Longerich Peter. Heinrich Himmler: A Life

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Defence Minister. The Reichstag was dissolved in accordance with the

agreement with Hitler, and new elections ﬁxed for 31 July. The ban on

the SA and SS was lifted punctually in mid-June to coincide with the start of

the election campaign. On 20 July the Papen government replaced the

Social Democrat-led government of Prussia with a ‘Reich Commissar’, and

thereby removed one of the Weimar Republic’s last defensive bastions.

In these elections the NSDAP achieved its greatest triumph hitherto; it

won 37.4 per cent of the vote. After this success—the party had once again

managed to double its vote compared with the previous election of Sep-

tember 1930—the NSDAP assumed that it was about to seize power. In east

Germany Nazi activists stepped up their campaign of violence to produce a

wave of terror. They were in the process of breaking with the party’s ‘policy

of legality’ and moving towards an open revolt against the state. On 1

August 1932, the day after the Reichstag election, the SA and SS launched

a series of bomb attacks and assaults on the NSDAP’s opponents in Ko

nigs-

berg. A communist city councillor was murdered, and the publisher of the

Social Democrat newspaper Ko

nigsberger Volkszeitung, as well as the right-

wing liberal former district governor (Regierungspra

sident)ofKo

nigsberg and

another communist functionary, were seriously injured. In the coming days

this campaign of terror was extended to the whole of East Prussia and then

to the province of Silesia, with further attacks and murders.

There is clear evidence that it was Himmler who was primarily respon-

sible for the Ko

nigsberg terror campaign and gave the orders to Waldemar

Wappe nhaus, the leader of the East Prus sian Standar te. There is a lett er in

Wappe nhaus’s SS personal ﬁle dated 1938, in which, commenting to the

SS’s head of personn el on accusations that had been made against him, he

referred to old ‘services’ he had rendered. After all, ‘in 1932, as leader of

the Ko

nigsberg Standarte’, he had ‘carried out the RFSS’s order to ﬁnish

off the communist chiefs’ and, as a result, had suffered ‘ police persecution

as a wanted man’.

Wappenhaus’s reference to the way in which orders were issued at the

time is a rare document. Naturally, in the quasi-civil war situation of the years

1930–3 documents relating to political murders were not kept by the SS, and

although after the takeover of power there was much talk of the ‘heroic

deeds’ of the ‘time of struggle’, the unpleasant details of the terror campaigns

of those days were concealed. In future Himmler too preferred to remain

silent about his role in these violent political conﬂicts.

140 reichsfu¨hrer-ss

Violence meted out to political opponents, their ‘elimination’, was never

a moral problem for Himmler. As we have seen, during his student days he

had already played an active part in paramilitary organizations and come to

terms with the idea of a civil war. He had been involved in an armed putsch.

He regarded the post-war conﬂicts as merely an extension of the World War,

for which he had prepared so thoroughly during his military service. As far as

he was concerned, the Weimar Republic’s years of stability were simply a

short interlude in the struggle against ‘Marxism’, which had to be destroyed.

In August 1932, by taking vigorous measures, the police and judiciary

managed once again to put a stop to the wave of violence launched by Nazi

supporters in eastern Germany. It was against the background of these

conﬂicts that, on 13 August, the decisive meeting took place between the

election victor and the Reich President, at which—and that was the ﬁrm

conviction of the Nazis—Hindenburg would offer Hitler the ofﬁce of

Reich Chancellor. The Reich President, however, merely asked Hitler to

Ill. 8. Himmler’s election to the Reichstag in September 1930 gave him

ﬁnancial security and immunity from prosecution. However, as a parliamentarian

he was almost invisible. After giving up the Reich Propaganda department

to Goebbe ls, Himmler concent rated on his leadership of the SS. Re-elected in July

1932, he along with the other Naz i deputies, swore an oath of personal loyalty

to Hitler on 29 August in the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin.

reichsfu¨hrer-ss 141

cooperate with the new government and, after the latter declined to do so,

published a statement in which he publicly repudiated Hitler.

From this point onwards the NSDAP came under increasing pressure.

For years its supporters had been asked to make great sacriﬁces and been

promised power in return, but now it appeared that, despite enormous

electoral successes, the prospect of their taking over the government had

receded into the far distance. The party leadership’s ‘tactic of legality’

appeared to have failed. When, in the middle of September, the Reichstag

was dissolved and the party once again found itself facing the rigours of an

election, its supporters became disappointed and apathetic. This was partic-

ularly true of the SA, but also affected the otherwise so reliable and

disciplined SS, which in any case during the second half of the year had

seen, by comparison with the rapid growth of the preceding months, only a

modest increase in membership.

In September 1932 a number of internal reports on the mood in the SS

reﬂect the mixed reactions within the organization. Thus Abschnitt IV

(Brunswick) reported to headquarters that the ‘dissolution of the Reichstag

and the resultant delay in the seizure of power initially caused the SS to

be somewhat depressed’. But ‘belief in our ﬁnal victory is unbroken [. . .]

the troops are ﬁlled with a revolutionary spirit faithful to the National

Socialist programme’,

a sentence which implies a pointed criticism of

the ‘legal’ tactics of the party leadership, which were precisely not ‘revo-

lutionary’.

The leader of SS-Gruppe East reported: ‘the mood of the SS in my

Group area is good and has by no means given way to depression.’ Howev-

er, the reporter then immediately qualiﬁed this statement by commenting:

‘It is only economic worries that make it more difﬁcult for individuals to

perform the duties they have taken on; it is only their ﬁnancial concerns that

make them vulnerable to depression.’

According to Gruppe South, the mood within the south German SS was

‘normal’. However, ‘our movement’s failure to take power [. . .] has pro-

duced a certain amount of depression and insecurity’.

Gruppe South-East

(Silesia) reported that in general the mood was ‘good’; however, in some

formations ‘there is discontent because the political situation is uncertain’.

Gruppe West reported: ‘the mood among the SS in Group West is very

good, the SS’s ﬁghting spirit is revolutionary, belief in victory and in the

hrer is unshakeable’,

and, similarly, Abschnitt VII (Danzig) noted that

‘the mood’ was ‘calm and conﬁdent’.

142 reichsfu¨hrer-ss

The discontent in the SS hinted at here manifested itself among other

things in increased tension with the SA, whose situation—they felt them-

selves cheated of their reward after years of ‘commitment’ to the move-

ment—was almost desperate.

In the middle of December 1932 Ro

noted, in a conﬁdential circular to the highest-ranking SA leaders and the

Reichsfu

hrer-SS, that there had been an increase, ‘recently to an alarming

extent’, in the number of ‘complaints about a deterioration in the relation-

ship between the SA and SS’. He, therefore, requested his Inspector-

General, Curt von Ulrich, to call a meeting of the highest-ranking SA

leaders with a delegation of SS led by Himmler. The date was ﬁxed for 10

January 1933.

However, by then the general political situation had long since changed.

In the election of 6 November the Nazi Party suffered losses for the ﬁrst

time; it could secure only 33.1 per cent of the vote. Right-wing conserva-

tives saw this result as a caesura: the NSDAP appeared to have passed the

high-point of its success; now it ought to be possible to keep it under

control within a coalition government.

At the beginning of December 1932 General von Schleicher succeeded in

asserting his authority in a confrontation with von Papen. He made it clear

to the cabinet that the Reichswehr would not be in a position to control the

opposition forces of both Left and Right simultaneously. Thus, another way

out of the crisis had to be found. When Hindenburg appointed him as von

Papen’s successor in a cabinet that was otherwise hardly altered, von

Schleicher was convinced that he could come up with another solution.

Claiming the need to give priority to a work-creation programme, the new

Chancellor endeavoured to form a ‘cross-party front’ made up of trades

unions, professional organizations, Reichswehr, and Nazis, calculating that

he could split off the ‘left’ wing of the NSDAP around Gregor Strasser from

the rest of the party.

Strasser did indeed enter discussions with von Schleicher on the matter,

but in the process isolated himself from the rest of the Nazi leadership,

ﬁnally resigning from all his party ofﬁces on 8 December. Although Strasser

had thereby become persona non grata in the NSDAP, Himmler still main-

tained contact with him. Even as late as April 1933 he employed Strasser,

who was now working as an estate agent, to sell his property in Waldtru-

dering.

In the meantime von Papen, who was still highly regarded by Hinden-

burg, was working behind the scenes to construct a new government

reichsfu¨hrer-ss 143

involving the Nazis. The notorious ﬁrst meeting between him and Hitler

took place on 4 January 1933 at the Cologne home of the banker Kurt

Freiherr von Schroeder. Himmler was actively involved, and indeed played

a signiﬁcant role, in the ongoing negotiations. A few days later, on 10

January, Himmler, accompanied by Hitler’s economic adviser Wilhelm

Keppler, visited the Berlin businessman Joachim von Ribbentrop and, in

Hitler’s name, asked whether he could arrange another meeting. On 18

January the two met again in Ribbentrop’s villa, where Hitler, Ro

hm, and

Himmler lunched with von Papen. According to Ribbentrop, Hitler used

this opportunity once more to request that he be given the Chancellorship.

Von Papen declined the request on the grounds that Hindenburg would not

accept it. In fact, he said that he himself wanted to become Chancellor, with

Hitler’s support. But Hitler was not interested.

A few days later—in the meantime, Franz Seldte, the leader of the

veterans’ organization the Stahlhelm, had declared his support for Hit-

ler—von Papen changed his mind and declared himself willing to let Hitler

become Chancellor. It was largely under his inﬂuence that Hindenburg was

also persuaded to change his mind. Hindenburg now informed von Schlei-

cher that he was not prepared to protect him from the Reichstag majority by

granting him another dissolution of parliament. This obliged von Schleicher

to resign and paved the way for a Hitler–Papen government.

144 reichsfu¨hrer-ss

PART

Inside The Third Reich

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The Takeover of the Political

Police

n 30 January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of a coalition govern-

ment. Six months later the Nazis had taken control of the whole of

the state apparatus, emasculated the Constitution, and become the domi-

nant political force in almost every sphere of life. In brief, this process

occurred in the following stages: the emergency decree of 28 February

1933 in response to the Reichstag ﬁre, which suspended the most important

civil rights enshrined in the Constitution; the victory of the Nazi-led

coalition in the Reichstag election of 5 March; the Enabling Law of 24

March, which neutralized parliament and transferred legislative power to

the government; the ‘coordination’ of the federal states; the elimination of

the trades unions as well as of all political parties apart from the NSDAP;

ﬁnally, the establishment of effective control over all interest groups, social

organizations, and clubs right down to local level. By July 1933 the Nazis

were in total command of the situation.

This takeover of power in stages was carried out by a clever combination

of measures ‘from above’ and quasi-revolutionary ‘actions’ by the party’s

rank and ﬁle. But terror played a central role.

Its effects were devastating.

Nevertheless, during this phase it was by no means organized in a uniform

manner or carefully coordinated. It was only during the course of the so-

called ‘seizure of power’ that the Nazis succeeded in constructing a terror

apparatus, and it would take quite a time before they had created a uniform

system covering the Reich as a whole. Himmler became the key ﬁgure in

this process and, in the end, was able to establish his authority in the face of

all his rivals and opponents.

Bavaria as the springboard

Essentially, the Nazis used the following political mechanisms to combat

and terrorize their political opponents, and it was only gradually that they

integrated them into a coordinated system: the takeover of the political

police, its detachment from the regular police organization, and its utiliza-

tion in the interests of the new regime; the appointment of SA and SS men

as auxiliary police; the use of so-called ‘protective custody’, in other words,

the indeﬁnite internment of persons without due process,

as well as the

establishment of numerous detention camps, in which the actual or alleged

opponents of the new regime were subjected to unrestrained and arbitrary

treatment. The whole situation was complicated by the fact that a power

struggle developed within the various German states between the SA, SS,

and the party’s political organization over who was to control the various

instruments of terror, a struggle that produced different results in each state.

Hermann Go

ring, the second-most powerful man in the Nazi Party, was

appointed acting Minister of the Interior in Prussia, the largest German

state. He used his position to take control of the police and, by removing the

political police from the general police administration, he was able to create

a ‘Secret State Police’ (Geheime Staatspolizei = Gestapo) for combating

political opponents. On 22 February he began recruiting ‘auxiliary police’

from the ranks of the SA and SS. However, both organizations began at

once to exploit the situation by assuming a quasi-police role independently

of the police authorities and detaining tens of thousands of alleged or actual

opponents. They held them in makeshift camps, which they operated either

autonomously or acting for the state authorities, who had effectively trans-

ferred to the SA and SS responsibility for guarding these prisoners.

Bavaria, the second-largest state, was the last to fall victim to the Nazi

seizure of power. On 9 March Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick

appointed the retired Lieutenant-General Franz Ritter von Epp, who was

one of the most prominent Nazis in the state, to be Reich Governor in

Bavaria under the pretext that Heinrich Held’s conservative government

was incapable of maintaining order. The ‘proof’ for this assertion was

provided by SA and SS units, whose rowdy demonstrations in Munich

guaranteed the requisite disorder.

On the same evening as his appointment

von Epp assigned to the Nazi Gauleiter of Upper Bavaria, Adolf Wagner,

148 takeo ver of the political police

the post of acting Bavarian Interior Minister, and to Heinrich Himmler the

post of acting Munich police chief. Department VI of police headquarters,

which controlled the political police, and which during the Weimar Re-

public had been responsible for combating political extremism throughout

Bavaria, was taken over by Heydrich, who immediately began to build it up

as an effective base.

Ill. 9. [The notice reads]:

Business closed by the police on account of proﬁteering.

Proprietor is in protective custody in Dachau

The Bavarian Political Police Commander

Signed: Himmler

With the SS camp at Dachau, Himmler, as chief of the politica l police in Bavaria,

had created a model for the future system of Nazi concentration camps. Right from

the start Himmler understood how to exploit the terror associated with Dachau

with carefully targeted publicity. As early as spring 1933 there was no need to

explain what was implied by a reference to Dachau.

takeover of the political police 149