Germany For the fighting in Germany, see Germany, battle for, which follows this entry.

1. Introduction

The academic debate about Germany's responsibility for the Second World War is altogether different from that on its contribution to the First World War. Most historians accept that it was Hitler, the dominant figure in German politics between 1933 and 1945, who unleashed the war in Europe in September 1939. However, they have had a heated debate on his role within National Socialist Germany. Some historians have argued that he was ‘master in the Third Reich’, others have termed him ‘a weak dictator’. To understand the course of development in the twelve years of the Third Reich it is necessary to look for a synthesis of Hitler's intentions and Germany's impersonal structures rather than to stress the contrast between them. Only when we give as much historical attention to the war years as to the period before 1939 can we arrive at an adequate explanation of Hitler's personal significance in the Third Reich. From 1938 the German state was nothing but the personal and absolute fiefdom of Hitler according to the ‘leadership principle’. He occupied more than a mere functional role within a polycratic system of rule. As Führer, Hitler was Leader of the nation, the people, and the Nazi movement. In this capacity, he acted as chief executive, chief legislator, supreme judge, and supreme commander of the armed forces. Moreover, he was the self-proclaimed supreme ideological leader of the officer corps ( 10 February 1939) and commander-in-chief of the army (from 19 December 1941). The state was held together by Hitler's authority, and by the personal loyalty and ideological commitment of the leaders at the various levels below him. His charismatic leadership was strengthened by feuds among his followers which he could resolve as sole and final arbiter. Another necessary component was the ‘Hitler Myth’, the public image of his heroic and unerring leadership and the German people's acceptance of it. None the less, ‘to designate Hitler as the central agent of a policy of destruction on a European scale is very far from absolving the German society of his time from its responsibility for that policy’ (see Stern below, p. 17). The post-war tendency to separate the Führer from his followers and the Wehrmacht from its supreme commander does not help an understanding of the Third Reich at war.

Historians have long suggested that the causes of the rise of National Socialism were the refusal to accept the verdict of 1918, resentment against the terms of the Versailles settlement, the profound consequences of the economic crises, discontent with democracy and the Weimar Republic's policy of compromise with the victors, as well as German military traditions and the glorification of the First World War as a communal experience. These factors, together with revisionism and nationalism, anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism, all had a socially unifying effect in Germany. To these explanations should be added the fact that the two armament programmes initiated in 1928 and 1932 by the Reichswehr (the German army and navy), with all that these implied, played into Hitler's hands and were major assets in his domestic and military policy of reorganizing German society for war. They were the nucleus of a future, much larger people's army based on compulsory conscription, thereby favouring an authoritarian leadership which could revitalize the military spirit of the population.

Hitler was a revolutionary and a racist. He saw history as an interracial struggle and believed that conflict ‘in all its forms’ was inevitable and the ‘father of all things’. It determined the life of individuals and nations. He thought that races could be graded on a scale of merit and that the struggle for survival would be a permanent one until the ‘more worthy’ German people had proved their claim to world mastery. Peace was desirable only as an opportunity to prepare for war. In this ideological context, war took on a special meaning for Hitler. It was not only the ‘highest expression of the life force’ of a people, but also a legitimate and inevitable tool in the hands of German statesmen for acquiring sufficient Lebensraum (living space) by which the nation's future would be secured racially, economically, and militarily. War was not a moral issue but the physical means to a social end: the survival of the superior Germans. In this new kind of war there would be no distinction between the Home Front and the combat zone. The full force of the fighting German people would strike all national and racial enemies within and without the Reich. There would be no legal restraints.

Hitler's programme was no detailed blueprint for action, but Lebensraum, although an amalgam of various elements, did mean something concrete. It meant war, conquest, annihilation, and reshaping German and European society. It was not only anti-Semitism that directed Nazi genocide: the full range of racial victims—Jews, gypsies, blacks, Slavs, and the German mentally handicapped (see euthanasia programme)—must be acknowledged in order to see how the war, Nazi ideology, genocide, and German social policy were interconnected. The war acted as a stimulant to the extension of racial policies, and the link between grand strategy and racial politics in the war policy of the Third Reich makes it impossible to separate the Wehrmacht from its political leadership.

As a social revolutionary, Hitler envisaged a biologically homogeneous German people led by a new civilian and military élite. The creation of a national and social Volksgemeinschaft (national community) out of a German society riven by divisions of class, religion, and ideology, was to be accomplished according to ‘racial principles’. The new leadership cadres of the party and the armed forces would be created from the purest elements of the German race ‘through a heroic selection process’ which would evaluate their character and performance. The goal was to have soldierly leaders and political soldiers. This selection process would be accompanied by the ruthless elimination of all ideological and biological enemies and so-called ‘asocials’ in order to purify the Volksgemeinschaft, thus giving it a greater cohesion for war. The reorganization of the German people into a ‘community of blood and destiny’ would be supported by the infusion of a common ‘world view’ (Weltanschauung). Education was seen as an important means for instilling a new collective mentality. It was the task of the Nazi Party to educate the Volksgenossen (national comrades), young and old, to view war as normal, to secure their loyalty to the fatherland and their willingness to fight for its honour. During their military service they would be further instructed by ‘the great educational institution of the nation’, the Wehrmacht. There was no individual right to liberty or the pursuit of happiness: ‘Public need comes before private greed’. Yet the concept of a Volksgemeinschaft, a truly integrated society without social barriers, even at the price of freedom, became a force for social integration. It gave many Germans a sense of purpose and national pride. The Weimar Republic had failed to satisfy a psychological need for solidarity, idealism, and self-sacrifice in Germany. This new element in National Socialism bound many people to the Führer.

Today we have immense difficulties in coming to terms with the revolutionary process which Hitler set in train in Germany. It is uncomfortable to discover anything at all positive in him. Yet his egalitarian drive, which undoubtedly created favourable conditions for social mobility and advancement through merit and achievement, appealed to hundreds of thousands of Germans. The war accelerated this process. For example, the army not only commissioned officers from the ranks, but in November 1942 eradicated all formal educational barriers for officer candidates. The fullest consequences of Hitler's social revolution became manifest after the war in the Federal Republic, which speedily developed into one of the most egalitarian and forward-looking states in Europe.

In the years before 1939 no one talked more about peace than Hitler himself. This was necessary in order to conceal from the public and the world the comprehensive programme of educational and military remilitarization which was the foundation for a long-range policy of aggression. When Hitler decided, on 5 November 1937, to achieve his goal of expansion by force in a shorter period and learned that there was a widespread fear of war among the German population, he ordered the propaganda apparatus to turn off the ‘pacifist record’ and prepare the nation psychologically for war. The blame for what was to come was to be placed on other countries. However, there was no great enthusiasm for war among ordinary German people. When Hitler declared that ‘we have been returning fire at the Poles since 5.45 a.m.’, the Germans reacted with sober realism and ‘reluctant loyalty’. Even Goebbels's formidable propaganda effort could not make the Germans like war, although the armed forces' successes eased his task. Moreover, in counteracting complaints between 1939 and 1944, he could rely on the information the SS secretly collected about the mood and attitude of the German population in the so-called ‘Reports from the Reich’. The dazzling victory over France in 1940 had profound effects on Germany. The Führer reached the height of his popularity, and the war almost became a patriotic crusade. Hitler and the Germans, in and out of uniform, formed a bond which was stronger than ever. Even a fervent anti-Nazi like Ulrich von Hassell was carried away by the fall of France. The encirclement of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad (1942–3) was to become the turning-point of public morale—the news of its destruction was a shock—yet Goebbels kept spirits up on the Home Front by creating a mood of endurance among the German population. He used the mass bombing (see strategic air offensives, 1) and the demand for unconditional surrender to stir up hatred against the Allies and stiffen morale, although, they also made the German people think that defeat might be on the way. Still, as a consequence of the attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944 (see Schwarze Kapelle), there was a short-lived upsurge of support with proclamations of loyalty. When, in the last year of the war, endurance changed to apathy, personal survival became more important than the national interest. Yet there was no mass resistance or sabotage. Terror and patriotic tenacity cannot be the only explanations for this phenomenon. There was also a consciousness of responsibility for the brutal force Germany had used in Europe and for the Nazi crimes.

2. Domestic life, war effort, and economy

On the eve of war, Germany covered an area of 586,238 sq. km. (226,288 sq. mi.) and had a population of 79.5 million. By the summer of 1941, the Greater German Reich—which had come into being by formal annexation (of Danzig, large slices of Poland, and small ones of Belgium), by extension of German civilian administration (over Alsace and Lorraine, Luxemburg, Białystok, and parts of Northern Slovenia), together with the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (see Czechoslovakia) and the General government of Poland (see Poland, 2(b))—covered an area of 891.403 sq. km. (344,080 sq. mi.) with a population of some 116 million.

At the outbreak of the war, Germany's workforce (see Table 1) encompassed 39.1 million Germans (24.5 million men and 14.6 million women) plus 300,000 foreign workers. Unemployment was virtually non-existent, having fallen to only 63,000. The armed forces had mobilized some 4.528 million men. The exempted personnel amounted to 1.87 million ( 9 December 1939). There was no fresh recruitment of women into the factories. On the contrary, the Nazis resisted for ideological reasons the armed forces' demand for compulsory work service for women and they paid married soldiers generous allowances. After the outbreak of war, many female industrial workers married and stayed at home. Thus in May 1941, there were almost 440,000 fewer women in the workforce than in May 1939 (see Table 2). By the end of 1939 the armed SS stood at 277,000 men, including the various police branches with reinforcements, the Death's Head units with replacements, and the 23,000 in the militarized formations such as the Waffen-SS. Together with an additional 300,000 men who were with various unarmed supporting services like the air defence, about 6 million men were mobilized for the internal and external security of the Third Reich in 1939.

Germany, Table 1: Reich's (pre-war territory) labour force, 1939–44 (figure for 31 May each year in millions)

Germany, Table 2: German women (pre-war territory) in the native German workforce, 1939–44 (%) (figure for 31 May each year)

Germany, Table 3: Government expenditure (bn RM)

Germany, Table 4: Military output

Germany, Table 5: Industrial output

Germany, Table 6: Consumption in Germany per capita, 1939–44 (1938 = 100)

Germany, Table 7: German food rations 1939–45, for one adult (weekly ration, in grams)

3. Government and legal system

Germany had already become a centralized state ruled by one party before 1939, and parliamentary democracy and political parties had long been overturned. The general process of Gleichschaltung (forcing people to conform) concentrated the effective political and military power in the hands of Hitler to a degree unknown in Germany since the days of Frederick the Great. There were no checks and balances to Hitler's dictatorship: ‘The will of the Führer is law.’ It is not easy to bring light into the jungle of authorities and functions which grew and changed under the impact of war and the dynamism of the Nazi movement. There was a deliberate contra- and juxtaposition of state and party institutions with overlapping functions, while at the same time, special political agencies often hampered the unity of executive measures. This form of Nazi rule has been described as ‘organized chaos’. Yet the combination of state and party functions in a personal union favoured both the party's increasing power over the machinery of the state and Hitler's dictatorship. Recent historical scholarship on the period reveals that the outbreak of war represented a watershed in Nazi ideological policies. It speeded up the final transformation of a constitutional state, based on the rule of law, into a police state, with oppression the only means of ruling. The war helped to alter the dualism of state and party in favour of the latter.

Nazi Germany was a unitary state but its national and local administration was a maze. Hitler had no interest at all in establishing a firm governmental system: since life was a permanent struggle for survival between races, nations, and individuals, institutions should not remain static but fluid. The dynamic process within the Third Reich was determined by three principles: leadership, loyalty, and character. In its racial conflict, Germany was to be led, not administered. So it was not surprising that behind the monolithic façade of the Reich, relations between party and state as well as within each body were in fact fierce power-struggles. The actual power of key individuals varied according to their personal drive, ability, and relationship to Hitler. There were old comrades like Ley and Wilhelm Kube, and new managers like Bormann, Heydrich, Todt, and Speer who combined ideological conviction and enthusiasm with competence. The leadership principle was hostile to a government which governed by talking and working together, hostile to co-ordination and shared responsibility. Since there were no such bodies as a war cabinet or joint chiefs of staff, or a committee system, it was only in Hitler's hands that the threads came together.

He was in a unique position, commanding the machinery of party and state by both claiming personal allegiance and espousing hierarchy as the source of order and compliance. The institutional character of the Reich was thus transformed into a kind of feudalism. What mattered to Hitler, whether acting as party leader, or Reich Chancellor, or Supreme Commander, was the obedience of his lieutenants and the compliance of his followers. He was in full command of the Third Reich, especially its conduct of war, moving his seat of government between Berlin, Berchtesgaden, and his various military headquarters, including the WOLF's LAIR at Rastenburg in East Prussia and WEREWOLF near Vinnitsa in the western Ukraine.

Hitler was served by five different chancelleries or secretariats, the principal ones being those for administration under Hans-Heinrich Lammers, for the party under Bormann (from 1941), and for military affairs under Keitel. These offices were not concerned with policy-making, but operated under Hitler's direct authority drafting laws, decrees, directives. Yet all the regional party leaders, the Gauleiter, and the commanders-in-chief of the three armed services had direct access to him. Another way Hitler imposed his authority was to give orders to the principal lieutenants for inner security and racial matters (Himmler), propaganda (Goebbels), foreign affairs ( Ribbentrop), and economy (Göring, later Todt and Speer). They in turn ruled via their staffs and lieutenants. This becomes especially visible in the way Himmler fulfilled some of his various functions. His direct deputies within the Reich and the occupied territories were the higher SS and police leaders, while at the same time he had an effective staff for security matters under Heydrich and later Kaltenbrunner or able lieutenants like Hans Jüttner for the Waffen-SS.

Yet another way Hitler ruled was via special agencies or envoys for various tasks, which Hitler established either by intention or of necessity. The nomenclature varied between Plenipotentiary, Reich Commissioner, and Inspector-General. To name only a few, there were those for administration, economy, housing, labour, racial matters, total war, and water and energy. The increasing accumulation of state and party offices by a few persons helped to erode the dualism of state and party and effectively furthered personal decisions over the different steps of administration. To demonstrate this peculiar feature of Nazi Germany, it is not enough to point to Hitler's various powers. Goebbels, for example, was a regional party leader and a Reich defence commissioner, he was in charge of the party's and state propaganda, steered the Reich's cultural affairs, and became Plenipotentiary of Total War. Himmler was not only the supreme leader and judge of all the various SS branches, but also became Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationhood (i.e. for racial matters) in October 1939 and Reich Minister of the Interior in August 1943. He could thus successfully combine the security of Germany, within and without, with racial goals. In 1944–5, Himmler seized military power, when he became commander-in-chief of the Volksgrenadier and commander of the Replacement Army. He was also made responsible for the Wehrmacht's reorganization and for the military command of the Volkssturm (see 5 below). He even twice took command of an army group in the field.

The regional structure of the Greater German Reich in 1941 comprised 42 Gaue party districts (see Map 43), but 39 state components (Reichsgaue, Länder, and Prussian provinces) and 18 military districts, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Demands from the interior ministry for a unified administration were never met because Hitler deliberately wanted to postpone the structural reform of the Reich until Europe's final racial reorganization. On the regional level, there was an institutional linkage between party and state functions. On 1 September 1939 fourteen Gauleiter were appointed as Reich defence commissioners, and two more after the defeat of Poland. They were made responsible for a uniform handling of all defence matters in their respective districts and the commanders of the corresponding military districts were stripped of their powers. This decision had formidable consequences for civil—military as well as party—state relations within the Third Reich. In matters of dispute it was the party that finally decided what belonged to Reich defence and what did not. These Gauleiter established defence committees to advise them on such issues. While the High Command (OKW) failed to get its armaments inspectors on this body, Himmler's deputies in the military districts (the higher SS and police leaders) were present. On 16 November 1942, all 42 Gauleiter were elevated to Reich defence commissioners. Thus they combined state powers with party loyalties which became particularly important in July and September 1944, when the Allies were approaching Germany proper and Hitler had to decide who was to be in command in a particular zone of operations. At that time, the army commander's authority was reduced to the immediate combat zone while the executive power within the main and rear area rested with the chosen Reich defence commissioner guided by Himmler. In this way, the party controlled the army.

In 1940, there were 2,199 law courts under 198 higher courts (Oberlandesgerichte). In addition, there were the supreme civil (Reichsgericht) and military courts (Reichskriegsgericht), 55 so-called Special Courts and the People's Court (for civil, military, and political crimes). The legal system in the Third Reich was a contradiction of the rule of law. The judiciary's function of controlling the activities of the police was turned on its head by Hitler giving Himmler unlimited powers for state security. Justice was no longer able or willing to guarantee life and freedom to the individual. The judiciary, like the police, was part of the public security organization, an instrument of Hitler's will to discipline and purge society. As the police authority was deliberately not put under the control of law, it could prosecute and pass verdicts. The resulting lawlessness of the police (which even Hans Frank complained about in August 1942), was by no means unprincipled. Since racism was the fundamental tenet of the Nazi revolution, the highest legal maxim was the life of the nation. The ‘spirit of National Socialist law’ is best revealed by the concept of the ‘sound feeling of the people’ and by the instruction of 1936 to interpret the laws on the basis of Nazi Weltanschauung.

In both substance and procedure, the Nazis tightened up the law generally and the criminal law in particular. After the outbreak of war, the government issued a series of decrees and principles to ensure the security of the Reich, its people, and its war effort. These included regulations against listening to foreign radio stations and spreading information obtained from them, against violation of the food rationing and consumption restrictions, against criminal offences committed under cover of the wartime blackout, and against critical remarks about the progress of war. Many more offences became punishable by the death penalty than before September 1939. Freisler, later president of the People's Court, considered himself one of Hitler's political soldiers and spoke of the Special Courts as ‘the tank arm of the legal system’ ( 24 October 1939) or on 21 February 1940 as the ‘courts-martial of the home front’. From 1941, the judiciary began to receive political directives from its ministry, and on 1 October 1942, Minister Otto-Georg Thierack began to offer ‘guidance’ with his infamous ‘Letters to the Judges’ (Richterbriefe). Many judges shared his belief that there was a deterrent value in draconian verdicts; many were motivated by political considerations and applied harsh penalties because of the offender's antisocial attitude rather than because of the actual offence, although not all judges easily condemned men and women to the block and the gallows. From the summer of 1944, when Germany was being fully mobilized for total war, the judiciary had to support this goal, although many responsibilities had already been given to the police. Almost 198,000 men and women were in prison on 9 December 1944, including 15,774 Poles in detention camps. Although the statistics of the criminal courts are incomplete, almost 15,500 death sentences were passed between 1933 and 1944, of which over three-quarters were carried out.

For the first time since the First World War, a system of military law was established for the armed forces in January 1934. They were given back the traditional right to try their own offenders and award their own punishments for crimes against both the military and the civil code. The task of military justice was to maintain the discipline of the troops and thereby their fighting power. It had been common among soldiers, former military lawyers, and Nazis to view the system of military justice in the First World War as a weak instrument for keeping up morale. The procedures had taken far too long and too few death sentences had been passed and executed. The Nazis intended military law to be adapted to their political aims, fitted into the requirements of a Volksgemeinschaft fighting for its survival and executed ‘in the Name of the German People’. A soldier's personal guilt in violating a rule or an order was important, but his offence or crime was also to be seen as damaging the people.

In preparation for the coming war, a new anti-sedition decree was issued in 1938. It contained the infamous offence of Wehrkraftzersetzung (subversion of the war effort) and specified the death penalty for persons who attempted to persuade military personnel to refuse to obey orders or anyone who tried to undermine the war effort. This Verordnung gegen Volksschädlinge (Decree against Enemies of the People), which was issued by the Council of Ministers for Reich Defence on 5 September 1939 served the same purpose on the civilian side. Military courts also linked deserters to Wehrkraftzersetzung and saw them as offending against the people and its leader. Courts martial were composed of one professional judge and two soldiers of equivalent rank to the accused. The decision to confirm or annul a sentence passed by a court martial rested with the army commanders, the service chiefs, or with Hitler as the supreme commander. During the trial the judges were free from any directives by military commanders, but their function was disciplinary rather than judicial. Maintaining military discipline at all costs increased in urgency as the war progressed, with deserters deemed to be undermining the war effort and offending both the people and their leader. In 1943, there were more than 1,000 military courts and more than 3,000 military lawyers. Wehrmacht statistics reveal that 9,732 persons were executed up to the end of 1944. Yet military courts worked up to May 1945, especially the newly established mobile Fliegendes Standgericht (‘flying courts-martial’). A total figure of at least 21,000 executions has been estimated.

On 17 October 1939, the SS could introduce its own penal code as a form of military justice, applying it at first only to its own armed formations, the Waffen-SS and the police units in the field. By the summer of 1942, all the police branches and foreign auxiliary units, roughly 636,000 men, had been brought under this penal code. Himmler, the supreme judge after Hitler, ordered that ‘none of the legal profession should ever become chief of an SS-court’ ( 26 August 1942) and ‘lively personalities’ were preferred. At the end of 1943 there were 31 permanent courts and 20 in the field, with a total of 204 judges. Between 1939 and 1944, SS courts executed 1,001 men.

4. New Order

Germany dominated great parts of Europe between 1939 and 1945. How far was its rule also purposeful? Hitler had a Grand Design, but it was more of a vision than a plan. Although he was motivated by the urge to acquire Lebensraum for the German people and establish a new European order on a racial basis, Hitler was pragmatic. He was more interested in winning the war and exploiting the conquered territories than in establishing a New Order in Europe prematurely and thereby arousing resistance among the occupied or dependent countries unnecessarily. As Goebbels put it on 26 October 1940: ‘If anyone asks me what do you really want, I cannot give him an answer. That depends on the circumstances. It depends on how much we want and how much we can get. We want living space. Yes, but what does that mean? We will provide a definition after the war…When this war is over we want to be masters in Europe.’

Hitler summed up his imperialistic and racial objectives in the euphoria of global triumph during the summer of 1941. During a five-hour meeting on 16 July, he told Bormann, Göring, Keitel, Lammers, and Rosenberg: ‘We must make of the newly-acquired Eastern areas a Garden of Eden.’ Hitler did not want the ‘final settlement’ of Europe which he had already initiated to be obvious to everyone. ‘We can nevertheless take all necessary measures—shooting, resettling, etc.—and we shall take them…In principle we have now to face the task of cutting the giant cake according our needs, in order to be able, first, to dominate it, second, to administer it, and third, to exploit it…Never again must it be possible to create a military power west of the Urals…We must never permit anybody but the Germans to carry arms!’ Hitler admired the British for their effective colonial rule, and wanted to create a German India out of the eastern areas. He said: ‘What distinguishes the Englishman is his constant and consistent following of one line and one aim. In this respect we must learn absolutely from him.’

Hitler was not interested in a unified administration, favouring a pragmatic, working solution until final victory would give him the freedom to decide on a concrete ‘New Order’ in Europe. This attitude did not hinder the resettlement of Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans), deportations and annihilation of racial enemies, and the creation of rough administrative structures for the German-dominated area which were already in progress. The Nazis graded peoples and countries racially and according to their behaviour towards Germany. Hitler's decision on their place in Europe de pended on whether or not they were essential components of the new Germanic Empire. The historian Hans Umbreit summarized the New Order which had emerged up to the end of 1941. He considered Croatia and Slovakia satellite, but not occupied, states. He also regarded Austria, Sudetenland, Memelland, and Eupen-Malmédy not as occupied areas since the great majority of the population welcomed the invading German forces or their later annexation. In those territories, naturally, there were minorities that were persecuted or felt themselves as being occupied. In contrast, Umbreit classed large, annexed slices of Poland as occupied territories since the vast majority of their population was not German and resisted the Nazi policy of degradation, deportation, exploitation, and persecution.

The pattern of German power in occupied Europe was as follows:I.The extension of the Reich administration with some special arrangements over:1.formally annexed territories under Reich governors or heads of Prussian provinces (Oberpräsidenten): Danzig-West Prussia, province of Poznań (Wartheland), south-eastern Prussia, and eastern Upper Silesia,2.those territories under heads of the civil administration which were increasingly treated as parts of the Reich, but had not yet been formally incorporated: Alsace and Lorraine, Luxembourg, parts of Northern Slovenia (Untersteiermark, the occupied parts of Krain and Carinthia), Białystok.II.Territories where civil administrations or civil supervisory authorities were established:1.countries which had been put under German protection with a Reich Plenipotentiary: Denmark (from August 1943) and Hungary (from March 1944),2.countries with Germanic populations that were intended for incorporation into the eventual Great Germanic Reich under Reich commissioners: Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium (from July 1944),3.German settlement areas the colonization of which had already been planned or begun: the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the General Government of Poland, the Reich skommissariate for Ostland and Ukraine.III.Areas where military administration was a military necessity, or because of lack of interest in the territory concerned:1.Military commanders: Belgium (before July 1944), France with the Channel Islands, and the south-east (Serbia, Salonika and the Aegean Islands, southern Greece with Crete),2.Commanders of army groups and armies in the rear area of the zone of operations: Soviet Union.

In imposing this new order in Europe, Hitler had a concept of Lebensraum which was an amalgam of racial superiority, autarky, living space, and world politics. Thus, the new kind of war that he unleashed in September 1939 meant conquest and annihilation. All the German measures taken behind the front line were both part of the war effort and part of his wider scheme of reorganiz ing Europe demographically and economically. Exploitation of human and material resources in the occupied countries helped the Germans to sustain the war. Although the Wehrmacht's attitude to the indigenous population was a mixture of insecurity, racial arrogance, and naïve trust in the methods of force, Hitler did not see the military as an instrument in the racial struggle before the war against the USSR began. The SS played the key role in the racial and repressive policies. Himmler's deputies all over occupied Europe were the higher SS and police leaders and they were a law unto themselves. The executioners of German racial policy were the Einsatzgruppen which were deployed in both Poland and the USSR, the Orpo and a specially formed unit, the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS, used only in the USSR. In September 1939, the foremost target of the Einsatzgruppen was the Polish intelligentsia. Heydrich officially defined the role of these mobile killing squads as ‘combating all Reich and state enemies behind the front line troops’. Significantly, this task paralleled that of the SS within Germany. In June 1941, Heydrich ordered these squads to carry out the elimination of both the biological and ideological manifestations of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’.

It is very likely that we shall never know the exact number of Soviet prisoners-of-war (POW) who were killed following political or racist criteria. Apologists estimate several tens of thousands, other assessments begin at 140,000 and go up to 600,000 POW who were handed over to the SS for these reasons. Historians also debate the overall figure of Soviet POW who died while they were under the armed forces' control. These numbers range from 1.68 million to at least 2.53 million and up to 3.3 million, out of a total of 5.7 million prisoners taken between 1941 and 1945. Behind this controversy over the extent of the mass deaths is a debate over its causes. It would be grossly misleading to explain the great rise in mortality, which began in September 1941, solely by the circumstances in the areas of war operations, for 47% of the prisoners who died up to the spring of 1942 died in camps within the Reich. The mass deaths among Soviet prisoners must be ascribed to the German policies of exploitation which were influenced by the trauma of 1918 and by racial considerations. The Nazis condemned millions of POW and large parts of the Soviet population to death by starvation and endemic diseases in order to feed the Wehrmacht and the German population. In its magnitude this crime is comparable to the mass murder of the Jews. By the spring of 1942, when the Final Solution was just getting under way, some two million Soviet POW had already died, significantly more than the number of Jews who had been shot by the SS squads or starved to death in the disease-ridden ghettos of Poland and Russia. The Nazis' change of attitude toward their Soviet POW in October 1941 was caused not by moral considerations but by the necessities of war, chiefly the labour shortage in the German war economy. The sudden increase in their value resulted not only in an improvement in the German treatment of Soviet prisoners as workers, but the German armed forces began to use them as armed auxiliaries (see Soviet exiles at war). This is a great contrast to Hitler's attitude earlier in 1941.

The details of Germany's coercive measures varied in practice from one occupied country to another, but Hitler decided the overall pattern and the SS and the armed forces carried it out. The start of the German–Soviet war also marks a turning-point in this regard. The SS and the armed forces did not use terror, the principal means of domination, indiscriminately. Confronted with incipient communist resistance in France, when German military personnel were assassinated, Hitler saw the opportunity ‘to exterminate everyone who opposes us’ ( 16 July 1941) and to export the Nazis' ideologically inspired policy of repression from the USSR into the other occupied countries, and even into the Reich itself. The distinction between guilt and innocence was abolished as thousands were put under preventive arrest and transferred to concentration camps. Many were immediately shot, not because of what they had done but because of what they were: Jews, communists, ‘similar riff-raff’, ‘mischiefmaking clerics’, or anti-German nationals. A growing range of orders to carry out this policy, the most prominent being those of 27 August 1941 (Heydrich), 16 September 1941 (Keitel), 7 December 1941 (Keitel's Night and Fog Decree), and 30 July 1944 (Hitler's Bullet Decree), could not eliminate the growing armed resistance to German occupation in Europe. On the contrary, as terror tactics increased collaboration dwindled. The growing number of concentration camps and their inmates corresponded inversely with the Reich's deteriorating situation. In September 1939, there had been about 25,000 inmates in six camps. By March 1942, there were just under 100,000 in 15 camps. The peak of 20 concentration camps, with an additional 165 branch labour camps, was reached in April 1944. Four months later, there were 524,286 prisoners. In January 1945, 714,211 inmates were guarded by approximately 40,000 men. See alsoworld trade and world economy.

5. Defence forces and civil defence

In German air strategy, offence dominated over defence. The belief that the bomber would always get through, and that an active air defence by fighters and anti-aircraft artillery was not sufficient, forced the German government to prepare for the worst. Since August 1934 the towns were secretly classified into three categories depending on their value for the war economy. 106 towns fell into the first category and means for the construction of air raid shelters were allocate d. 201 of secondary rank had to rely on enlarged emergency measures, the rest on self-protection. This policy clearly favoured the maintenance of production. Following the law of 26 June 1935, a large-scale programme of passive aerial defence was established under the auspices of the Reich's Air Defence League (Reichsluftschutzbund). The nation was to be hardened against air attacks, although the Nazis and the Luftwaffe shared the assumption that the German Volksgemeinschaft was more disciplined than democratic societies. By 1939, 12 million Germans had joined the League, 70% of them women. Since passive aerial defence ranked tenth among national priorities, only 2,046 public air raid shelters had been built in Berlin by September 1939. This meant that less than 2% of Berliners were protected against air attacks.

Civil Aerial Defence (Ziviler Luftschutz) was viewed as a component of the country's military defence, led by a working group in Luftwaffe's general staff and mobilized on 1 September 1939. Yet it had to take a back seat. The anti-aircraft artillery was to be the decisive element in the Reich's active air defence. It mobilized more than 300,000 men to operate 7,813 guns, the majority deployed in the West. The demand for soldiers fit for front-line duty increased during the war, so too did the Luftwaffe's conscription of schoolboys of the Hitler Youth (between 16 and 18 years of age) to man the anti-aircraft guns. Their numbers rose from 24,000 in 1940 to 92,500 in 1945.

While the assumption of victory prevailed, the Luftwaffe made no step towards a central command for air defence, and initiatives to activate passive aerial defence remained half-hearted despite the fact that bombing attacks had become a reality, even in Berlin. It was the beginning of mass bombing in 1942 which forced Germany to rethink its air strategy and to develop a satisfactory command and tactical relationship between day and night fighters. Not before the end of 1943 did a unified, radar-based system of air intelligence and communications emerge. Every step towards improving aircraft and aerial defence was grudgingly made. By that time, there were still no more than 400 fortified air raid shelters (Luftschutzbunker) in Berlin which gave only 20,000 people protection against air bombings. The air warning systems in those towns not thought to be in direct threat from Allied strategic bombing were altered to minimize interruption to production. Despite this, Cologne was warned 1,122 times although these alarms were followed by only 262 attacks. Moreover, Hitler lost confidence in Göring and his Luftwaffe, and the Party's authority over passive aerial defence measures increased. By February 1945, the Luftwaffe's relevant staff became a component of the OKW.

On 25 September 1944, Hitler established the Deutscher Volkssturm, a German civil defence force. The name was created from Volkswehr (people's defence) and Landsturm (landstorm). Symbolically, Hitler published his secret decree on 18 October, the anniversary of the great victory over Napoleon at Leipzig in 1813, the so-called ‘Battle of the Nations’. With Germany a nation in arms, the Nazis wanted to put themselves in the tradition of the Prussian reformers. Yet the call for the Volkssturm did not arouse the same popular enthusiasm as in 1813. Its function as a final resort was too obvious.

Authority over this German home defence force was mixed. It was organized and politically led by the party under Bormann, but commanded by Himmler in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Replacement Army. After Hitler's decree, both men signed the principal orders. As their chiefs of staff they named Helmuth Friedrichs and Gottlob Berger respectively. Yet in military matters, Berger relied more on the higher SS and police leaders than on the Replacement Army's chain of command and also tried to keep the responsible regional party leaders aloof. For this new home guard to defend the fatherland, all German males between 16 and 60 were liable for service in four levies of men born between 1884 and 1928 to make a planned strength of 6 million. This estimate seemed realistic to the Nazis, since in May 1944, there were still 6.2 million exempted men in the German workforce. Since labour had priority, training in anti-tank and infantry combat was undertaken for four hours on Sundays. The drafted men had to bring their own uniforms, and arms and ammunition were scarce. By the time the Red Army reached German soil in 1944–5, the Volkssturm was deployed in the front line. The total of casualties is unknown: 175,000 were listed as missing in action after the war.

6. Armed forces and special forces

(a) High Command

Overall direction of the German armed forces, collectively termed the Wehrmacht (defence power), was retained by Hitler himself as Führer und Oberster Befehlshaber (Leader and Supreme Commander) der Wehrmacht. Up until 1938 there had been a war ministry, with Blomberg as minister, and he had exercised the high command function. The ministry was dissolved after Blomberg's disgrace, and Hitler set up the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, or Wehrmacht High Command) as the means through which he would direct the war (see Chart 1). He appointed Keitel as chief of staff and Jodl to run the operations section, posts that they would hold throughout the war.

Apart from being titled Supreme Commander, Hitler was able to exert a tight personal grip on the conduct of the war for a variety of reasons. He was largely able to keep the officer corps bound closely to himself through exploiting the traditional Prussian military code of Honour, Duty, Loyalty. This was especially so after Hindenburg's death in August 1934, when Blomberg made all the officer corps swear an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler. By the same token, the Prussian military code, under which the senior officers had been brought up, had made them inward-looking and discouraged involvement in the wider issues of strategy. Thus, while they were expert at the operational and tactical levels, their understanding of strategy, as Hitler would often remind them, was imperfect. He, on the other hand, had an almost messianic conviction of his own skill as warlord, laying down the strategy to be followed through a series of directives which were transmitted through the OKW. Furthermore, as the war went on, he increasingly involved himself in the minutiae of operations, especially on land. This was partly because of his self-conviction, but also because he trusted his generals less and less to obey his directives to the letter.

Another aspect in Hitler's favour was that the Wehrmacht seldom spoke with one voice. The single service commanders-inchief had direct access to Hitler, leaving the OKW as merely his military mouthpiece rather than the co-ordinator of views. His overall policy of divide and rule applied as much to the Wehrmacht as to all other fields of government, and the individual service chiefs merely represented the vested interests of their own service, which were often at variance, as illustrated by the debate between the army and navy over the projected invasion of the UK in 1940 (see SEALION). Yet, such was Hitler's all-pervading dominance, that by the second half of the war their audiences with him became merely another forum for him to lay down his views rather than for them to advise him.

The Wehrmacht also laboured under another significant disadvantage, that of over-rapid growth. When Hitler came to power in January 1933 the German armed forces were still bound by the restrictions of the Versailles settlement, which forbade conscription, limited the army to 100,000 men and the navy to 15,000 men, and prohibited an air force, though there was no ban on rocket development (see V-weapons). Bent on the creation of strong armed forces in order to support his territorial ambitions, Hitler initially lacked the trained manpower. The last intake of trained conscripts was the class of 1900, which had to be called to the colours in 1918, and these were now middle-aged. Consequently, the Wehrmacht had to rely initially on those classes born during the First World War, the so-called white years, which had seen a significant drop in the birthrate. Even so, by the outbreak of war in 1939 Germany had more than 4.5 million men under arms, including those in training.

As the war progressed, military commitments grew and casualties mounted, so the Wehrmacht was increasingly forced to reduce exemptions, to comb out men for combat duty, and to cast its recruiting net wider. The enlistment age was gradually reduced from 21, increasing reliance placed on recruiting inhabitants from the occupied territories of Europe, firstly ethnic Germans (see Volksdeutsche), then Soviet citizens (see Soviet exiles at war), and others who together by the end of the war represented as much as 10% of the army's strength. Table 8 shows the annual wartime strengths of the Wehrmacht.

Closely allied to the manpower problem was that of arms and equipment. The procurement system was unable to keep pace with the expansion of the armed forces, and matters were not helped by the fact that even after Hitler had gone to war in September 1939 he refused to put his country on to a true war economy. The result was that all three armed services suffered serious equipment shortfalls.

In the light of these difficulties it is perhaps surprising that the Wehrmacht was able to perform as well as it did during almost six years of war. Much of the reason lies in the German character, especially in its traditions of industry, resilience, discipline, and self-confidence. The Allied policy of unconditional surrender also discouraged many from laying down their arms until there was no other option open. Total losses are shown in Table 9.

(b) Army

For Waffen-SS, see SS. In line with many continental European nations, whose land frontiers are much longer than their coastlines, the army (das Heer) traditionally enjoyed primacy among the German armed forces. Before the outbreak of war the German Army was headed by the C-in-C, General von Brauchitsch, and the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, or Army High Command), with Halder as chief of staff (see Chart 2). Below OKH were six Heeresgruppen (army groups), each of which controlled a number of Wehrkreise (military districts). The Heeresgruppen were primarily concerned with training, but on mobilization they formed army groups and some of the army HQ, the remainder being formed from the Wehrkreise HQ. The only exception to this was HQ Army Group South, which was formed from Arbeitstab von Rundstedt (Working Staff von Rundstedt), which was set up in late spring 1939 to carry out the detailed planning for the Polish campaign. The reason for this was that the existing mobilization plans only called for two army group commands, one in the west and the other in the east, but it was realized that Poland would require two army groups and to form the additional HQ from a Heeresgruppe would mean having to recast the complete mobilization plan.

Germany, 6, Table 8: Wartime strength of the Wehrmacht (millions)

Germany, 6, Table 9: Total losses of the Wehrmacht, 1 September 1939–31 January 1945

Germany, 6, Table 10: Strength of the German Army in terms of divisions

(c) Navy

Hitler's navy began to take shape in 1935. Its title was changed from Reichsmarine to Kriegsmarine, but more important was the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of the same year. By permitting Germany to have a surface fleet 35% the size of the Royal Navy's and 45% of its submarine strength—and parity would be acceptable if Germany sacrificed tonnage in surface types—the UK formally recognized that Germany had finally thrown off the shackles of the Versailles settlement. Hitler also saw in this treaty confirmation that war between the UK and Germany was not likely and the initial shipbuilding programmes were merely designed for war against France or the USSR. In early 1938, however, Hitler suddenly changed his mind. War with the UK and France was now more than possible and the Kriegsmarine had to prepare for it.

There were two schools of thought on how this should be achieved. One, under Grand Admiral Raeder, bargained on the bulk of the Royal Navy's being deployed in foreign waters and believed that a force of modern battleships and cruisers, even restricted in numbers by the terms of the Ango-German Naval Treaty, would more than match the British Home Fleet. The other, led by Admiral Dönitz, a First World War submarine ace now in charge of the U-boat arm, argued that priority should be given to undersea warfare against Britain's maritime trade. In the event, Raeder's case won, as much as anything on the grounds that anti-submarine measures, such as ASDIC, had apparently made underwater vessels obsolete. The result was Plan Z (see Table 11), which was approved by Hitler in January 1939 and was a shipbuilding programme designed to create a large surface fleet, but not before 1944.

Consequently, the navy was even less ready for war in September 1939 than the other two services. Its total active strength was 2 battleships, 3 pocket battleships, 1 heavy and 6 light cruisers, 21 destroyers, 12 torpedo-boats (see E-boat), and 57 U-boats. Yet, although totally outnumbered by the fleets opposing it, it remained a force in being until the very end of the war, especially its U-boats in the battle of the Atlantic.

A significant reason for this success was that the Kriegsmarine was a more streamlined organization than the army or the air force. Raeder and, from 1943 onwards, Dönitz were much more commanders-in-chief in their own right as professional longservice seamen than Göring was of the Luftwaffe. They also had the advantage that Hitler, the First World War soldier, understood little of naval affairs and, for the most part, recognized this and did not meddle as he did with the army. The one major exception was his furious criticism of the surface fleet after the failure to intercept a British Soviet-bound Arctic convoy on the last day of 1942, which brought about Raeder's resignation and Dönitz's appointment as C-inC.

The navy's supreme headquarters was the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM) in Berlin. The equivalent of the Army General Staff was the Seekriegsleitung (SKL). The OKM headed by the chief of staff and its key departments covered operations, armaments, administration, and ship construction. Directly subordinate to the OKM came the operational commands, which, like those of the Royal Navy, were a mixture of geographic and fleet commands. On the outbreak of war the former consisted of Naval Group Commands (Marinegruppenkommando) East and West, and Naval Stations (Marinestationen) North Sea and Baltic. Naval Group Command East was responsible for the defence of the Baltic and West initially for the German Bight and North Sea. After the fall of France, however, Naval Group Command West transferred its HQ to France and controlled operations in French Atlantic waters. At the same time Naval Group Command North was set up to cover the German Bight, North Sea, and Norwegian waters. All three had a number of subordinate territorial commands. The two naval station commands, on the other hand, were solely responsible for coastal defence and all training, including recruits. In order to man the coastal guns the navy had its own artillery regiments and also manned flak regiments covering ports and other key coastal areas.

Germany, 6, Table 11: Raeder: The ‘Z-Plan’ long–term production plan for the German Navy, 1939–47 (excludes experimental and auxiliary vessels)

(d) Air force

The Luftwaffe, unlike the other two branches of the Wehrmacht, was purely a Nazi creation, since the 1914–18 air arm had been part of the army and an air force had been forbidden under the Versailles terms. It also had Göring, a member of Hitler's inner circle, at its head. Consequently, it was generally looked on much more favourably by the hierarchy than were the other two armed services.

Hitler also initially saw the Luftwaffe as a more important tool than the army or navy for achieving his territorial ambitions. He was much influenced by the theories of the omnipotence of air power which were dominant at the time and conceived the Luftwaffe as a Risikoflotte (risk fleet) which could be used as a threat to force Germany's neighbours to concede its demands. It had, however, to grow quickly in order to match neighbouring air forces, especially, from August 1938, those of France and the UK. The Luftwaffe displayed an impressive rate of numerical expansion in terms of aircraft, but these were one- and two-engine types, designed for waging short, decisive wars. Although long-range heavy bombers were developed, they never went into full production and lack of a true strategic bomber was to prove a significant weakness.

The Luftwaffe also suffered from serious organizational weaknesses at the top. Göring, besides being C-in-C, was also Reich aviation minister and controlled air matters through the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Reich Aviation Ministry). This consisted of two elements. The first was the office of the secretary of state for air, Erhard Milch, who dealt with all aviation matters other than operations and was also inspector-general of the Luftwaffe. But there was also the Luftwaffe chief of staff, for much of the war until his suicide in 1943, Hans Jeschonnek, who headed the operations, intelligence, quartermaster's, organization, training, and signals branches. However, he only had direct access to Göring on operational matters. The situation was made worse by the fact that Jeschonnek had no control over personnel, this office being directly under Göring's control, or supply and procurement, whose head, Udet, reported to Milch, although after Udet's suicide in 1941 Milch took direct control over this office. Personal emnity between Milch and Jeschonnek did not help. Not until mid-1944 was the organization made less cumbersome, with a Luftwaffe High Command (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, or OKL) being established and aircraft procurement transferred to Speer's armaments ministry, as it was for the other two armed services, and Milch's post was eliminated. But then it was too late; the damage had been done, not just in shortfalls in aircraft procurement, but also in delaying for too long the Luftwaffe's switch from an offensive to a defensive posture. Indeed, it was not until the very end of the war that the chief of staff was formally recognized as Göring's principal deputy and won comprehensive control over the Luftwaffe.

Because of Göring's standing within the Nazi hierarchy, for much of the war Hitler allowed him to run the Luftwaffe with little interference. He surrounded himself with a collection of young, inexperienced, and sycophantic staff officers, and often accepted their over-optimistic reports rather than the more realistic ones submitted by his chief of staff. By mid-1944, however, he had begun to lose interest and Hitler increasingly concerned himself in Luftwaffe affairs, which made the situation even worse.

The operational Luftwaffe was organized in Luftflotten (air fleets). These were multi-role formations, with aircraft of all types. Initially there were four Luftflotten (Nos. 1–4), each covering part of the Third Reich, but as the war progressed their sectors were expanded and three additional Luftflotten (5, 6, and Luftflotte Reich) were formed, the last specifically for the defence of Germany. Each Luftflotte consisted of a number of Fliegerkorps (flying corps). The next operational command level below this was the Fliegerdivision, but this was often made directly subordinate to the Luftflotte. Both this and the corps contained a number of Geschwader, which equated to a Group in the RAF. These were designated by type: Kampfgeschwader (KG) (bomber), Jagdgeschwader (JG) (fighter), Nachtjagdgeschwader (NJG) (night fighter), Stukage schwader (StG) (dive-bomber), Zerstoerergeschwader (ZG) (destroyer, usually Me110 formations), and Lehrgeschwader (LG) (operational training). These in turn controlled 3–4 Gruppen (groups), equating to an RAF Wing, with each Gruppe commanding 3–4 Staffeln (squadrons), a Staffel consisting of 12 aircraft. In September 1939, the Luftwaffe comprised 302 Staffeln with 2,370 operational crews and 2,564 operational aircraft (bombers, dive bombers, and fighters).

Each Luftflotte also had its own signals branch and a branch that controlled the anti-aircraft artillery (Flak) within its geographical area of responsibility (see defence forces, above). It also had control of a number of Luftgaue, administrative commands responsible for airfields, personnel and logistics, and training.

The air defence of Germany itself became the responsibility of Luftflotte Reich, which had some unique features. For a start, instead of being multi-role like the other Luftflotten it merely had day and night fighters under the control of Fliegerkorps 12, which for much of the war was commanded by General Josef Kammhuber, architect of the Kammhuber Line, set up to protect Germany from Allied bombers. Another unique aspect of this branch of the Luftwaffe was that it was the only part of the Wehrmacht to employ women in uniform, apart from nurses, although they were not members of the Wehrmacht as such. In order to release able-bodied men serving in home-based flak units for combat duty, 100,000 women auxiliaries (Helferinnen) were called up in 1944 to serve in the air warning service, and in the telephone and teletype departments.

There were two other significant parts of the Luftwaffe. The first was the Fallschirmjäger, or parachute arm. Creation of this was personally instigated by Göring in 1936 and two years later a complete division, Fliegerdivision 7, had been formed and was used to capture Crete. In 1943 this was redesignated 1st Fallschirmjäger Division and by early 1945 nine more such divisions had been raised. They were never used in the airborne role, but fought under army command both on the Eastern Front and, as part of the First Parachute Army, in north-west Europe and Italy.

Göring, an empire builder like the other members of the Nazi hierarchy, also created conventional ground divisions. This was as a result of his plea to Hitler in 1942 not to order surplus Luftwaffe personnel to be transferred to the army (a move which would, so he claimed, taint their ‘fine National Socialist attitudes’). Altogether, 21 Luftwaffe field divisions were formed, but passed to army control in November 1943. They were generally of inferior quality to their army counterparts and many were destroyed during the Soviet offensives on the Eastern Front. In contrast, the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, which was raised exclusively from volunteers, fought well in the North African, Sicilian, and Italian campaigns.

Eventually the Luftwaffe lost the war in the air not so much through inferior aircraft or lack of aircraft—indeed, production peaked, as it did in almost all sectors of the German war industry, in 1944—  but through increasing lack of fuel. Not only did this force the grounding of many aircraft, but it also increasingly cut into the flying hours of trainee aircrew. That problem was aggravated by a growing shortage of instructors as more and more were required to replace casualties in combat units. By mid-1944 they were receiving just half the amount of training of their American and British counterparts and in early 1945 all flying training was virtually halted. Thus the quality of aircrew vis-à-vis their opponents also declined and further contributed to eventual defeat (see Big Week for example).

(e) Special forces

Although the Germans were the first combatant nation to employ special forces during the war, they never used them to the same extent as the British. This was largely because the military hierarchy had an inbred distaste for this type of unit, especially those not wearing uniform. The main impetus behind them throughout the war was therefore the intelligence organizations of the Wehrmacht and the SS, the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst or SD (see RSHA). While the SD created incidents such as the one at Gleiwitz on the Polish border to justify a German invasion, special Abwehr units, manned by ethnic Germans, attacked key targets just across the border in order to assist the progress of the invading forces. These units would eventually become the Brandenburg Division, the largest of the German special force formations. The SS also formed a number of units, and, took over the Abwehr's interest in them after the dismissal of Admiral Canaris in 1944. Some, such as the Jagdverbände, were employed on anti-partisan operations, while others, led by Otto Skorzeny, the leading German exponent of special operations, were responsible for such exploits as the arrest of the Hungarian dictator Admiral Horthy.

The navy developed its own special forces during the second half of the war. These were the so-called K-Units (Kleinkampfver bände) of explosive motor boats, human torpedoes, frogmen, and midget submarines which operated against Allied shipping during the Anzio and Normandy landings (see OVERLORD), but with scant success. The Luftwaffe, too, had its Kampfgeschwader 200, (see KG200), which included among its roles the insertion of agents behind Allied lines, often using captured Allied aircraft. During the last months of the war the Luftwaffe, in desperation, also created storm detachments to destroy Allied bombers by ramming them, and another organization formed during this last period was the Werewolves, designed to operate as partisans in areas of Germany overrun by the Allies.

In summary, German special forces failed to capitalize on a promising start. They became too much an organ of the Nazi Party and were used more for its own ends than to help fulfil strategic military objectives. The bulk of them were also not formed until the tide had turned against Germany, by which time it was too late for them to have much effect.

7. Intelligence

Intelligence about real or potential adversaries was ostensibly given high priority in the Third Reich, with many state, party, and Wehrmacht agencies collecting it. Yet the fragmentation of the German intelligence organization displays a lack of intelligence. Each agency worked for itself, and though the various departments of the Wehrmacht's intelligence and counter-intelligence organization, the Abwehr, worked in relative harmony, there was otherwise much rivalry and duplication of effort and little exchange of information. The fact that the intelligence establishment was not collegial cannot solely be blamed on Hitler's order of 11 January 1940, which forbade anybody to receive more information than was necessary for the execution of his tasks. There was no single high-level committee which controlled the various collecting agencies and evaluated their findings. The separate channels of information flowed together only in the mind of Hitler.

Although Hitler was the ultimate consumer of intelligence, and made good use of it at the tactical and operational level, he was not the only one who absorbed it selectively, fitted facts to his preconceptions, and disregarded uncomfortable information. Moreover, intelligence estimates of Allied capabilities and intentions were often influenced by deeply held values on the part of the intelligence officers. The lack of co-ordination of German intelligence until the last year of the war clearly reflects the peculiarities of the Führer state. In addition, intelligence was considered by the Wehrmacht as less important than leadership. Intelligence was subordinate to operations, subsumed under tactics. It was not intelligence that earned victory but men, fire, and will. This traditional, dismissive, attitude to intelligence changed only reluctantly and partially during the late years of the war when the Wehrmacht was forced on to the defensive and when good information about Allied intentions had to make up for military weakness.

After September 1939, intelligence services existed mainly within three areas of society: the SS, government ministries, and the Wehrmacht.

The SS, an organ of the Nazi Party, had a domestic and foreign intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). After the establishment of the RSHA the SD's foreign intelligence arm became its Department VI under Heinz Jost. His more prominent successor, from June 1941, was Walter Schellenberg who, after the RSHA acquired control of the Abwehr in 1944, commanded an enlarged department of 12 groups and 48 desks.

There were two government intelligence services: the foreign ministry's branches for spying (after 1941), deciphering, and monitoring press and radio; and Göring's Forschungsamt (research department) which was linked to the State of Prussia and which also broke codes, intercepted diplomatic, commercial, and radio messages, and tapped telephones (see Forschungs stelle). Though it was successful in staying out of power struggles with the other intelligence agencies, the Forschung samt's importance diminished when, during the war, the need for tactical and operational information grew. Several military agencies provided this kind of intelligence, three of which belonged to the OKW under Keitel. Firstly, there was the Abwehr whose field units went into the army's zone of operations and into occupied countries, while stations (KO) were created in allied or neutral countries. For BARBAROSSA the Abwehr established a forward headquarters, Stab Walli, outside Warsaw from where it directed all secret operations against the USSR until the spring of 1942. It was then placed under the control of the OKH's Foreign Armies East (see below). Secondly, economic intelligence was handled by the relevant unit of the OKW's war economy and armament office under General Georg Thomas but the information it provided was more useful as a basis for the office's estimates than as a guide for decision-making at the top. Thirdly, there was OKW's signals organization.

Although signals intelligence was the most important source of information at the tactical and operational level during the war, the competent and innovative Chef des Wehrmachtna chrichtenwesens (Chief of Armed Forces Signals Service), General Erich Fellgiebel, has received little attention. He not only directed the signals communication group with its cryptographic branch (Chi) within the OKW, but he was also the head of army signals communications (1939–44) and plenipotentiary for signals in the Third Reich (after October 1940). Yet neither the signals organ ization of the Replacement Army nor the inspector for signals was subordinate to him. For army radio intelligence, Fellgiebel had ten fixed stations and eight mobile units (Horchkompanien) attached to higher command staffs at his disposal in 1939. Horchkompanien became an integral part of blitzkrieg warfare when the system was upgraded after the Polish campaign. In fact, Fellgiebel's signals intelligence became the most important source for the estimates of the opponents' situation which were drawn up by the OKH's Foreign Armies branches. Other sources utilized for the current development, order-of-battle, and command structure of Germany's adversaries on the ground were photographic reconnaissance and prisoner-of-war interrogation.

Fellgiebel's signals service co-operated with the Luftwaffe's own radio intelligence and cipher unit which was part of the third section of the Luftwaffe signal communications service. It was directly subordinated to the chief of staff, not to the intelligence branch of the Luftwaffe's operations staff. The radio intelligence units carried out reconnaissance, deception, camouflaging, and jamming as well as radar observation and their findings were directly streamed to the intelligence and operations officers of the higher command staff. It has been said that 70–80% of useful tactical information stemmed from radio intelligence. The first substantial co-ordinated operation in radio screening and jamming between the air force and the navy was conducted during the breakout of Gneisenau and Scharnhorst through the English Channel in February 1942 (see CERBERUS). The navy's signal intelligence unit, B-Dienst, part of the naval staff's Third branch (Nachrichten, or signals), did gain numerous successes of its own, especially during the battle of the Atlantic.

In the Wehrmacht, intelligence was not evaluated by one highlevel body within the High Command (except for a small unit created by the OKW operations staff under Jodl in January 1943 and enlarged in 1944), but by each of the three services separately. Within the Army High Command (OKH) two branches of the general staff—the Third, Fremde Heere West (FHW, or Foreign Armies West), and the Twelfth, Fremde Heere Ost (FHO, or Foreign Armies East)—evaluated intelligence. FHW was responsible initially for the armies of western Europe, the UK, the upper Balkans, and the western hemisphere after Pearl Harbor. Its head until 1943 was Colonel Ulrich Liss. FHO dealt with the armies of Poland, Scandinavia, the lower Balkans, Africa, the USSR, the Far East, and the USA until December 1941. It was directed by Lieutenant-Colonel Eberhard Kinzel up to the spring of 1942, then Colonel Reinhard Gehlen took over. He reorganized the branch, giving the Soviet section pride of place and was successful in upgrading operational intelligence once the Wehrmacht's need for reliable information on the Red Army became essential for maintaining its defensive stance.

The Luftwaffe's supposedly central intelligence agency was the Fifth branch of the general staff, Fremde Luftwaffen (Foreign Air Forces), which was run by Colonel Josef ‘Beppo’ Schmidt until October 1942. Since intelligence did not enjoy high prestige in the air force, the work was not centralized. Instead of co-operation, there was much rivalry and friction between the various branches that had to do with different pieces of intelligence: signals, economic, technical, or photographic. Information on radar, for instance, was evaluated by ten agencies. Thus, the Fifth branch was not an evaluating centre, but, like the naval staff's Third branch, which also played a minor role in coordinating and evaluating intelligence, was just one of the many units that distributed intelligence to the general staff for assessment.

The German forces in the field, air, and on the seas likewise had their own units at the various command levels which collected and authenticated data, the Ic (Army and Air Force) or A3 (Navy). Thus, evaluated intelligence came to the top levels by these well-established sub-organizations. These intelligence officers, whose responsibility also included troop welfare, propaganda, and censorship, were de facto subordinated to the operations officer or chief of staff. There were general staff officers, experienced in intelligence, only at higher levels.

It has been said that what is important is not the form of organization but the continuity of information, and the organizational maze of German intelligence did not greatly impair its tactical usefulness. Yet strategic underestimation took place in the first years of the war which shaped its course. In addition to the scarcity of reliable data, the tendency to underestimate the Allies stemmed from the deeply held conviction of German superiority in leadership and offensive capabilities, and, in the later years of the war, reliable information was not acceptable to those people who refused to believe in the possibility of a German defeat.

8. Merchant marine

Since the maintenance of sea communications was not as vital for Germany as for the UK, the German merchant fleet did not gain the same significance. Only the shipping of Swedish ore through the Baltic and Romanian oil along the Danube were important. From 1939 to mid-1941, the British blockade (see economic warfare) was successfully offset by Soviet supplies. Later in the war, the merchant fleet was used for Wehrmacht transport. In 1939, when it consisted of 4.5 million gross tons, it came under the control of the navy until May 1942 when Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann of Hamburg was named Reich Commissioner of Shipping. Before the war began all merchant ships on the high seas had been given sealed orders about what to do in case of hostilities and on 25 August 1939, they were instructed by radio to open them. Up to 9 April 1940, 76 ships totalling 463,122 tons managed to return to home ports, 28 totalling 171,822 tons scuttled themselves, 25 ships totalling 109,422 tons fell into British and French hands, 15 ships totalling 73,178 tons were sunk, and 200 ships totalling 829,568 tons sought refuge in neutral ports.

By the end of the war, the Allies had sunk 3 million tons of German shipping while 176 merchant ships totalling 337,841 tons had been constructed. Approximately 3,000 German merchant seamen lost their lives during the war. Ten merchant ships were used as armed merchant raiders, or auxiliary cruisers, and a few were employed as blockade runners between Japan and Germany. Auxiliary cruisers sank, up to the end of 1941, nearly double the tonnage that the navy's capital ships had sunk in its campaign against Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

9. Resistance

Judgement on Hitler's German opponents is not easy, historically or historiographically. Given the peculiarities of the Nazi state and the lack of an active nonconformist tradition, there could be no unified mass resistance movement in Germany. Since Nazism did not exist in a vacuum, resistance was carried out by a qualitatively and sometimes quantitatively outstanding minority, but it could not topple the regime: this was done by losing the war.

Courageous opponents of Nazism emerged from all walks of life and with a mixture of motives and aims. The outbreak of war both hindered and helped the opposition. On the one hand, it became more difficult to differentiate between Germany and Nazism, to choose between compliance and conscience. Hitler's military triumphs were applauded. The victory over France was a defeat for the opposition and the fight against Bolshevism was not unpopular. Moreover, any resistance had to take place in great secrecy, because even a hint of criticism of the German conduct of the war became a capital crime after 1 September 1939. Under the watchful eyes of the Gestapo and its informers, organized pol itical opposition on any scale was virtually impossible. It is no coincidence that so many members of the Schwarze Kapelle plot to kill Hitler were kinsmen.

On the other hand, the war opened up new possibilities for using military channels as a means to organize resistance. By and large, however, the senior officer corps' inaction was more striking than their action. Only a few were able to make up their minds that their oath of obedience had become meaningless and to act against their supreme commander. The increasing number of defeats on all fronts after 1942–3 helped the conspirators to win sympathisers for their cause. More were prepared to follow suit after someone else had successfully attempted a coup d'état. A Berlin joke of 1944 reflects the attitude of the general public: ‘I'd rather believe in victory than run around with my head cut off.’

historiography tries to define different forms of resistance to Nazism: political opposition, social non-conformity, and ideological dissidence. They can be shown by institutions or individuals. None of those episodes of resistance that history remembers aroused a mass movement against the regime. The ‘White Rose’ was a group at Munich University in 1942–3—its nucleus consisted of the students Sophie and Hans Scholl, Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, and Professor Kurt Huber— which used pamphlets to arouse a university movement against the regime. They were denounced by the university beadle on 18 February 1943, tried with their friends, and executed. The abortive attempt to assassinate Hitler by Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on 20 July 1944 was the last effort to avert catastrophe. The regime used this plot as a pretext to execute almost 5,000 opponents, whether implicated or not, and to persecute the families of the conspirators. The majority of Germans repudiated the attempt on the Führer's life, and the Nazi Party reached the height of its power in the aftermath of the plot.

Many names are not honoured in the resistance literature. Hundreds of courageous Germans from all strata of society, of all ages and beliefs, who voiced opposition or simply refused the social and ideological conformism and were killed will remain unknown, their deeds unrecorded in the surviving documents. Because they were isolated, their moral heroism deserves our admiration.

In fact the organizations of the labour movement were the first to oppose the Nazis actively after 1933, before all later forms of resistance from the clergy, the military, the bureaucracy, former politicians, students, youth groups, and other individuals. The Gestapo was unable to break completely the resistance of communists and social democrats who agitated underground. The first attempt on Hitler's life, on 8 November 1939, was undertaken by Johann Georg Elser, acting on his own initiative. Luck was with Hitler. Elser's bomb exploded fifteen minutes after the Führer had left the beer hall in Munich. Elser was executed at Dachau on 9 April 1945, the day on which more famous German resisters were hanged in Flossenbürg: Pastor Bonhoeffer, Admiral Canaris, Maj-General Oster, and the Army Judge-Advocate Karl Sack.

Both Germanies needed a past they could admit to after the downfall of Hitler's tyranny. Both states chose to appropriate the legacy of the resistance, and thereby overrated it. The Adenauer government emphasized especially the attempted assassination of Hitler on 20 July 1944. By viewing this military–civilian conservative opposition to Hitler as the ‘other Germany’, whose blood had cleansed ‘our German name of the shame which Hitler cast upon it’ (Federal President Theodor Heuss), and whose sacrifice was seen as a true gift to the (West) German future, Bonn's leaders had to downplay its less democratic features and to overlook the fact that some of those who tried to kill Hitler had been among those who had helped him to rearm Nazi Germany. Ulbricht's East German government chose to appropriate the legacy of the communist opposition to Hitler's regime, to magnify its impact, and to select a few members of the military–civilian conservative resistance as patriots who took part in the ‘class war against German imperialism’. It was not until the late 1960s that historians on both sides of the Wall began to take a new look at Hitler's enemies, to define forms of resistance, abolish political distortions, and include all the various groups of resisters, even the Rote Kapelle and the captured soldiers who worked for the downfall of Nazi Germany under Soviet leadership as members of the National Committee for a Free Germany and the Association of German Officers. (See also Paulus.) The men, women, and adolescents of the resistance saved the honour of the German people; but their courage should no longer be used as an alibi for the compliant attitude of the great majority.

10. Culture

One of the main purposes of the Nazi regime was to exert an ideological influence on German culture. In order to control all creative activity, its production and distribution, Goebbels, on 1 November 1933, established the Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer), nominally a public corporation but closely controlled by his propaganda ministry. It was composed of five chambers, each under its own president, responsible for literature, cinema, music, theatre, and the fine arts, while two others were responsible for press propaganda and, until 1939, broadcasting. During the war, military censorship underpinned the censorship imposed by the chambers.

As many as 5,000 scholars and artists, as well as dozens of scientists, fled persecution by the Third Reich. A large proportion of these were writers, for both popular writing and serious literature were ‘purified’ as the Nazis sought to eliminate political dissent and what they termed ‘Jewish influences’. Many prominent and independent-minded writers, as well as Jewish ones, were silenced or exiled as a result of measures undertaken by the police and SS, and those who were spared persecution were compelled to become members of the Reich Chamber of Literature (Reichss chrifttumskammer). Membership of this body, which was refused to literary critics such as Erich Kästner, required a certificate of political and racial clearance which was issued by the propaganda ministry. Publication of books and articles, other than those classified as scientific, was made contingent on membership of the Reichsschrifttumskammer. They were not censored, though publishers reflected official standards and reviews in official Nazi periodicals determined a bookseller's willingness to stock an author's work.

Although great works which were of suspect but not obviously Jewish origin, like the novels of Thomas Mann, were printed until wartime shortages of paper prevented it, the bulk of German literature celebrated ‘heroism’ in situations which ranged from the war novels of Ernst Jünger to commonplace stories of the simplest kind. Novels dealing with great historical personalities were both fashionable and ideologically welcome and skilled authors who could manipulate the Nazis' inability to analyse art were able to incorporate subversive themes into such works, thereby presenting their readers with disguised criticisms of racialism ( Reinhold Schneider, Las Casas vor Karl V., 1938) or the lack of legal rights ( Werner Bergengruen, Der Grosstyrann und das Gericht, 1935). Run-of-the-mill writers—from Erwin G. Kolbenh eyer, the Third Reich's star author, to the political mystery writer Hans F. Blunck (first president of the Reichsschrift tumskam mer)—used the novel or short story as a crypto-history of their own day, praising the moral values which the party had decreed were eternal.

Poetry of an acceptable kind was in particular demand by the Nazi Party, and Hitler fêted its most acceptable practitioner, Heinrich Anacker. Reviewers tried hard, especially in poetry, to counter the worst of the kitsch which was widely produced to satisfy the Nazi cultural system. Literature of other kinds was published only in translation and then in order to demonstrate that in the world outside ‘negative’ Jewish influences were perverting art: thus the American pessimist Theodore Dreiser was much recommended and Somerset Maugham was widely read. These involuntary cultural links between Germany and the outside world were severed in 1943 when the pressures of war reduced all literature to propaganda of one type or another.

The Nazis regarded the cinema as the most important medium through which to govern German culture, and it was one of the main areas of activity of the Reich propaganda ministry. Screenplays, actors, directors, and even particular scenes were decided personally by Goebbels—occasionally even by Hitler. Everyone involved in film production and distribution was required to join the Reich Chamber of Films (Reichsfilmkammer) where they were subject to racial and political control. When war broke out Goebbels completed the construction of his cinematic empire by buying up the last few independent companies and incorporating them into the state-owned UFA group. This gave him control over all newsreel rights, thereby allowing him to ensure that the images of war presented to the public accorded with the needs of the regime.

The German cinema, now completely centralized, became Goebbels's most effective indirect instrument of cultural warfare. Of the 1,100 films made between 1933 and 1945 about 15% were direct propaganda, most famously exemplified in the work of Leni Riefenstahl. German techniques in this field were so highly developed that British cinema critics recommended imitat ing them. Skilful documentation of the war demonstrated, as Goebbels ordered that it should, ‘the severity and greatness’ of the conflict while simultaneously carefully concealing its horrors. Well-made and widely-disseminated films propagated hatred for the British (Ohm Krüger, 1941), anti-Semitism (Jud Süss, 1940), acceptance of the euthanasia programme (Ich klage an, 1941), or identification with German heroes (Bismarck, 1940; Der grosse König, 1942). However the main goal of German cinema was, as Goebbels said, simply ‘to keep our people happy because that is of strategic importance too.’ Hollywood-standard colour films like Gone With the Wind were never equalled in Germany, but sumptuous medieval costume dramas such as Stern von Rio ( 1940) and Münchhausen ( 1943) vied with popular musicals which picked up contemporary trends such as Wunschkonzert ( 1940), based on a radio programme and seen by 20,000,000 people. The vast majority of German films did not deal with the war in any form but depicted common human problems and pleasures or were merely escapist entertainment through the enjoyment of which the audience could forget the war for a few hours.

As a result of the great importance which the Nazis attached to the cinema its top stars enjoyed high salaries and a degree of racial tolerance unequalled anywhere else in the Reich. The mass of propaganda or entertainment films also allowed the occasional production to step outside officially-countenanced norms (Der Postmeister, 1940) and offered the kind of aesthetic complexity which had given German cinema its international reputation. After 1943–4 film production was considerably reduced as the urgent needs of the war necessitated the transfer of skilled personnel to the armed forces or the armament industries; however, a broad spectrum of output was sustained to the last and in the final months of the war both the philosophical Unter den Brücken and the monumental and patriotic Kolberg were produced.

Two closely associated cultural fields were broadcasting and music. Music was thought to exercise a particularly strong influence on the general public's frame of mind. Cheap radio sets (Volksempfänger) were produced in vast numbers in order to supplement printed with spoken propaganda. No sooner had the war started than the propaganda ministry began a campaign to take control of all programme planning, a goal it achieved in October 1941. Two musicians with international reputations, the composer Richard Strauss until 1935 and later the conductor Peter Raabe, presided over the Reich Chamber of Music (Reichsmusik kammer), ensuring that unwanted and especially Jewish music was neither composed nor performed and making judgements on borderline cases. Control over music broadcasting was also exercised by the Reich propaganda ministry which, for example, encouraged the performance of works by the Hungarian composer Franz Lehár, even though he had married a Jewess, because Hitler liked his tuneful operetta style.

However hundreds of composers, performers, teachers, and critics of music were not fortunate enough to enjoy the Führer's admiration and were excluded from practising their art for political or racial reasons. As contemporary musical creativity was stifled, concert performances fell back on the great heritage of classical German music, though composers like Mahler or Mendelssohn who were Jewish were excluded from the official repertoire.

Progressive music disappeared, but swing and jazz remained borderline cases, castigated by the Nazis as Jewish or ‘nigger’ music but tolerated because otherwise the soldiers listened to foreign broadcasts (see also children). Dance music was governed by a policy which tried to take into account both the seriousness of the military situation and the widespread desire for diversion; permission and prohibition alternated in a random sequence. During the war German broadcasting emphasized marches and popular songs, thereby simultaneously presenting the war and allowing people to forget it. The highlight of the week's listening was the Sunday request programme Wunsch konzert, introduced by Heinz Goedecke, which united front and homeland by passing on personal messages and playing music of all kinds, thereby ‘awakening the experience of national community in many thousands’ as one report observed. The melancholy ballad ‘Lili Marlene’, suppressed after the German defeat at Stalingrad, best represented the ‘present- and-forget the war’ combination and became the top international song of the period (see also marching songs).

The development of German theatre was similar to that of music in several respects. Artistic and avant-garde writers who were Jewish or left-wing were eliminated; classical or trivial pieces monopolized the stage; and alongside the established patronage of state or community was introduced that of Robert Ley's mass Nazi organization Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) which became predominant during the war. New plays, other than operetta and musicals, followed the lines drawn for literature and paradigmatically demonstrated in Schlageter ( 1933), the heroic work of Hanns Johst, president of the Reichsschrifttums kammer. Political enthusiasm ranked higher than ability and many secondrate writers like Heinrich Zerkaulen, whose miserable Admiral Brommy received standing ovations in 1941, were able to score great successes. More honest theatrical managements preferred to stage Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, and even Shakespeare, though all other ‘enemy’ playwrights were banned in 1939–40.

Even in the Third Reich and in wartime, politically motivated pieces soon proved to be evanescent. Performances sponsored by Robert Ley declined rapidly during the war as he ceased sending workers to the theatre and organized soldiers' entertainments instead. The Reichstheaterkammer, as well as executing its political function, succeeded in protecting its members until, in 1942, it had to start closing theatres and shifting personnel to armaments production. Thereafter its main problems were war profiteering by actors who demanded extravagant salaries and avoiding bombing zones for such performances as were put on. In August 1944 all German theatres were closed.

The last of the five Reichskulturkammer sections was the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste, which supervised painting and sculpture. Its president, Adolf Ziegler, was a painter who specialized in naturalistic female nudes. He fought the Weimar avant-garde, whom he called ‘pacemakers of international Jewry’ and he eliminated modernism and experimentalism by excluding painters such as Paul Klee or Max Beckmann who practised such styles, and Jews such as the popular impressionist Max Lieber mann. Sculpture presented the regime with less of a problem since it was in the main a public art concerned with producing memorials.

In 1937, on Hitler's orders, Ziegler organized an exhibition of ‘decadent art’, which he defined according to political or racial and not artistic criteria—though he had a very high regard for the Jewish artist Franz Lenbach. Hitler's artistic criterion was classicism, therefore German fine arts fell back to pre-art-deco standards and were enthusiastically applauded by the broad mass of the population which was weary of Weimar's non-naturalism. German painting declined because the Reichskulturkammer's commissioner for design, Hans Schweitzer, allowed art to degenerate into mere illustration. The great moment for Nazi painting came when war broke out: it at once abandoned its favourite style, the ‘blood-and-soil’ genre, for pictorial representations of the heroic aspects of the struggle which photography was not able or not solemn enough to reproduce.

Hitler, who had started out on careers both as an architect and as a painter, was particularly concerned to impose his tastes on the fine arts. He wished, for instance, to change the Austrian city of Linz where he had spent his youth into the world's centre of art. Until his last days he sketched grand buildings and splendid streets of a future Linz leading to a giant gallery of art which he expected to become an adequate memorial to himself. In order to raise an appropriate stock of works, German Kunstraub commissions looted much of the classical heritage of European art. The Linz project, apart from the robberies committed by Göring and other corrupt potentates, deprived Europe of about 22,000 works of art (seeloot).

Finally, something must be said about all those artists who chose, or were forced, to leave the Third Reich. The creativity of many had already declined before they left, or they had fallen silent altogether. But others, particularly musicians, artists, and those from the world of theatre and the cinema, assimilated well into their new environments. The 500 actors and directors who went to Hollywood— Marlene Dietrich, Peter Lorre, Billy Wilder, and Fred Zinnemann among them—became willing contributors to the wartime output of American films; and Walter Gropius's Bauhaus school of architecture integrated so well into the American architectural scene, that when it was reimported into Germany after the war it was thought to have originated in the USA. However, many exiled writers endeavoured to uphold the continuity of non-Nazi German culture in opposition to the Nazi's Reichskulturkammer, and in this they were not unsuccessful. Thomas Mann, Anna Seghers, Franz Werfel, Robert Musil, and Hermann Broch, for example, all continued to create timeless works of literature, while others—Klaus Mann with Mephisto ( 1936); Berthold Brecht with Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches ( 1938) and Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder ( 1939)—reflected contemporary experience.

Jürgen Förster, Charles Messenger (Armed Forces), and Wolfgang Petter (Culture)

Bibliography

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Burdick, C., and Jacobsen, H. - A. (eds.), The Halder War Diary 1939–1942 (Novato, Calif., 1989).
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Rebentisch, D. , Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1989).
Rich, N. , Hitler's War Aims, 2 vols. (London, 1973–4).
Stern, J. P. , Hitler. The Führer and the People (Berkeley, Calif., 1975).

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Cooper, M. , The German Air Force 1933–1945: An Anatomy of Failure (London, 1981).
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Seaton, A. , The German Army 1933–45 (London, 1982).
Van Creveld, M. , Fighting Power: German and US Army Performance, 1939–1945 (London, 1983).

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GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

One of the unintended and initially unforeseen consequences of World War II was the division of Germany. At the end of the war, Western forces controlled and occupied Western Germany, while Soviet forces occupied Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. The Allied powers, including Russia, agreed to divide Germany and Berlin into occupation zones. The tensions resulting from the joint administration of Germany, as well as the emergence of the Cold War, led in 1949 to the formal division of Germany into two separate states.

In 1949 occupied West Germany was transformed into the Federal Republic of Germany, a democratic state with close ties to the Western powers. In East Germany, the German Democratic Republic was founded. The Soviets had allowed political parties to form in their section of Germany as early as 1945, but had used pressure and coercive measures to achieve a merger between the socialist and communist parties during April of 1946. The result was the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) or SED, which came to exercise near-complete control in East Germany. The GDR, like other communist governments established in Eastern Europe, had a central committee, and power came from the party leadership, which also assumed key roles in the state bureaucracy. The government used repressive measures such as censorship and arrest, and began to require communist ideology to be taught in schools. Walter Ulbricht, the head of the German Democratic Republic, had been part of the German Communist Party from 1919, the year it was founded, and had served as a communist deputy in the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic. Ulbricht was flown from the Soviet Union to Germany after the Soviet army had invaded Germany. Ulbricht, a hard-line Stalinist, stated in 1952 that East Germany could pursue the construction of full socialism, further restricting workers and reducing the availability of consumer goods. Although the Soviet Union had been exerting considerable pressure upon Ulbricht to reform and alter his repressive policies, the Soviets used force to suppress the rebellion his policies provoked in 1953.

Since the Soviet occupation of East Germany had begun, hundreds of thousands of Germans had fled to the West. The desire to escape Soviet-occupied territory intensified during Ulbricht's tenure, a fact illustrated by the 400,000 Germans who left East Germany in 1953. The Soviet Union was able to lessen this massive emigration by patrolling the border between the two German states and making it impassable, but until 1961, Germans could take public transportation from East Berlin to West Berlin and then declare themselves to authorities. In 1961, the Soviets officially sealed off East Berlin, as well as the last breach in East Germany, by building the Berlin Wall.

The erection of the Berlin Wall led to a stabilization of the situation in East Berlin and the end to the constant drain on the population. Ulbricht introduced the New Economic System in 1963. The New Economic System did not succeed in substantially altering the centralized structure of the East Germany economy, but it allowed for a relaxation of the rigid economic policies and for some independent decisions. As a result of these changes, the East German economy became the strongest of all of those countries within the Soviet sphere of occupation, while still far below the economies of Western Europe. Ulbricht appeared to be at the height of his power in 1968, but many of his policies were unpopular. In 1971 Soviet authorities forced Ulbricht to step down. Ulbricht died in 1973, and his death paved the way for improved relations between East and West Germany. The East German minister, Willie Stoph, negotiated and signed several treaties with the German Federal Republic. Stoph briefly served as the effective head of state but was replaced by Erich Honecker in 1976. In 1989 the changes and reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union and the reluctance of the Soviet leader to use force to suppress rebellions elsewhere led to uprisings in Eastern Europe. In East Germany the Berlin Wall symbolized not just the repressive Soviet-style government that had been in place since 1949 but also the single largest cause of resentment among Germans. The Soviet control of East Berlin and East Germany necessitated the forced separation of family and friends who were unable to secure travel permits or permission to emigrate from the notoriously inefficient and reactionary bureaucracy in the East. The uprisings in Eastern Europe and the discontent in Germany led the SED to replace Honecker and to pass a new law regarding travel and emigration. It was too little too late, however, and crowds swarmed the crossing point arguing that restrictions had been relaxed. When Soviet guards, unsure of the situation, opened the gate and allowed them to pass, Germans began to dismantle the Wall, and it was not long until the communist government in East Germany collapsed. The noncommunist leadership of the German Democratic Republic immediately arranged to meet with authorities from the German Federal Republic. The initial focus of these talks was on the financial situation and the request for a loan to East Germany, but the question of German reunification also hung in the air. These developments led to the "Two plus Four" talks, encompassing the two German states and the four powers that had occupied Germany. The Two plus Four Treaty, concluded on September 12, 1990, dealt with all international issues regarding affairs in Germany, to the satisfaction of the major powers. The support of the president of the United States, George H. W. Bush, was instrumental in securing the approval of the French, who had grave concerns about the renewal of Germany. At 12:01 a.m. on October 3, 1990, the GDR ceased to exist, and the German Federal Republic became the sole authority for a reunified Germany. Reunification has greatly impacted all Germans socially, economically, and politically as the complicated process of reintegrating East and West Germany has taken place within both a national and an international context.

See also: communist bloc; communist international; germany, relations with

bibliography

Detwiler, Donald S. (1999). Germany: A Short History, 3rd edition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. (1992). Germany from Partition to Reunification. Binghamton, NY: Vail-Ballou Press.

Melissa R. Jordine

German Democratic Republic (or East Germany) A former eastern European country. It emerged in 1949 from the Soviet Zone of occupation of Germany. Its frontier with Poland on the Oder-Neisse line, agreed at the POTSDAM CONFERENCE, was confirmed by the Treaty of Zgorzelec in 1950. Its capital was East Berlin, but the status of West Berlin, - an enclave of the Federal Republic of GERMANY 150 km (93 miles) inside East German territory, whose existence was guaranteed by the Four-Power Agreement between the victorious allied powers - caused serious problems (see BERLIN AIRLIFT). In the first five years the republic had to pay heavy REPARATIONS to the Soviet Union, and Soviet troops were used to put down disorder in 1953. In 1954, however, the republic proclaimed itself a sovereign state and in the following year became a founder-member of the WARSAW PACT. In 1956 the National People's Army was formed; this organization was instrumental in sealing the GDR's borders in August 1961 (including erecting the BERLIN WALL) to prevent large-scale emigration to West Germany. Walter Ulbricht (1893–1973) was General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (1946–71) and Chairman of the Council of State (1960–71). In 1972 the German Federal Republic, as part of the policy of OSTPOLITIK, established diplomatic relations with the republic. Admission to the UN followed in 1973, after which the republic was universally recognized. Although economic recovery from World War II was slower than in the west, East Germany, under Erich HONECKER (Chairman of the Council of State, 1976–89), succeeded in establishing a stronger industrial base than most of its fellow members of COMECON. However, its highly bureaucratic, centralized system of control steadily atrophied, corruption spread from the top, and its secret police, the Stasi, became ever more ruthless. During 1989 a series of huge demonstrations took place, mostly in Berlin and Leipzig, with a new political grouping, New Forum, demanding democratic reforms. In November 1989 the Berlin Wall was opened and the communist monopoly of power collapsed. The first free elections since 1933 were held in March 1990, with the conservative Christian Democratic Union emerging victorious, and on 3 October 1990 the republic ceased to exist, being absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany. Criminal proceedings were instituted against those who were deemed to have committed human rights abuses in the GDR regime, but few were punished. The case against Erich Honecker was dropped due to his ill-health. His successor Egon Krenz, and several officials were found guilty of various crimes, notably for ordering or carrying out the shooting of refugees across the Berlin Wall.

German Democratic Republic, see Germany