’s pedantry and his obsessive need

to exercise control, as well as his megalomania, for such a reporting and data

system—had the Gaus and local branches actually obeyed his instructions—

would have swamped the Reich headquarters’s ability to cope.

Apart from his other activities, Himmler was continually on the move.

His ofﬁce diaries from this period show that he not only visited Upper

Bavaria and the Gau of Lower Bavaria, but made numerous trips to other

parts of Germany. In January 1927, for example, he spent some time in

Thuringia, where a state election was due; at the beginning of February he

travelled to Westphalia and at the end of April to the Ruhr; in May he spent

time in Mecklenburg because of the state election there; and on the way

back he stopped off in Potsdam and in Chemnitz; in the second half of June

he was in various parts of north Germany, on 14 July in Vienna, in mid-

October in Hesse, and so it went on uninterrupted.

In the course of these journeys he played an active role as a party speaker;

on average he spoke more than once a week at internal party meetings or

made public speeches. In doing so he continued to use the anti-capitalist

rhetoric of his mentor Strasser, as is clear from a speech in Potsdam on

13 October 1926: ‘In the course of history periods of capitalism and

socialism alternate with one another; capitalism is the unnatural, socialism

the natural economic system.’ He went on to outline the alleged alternation

of ‘socialist’ and ‘capitalist’ phases of German history. He placed the Peasant

Wars, the epoch of Frederick the Great, as well as the reforms of Freiherr

vom Stein under the heading of ‘socialism’; again and again such attempts at

reform had been blocked by capitalism:

Capitalism has once again taken over the throne. Nowadays people are no longer

interested in whether someone’s an honest chap, but just in how much money he

has. People don’t ask where the money has come from, but whether he’s got it.

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Capitalism seizes control of machinery, the most noble invention of mankind, and

uses it to enslave people. This causes people to long for freedom and this longing for

freedom expresses itself in the workers’ class struggle. The German bourgeoisie

don’t understand that and so we get the Socialists’ struggle going on till 1918.

Himmler even went so far as to suggest there was broad agreement between

the Nazi and communist visions of the future: ‘The National Socialists and

the Red Front have the same aspirations. The Jews falsiﬁed the Revolution

in the form of Marxism and that failed to bring fulﬁlment. Why, is not the

issue today. So, there’s still a longing for Socialism.’

This link that was emerging between Himmler’s anti-capitalist and anti-

Semitic rhetoric was evident in other speeches. Thus, in a speech made in

the Munich district of Neuhausen in October 1926 he was quoted by the

police report as saying: ‘It’s not true when people claim that the Jews

manage to get on in the world because they’re clever. If the NSDAP

committed perjury and behaved as ruthlessly and brutally as the Jews do

then it would have made more progress long ago.’

In April 1927 the police

reported on a speech he made to the Nazi branch in Regensburg as follows:

The Jews have used capitalism for their own ends and in their struggle for power

they understand very well how to play off ‘Internationalism’ against the nations.

Internationalism neutralizes the importance of the individual nations and aims at

enslaving all the workers of the world. There’s only one way of avoiding this fate:

to unite all the German workers on the basis of nationalism in order to introduce a

socialist regime. Our aim is to establish a powerful, nationalist, socialist, German

workers’ party.

A few weeks after Himmler had taken up his new post there were state

elections in Saxony in which, with a vote of 1.6 per cent, the NSDAP fared

much worse than its followers had expected; a few months before, in June,

it had gained only 1.7 per cent in the state election in Mecklenburg-

Schwerin. Party comrades blamed this lack of electoral success on the

incompetence of party headquarters; this represented a challenge for the

recently appointed deputy Propaganda Chief. At the end of 1926 the hopes

of the membership were focused on the Thuringian state elections to be

held in January 1927. A certain Fritz Schusnus, who was appointed cam-

paign manager by the Thuringian party leadership, wrote to Munich in

October: ‘If the organization of the election campaign in Mecklenburg and

Saxony had been handled differently the result wouldn’t have been so

disappointing. We would never recover if we had an election result in

the party functionary 93

Thuringia like those in Saxony and Mecklenburg. I would, therefore, like

to request Reich headquarters to move heaven and earth to make sure that

we don’t have the same confusion and lack of direction here as they had in

Saxony.’

However, Himmler could not do much to help; he told Schus-

nus that they did not possess substantial sums of money and that there was

no point in launching a major campaign in December.

In the event, the

party could consider the 3.5 per cent that the NSDAP won in the state

election in January as only a very modest success.

Appointed campaign manager for the next state election in Mecklen-

burg-Schwerin, which took place on 22 May 1927, Himmler approached

the task systematically, as was his wont. He saw his main task as being to

cover the state with a dense net of meetings with Nazi speakers. The

available sources show that his methodical approach ended up being rather

schematic: ‘I class speakers’ spoke at total of sixty-three meetings, ‘II class

speakers’ at ﬁfty, ‘those of III class quality’ had to cover around 300 meetings

in smaller locations.

However, his splendid plan was in danger of collaps-

ing because Himmler was prepared to launch the campaign only when the

Mecklenburg membership had proved that they had fulﬁlled the ofﬁcial

requirements for participation in the election. One month before the

election Himmler demanded ‘a report’ from the party members in the

north within a few days, to the effect that they had paid the obligatory

deposit of 3, 000 Reich marks ofﬁcially required for permission to submit a

party list and that the requisite list supported by 3,000 signatures had been

ofﬁcially certiﬁed. Himmler insisted categorically that, in the event that

these had not occurred within the deadline, ‘we shall not participate in the

election’.

The Gau leadership in Mecklenburg-Lu

beck was somewhat put out by

this curt tone. Those responsible insisted on starting the campaign without

waiting for a green light from Munich.

One of the leading Mecklenburg

party members wrote to Himmler that his idea of limiting the campaign to

the last fourteen days was ‘nonsense’. It would be much more sensible to

extend the campaign to cover the last three weeks, although that was no

longer feasible. But that was the fault of party headquarters in Munich,

namely Himmler’s. The party ofﬁcials in Parchim in Mecklenburg were on

edge: ‘It would have been possible if the Munich headquarters hadn’t

adopted such an absurdly bureaucratic attitude. Forgive me the harsh

words, but it’s the truth. What on earth does Reich headquarters think of

the Mecklenburg Gau leader? In my view, if the Gau leader reports that he’s

94 th e party functi onary

collected the 3,000 Reich marks and 3,000 signatures then party headquar-

ters ought to believe him! After all, the Gau leader isn’t a fool or a

misbehaving child who is telling a lie! For Reich headquarters to demand

ofﬁcial police conﬁrmation for the Gau leader’s statements just shows the

most incredible lack of trust.’ They told him they had got in touch with

Hitler’s secretary, Hess, directly and arranged not to make the start of the

election campaign dependent on the ofﬁcial conﬁrmation of the handing in

of the election list.

Himmler, who had been bypassed in this manner, was not prepared to

accept these accusations. With a mixture of self-opinionatedness and pa-

tronizing irony, and referring to the highest authority in the party, he

responded in point eighteen of a long letter concerning the deployment

of speakers in Mecklenburg:

It is not a revelation to me that it would be more sensible to carry out propaganda

long before the start of an election campaign, indeed I am well aware of the fact.

However, if I am responsible for something then I have to take other matters into

consideration. The Gau can just about manage an election campaign of fourteen

days’ duration. We all know very well what would be nice and ideal. But we have

to deal with what is. We are going to stick with a propaganda campaign during the

last fourteen days. I should like to add that I have discussed this ‘nonsense’ with

Herr Hitler and Herr Hitler has approved this ‘nonsense’.

Moreover, he pointed out that his request for a report on the signatures and

the deposit had been prompted by ‘Herr Hitler himself ’. If, for example,

some of the signatures had not been recognized by the authorities, then

‘a vast apparatus involving huge costs would have been set in motion for

nothing. It is right and proper that you should be thinking of the interests of

your Gau. But it is also right and proper that those outside the Gau should

take a broader view. This should not be seen in any way as a lack of trust.’

The Mecklenburg election campaign reached a critical stage when, just

before the date of the election, it became known that Hitler would not be

available to speak at meetings. On 18 May, four days before the election,

Himmler informed the party members in Mecklenburg of the decision in a

manner which indicates that, to put it mildly, a great deal of discontent had

built up among the membership: ‘However, as National Socialists we know

that Hitler would not have cancelled unless he had had a very good reason

for doing so [ . . . ] It would be unscrupulous and cowardly if, as a result of

this, a branch leader permitted a bad and mutinous mood to develop or even

the party functionary 95

sat on his hands. There can be no place in a National Socialist organization

for the words “impossible” or “we can’t”.’

In fact, instead of the planned

400 meetings, the Mecklenburg Nazis held only 106. The election result

was disastrous for the party: 5,611 votes or 1.8 per cent.

The NSDAP did

not take part in the elections in tiny Mecklenburg-Strelitz held in July of the

same year; however, the German-Vo

lkisch Freedom Movement won 5 per

cent of the vote.

In Hamburg, in February 1927, the NSDAP received only a meagre

2.2 per cent of the vote. Himmler’s period as Reich Propaganda Chief also

covered the Reichstag election defeat of 1928 when the party gained only

2.8 per cent of the vote (in December 1924, when Hitler was in prison, it

was 3 per cent). The state elections in Prussia and in a number of other

states, which were held on the same day, produced similarly depressing

results. However, it was encouraging that the party achieved relatively good

results in a number of rural districts. The party leadership which, primarily

under Strasser’s inﬂuence, until then had focused above all on trying to win

over the urban working class from the Socialist parties, now switched to a

tactic in which rural areas assumed greater importance. This naturally suited

Himmler, with his diploma in agriculture, for he had also campaigned

among the peasants of Lower Bavaria during the years 1924–6.

Accordingly, in December he drafted a new plan for concentrating

propaganda in particular regions. For this purpose he evidently reverted to

a tactic that he had developed for the Mecklenburg state election of May

1927 but had not been able fully to put into practice. He informed the

various Gau headquarters that they were intending to cover every region

from time to time with ‘large-scale propaganda actions’. For this purpose

70 to 100 meetings would be held in a Gau within a period of seven to ten

days, and there would also be a propaganda week with special propaganda

evenings for the SA, for the Hitler Youth, and for the press. The Reich

Propaganda Department would be in overall charge. They had already

planned propaganda actions in the ‘Eastern March’ (as Austria was referred

to in vo

lkisch circles) in January 1929, in Halle-Merseburg in February, and

in Saxony in March 1929.

The plan was characteristic of Himmler’s schematic approach. Moreover,

Himmler’s ideas once again far exceeded the practical possibilities open to

the party: given their limited organizational capabilities, most Gaus were

simply not in a position to carry out such elaborate campaigns.

The

shortage of speakers who could be deployed outside their home districts

96 th e party functi onary

was also a serious obstacle. For this reason Himmler advocated transforming

the correspondence courses for party speakers, which the Thuringian Gau-

leiter Fritz Reinhardt had been organizing since 1926, into an ofﬁcial

‘NSDAP Speakers’ College’. Reinhardt was the proprietor of a college for

commercial correspondence courses.

In fact, Himmler’s proposal for

‘large-scale propaganda actions’ contained ideas that were taken up a short

time later by the Nazi Party, when it had the necessary organizational

resources. Nazi propaganda targeted at particular regions, which was to

reach a hitherto exceptional intensity in rural areas, became characteristic of

the NSDAP during the years 1930–3.

However, it was not only the discrepancy between Himmler’s elaborate

planning coupled with his insistence on exercising control and the poorly

developed party apparatus in the provinces that prevented the deputy

Propaganda Chief from becoming a popular ﬁgure in the NSDAP. He

was not helped by his overbearing and arrogant manner in dealing with

subordinates, which had already become apparent in connection with the

Mecklenburg election campaign. Typical of this was his refusal, allegedly

on the grounds of permanent work pressure, to behave in a friendly

manner. His letters from this period are marked by an impersonal style,

the lack of the slightest signs of politeness, and by the reduction of the

content to brief pieces of information and instructions. He frequently

requested a reply ‘by return of post’

and ‘an immediate response’,

stated, ‘I decisively reject [ . . . ] the tone of your letter’.

He would not

tolerate any opposition. Reprimands were common. For example, in April

1927 he wrote to the Hersbru

ck local branch: ‘I must say that we here

were astonished at how a local branch of the NSDAP could think of

requesting a talk by someone who isn’t a Party member. I would like to

refer you to the Propaganda Memorandum and suggest that you read it, as

one would expect of the secretary of a local branch. You will then see that

it is stated on page 9 that meetings can be held only by members of the

party.’

Also in April 1927 he advised the Hof branch urgently to hold a

‘German Day’: ‘I recommend you read pages 34 and 35 of the Propaganda

Memorandum, which you were obliged to order.’

When a party sympa-

thizer wrote that he wished the party would engage in less ‘bashing around

blindly’, Himmler replied in August 1928: ‘You might have spared yourself

the ﬁnal sentence, because we know what we have to do and we know

very well who and what we have to bash.’

the party functionary 97

In July 1927 he requested a party member in Stettin to report on internal

matters in the local party ‘on his word of honour’, which he explained as

follows: ‘You have to include everything you know about the goings-on in

Stettin.’ And: ‘As an SS leader you must have enough discipline in you to

carry out an order without asking about the whys and the wherefores. If

your report has not arrived within eight days I shall see to it that you are

excluded from the SS and initiate further steps.’

It was typical of him to make it clear that enquiries were basically

superﬂuous and, in view of his being permanently under pressure of

work, represented an unnecessary burden: ‘1. I have received your letter

of 8 inst. 2. Even if you overwhelm me with letters I still cannot give you

any more speakers, since I do not have any more. What is more, you are

imposing a burden on our work here. With Greetings and Hail . . . ’

If he

was dealing with prominent party members, however, he could not be

more obsequious. Thus, in marked contrast to his normal impersonal style,

his letters to Franz Ritter von Epp are always addressed to ‘The most

respected Herr General’, and instead of the usual brief ‘with German

greetings’, he signs off with extreme servility: ‘With German greetings

I am, Herr General, your most humble servant.’

Himmler also got used to justifying his decisions where possible by

claiming that they had been reached while carrying out Hitler’s instructions

or in consultation with other members of the Reich Party leadership: ‘If I am

properly to fulﬁl the Fu

hrer’s instructions to allocate the election meetings

and to provide properly for all the areas where major campaigns are being

conducted, then every local branch must ensure that it obeys the Fu

hrer’s

orders.’

In February 1927 he rejected the request of the Aschaffenburg

branch to hold a German Day, and added: ‘This decision is ﬁnal and has been

reached in agreement with all the members of the Reich Party leadership.’

Himmler reacted particularly aggressively to a request from the West-

deutscher Beobachter, a party newspaper that appeared in Cologne. A few days

previously the paper had asked for ‘the twenty-ﬁve points of the party

programme to be sent as quickly as possible in the enclosed format’.

Himmler had misunderstood the request and assumed that the people in

Cologne did not know their own programme. The members in Cologne

were, of course, familiar with its contents; what they wanted from Munich

was a particular format, which could be used in order to publish the

programme in the paper. This misunderstanding produced a classic overre-

action from Himmler:

98 th e party functi onary

We have never before come across such an incredible request from the editors of a

newspaper recognized by the party [ ...]Isuggest that you look in your memb er-

ship card and also get the Rhineland Gau leadership ofﬁce to let you have Leaﬂet

No. 1: The 25 Points, and you should acquaint yourself with The 25 Points by Party

comrade Alfred Rosenberg, as well as issue No. 1 of the National Socialist Library by

Gottfried Feder, in which you will ﬁnd the other 13 points that you do not yet

know. Apart from that, I should like to say that with us SA members who do not

know it are thrown out.

The party members associated with the Westdeutscher Beobachter were

shocked and felt very insulted. They regretted that Himmler’s letter

‘could have been written at all’, since such a response was not ‘calculated

to create or encourage a relationship of trust between party comrades’. The

author of the letter went on:

If I wanted to play your game I might perhaps ask you the question: when did you

ﬁrst become aware of the NSDAP’s programme? I have known it since spring 1922

and really have no need to feel ashamed of my services to the NSDAP. You, as a

member of the Reich leadership, when you are writing to party comrades who have

been active in and made great sacriﬁces for our movement—and I count myself

among their number—sh ould take special care to refrain from using methods that

may be appropriate for dealing with a Marxist muckraker and bigwig.

Himmler justiﬁed himself, as usual, by hiding behind his colleagues in the

party leadership: ‘I have shown your letter to several members of the Reich

leadership before replying to it. I am by no means alone in the view I hold.’

He claimed that, apart from him, ‘two other gentlemen in party headquar-

ters have come to the conclusion that you do not know the points or at least

the explanations of the points’.

Himmler’s unsuccessful and yet all the more contentious activity for party

headquarters raises the question: why did his party career not come to an

end in the 1920s? Why did none of the numerous conﬂicts in which he was

involved lead to his dismissal from the party leadership?

The fact that he was able to hold on to his position will have had much to

do with his skill at ﬁtting in with the power structure of this ‘Fu

hrer-

dominated’ party, and at not making enemies, at any rate at party-leadership

level. During these years there was antagonism between the Munich lead-

ership and party members in the provinces, which found expression in

frequent conﬂicts. What held the party together was the charisma of the

party leader, in other words, Hitler’s ability continually to convince party

the party functionary 99