Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

Coburg, on the disturbances to the Regierungspräsidium of Upper Franconia, 16 October 1922, and to the State Ministry of the Interior in Munich, 27 October 1922 (quotation from p. 5 of latter report); see also Franz-Willing,
Ursprung,
249; Lüdecke, 85–92.
    46 . The reason was a rancorous split with Dickel over debts owed to the latter by the near-bankrupt Nuremberg branch of the Werkgemeinschaft. The NSDAP showed itself, with a grant to Streicher of 70,000 Marks, ready to pay off the debt and provide a loan to acquire the
Deutscher Volkswille
(Robin Lenman, ‘Julius Streicher and the Origins of the NSDAP in Nuremberg’, in Nicholls and Matthias, 129–59, here 135).
    47 .
Monologe,
158, 293, 430–31 n.175–6.
    48 . Lenman, 129; Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
355–6.
    49 . Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 36 and n.162; Tyrell,
Trommler,
33.For the social structure of the early party, see Michael Kater, ‘Zur Soziographie der frühen NSDAP’,
VfZ,
19 (1971), 124–59.
    50 .
MK
, 375. Hitler was also effusive in private, even many years later, about Streicher’s ‘lasting service’ to the party in subordinating himself and winning over Nuremberg. ‘There would have been no National Socialist Nuremberg if Julius Streicher had not come,’ he claimed (
Monologe,
158 (28–9December 1941)).
    51 . Lenman, 144–6, 149, 159.
    52 . Francis L. Carsten,
The Rise of Fascism,
London, 1967, 64–5.
    53 . Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
356 and n.570, referring to oral testimony of Esser.
VB
, 8 November 1922, 2, has the illogical formulation: ‘We, too, have Italy’s Mussolini. He is called Adolf Hitler.’ (
‘Den Mussolini Italiens haben auch wir. Er heiβt Adolf Hitler.’)
    54 . Günter Scholdt,
Autoren über Hitler. Deutschsprachige Schriftsteller 1919–1945 und ihr Bild vom ‘Führer’,
Bonn, 1993, 34.
    55 . Scholdt, 35.
    56 . Cit. Sontheimer, 217. For a biographical sketch of Stapel, see Wolfgang Benz and Hermann Grami (eds.),
Biographisches Lexikon zur Weimarer Republik,
Munich, 1988, 325–6.
    57 . Sontheimer, 214–22, quotation 218.
    58 . See Tyrell,
Trommler,
274 n.151.
    59 . Tyrell,
Trommler,
161–2.
    60 . Tyrell,
Trommler,
62.
    61 . Tyrell,
Trommler,
274 n.152.
    62 .
JK,
729.
    63 . Cornelia Berning,
Vom ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ zum ‘Zuchtwart’. Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus,
Berlin, 1964, 82.
    64 . Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
382; Georg Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr der Hitler-bewegung 1923,
Preußisch Oldendorf, 1975, 73–4,
127–9 an
d 128 n.23. Letters poured in during 1923, from north as well as south Germany, seeing in Hitler the German ‘redeemer’. Once Hitler had given up the ban on photographs of himself (see Hoffmann, 41–9), intended to add to the mystique about his person, the sale of portraits of him contributed to the spread of the cult. On Göring, see the character sketches in Fest,
The Face of the Third Reich,
113–29; and Ron Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.),
Die braune Elite,
Darmstadt, 1989, 69–83. Göring succeeded Lieutenant Johann Klintzsch, formerly a member of the Ehrhardt Brigade, as leader of the SA in February 1923. Göring’s standing as a war-hero, decorated with the highest award, the Pour le Mérite, could only benefit the S A, and was probably the reason for the change in leadership (see Bennecke, 54). According to Lüdecke, Hitler had remarked: ‘Splendid, a war ace with the Pour le Mérite – imagine it! Excellent propaganda! Moreover, he has money and doesn’t cost me a cent’ (Lüdecke, 129).
    65 . Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr,
74 refers to Pittinger’s contempt; as Heiden,
Der Führer,
102, points out, for the Left Hitler was no more than ‘the common demagogue’.
    66 .Hanfstaengel, 15
Jahre,
109.
    67 . Oron James Hale, ‘Gottfried Feder calls Hitler to Order: An Unpublished Letter on Nazi Party Affairs’,
JMH,
30 (1958), 358–62.
    68 .
JK,
723–4(8 November 1922).
    69 .
JK,
729 (14 November 1922).
    70 . See Tyrell,
Trommler,
60–62.
    71 .
JK,
837 (26 February 1923).
    72 .
JK,
916 (27 April 1923).
    73 .
JK,
933 (1 June 1923).
    74 .
JK,
923 (4 May 1923). The speech was given in the light of what Hitler saw as the ‘capitulation’ of Chancellor Cuno to the French through the policy of passive resistance in the Ruhr and the disaster of ‘fulfilment policy’.
    75 .
JK,
923–4·
    76 .
JK,
946 (6 July 1923). See also 973 (14 August 1923), stressing the responsibility of the leader, who risked victory or defeat as in the army and could not