Heinrich Himmler : A Life (22 page)

In April 1926 Berchtold, the old leader of the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler, who in the meantime had returned from Austria, took over leadership of the protection squads from Schreck. The main reason for Schreck’s replacement was the opinion, which appears to have been widely held in party headquarters, that, as one SS man put it, ‘Schreck does not have the requisite leadership qualities and organizational talent and also does not have the reputation that will ensure that the SS can become an elite troop within the movement’.
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Soon after his appointment Berchtold emphasized the SS’s claim to elite status in a circular to the leaders of the protection squads. It allegedly brought together ‘the best and most activist elements within our movement’; they were not concerned with numbers but ‘solely with the inner
worth of each individual’.
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Moreover, at the party rally in 1926 Hitler handed over to Berchthold the ‘blood flag’, the swastika flag which had been carried in the failed putsch and which allegedly had been ‘coloured by the blood of a fallen National Socialist’.
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It was only at the end of 1926 that the SS was subordinated to the newly formed SA under von Pfeffer; as a result, Berchtold lost his independence but was given the title Reichsführer-SS.
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In March 1927 Berchtold was replaced by his deputy, Erhard Heiden, to whom Himmler was now assigned as his deputy.
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Hardly anything is known about Himmler’s role as deputy Reichsführer-SS. However, it is clear from the few remaining documents that, from the beginning, he did not content himself with his immediate task of deploying the protection squads to fit in with party headquarters’ plans for meetings. Instead, he concentrated on reforming the SS’s internal organization. In September 1927, directly after taking over his new function, he issued an ‘Order No. I’ to all protection squads, and made it clear that from now on the SS leadership would once again operate with a tough style of management, which for various reasons had not been the case during the previous weeks. This was followed by a series of instructions. Membership subscriptions and insurance premiums were to be paid promptly. He ordered the protection squads regularly to report on ‘all political or other events of significance’, and above all on the activities of their opponents, especially ‘Freemasons and prominent Jewish figures’. They were informed that there were plans to set up a comprehensive intelligence service. Thus, with the help of the protection squads Himmler was endeavouring to create a special network of informants for the project which he had long been planning, namely for the party to set up its own intelligence service.

In addition, he regulated the weekly ‘SS duties’ down to the very last detail. Great emphasis was placed on ‘drill manoeuvres’, such as ‘standing at attention, standing at ease, right and left turns’, and the like. ‘Appearances in public should differ in no respect from those of an army unit.’ Members of the protection squads, Himmler insisted, should keep out of all internal disputes and should not participate in discussions during party meetings.
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Also, their uniforms required further standardization; evidently the party rally had shown up flaws in this respect.
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In January 1929 Hitler relieved Heiden of his post, ‘for family reasons’, as the party’s official statement put it, and appointed his successor with the following announcement: ‘I hereby appoint the previous deputy Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, to the post of Reichsführer-SS.’ We have
no further clues to explain either Heiden’s dismissal or Himmler’s appointment. Initially, Himmler retained his post in the Reich propaganda headquarters; the position of Reichsführer-SS could evidently still be carried out on the side.
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There is uncertainty about the numerical strength of the SS when Himmler took up his appointment. His own later statements differed. He mentioned variously 260, 280, 290, or 300 members,
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the
SS Guidance Booklets
(
SS-Leithefte
) referred to ‘exactly 270 men’.
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These numbers were probably understated in order to emphasize Himmler’s achievement in building up the force. A police report of 23 May 1929 refers to 1,402 members; an internal SA order of 3 May 1929 mentions 748 SS members in the ‘official’ SS units, in other words in those that were organized in accordance with the regulation requiring squads to consist of ten men.
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However, such a rapid increase following Himmler’s appointment is unlikely, as his initial organizational measures were designed more to achieve a cautious consolidation of the organization rather than a rapid expansion.
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Himmler’s first test in his new function came with the NSDAP’s Reich Party rally that took place in Nuremberg in September 1929. He dealt with the details in a special order of 6 July. Every SS man was obliged to take part in the rally. They had to get ready for ‘the most strict duties’ and devote the rest of the time before this high point in the party’s calendar to carrying out drill manoeuvres: ‘Immaculate marching in double columns (8 pairs side by side).’ Himmler wanted to leave nothing to chance, and carefully organized his SS’s journey to Nuremberg: ‘Every SS leader will be responsible to me for ensuring that his squad brings with it a sufficient number of shoe and clothes brushes.’ Considerately, he recommended that they should have had ‘plenty of sleep beforehand’, and reminded them ‘most emphatically’of the ‘ban on alcohol’.
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Shortly before the party rally he issued another order in which he once again demanded ‘the strictest discipline’, ‘total commitment to doing one’s duty’, ‘the greatest possible sense of manly honour’, and for ‘every instruction to be followed in the most exact and scrupulous manner’. To ensure strict punctuality, he insisted that ‘on arrival in Nuremberg all watches are to be set according to the station clock’. In addition, he ordered that ‘permission is required to drink liquids offered by the population or from water bottles during marches, since excessive drinking on an empty stomach or when overheated can lead to serious accidents’.
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The SS put in a satisfactory
performance in Nuremberg. The high point was the solemn ceremony in which the SS received the first ten ‘Storm Flags’. This was followed by a propaganda march in which the SS marched as a single block behind a visibly proud Himmler.
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The new Reichsführer-SS soon found less and less time for his duties in the Reich Propaganda Department. Hitler had already offered Goebbels the post of Reich Propaganda Chief in place of Gregor Strasser.
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Goebbels had recommended himself for this post through his performance as Berlin Gauleiter, where he had developed an effective style of propaganda. However, shortly after this offer had been made Goebbels came to suspect an intrigue by Otto Strasser (like his brother a member of the ‘left’ wing of the party), in which he might be being offered ‘the appearance of power’ in Munich in order to get rid of him as Gauleiter of Berlin.
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However, this suspicion did not last, and in November 1929 Goebbels discussed in detail with Himmler, who was to become his ‘Famulus’, how his takeover of the Reich Propaganda Department should be managed.
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Goebbels’s assessment of Himmler remained positive, but not without some doubts: ‘I am working out with him the basis for our future cooperation over propaganda. He is a fine little man. Amiable but also vacillating. A Strasser product. But we’ll sort it out.’
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During the following months Himmler kept Goebbels in touch with ‘all sorts of goings on among the Munich camarilla’, in other words, Hitler’s entourage. ‘Appalling’, commented Goebbels on the ‘terrible shambles and cliquishness down there’.
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In March Himmler urged him to take over the Reich Propaganda Department, but Goebbels held back and continued to wait for the ‘summons from Munich’. Hitler had to take the ‘first step’, otherwise: ‘Götz v. Berlichingen’.
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However, in April 1930 he finally agreed to go. The Propaganda Department was split into two sections: Fritz Reinhardt’s speakers’ college, and a Section II which Goebbels was in charge of.
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He noted in his diary: ‘In the evening a discussion with my secretary, Himmler. We very quickly came to an agreement.’ In May he noted: ‘he’s not particularly clever, but hardworking and well-meaning.’
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‘Himmler is fitting in very well’,
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he is ‘getting to know the ropes’,
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but is still getting ‘too bogged down in details’.
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In fact the two of them had little time to get used to their new roles, for the Reichstag election of September 1930 was approaching. On 29 July Goebbels recorded the conclusion of the preparations: ‘Yesterday, RPD: Finished dealing with propaganda. Final discussion with Himmler. From now on he can deal with it on his own. The foundations are laid. Anything that still has to be done is purely technical stuff.’ At this point it must have been clear to him that after the election he would have to look for a new deputy, for the more the NSDAP expanded, the more the post of Reichsführer-SS was becoming a full-time job. Moreover, the party had responded to Himmler’s growing importance by allocating him a promising place on its electoral list for the Reichstag election.
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And, in fact, after winning a seat in the Reichstag, he stepped down from the post of deputy Reich Propaganda Chief in mid-November.
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As the organizer of the party’s propaganda, Himmler played a notinsignificant part in its remarkable success in the Reichstag election of 14 September 1930, in which it increased its share of the vote from 2.6 to 18.3 per cent. The victory represented a political earthquake, and resulted in what had hitherto been a splinter party becoming a significant power factor within German politics. However, as deputy to Goebbels, who patronized him, Himmler was too much in the propaganda chief’s shadow to draw from this success significant advantages for his future career in the Nazi movement. He also failed to utilize his seat in the Reichstag. Although he was a member of the Reichstag until 1945, he never made a speech. And he carried out his functions within the party’s parliamentary group with little enthusiasm.
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When he falsely described the Liberal deputy, Theodor Heuss, as a Jew in a pamphlet entitled
The Reichstag
, published in the series NS-Bibliothek, he was forced to withdraw the accusation following strong protests.
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Nevertheless, gaining a Reichstag seat produced an important change in Himmler’s circumstances: his Reichstag salary freed him at last from pressing financial worries. That he now possessed parliamentary immunity and was entitled to free rail travel were additional practical benefits. Above all, however, by giving up his position as deputy Propaganda Chief, he was able to concentrate on one thing. From now on Himmler had only one job, that of Reichsführer-SS.

Shortly after the Reichstag elections in September 1930, at which the NSDAP achieved its great breakthrough, the SS became involved in a serious crisis that had broken out in the Nazi movement as a result of the simmering conflict between the SA and the party leadership. The conflict had been provoked by the demand, put forward above all by the SA chief in eastern Germany, Walter Stennes, for SA leaders to be given promising seats on the party’s electoral lists in the forthcoming elections. Confronted with the SA’s failure to persuade the party leadership to accede to its demand, the SA’s supreme commander, von Pfeffer, resigned on 12 August 1930.

The conflict escalated when Stennes then announced that the SA in the area for which he was responsible would cease cooperating with the party. In fact, by 30 August he was prepared to give way, but when an SS man was discovered eavesdropping on a meeting of SA leaders, all talk of compromise came to an end. On the very same day, SA storm troopers forced their way into the Berlin party headquarters, which was defended by an SS guard unit. A fight developed which had to be stopped by the police, who had been summoned by the SS.

Hitler now intervened, hurrying to Berlin and holding talks with the two adversaries. On 1 September he made a speech to the SA in which he announced that he himself was going to take over the leadership of both the SA and the SS. During the resultant jubilation he was able to secure a ‘declaration of loyalty’ from the assembled SA men.
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Simultaneously, open conflict had also broken out between the party and the SA in Augsburg. Himmler and the leader of the Bavarian SS, Sepp Dietrich, travelled to Augsburg and were only just able to prevent the SA from demolishing party headquarters. There were similar conflicts in Dachau in October 1930 and Hanau in February 1931. In both cases the local party leadership had to be protected by the SS.
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In the course of this crisis the SS had projected itself to the party leadership as a totally loyal counterweight to the SA, or rather to the SA leadership. During the following years the SS leadership cultivated the notion that the SA storm troopers, who were at heart loyal and honourable men, were being incited against the party leadership by a corrupt and power-hungry clique, and that in the face of such a dangerous threat there was only one effective antidote, the SS. Summing up the Berlin incident eleven years later, Himmler claimed that ‘the SA men were not in the least disappointed; the only people who were disappointed were Herr Pfeffer and his camarilla, who had envisaged the SA as a Free Corps under the protection of the NSDAP with which to play politics and, when necessary, to blackmail the Führer’.
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According to the official story, which the SS leadership put about a few years later, after the Stennes putsch Hitler coined the motto, ‘Your honour means loyalty’ (‘Deine Ehre heißt Treue’), which subsequently became ‘the most important guiding principle of every SS man’. That may or may not be true. But it is in any case significant that the moral precept chosen by the SS as its motto should refer to an internal party conflict which took place during the ‘time of struggle’.
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