HITLER ENTERS THE RHINELAND

A Great Stride Towards the Second World War

At noon on Monday, 30 January, 1933, Goering, Goebbels and other Nazi chiefs are leaning out of a window of a room in the Kaiserhof Hotel in Berlin watching the Chancellery building where Hitler had gone to see President Hindenburg for the third time in a few days. The President was trying to form a government with a majority in the Reichstag and he needed the support of the Nazis who were, though they had just lost two million votes in the last election, the largest mass party in Germany, the Communists coming second.

Hindenburg had refused Hitler’s demand to be made Chancellor. Would he give way this time? The watchers saw their trench-coated leader leave the building, but they could tell nothing from his face: a few minutes later he was with them, and his eyes glistened with tears as he announced the news: he was the Chancellor of Germany. That evening, starting at five o’clock and lasting until midnight, huge processions of jack-booted Brown and Black Shirts bearing torches made the streets of the capital ring with their songs and slogans. It was not the first Nazi demonstration in Berlin; for Socialists, Communists and Jews it was the most sinister. Goebbels wrote that night in his diary: “It is like a fairy tale.” And so it was, though a most unpleasant kind of fairy tale. An Austrian, of humble birth, without any formal education, who had passed his early manhood in the doss-houses of Vienna and Munich, who had served as a corporal in the First World War, had won the highest office, after that of the President, in the German Republic.

Germany for the past five years had been the scene of constant brawls between Communists and Nazis. There were six million unemployed. In the Reichstag there was no majority for any respectable government, Socialists, the Catholic Centre party and conservative nationalist groups had formed effectual coalitions. President Hindenburg did not want to call in the Nazis. Junker as he was, he respected his constitutional oath to support German democ­racy, and the Nazis openly said, “Democracy must go.”

Many of Hindenburg’s advisers disliked the Nazis’ violent anti Semitism and noted that even respected Catholic politicians had been beaten up by Hitler’s thugs. However, when Hindenburg gave way, it was some consolation that the government contained only three Nazi ministers; Hitler and his two companions west’ surrounded by respectable conservatives who included the ex­perienced diplomat Von Neurath and, as vice-Chancellor, the monocled Franz vonPapen, member of all the best clubs and a close friend of the President. All could be well for the gentlemen of Germany who would keep the Nazi upstarts in their place. All the same, many of these gentlemen thought the Nazis had their rough hearts in the right places: they would suppress labour unrest.

The Army, in the early days, had financed Hitler’s party, but in 1933 it was divided about the Nazis. Some generals didn’t like the revolutionary slogans which the Nazis used, nor did they appreciate the existence of highly armed civilian organizations. Some military leaders, however, remained strong supporters. Hitler’s first act on taking power was to win over the Army chiefs. He announced that a rearmament programme was to be started at once and that, in secret, for the Treaty of Versailles limited the German Army to 100,000 men, 36 divisions were to be created. The Army had asked for only 23.

It was not Army support which had brought the Nazis to power after fourteen years of struggle which had had its ups and downs. The Nazis had become the most powerful of the nationalist groups because they appealed, by their Socialist slogans, to the working class, and by their mystical ideas about Blood, Race and Soil, to a large stratum of the German people easily led astray by quasi-philosophical notions. For millions of Germans, Hitler’s capacity for arousing hatred of foreigners, Jews and Communists, evoked, because of Germany’s social disorganization, a huge response.

Hitler, however, appealed to the whole nation, particularly after he came to power, because he represented something practically all Germans were fervently agreed on: the Treaty of Versailles must be revised; Germany must recover her territory lost in the East and must no longer be treated as a pariah nation without a proper army. Here was real unity. A German government had freely signed the Locarno Treaty in 1924 which guaranteed most of the Versailles Treaty which had been imposed on Germany. But Locarno was regarded by the Nazis as an act of treachery.

Last of all, Hitler’s triumph was due to his own genius. He had an intensity of inner passion, often possessed by small minds, but always present in very great leaders. In his apparently wasted early years he had absorbed German and European history, taking to heart all the more exaggeratedly romantic ideas of certain philosopher-historians. Above all, in his strange way, this young man who neither drank nor smoked nor went after women, who, when he had money, would gorge himself with cream cakes whilst he devoured books and newspapers, had forged himself a philosophy not from books but from his contacts with fellow-tramps, with the lower races such as Slavs or Jews whom he met round the soup-kitchens of Vienna, and with political agitators and minor politicians. Only strength matters, not morality. Only the strong and ruthless survive in a hard world. Unimaginative, crude, with few normal interests or feelings, he loved his dog, he had created for himself a mind strong enough, at the age of forty-three when he became Chancellor of the Reich, to dominate all he came in contact with.

There was something other than mind too. Hitler hypnotized not only with his oratory but with his presence, and this power remained with him until his end. In 1945, crouching in a bunker, in Berlin with Russian shells falling all around, German generals and civil servants who knew the war was totally lost still trembled, obeyed the Fuhrer and, against all reason, left him believing that he might yet save them.

The world was to be dazzled by the achievements of the Hitler who annexed Austria, who smashed Czechoslovakia, who signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact and then directed the first victorious stage of the Second World War. His greatest achievements, however, were those between 1933 and 1936 when Germany was weak. Whatever illusions the conservative classes had about using Hitler, these were shattered rapidly.

Before 1933 was over he and his Brown Shirt Army had forced the Reichstag to pass what was called an “Enabling Bill to Protect the Reich from Distress”, which in fact gave Hitler absolute power for four years, including the power of remaking the constitution. He proceeded then to centralize Germany, to abolish the governments of the various states such as Prussia (controlled by Socialists) and Bavaria, doing what Bismarck had never dared to undertake. All enemies of the regime were ruthlessly suppressed and the Jews were expropriated, kicked about and made to sweep the streets under the guard of storm-troopers armed with whips, when they were not being massacred. The persecution of the Jews gave great delight to Hitler, who laughed until he cried when told of the indignities heaped on his victims.

The power of the German trade unions was swept away. The workers were regimented in a way which would have been inconceivable in any other country. But the Germans liked discipline, work for rearmament was plentiful and pay packets were heavy even though “Guns before Butter” didn’t allow many comforts. In 1934, Hitler, aware that the Army disapproved of some of his more revolutionary followers, conducted his great Blood Purge in which he personally saw to the execution of the most dangerous Nazi left-wing elements, led by the homosexual Roehm.

Hitler and his lieutenants with their hands still more stained with blood were regarded, after 1934, as respectable by the German officers and the middle-class. Foreigners were encouraged to visit Germany, for the regime knew how to keep its nastiness underground. Even those aware that many German intellectuals, such as Einstein, had already had to flee the country and who knew that German liberals disapproved of the Nazis, could not but be struck by the happy faces of the majority of the Germans who supported Hitler and by the air of purpose which now animated a once disorderly country.

It was in foreign policy that Hitler showed his genius at its greatest height during this period. This man who knew no foreign language and who had never been out of Germany proved himself the master of all European statesmen. Although the public reaction to the Nazis in some countries, particularly in Britain and America, had been, after a time, rather favourable, the Chancellories of Europe were well aware that Hitler nourished designs of conquest. After all, some people had read Hitler’s strange book Mein Kampf which he had written in 1924 and in which he had exposed the aims of his policy if he ever became ruler of Germany. Then the rearmament programme could not be kept secret nor the construction of armoured divisions and aircraft. But the political and military experts who knew what was happening thought that Germany had a long way to go before she would be dangerous. Conscription was still forbidden by the Versailles Treaty and the Rhineland was still demilitarized.

Hitler’s policy was, whilst preparing for war, to give the image of a Germany who wanted only peace and justice. He did both these things in no uncertain fashion. In May, 1933, President Roosevelt appealed to the European nations to disarm and in particular to abolish all offensive weapons including tanks and heavy artillery. Immediately Hitler made one of the cleverest speeches of his life. He said that President Roosevelt had earned the warmest thanks of the German government. Germany was entirely ready to renounce all offensive weapons if the armed nations on their side would destroy their offensive weapons.

Neither Britain, France nor Italy was prepared to undertake real disarmament, particularly in view of what they knew of Hitler’s plans. No response came from them to the American message and so in October, Hitler, playing the part of the just man who had done his best, who had himself breathed nothing but reason, sweetness and light, suddenly withdrew from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations.

His next diplomatic moves astonished the world. Out of the blue, he concluded a Treaty of Friendship with Poland, the very country Germany was most determined to wipe out. To the naive this seemed to dispel many doubts and fears about the new Germany. It also weakened the alliance France had made with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Hitler was also clever in the way he disentangled himself just in time from an unsuccessful coup d’etat by the Austrian Nazis, to whom he had given arms and explosives solely to seize Austria.

In February, 1935, France and Britain decided to present Hitler with a suggested series of pacts against aggression by land, sea or air, covering all Europe. It put Hitler in an awkward situation for he was feeling that something must be done to encourage German nationalist sentiment. He welcomed the idea of a pact for Western Europe but was evasive over one covering the East. But he guessed that the British and French governments were nervous and needed more than he did to get some results. A British White Paper announced measures of rearmament in view of the now open German plans. The Fuhrer contracted a diplomatic illness and refused to see Sir John Simon, the Foreign Minister, who had been coming to discuss the new pacts with him. The French announced a doubling of the period of service for conscripts. It was enough to give Hitler a sort of justification for the most sensational of his acts as yet. On Hero’s Memorial Day, 17 March, 1935, he boldly proclaimed the ending of all the clauses against the German armed forces and conscription.

What followed? Empty protests by the Allies. Every German felt that Hitler had done what no Republican government would ever have dared to do. Even so, Hitler continued to play carefully his double-game. He kept on stating that Germany only wanted equality with other nations, which he had now got, and therefore wanted only peace. He reaped an immediate reward, for a few months later he was able to make an agreement with Britain which gave Germany the right to build a navy up to thirty-five per cent of the British. France and Italy felt that Britain had double-crossed them.

On 5 October, 1935, Mussolini, in defiance of the League of Nations and of Britain and France, invaded Abyssinia. Hitler was overjoyed. If Mussolini failed he would be weakened in Europe and so would not count; if he succeeded, he would be ready for an alliance with Germany. And so Hitler would finally be able to take Austria. But before the question of Abyssinia and the League was settled Hitler made his greatest and most daring coup., As early as June, 1935, he had ordered the Reich Defence Council to prepare plans for invading the Rhineland. Under the Versailles Treaty, Germany was not allowed to build forts or keep soldiers in the Rhineland regions on both sides of the river. It was the only clause of the Treaty which still gave France a certain feeling of security. In drawing up plans Hitler ordered that nothing was to be typed or mentioned even on private telephone lines. General von Blomberg, the Commander-in-Chief, was frankly against entering the Rhineland, for he regarded a French counter-reaction as inevitable.

On 27 February, 1936, the French Parliament voted its approval of the mutual assistance pact between France and the Soviet Union. This was the excuse Hitler had been waiting for, and on 2 March he ordered the General Staff to prepare for immediate action on the occupation plans. The German Army was not even half formed or half trained; if the French Army with its ninety divisions marched, even a few of them, into the Rhineland and the Poles invaded from the East as they said they would do, Germany was finished. General von Blomberg gave orders that the occupying force was to be withdrawn at once if the French acted. General Beck, the Chief of Staff, suggested that Germany should voluntarily agree not to erect fortifications on the left bank of the Rhine, as a sop to the French. Hitler dismissed this suggestion with contempt.

At dawn on 7 March a small force of German cavalry and infantry entered the Rhineland, according to German witnesses at Nuremberg, the force was not more than three battalions or about four thousand men. At 10.00 a.m., Hitler summoned the French and British Ambassadors to see him and told them of the occupation due to France’s breaking the spirit of the Locarno Treaty in making a pact with Russia, and he brought at once an offer of perpetual peace in Western Europe. At midday, at the Kroll Opera House, Hitler addressed the German Parliament. With feigned emotion he spoke of his desire for peace with France, said that France had disappointed his hopes and had allied herself with an Asiatic power. Nevertheless, he continued, a way must be found for making peace. He had just offered France and Britain a twenty-five-year pact of non-aggression.

His audience who did not know what had happened, was tense and observant. Suddenly, when Hitler said: “As from to-day the German government has established the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone,” there was an extraordinary demonstration. Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich describes the scene as an eye-witness :

“Now the 600 Deputies, personal appointees, all of Hitler, little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute. They scream ‘Heil’. Hitler raises his hand for silence. He says in a deep voice: ‘Men of the German Reichstag. In this historic hour, when in the Reich’s western province, German troops are at this minute marching into their future peace-time garrisons, we all unite. He can go no further. All the militarism in their German blood turns to their heads. Their faces are contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide-open, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, are glued on the new God, the Messiah. The Messiah plays his role superbly. His head lowered, as if in all humbleness, he waits patiently for silence. Then with a voice still low but choking with emotion he continues…”

The generals, however, at that meeting did not share the delirious enthusiasm. General von Blomberg left the hall, his face twitching. It was scarcely conceivable that the French would not move.

The gamble came off however. Flandin, the French Prime Minister, and many of his ministers wanted the French Army to march. But they were half-hearted, and a general election, which was to bring the Popular Front to power, was only six weeks away. The Deputies thought of their electors. General Gamelin insisted that before marching there must be a general mobilization order, in other words the nation must be told it was at war. Flandin went to London. The British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, told him that Britain was against fighting but would, of course, follow France if she felt she had to take action. Many prominent British politicians felt, as Lord Lothian said, that Germany was only going into her own back garden: after all Versailles and the Locarno Treaty were a long way away, and there was no proof that Hitler did not mean

what he said about peace. On 8 March The Times considered Hitler’s speech in a favourable light and beaded its editorial “A Chance to Rebuild”.

Instead of sending some divisions into the Rhineland and dragging the British after them, the French did nothing but protest. Hitler said later: “The 48-hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-racking in my life. If the French had marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with, our tails between our legs for the military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even a moderate resistance.”

The occupation of the Rhineland could have resulted in a check for Hitler and perhaps his disappearance for ever from the political scene. As it was, the success of this venture meant that henceforward no soldier or diplomat dared to question Hitler’s intuition. The occupation and rapid fortification of the Rhineland ensured that German troops would be a hundred miles nearer Paris at the beginning of a war. It was a direct menace to the safety of Holland and Belgium, and indeed shortly after the Rhineland occupation, Belgium adopted a principle of neutrality instead of alliance with France.

The fortifications of the Rhineland meant that France could not, if she could, come quickly to the aid of her allies, Poland and Czechoslovakia, in Eastern Europe, if Germany attacked them. Without the Rhineland there would have been no thought of Hitler’s annexation of Austria nor his rape of Czechoslovakia, nor perhaps the Polish campaign of 1939. It was the absolutely necessary but extremely dangerous first step to his gigantic and terrifying bid for world power.

The tragedy is that a riposte by French and British forces, who would have been supported by the Poles, had absolutely no military risk. It would have been a large-scale police operation. That is, basically, why Churchill once said: “The 1940 war was a totally unnecessary war.” The events of 7 March, 1936, were a crucial moment in world history if ever there was one.