Heinrich Himmler : A Life (19 page)

The Mecklenburg election campaign reached a critical stage when, just before the date of the election, it became known that Hitler would not be available to speak at meetings. On 18 May, four days before the election, Himmler informed the party members in Mecklenburg of the decision in a manner which indicates that, to put it mildly, a great deal of discontent had built up among the membership: ‘However, as National Socialists we know that Hitler would not have cancelled unless he had had a very good reason for doing so [ . . . ] It would be unscrupulous and cowardly if, as a result of this, a branch leader permitted a bad and mutinous mood to develop or even
sat on his hands. There can be no place in a National Socialist organization for the words “impossible” or “we can’t”.’
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In fact, instead of the planned 400 meetings, the Mecklenburg Nazis held only 106. The election result was disastrous for the party: 5,611 votes or 1.8 per cent.
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The NSDAP did not take part in the elections in tiny Mecklenburg-Strelitz held in July of the same year; however, the German-Völkisch Freedom Movement won 5 per cent of the vote.

In Hamburg, in February 1927, the NSDAP received only a meagre 2.2 per cent of the vote. Himmler’s period as Reich Propaganda Chief also covered the Reichstag election defeat of 1928 when the party gained only 2.8 per cent of the vote (in December 1924, when Hitler was in prison, it was 3 per cent). The state elections in Prussia and in a number of other states, which were held on the same day, produced similarly depressing results. However, it was encouraging that the party achieved relatively good results in a number of rural districts. The party leadership which, primarily under Strasser’s influence, until then had focused above all on trying to win over the urban working class from the Socialist parties, now switched to a tactic in which rural areas assumed greater importance. This naturally suited Himmler, with his diploma in agriculture, for he had also campaigned among the peasants of Lower Bavaria during the years 1924–6.

Accordingly, in December he drafted a new plan for concentrating propaganda in particular regions. For this purpose he evidently reverted to a tactic that he had developed for the Mecklenburg state election of May 1927 but had not been able fully to put into practice. He informed the various Gau headquarters that they were intending to cover every region from time to time with ‘large-scale propaganda actions’. For this purpose 70 to 100 meetings would be held in a Gau within a period of seven to ten days, and there would also be a propaganda week with special propaganda evenings for the SA, for the Hitler Youth, and for the press. The Reich Propaganda Department would be in overall charge. They had already planned propaganda actions in the ‘Eastern March’ (as Austria was referred to in völkisch circles) in January 1929, in Halle-Merseburg in February, and in Saxony in March 1929.
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The plan was characteristic of Himmler’s schematic approach. Moreover, Himmler’s ideas once again far exceeded the practical possibilities open to the party: given their limited organizational capabilities, most Gaus were simply not in a position to carry out such elaborate campaigns.
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The shortage of speakers who could be deployed outside their home districts
was also a serious obstacle. For this reason Himmler advocated transforming the correspondence courses for party speakers, which the Thuringian Gauleiter Fritz Reinhardt had been organizing since 1926, into an official ‘NSDAP Speakers’ College’. Reinhardt was the proprietor of a college for commercial correspondence courses.
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In fact, Himmler’s proposal for ‘large-scale propaganda actions’ contained ideas that were taken up a short time later by the Nazi Party, when it had the necessary organizational resources. Nazi propaganda targeted at particular regions, which was to reach a hitherto exceptional intensity in rural areas, became characteristic of the NSDAP during the years 1930–3.
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However, it was not only the discrepancy between Himmler’s elaborate planning coupled with his insistence on exercising control and the poorly developed party apparatus in the provinces that prevented the deputy Propaganda Chief from becoming a popular figure in the NSDAP. He was not helped by his overbearing and arrogant manner in dealing with subordinates, which had already become apparent in connection with the Mecklenburg election campaign. Typical of this was his refusal, allegedly on the grounds of permanent work pressure, to behave in a friendly manner. His letters from this period are marked by an impersonal style, the lack of the slightest signs of politeness, and by the reduction of the content to brief pieces of information and instructions. He frequently requested a reply ‘by return of post’
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and ‘an immediate response’,
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or stated, ‘I decisively reject [ . . . ] the tone of your letter’.
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He would not tolerate any opposition. Reprimands were common. For example, in April 1927 he wrote to the Hersbrück local branch: ‘I must say that we here were astonished at how a local branch of the NSDAP could think of requesting a talk by someone who isn’t a Party member. I would like to refer you to the Propaganda Memorandum and suggest that you read it, as one would expect of the secretary of a local branch. You will then see that it is stated on page 9 that meetings can be held only by members of the party.’
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Also in April 1927 he advised the Hof branch urgently to hold a ‘German Day’: ‘I recommend you read pages 34 and 35 of the Propaganda Memorandum, which you were obliged to order.’
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When a party sympathizer wrote that he wished the party would engage in less ‘bashing around blindly’, Himmler replied in August 1928: ‘You might have spared yourself the final sentence, because we know what we have to do and we know very well who and what we have to bash.’
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In July 1927 he requested a party member in Stettin to report on internal matters in the local party ‘on his word of honour’, which he explained as follows: ‘You have to include everything you know about the goings-on in Stettin.’ And: ‘As an SS leader you must have enough discipline in you to carry out an order without asking about the whys and the wherefores. If your report has not arrived within eight days I shall see to it that you are excluded from the SS and initiate further steps.’
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It was typical of him to make it clear that enquiries were basically superfluous and, in view of his being permanently under pressure of work, represented an unnecessary burden: ‘1. I have received your letter of 8 inst. 2. Even if you overwhelm me with letters I still cannot give you any more speakers, since I do not have any more. What is more, you are imposing a burden on our work here. With Greetings and Hail . . . ’
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If he was dealing with prominent party members, however, he could not be more obsequious. Thus, in marked contrast to his normal impersonal style, his letters to Franz Ritter von Epp are always addressed to ‘The most respected Herr General’, and instead of the usual brief ‘with German greetings’, he signs off with extreme servility: ‘With German greetings I am, Herr General, your most humble servant.’
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Himmler also got used to justifying his decisions where possible by claiming that they had been reached while carrying out Hitler’s instructions or in consultation with other members of the Reich Party leadership: ‘If I am properly to fulfil the Führer’s instructions to allocate the election meetings and to provide properly for all the areas where major campaigns are being conducted, then every local branch must ensure that it obeys the Führer’s orders.’
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In February 1927 he rejected the request of the Aschaffenburg branch to hold a German Day, and added: ‘This decision is final and has been reached in agreement with all the members of the Reich Party leadership.’
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Himmler reacted particularly aggressively to a request from the
West-deutscher Beobachter
, a party newspaper that appeared in Cologne. A few days previously the paper had asked for ‘the twenty-five points of the party programme to be sent as quickly as possible in the enclosed format’.
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Himmler had misunderstood the request and assumed that the people in Cologne did not know their own programme. The members in Cologne were, of course, familiar with its contents; what they wanted from Munich was a particular format, which could be used in order to publish the programme in the paper. This misunderstanding produced a classic overreaction from Himmler:

We have never before come across such an incredible request from the editors of a newspaper recognized by the party [ . . . ] I suggest that you look in your membership card and also get the Rhineland Gau leadership office to let you have
Leaflet No. 1: The 25 Points
, and you should acquaint yourself with
The
25
Points
by Party comrade Alfred Rosenberg, as well as issue No. 1 of the
National Socialist Library
by Gottfried Feder, in which you will find the other 13 points that you do not yet know. Apart from that, I should like to say that with us SA members who do not know it are thrown out.
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The party members associated with the
Westdeutscher Beobachter
were shocked and felt very insulted. They regretted that Himmler’s letter ‘could have been written at all’, since such a response was not ‘calculated to create or encourage a relationship of trust between party comrades’. The author of the letter went on:

If I wanted to play your game I might perhaps ask you the question: when did you first become aware of the NSDAP’s programme? I have known it since spring 1922 and really have no need to feel ashamed of my services to the NSDAP. You, as a member of the Reich leadership, when you are writing to party comrades who have been active in and made great sacrifices for our movement—and I count myself among their number—should take special care to refrain from using methods that may be appropriate for dealing with a Marxist muckraker and bigwig.
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Himmler justified himself, as usual, by hiding behind his colleagues in the party leadership: ‘I have shown your letter to several members of the Reich leadership before replying to it. I am by no means alone in the view I hold.’ He claimed that, apart from him, ‘two other gentlemen in party headquarters have come to the conclusion that you do not know the points or at least the explanations of the points’.
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Himmler’s unsuccessful and yet all the more contentious activity for party headquarters raises the question: why did his party career not come to an end in the 1920s? Why did none of the numerous conflicts in which he was involved lead to his dismissal from the party leadership?

The fact that he was able to hold on to his position will have had much to do with his skill at fitting in with the power structure of this ‘Führerdominated’ party, and at not making enemies, at any rate at party-leadership level. During these years there was antagonism between the Munich leadership and party members in the provinces, which found expression in frequent conflicts. What held the party together was the charisma of the party leader, in other words, Hitler’s ability continually to convince party
members in the provinces that their exceptional talents would in the end help the party to victory.

So long as, in his conflicts with party members in the provinces, Himmler appealed to the authority of the party leader or to the ‘gentlemen’ in party headquarters, he could be reasonably sure that, in the final analysis, he would get the backing of Hitler and his colleagues. Hitler’s style of leadership, which was to let Himmler and the other functionaries in party headquarters operate largely independently, had the result, as already indicated, that their position was essentially dependent on Hitler’s role as the absolute leader remaining intact. Hitler was, in turn, loyal to his colleagues. If he had continually intervened to correct Himmler’s approach or criticized him vis-à-vis the party rank-and-file, his own authority might have suffered. In addition, in Gregor Strasser Himmler had an important mentor in party headquarters, from whom he could count on additional support.

Although he now belonged to the more intimate leadership staff around Hitler, it cannot be said that Himmler’s personal relations with Hitler at this juncture were particularly close. Their meetings on a personal level were probably few and far between, and when Hitler had meetings with his people they soon turned into his long-winded monologues.
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It is significant that there are no records of Himmler, even at a later period, reminiscing about common experiences with Hitler during the ‘time of struggle’. The deputy Reich Propaganda Chief was, in the final analysis, an insignificant party functionary working for the party leader, whom Hitler clearly kept at arm’s length.

During this period Himmler also acted as the party’s agricultural expert. In this function he developed agrarian ideas, which he described as ‘a völkisch peasant policy’. The structural crisis in agriculture, which he had analysed in previous years and linked with anti-Semitic propaganda, was to be combated through a programme of settlement, particularly in eastern Germany; in his eyes this would also represent a contribution towards the regeneration of the German ‘national body’ and towards the ‘recovery of its military morale’.
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The development of Himmler’s ideas for a ‘völkisch peasant policy’ was directly linked to his involvement with the ‘Artamanen’, which can be traced from 1928. The Artamanen movement had been in existence since 1924; in 1928 it became more organized and from then onwards called itself the Artam League. It was a völkisch youth league, which had initially seen its main task as being to send groups of young people (‘Artamanen groups’) to estates in eastern Germany, in order to replace Polish seasonal workers. The idea behind the project was to reconnect urban young people with the soil through hard work on the land, and thereby, at the same time, help to secure the ‘ethnic German [
völkisch
] frontier’. According to the league, at the end of the 1920s there were 2,000 young people involved in this agricultural project. This badly paid and self-sacrificial work, regarded as voluntary labour service, was regarded by the league as its first step towards playing an active role in the ‘internal colonization’ of eastern Germany; for this purpose it organized its own settlement projects. In addition, within its ranks the league encouraged the idea of the ‘Ostlandfahrt’, the ‘journey to the East Land’; in other words, these settlement activities were by no means to be confined to German territory.
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