Hitler (78 page)

 

These scenes had an extraordinary effect upon all the participants, upon the deputies, the soldiers, the diplomats, the foreign observers, and the public. That day at Potsdam truly proved to be a turning point in history.

Some time before that Papen had boasted that within a few months he would have Hitler squeezed into such a corner “that he'll squeak.” Things were clearly not turning out that way. Nevertheless, the “Potsdam emotional farce” seemed to demonstrate that the wild-eyed Nazi leader had after all fallen into the snares of nationalist conservatism. The picture was of a young, credulous and deferential Hitler bowing to the tradition embodied in the personality of Hindenburg and concentrated in the former capital of the Prussian kings. Only a minority of those present were not entirely duped. And many who had voted against Hitler as recently as March 5 now obviously began to waver in their judgments. To this day it is troubling to realize that many government officials, army officers, lawyers and judges, many members of the nationalistic bourgeoisie who had distrusted Hitler on rational grounds, abandoned their stand the moment the regime let them taste the joys of nationalistic feeling. “Like a tidal wave,” a newspaper of the bourgeois Right wrote, “nationalist enthusiasm swept over Germany yesterday and, let us hope, poured over the dikes that a good many of the parties had erected against it, and broke open doors which until now had been defiantly closed to it.”
⁹
Long torchlight parades through the streets of Berlin and a gala performance of
Die Meistersinger
concluded the festival program.

Two days later the regime, and Hitler himself, showed itself in a different aspect. About two o'clock in the afternoon on March 23 the Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House, its temporary quarters, for the session that had already had its ceremonial prelude in Potsdam. The very setting was unequivocably dominated by the colors and symbols of the National Socialist Party. Units of the SS had taken responsibility for cordoning off the building—this was the first time the SS was assuming an important public function. Inside the opera house stood long lines of brown-shirted SA men. At the back of the stage, where the cabinet and the presiding officers of the Reichstag were seated, hung a huge swastika flag. And Göring opened the session with a speech that rudely ignored the existence of other parties in the Reichstag. Turning to his “comrades,” he delivered a totally uncalled-for memorial address on Dietrich Eckart.

Then Hitler, likewise in a brown shirt, after having sported for the past few weeks predominantly civilian clothing, stepped forward on the platform to deliver his first parliamentary speech. Faithful to his unvarying rhetorical pattern, he once again began with a gloomy panorama of the period after November, 1918, of the distress and perils into which the Reich had fallen. Then he sketched in largely general terms the program of the government. He continued:

 

In order for the government to be in a position to carry out the tasks I have outlined, it has had the two parties, the National Socialists and the German Nationalists, submit the Enabling Act.... It would be against the meaning of the National Rising and would hamper the intended purpose if the government were to negotiate with and petition for the Reichstag's approval of its measures from case to case. The government, in making this request, is not impelled by any intention of abolishing the Reichstag as such. On the contrary, it reserves for the future the right to inform it of its measures from time to time.... The government intends to make use of this Act only to the extent required to carry out vitally necessary measures. The existence of neither the Reichstag nor the Reichsrat is threatened. The position and the rights of the President are not affected.... The existence of the states will not be eliminated....

 

In spite of all these soothing assurances, each of the five articles of the Enabling Act smashed “an essential part of the German Constitution to smithereens.” By Article 1 legislation passed from the Reichstag to the administration; Article 2 gave the government power to make constitutional changes; Article 3 transferred the right to draft laws from the President to the Chancellor; Article 4 extended the application of the Enabling Act to treaties with foreign states; Article 5 limited the validity of the Act to four years and also to the existence of the present administration. With another characteristic change of tone, Hitler concluded his speech with a challenge to battle:

Since the government itself has a clear majority behind it, the number of cases in which there will be any need to resort to such an Act is in itself limited. But the Government of the National Rising insists all the more upon the passing of this bill. This government prefers a clear decision in every case. It offers the parties of the Reichstag the chance for peaceful development in Germany and the reconciliation which will spring from that in the future. But it is resolute and equally prepared to meet any announcement of refusal, and will take that as a statement of opposition. You, the Deputies, must decide for yourselves whether it is to be peace or war.
¹⁰

 

As if rehearsing for their future role, the deputies, with all too few honorable exceptions, greeted Hitler's speech with an ovation. Then all assembled rose to their feet and sang “Deutschland über Alles.” In an atmosphere that resembled a state of siege, thanks to the SA and SS guards drawn up everywhere, the parliamentary factions withdrew for a three-hour recess for consultations. Outside the building Hitler's uniformed men began bellowing: “We want the Enabling Act—or there'll be hell to pay.”

Everything depended upon the conduct of the Center Party. Its consent would assure the government the majority it needed to amend the Constitution. In negotiations with Dr. Kaas, the leader of the party, Hitler had given a number of assurances. Above all, he promised a concordat and, “as a return favor for an assenting vote by the Center Party,” had indicated that he would write a letter “concerning revocation of those parts of the Reichstag fire decree which prejudiced the civil and political liberties of citizens”; the letter would also stipulate that the decree was to be applied only in specific circumstances. What was more, Hugenberg and Brüning had held a conference on the evening of March 21 and agreed to make consent of the Center dependent on a clause guaranteeing civil and political liberties. The German Nationalist faction, it was decided, would introduce the motion formulated by Brüning.

During the recess, however, Brüning was informed that members of the German Nationalist faction had raised objections to the projected motion and would not sponsor it. Once more indecisive, the Center faction considered what it should do. The majority pleaded for assent; Brüning passionately opposed any such thing. It would be better, he cried, to go down gloriously than to expire wretchedly. But finally it was agreed that they would cast a bloc vote for the opinion of the majority. It could scarcely have been otherwise, given the party's traditional opportunism, the impression made by the day at Potsdam, and the resigned recognition that the party was in no position to prevent passage of the act. After all, in conjunction with the promised letter, would not the Enabling Act bind Hitler to legality more effectively than he was bound at present?

By the time the recess ended, however, Hitler's letter had not arrived. At Brüning's urging, Monsignor Kaas went to see Hitler, and returned with the explanation that the letter was already signed and had been turned over to the Minister of the Interior for transmission to the Reichstag; it would arrive while the measure was being voted on. Kaas added that “if he had ever believed Hitler at all, he would have to do it this time, given the conviction in his tone.”

Meanwhile the Social Democratic Party chairman, Otto Weis, had stepped upon the platform in deep silence, during which the distant, menacing chanting of the SA and SS could be heard. In explaining his faction's refusal to vote in favor of the bill, he made a last public profession of faith in democracy. Answering Hitler's earlier statement on foreign policy, he said that the Social Democrats, too, had always been for German equality with other nations and against any attempt to impugn Germany's honor. But to be defenseless, he declared, did not mean to be without honor (a play on the words
wehrlos
and
ehrlos).
That was just as true in domestic as in foreign politics. The elections had given the government parties the majority and therefore granted them the opportunity to govern constitutionally. Since this opportunity existed, it also constituted an obligation. Criticism was salutary; to persecute it would accomplish nothing. He concluded his speech with an appeal to the people's sense of justice and a greeting to his friends and victims of persecution.

This moderate and dignified rejoinder threw Hitler into a fury. Violently thrusting aside Papen, who tried to restrain him, he mounted the platform for the second time. Pointing directly at the Social Democratic leader, he began: “You come late, but still you come!
^*
The pretty theories you have just proclaimed here, Mr. Deputy, are being communicated to world history just a bit too late.” In growing agitation, he declared that Social Democracy had no right to claim any common goals in foreign policy, that the Social Democrats had no feeling for national honor, no sense of justice. Then, repeatedly interrupted by stormy applause, he continued with even greater fervor:

 

You talk about persecutions. I think there are only a few of us here who did not have to suffer persecutions from your side in prison.... You seem to have forgotten completely that for years our shirts were ripped off our backs because you did not like the color.... We have outgrown your persecutions!

You say furthermore that criticism is salutary. Certainly, those who love Germany may criticize us; but those who worship an International cannot criticize us. Here, too, insight comes to you very late indeed, Mr. Deputy. You should have recognized the salutariness of criticism during the time we were in the opposition.... In those days our press was forbidden and forbidden and again forbidden, our meetings were forbidden, and we were forbidden to speak and I was forbidden to speak, for years on end. And now you say: criticism is salutary!

 

At this point the Social Democrats began to shout loudly in protest. The Reichstag President's bell rang, and Göring called out into the ebbing din: “Stop talking nonsense now and listen to this!” Hitler continued:

You say: “Now they want to shunt aside the Reichstag in order to continue the revolution.” Gentlemen, if that had been our purpose we would not have needed... to have this bill presented. By God, we would have had the courage to deal with you differently!

You also say that not even we can abolish Social Democracy because it was the first to open these seats here to the common people, to the working men and women, and not just to barons and counts. In all that, Mr. Deputy, you have come too late. Why didn't you, while there was still time, make your principles known to your friend Grzesinski,
^*
or your other friends Braun* and Severing,* who for years kept saying that I was after all only a housepainter! For years you asserted that on your posters. [Interjection by Göring: “Now the Chancellor is settling accounts!”] And finally you even threatened to drive me out of Germany with a dog whip.

From now on we National Socialists will make it possible for the German worker to attain what he is able to demand and insist on. We National Socialists will be his intercessors. You, gentlemen, are no longer needed!... And don't confound us with the bourgeois world. You think that your star may rise again. Gentlemen, the star of Germany will rise and yours will sink.... In the life of nations, what is rotten, old and feeble passes and does not come again.

 

With the revealing remark that he was appealing only “on account of justice” and for psychological reasons “to the German Reichstag to grant us what in any case we could have taken,” Hitler fired his parting shot. Turning to the Social Democrats, he cried:

 

My feeling is that you are not voting for this bill because by the very nature of your mentality you cannot comprehend the intentions that animate us in asking for it... and I can only tell you: I do not want you to vote for it! Germany shall be free, but not through you!

 

The minutes noted after these sentences: “Prolonged, stormy shouts of
Heil,
furious applause among the National Socialists and in the galleries. Hand-clapping among the German Nationalists. Stormy applause and shouts of
Heil
starting up repeatedly.”

Hitler's reply has generally been considered an outstanding example of his gift for impromptu speaking. Thus it is worth knowing that the preceding speech by Otto Weis had been released to the newspapers beforehand, and evidently Hitler was already acquainted with it. Goebbels saw the enemy's “fur flying” and rejoiced: “Never has anyone been so thrown to the ground and given such a brushing off as was done here.” In its bravura crudity and zest for crushing an opponent, the speech recalled that early performance of September, 1919, when a professorial speaker at a discussion first opened the sluices of Hitlerian oratory, to the astonished admiration of sober Anton Drexler. Now it was Hugenberg who at the cabinet meeting on the following day thanked Hitler “in the name of the other cabinet members... for so brilliantly putting the Marxist leader Weis in his place.”

When the storm of applause after Hitler's speech had subsided, the representatives of the other parties took the floor. One after another they gave their reasons for consenting. Kaas, however, spoke with some embarrassment, and only after Frick, in response to another inquiry, had “solemnly assured him that the messenger had already delivered Hitler's letter to his office in the Kroll Opera House.” The requisite three readings of the bill took only a few minutes. The result of the vote was 441 to 94; only the Social Democrats stuck to their nays. That was far more than the required two-thirds majority; it would have been sufficient even if the 81 Communist and the 26 Social Democratic deputies who had been detained by arrest, flight, or sickness had likewise voted no. As soon as Göring announced the result, the Nazis rushed to the fore. Arms raised in the Hitler salute, they gathered in front of the government bench and began singing the Horst Wessel song. That same evening the bill passed the already “co-ordinated” Reichsrat by unanimous vote. The promised letter from Hitler never reached any member of the Center.