Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

(eds.),
Deutsche Eliten und der Weg in den Zweiten Weltkrieg,
Munich, 1989, 226–90, here 246–7).
    54 . Vogelsang, ‘Neue Dokumente’, 432–4; Klaus-Jürgen Müller,
Armee und Drittes Reich 1933–1939. Darstellung und Dokumentation,
Paderborn, 1987, 158–9. The emotional and impressionable Blomberg had been completely won over to Hitler (Klaus-Jürgen Müller,
Das Heer und Hitler. Armee und nationalsozialistisches Regime 1933–1940,
(1969) 2nd edn, Stuttgart, 1988, 51).
    55 . Geyer, ‘Reichswehr, NSDAP, and the Seizure of Power’, 118.
    56 . Geyer, ‘Reichswehr, NSDAP, and the Seizure of Power’, 111; and Geyer, ‘Professionals and Junkers’, esp. 86–7, 116–23.
    57 . Klaus-Jürgen Müller,
Armee, Politik und Gesellschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945,
Paderborn, 1979, 11–33; Wilhelm Deist,
The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament,
London, 1981, ch.1; Geyer, ‘Reichswehr, NSDAP, and the Seizure of Power’, 101–23.
    58 . Müller,
Heer,
53. Reichenau had first met Hitler, for a lengthy private talk, in spring 1932. The colonel had evidently seen in Hitler and his Movement the potential to instigate the revolutionary renewal that he himself was seeking. Hitler, for his part, had recognized Reichenau’s instinctive backing for his radical approach. Aware of Reichenau’s sympathies (and in reply to a request for clarification about his stance to the defence of East Prussia in the event of Polish aggression), Hitler had, in December 1932, overcome his normal aversion to letter-writing to compose a lengthy statement of the need for a ‘deep process of regeneration’, destruction of Marxism ‘down to its complete extermination’, and ‘general psychological, ethical, and moral rearmament of the nation based on this new ideological unity’ as the framework for national defence (Thilo Vogelsang, ‘Hitlers Brief an Reichenau vom 4. Dezember 1932’,
VfZ,
7 (1959), 429–37, here esp. 437).
    59 .
DRZW,
i.404; Deist,
Wehrmacht,
26.
    60 . Cit. Vogelsang, ‘Hitlers Brief an Reichenau’, 433; Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
iii.68; Müller,
Armee,
I60; Müller,
Heer,
61ff. for Blomberg’s understanding of keeping the army out of politics.
    61 . Bracher
et al., Machtergreifung,
iii.68. The officer was Oberstleutnant Ott.
    62 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
50–51.
    63 .
AdR, Reg. Hitler,
62–3; see
DRZW,
i.234.
    64 . See, for the above,
DRZW,
i.234–5, 404–5; Geyer,
Rüstungspolitik,
I40; Höhne,
Zeit der Illusionen,
58.
    65 .
IMT,
xxxvi.586, Doc. 611–EC.
    66 . Deist,
Wehrmacht,
24–6; Müller,
Heer;
Bracher
et al, Machtergreifung,
iii.41ff;
DRZW,
i.403; Peter Hüttenberger, ‘National-sozialistische Polykratie’,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft,
2 (1976), 417–42, here 423–5.
    67 . Müller,
Armee, Politik und Gesellschaft,
44–5.
    68 . Dietmar Petzina,
Die deutsche Wirtschaft in der Zwischenkriegszeit,
Wiesbaden, 1977, 114–15; Dieter Petzina, ‘Hauptprobleme der deutschen Wirtschaft 1932–1933’ Vfz, 15 (1967), 18–55, here 41–3, 53–5; Gustavo Corni,
Hitler and the Peasants,
New York/Oxford/Munich, 1990, 41ff; Turner,
German Big Business,
328.
    69 . For the meeting, see Turner,
German Big Business,
328.
    70 .
IMT,
XXXV.42–7, Doc. 203–D.
    71 .
IMT,
XXV.48, Doc. 204–D.
    72 .
IMT,
xxxv.47–8, Doc. 203–D.
    73 . Turner,
German Big Business,
330–31. At the cabinet meeting on 2 February, Frick had raised the question of subsidizing election propaganda of the government to the tune of a million Reich Marks. Objections were raised by Krosigk, the Finance Minister, and upheld by Hitler. At a subsequent cabinet meeting, on 21 February, it was, however, accepted that the Reichspost could be used to send out propaganda material
(AdR, Reg. Hitler,
30–31, 102).
    74 . Turner,
German Big Business,
332.
    75 . See Turner,
German Big Business,
333–9.
    76 . Based on Turner,
German Big Business,
71–83; Henry Ashby Turner, ‘Hitlers Einstellung zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft vor 1933’,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft,
2 (1976), 89–117; Avraham Barkai, ‘Sozialdarwinismus und Antiliberalismus in Hitlers Wirtschaftskonzept’,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft,
3 (1977), 406–17; James,
The German Slump,
345–54; see also Avraham Barkai,
Das Wirtschaftssystem des Nationalsozialismus,
Fischer edn, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, ch.1, and Zitelmann,
Hitler. Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs,
ch.4, for Hitler’s social and economic ideas.
    77 . James,
The German Slump,
344.
    78 . Höhne,
Zeit der