Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

office as Reich Justice Minister on 2 February. But his retention had already been agreed with the Reich President on 29 January. The delay was solely owing to Hitler’s wish to use the occupancy of the Reich Ministry of Justice as a bargaining card in his negotiations with the Zentrum (Lothar Gruchmann,
Justiz im Dritten Reich 1933–1940. Anpassung und Unterwerfung in der Ära Gürtner,
2nd edn, Munich, 1990, 9–10, 64).
    36 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
5–7 and n.6; Becker,
Hitlers Machtergreifung,
34–5.
    37 . Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
i.85.
    38 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
6. Another conservative, Hugenberg, pressed to depose the ‘so-called sovereignty government of Braun’ in Prussia as soon as possible. State Secretary Meissner took this up and went on to propose the dissolution of the Prussian Landtag, if necessary by use of Article 48, since ‘it is in any event necessarythat the so-called sovereignty government of Braun soon disappears’ (
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
7–8 and n.10). (A decision of the Supreme Court – Staatsgerichtshof – of 25 October 1932 had upheld the removal of the Prussian government that had taken place on 20 July 1932, but ruled that the Prussian government still had the right to represent the Prussian state in dealings with the Reich and other states.)
    39 . Meissner,
Staatssekretär,
225; Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
i.86; Meissner and Wilde,
Machtergreifung,
I97–8.
    40 . A point made by Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
i.86.
    41 . As regards economic recovery, Hitler’s first move was to back the initiative to suspend compulsory farm sales, pointing to the necessity of satisfying the wishes of at least a part of the nation at first (
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
7–8, 11).
    42 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
9 and n.3.
    43 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
29 and n.7, 30, 34–5 and n.7.
    44 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
I5.
    45 . Papen, 265.
    46 . Heinz Höhne,
Die Zeit der Illusionen. Hitler und die Anfänge des
3.
Reiches
I933
bis 1936,
Düsseldorf/Vienna/New York, 1991, 13–14; see also Schacht, 300: ‘I happened to be in the room with a mere handful of his entourage when he made his first speech to the German people over the radio… I had the impression that the burden of his new responsibilities weighed heavily upon him. At this moment he felt clearly what it meant to be transferred from the propaganda ranks of the Opposition to a post of Government responsibility.’
    47 . Papen, 265.
    48 . Domarus, 191–4.
    49 . Domarus, 193.
    50 . Thilo Vogelsang, ‘Neue Dokumente zur Geschichte der Reichswehr 1930–1933’,
VfZ,
2 (1954), 434, n.127; Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
i.88; Höhne,
Zeit der Illusionen,
55. Earlier in the day, Blomberg had met District Commanders at the Reichswehr Ministry. Vogelsang links the Hammerstein invitation with this earlier meeting as an attempt to introduce Hitler to leading officers. He inclines to follow John W. Wheeler-Bennett,
The Nemesis of Power. The German Army in Politics,
London, 1953, 291, in seeing it as a response to Hitler’s unannounced visits to a number of Berlin barracks on the morning of 31 January, which had caused a ripple of alarm as a reminder, it seemed, of the spirit of 1918. A different reason for Hammerstein’s home as the venue and setting – a sixtieth birthday party for Neurath – is given by Wolfgang Sauer, Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
iii.55, 387 n.107. The two reasons are, perhaps, complementary rather than contradictory.
    51 . Vogelsang, ‘Neue Dokumente’, 434–5 (notes of General Liebmann). According to the notes of Major von Mellenthin, also present at the meeting, Hitler’s posed alternatives were markets or colonies, and he favoured the latter (cit. Höhne,
Zeit der Illusionen,
55). It seems likely, however, that Mellenthin misinterpreted Hitler’s reference to ‘living-space’ as meaning ‘colonies’.
    52 .Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
iii.75–6, 393 n.183–91; Höhne,
Zeit der Illusionen,
56.
    53 . In a memorandum of 6 March 1926, Otto Stülpnagel, Abteilungschef in the Truppenamt, had spoken of the build-up of the armed forces as the basis of expansionism aimed at recovering Germany’s territories lost in the Versailles Treaty, re-establishing its European supremacy (at the expense of France), and preparing for ultimate global struggle for domination against the Anglo-Saxon powers (Klaus-Jürgen Müller, ‘Deutsche Militär-Elite in der Vorgeschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges’, in Martin Broszat and Klaus Schwabe