Rüdiger Fleiter. Stadtverwaltung im Dritten Reich: Verfolgungspolitik auf kommunaler Ebene am Beispiel Hannovers. Hannover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2006. 385 S. EUR 14.80 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-7752-4960-7.
Reviewed by Alexander Peter d'Erizans (Department of Social Science, Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY))
Published on H-German (September, 2007)
State and Party in the Third Reich: A Reappraisal
In recent years, historians examining the relationship between state and party in the Third Reich have argued that an energetic dynamism often existed between local municipal authorities and the National Socialist Party (NSDAP).[1] They have objected to totalitarian theories of fascism, so prominent in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War, which generally conceptualized Nazism as a rigorous "top-down" system of control, surveillance, and suppression.[2] These scholars have also scrutinized subsequent "dualist" theories of state and party development, hypotheses that became ever more prominent among historians who objected to the monolithic nature of totalitarian conceptualizations. Scholars have forwarded a much more ambiguous picture of an unstable constellation of separate loci of power (the traditional state bureaucracy, on the one hand, and the party apparatus, on the other) either locked in conflict with each other, or acting in cooperation to achieve shared priorities and goals.[3] Rüdiger Fleiter assertively adds his voice to the increasingly loud chorus maintaining that the interplay between local civil administrators and party members blurs the boundaries between state and party in Nazi Germany. Through an in-depth case study of the city of Hanover, Fleiter argues that an explosive drive to implement increasingly radicalized policies in the Third Reich often did not emerge from the "top" or "center," but rather from local (often non-party) city bureaucrats at the "grassroots" level. This work compels us to reflect upon the particular factors in the Third Reich's ultimate success in mobilizing millions to transform the Nazi "worldview" into reality.
In order to elucidate the extent to which city management and administrative agencies participated in, fostered, and even energetically spearheaded Nazi policies, Fleiter zeros in on five principle local policy "sites" in Hanover. The author believes that such a study is particularly useful in elucidating local government-NSDAP interaction because Hanover's municipal bureaucracy was relatively "non-Nazi," especially before the late 1930s. Therefore, city officials were indeed able to act with relative autonomy from party influence. Following a review of discriminatory legislation implemented within months of the Nazi seizure of power, Fleiter proceeds to an investigation of eugenics policy. The nature of complicity on the part of city government in enacting antisemitic laws, Fleiter's third subject of analysis, comprises the bulk of the study. In his next two chapters, the author looks at Nazi policies directed against gypsies and surveys efforts aimed at the exploitation of prisoners-of-war (POWs) and forced laborers. He concludes his book with an examination of different responses to particular Nazi initiatives by individual civil servants. Fleiter bases his analysis on files detailing deliberations, policies, and personnel of city government and municipal agencies he found in local (Hanover) and regional (Lower Saxon) archives. The author concedes that the study was restricted somewhat due to the destruction of materials by Allied bombing, but is confident that surviving documentation permits the elucidation of every aspect of the development of municipal policy in Hanover.
In chapter 1, Fleiter details the local government's implementation of the Berufsbeamtengesetz (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service) of April 7, 1933. The law unleashed numerous denunciations and established a suppressive climate of mistrust. Officials who harbored doubts about National Socialist policy often complied to keep their positions. Yet, Fleiter argues that accepting the tenuous position of civil servants should not lead to a complete exculpation of their actions, for it was not always the case that city bureaucrats acted against their wills. Indeed, municipal administrators often demonstrated readiness to carry out Nazi policy, even on their own initiative. Most local bureaucrats accepted, and even actively approved, the law without serious protest. Fleiter reveals how civil servants (most generally conservative but non-Nazi) sometimes considered NSDAP policy an intrusion into the city management structure. In multiple cases, they acted to keep certain favored colleagues in positions. Fundamentally, however, they neither questioned the law's nature nor its overall goal. In principle, they agreed with central Nazi authorities that a "purging" of real or alleged communists, social democrats, and Jews was indeed necessary and beneficial--not least, perhaps, because these groups were rarely represented in the municipal bureaucracy. Ultimately, at least 93 percent of civil servants remained at their posts.
In chapter 2, Fleiter outlines the implementation of Nazi eugenics legislation on the local level. In order to execute policy, Hanover founded a Public Health Department, within which it established an Office for Hereditary and Racial Welfare, which submitted applications for over 2,100 sterilizations and scrutinized thousands of potential marriages for their "health" feasibility. It investigated women who were to be decorated for multiple pregnancies. It dealt directly with naturalization and adoption issues. The office closely monitored compliance with the Nuremberg Laws. In the end, the bureau meticulously drew up comprehensive "hereditary" files for over a quarter of the city's inhabitants. The office could rely on the cooperation of a large number of local government agencies: the Housing Office, Welfare Office, Registry Office, local archive, and school board all shared information and made recommendations that facilitated the execution of the legislation. Despite detailed guidelines from the center, a certain latitude for executing policy remained, which local officials often used to carry out policy with greater zeal and determination. In contrast to their minor resistance to the Berufsbeamtengesetz, civil servants generally carried out central directives with feverish determination. Indeed, the complaints city health officials voiced to authorities called for an intensification rather than relaxation of racial laws. From time to time, frustrated ordinary citizens complained about the excessive intrusion or insensitivity of health professionals seeking to carry out eugenic measures that focused directly on them (but exhibiting little or no concern about policies directed against so-called fringe groups like Jews, gypsies, and other "asocials"). Ever concerned with maintaining public legitimacy and support for their policies, the regime often took these protests seriously and sought to reign in more "industrious" health workers. Traditionally conservative, many medical specialists and health workers had never been overtly Nazi; only a minority joined before 1933 and in the Health Office, no doctor became a member before 1937. Still, most medical professionals nonetheless agreed with much of the Nazi health program and considered such policies consistent with their work, implementing laws without discernible dual tendencies in the actions they took. Throughout, they worked in consort with local party offices. Although they sometimes competed with party officials concerning control and jurisdiction, no true dualism manifested itself concerning priorities and goals.
In chapter 3, Fleiter argues that city bureaucrats played a similarly active role in the implementation of anti-Jewish legislation. Following the first centrally-directed antisemitic actions of the regime (such as the much criticized and mostly ineffective boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933), the Nazi leadership often proceeded at a moderate pace. Indeed, it sometimes worked to restrain (at least temporarily) more extreme anti-Jewish actions taking place at the grass-roots level in cities like Hanover. Motivated ideologically, professionally, and/or politically, however, local government officials provided for ever more discriminatory legislation. Without direction from central authorities, they frequently went above and beyond Nazi wishes in carrying out their duties. Shortly after the Nazi assumption of power, local government changed street names, removed Jewish authors' books from the city library, began "aryanization" of Jewish property, stopped granting contracts to Jewish firms, established separate hours for city offices to serve Jews, and reduced the amount of government aid to Jews. In order to remove Jewish traders from markets and Jewish athletes from sport clubs, city officials were even willing to enter into conflict with central NSDAP authorities who did not wish to proceed so quickly. From 1935 onwards (again without direction from above), city bureaucrats continued to restrict and remove Jews from public life (the exlusion of Jews from city baths or loan offices, for example). Calls for increased radicalization from individual citizens were often sufficient to inaugurate new discriminatory policies.
Following Kristallnacht in 1938, Nazi central authorities initiated increasingly severe anti-Jewish policies, many of which the Hanover government implemented with zeal. City authorities separated Jews from the rest of the populace in the provision of welfare and housing. They planned to raze the Jewish cemetery in the Oberstraße. Additional decrees from the central government enhanced the ability of the city authorities to continue profiting from "aryanization." The city loan office organized the confiscation of jewelry and precious metals in Hanover and purchased the seized pieces at cheap prices; city bureaucrats obtained at least 107 developed and undeveloped plots of land from previous Jewish owners (who were often forced to sell). Prosperous Jews were compelled to convey art collections to local museums and libraries. In accordance with directives of Nazi district leaders in September 1941, city administrators forcibly expelled the remaining Jews in Hanover from their houses through "Aktion Lauterbacher," setting them up in so-called "Judenhäuser"--a process they had begun months earlier in order to provide space for "Aryan" families bombed out in the Allied air attacks of February and May 1941. They proceeded more quickly with "Aktion Lauterbacher" than party guidelines prescribed, however. Local city officials appraised seized furniture without a central order, a move for which central authorities rebuked them sharply. With the exception of actual murder, from registration to deportation, local bureaucrats worked hard to implement increasingly extreme solutions to Germany's "Jewish problem."
In the following chapter, Fleiter details the discriminatory legislation that city authorities pursued against another group of "outsiders" from the Volksgemeinschaft: "gypsies." In certain cases, they merely radicalized already severe policies in place before 1933. The Welfare, Health, and Registry Offices all worked closely with party officials in the "racial classification" of "gypsies." From 1938 on--and often in the most brutal manner--the local government moved all "gypsies" in Hanover onto the Altwärmer Moor, beyond the city limits. In this case, the mayor even resisted the police chief's demand to construct minimum facilities needed for survival (barracks, wells) before removal. In line with directives of the Central Reich Criminal Police Office, doctors in Hospital I (Nordstadt) sterilized "gypsies" from 1934 on. These policies laid the groundwork for deportation and extermination.
As a major industrial center, Hanover quickly emerged as a primary site for the wartime exploitation of forced laborers and POWs; during the war, approximately 60,000 foreign women and men worked in and around Hanover. Fleiter turns to their active exploitation by the municipality in chapter 5. As with the discriminatory legislation discussed earlier, city administrators did not simply follow directives from above, but often energetically pursued ideological, professional, political, and economic interests of their own, many of which dovetailed harmoniously with Nazi aims. The thirst for foreign workers emerged from the need to cope with ever greater burdens of production despite an increasingly critical shortage of personnel. While Nazi leaders were ideologically divided about the use of foreign workers, municipal authorities were unanimous in harnessing forced labor from the very beginning of the war. The city administration alone organized twenty-two camps and employed at peak times up to nine thousand prisoners and forced laborers. It also coordinated the allocation of foreign labor to private firms and the provisioning of workers and prisoners within the city and its environs. The city deloused numerous prisoners arriving in, or passing through, Hanover (a major rail crossroads). Municipal authorities' assistance in the Gestapo-orchestrated massacre of foreign prisoners shortly before Hanover's surrender to Allied forces revealed local officials' complicity in Nazi crimes up to the very end of the war. As in other policy areas, conflict with party officials often resulted not because of ideological differences, but rather because of disagreements concerning jurisdictional issues and the authority to allocate labor. While the treatment of individual workers on the part of city bureaucrats varied, in the end, municipal authorities at the "grassroots" level played an integral role in the exploitation of slave labor by the Third Reich.
Through detailed case studies of individual city workers in chapter 6, Fleiter highlights the surprising latitude individual Germans had in carrying out NSDAP policies. He makes clear that not all city officials followed central directives because of systemic pressure or because they were fanatical National Socialists. Indeed, his examples demonstrate room for protest; certain individuals did openly express their discontent with Nazi policies. Insubordination did not generally lead to death, but rather to removal from office or transfer to the Gestapo. According to the author, most city administrators were either older and more conservative "loyal officials" or younger bureaucrats acting to fulfill the wishes of the Führer.
Fleiter's comprehensive, well-balanced look at a wide variety of archival sources reveals the extensive complicity of the local city bureaucracy of Hanover in increasing radical discriminatory policies ultimately aimed at "strengthening" and "purifying" the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft. Its value is enhanced by its focus on a relatively "non-Nazi" municipal bureaucracy. Fleiter is also alert to the feelings, sentiments, and frustrations of individual actors. He infuses life into his subjects. Disturbingly, they emerge from the pages of his book as living and breathing German citizens on the "grassroots" level who considered and consciously arrived at particular decisions and engaged in actions that drove an increasingly extreme Nazi agenda forward. His study warns us to not place such a strict division between state and party in the Third Reich. It provides a glimpse at the intense dynamism between the "center" and "periphery" in the Third Reich that mustered millions on the "grassroots" level to carry out the Nazi Revolution.
In a profound way, Fleiter bolsters the work of scholars such as John Connelly and Robert Gellately, who have hypothesized that the Nazis, instead of promoting mere obedience and machine-like subordination from German citizens, instead often sought to instill a sense of active and assertive citizenship.[4] Whether demanding more extreme anti-Jewish discriminatory action, or calling for more consideration and sensitivity from city officials concerning eugenic measures designed to "fortify" the Volksgemeinschaft, ordinary Germans did not remain quiet. Indeed, encouraged by a regime ever ready to address public concerns, they loudly voiced their sentiments. In this regard, his analysis perhaps also has far-reaching significance for the immediate postwar period. Fleiter challenges the idea of a "Stunde Null" by pointing to the persistence of racist and discriminatory legislation and the considerable carryover of administrative personnel into the postwar period.[5] This lively, empowered citizenry, many of whom often supported an intensification of Nazi policy, may also have proved integral to the democratic reconstruction that took place in Germany after the Second World War.
Notes
[1]. Wolf Gruner, "Die NS-Judenverfolgung und die Kommunen. Zur wechselseitigen Dynamisierung von zentraler und lokaler Politik 1933-1941," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 48 (2000): 75-126.
[2]. Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1951).
[3]. Hans Mommsen, Beamtentum im Dritten Reich (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1966); Horst Matzerath, Nationalsozialismus und kommunale Selbtsverwaltung (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970); Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941); and Franz Neumann, _"Behemoth". Struktur und Praxis des Nationalsozalismus 1933-1944 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1984).
[4]. John Connelly, "The Uses of Volksgemeinschaft: Letters to NSDAP Kreisleitung Eisenach, 1939-1940," Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 899-930; and Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
[5]. Martin Broszat, ed., Von Stalingrad zur Währungsreform. Zur Sozialgeschichte des Umbruchs in Deutschland (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1988); and Geoffrey J. Giles, ed., Stunde Null: The End and the Beginning Fifty Years Ago (Washington: German Historical Institute, 1997).
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Citation:
Alexander Peter d'Erizans. Review of Fleiter, Rüdiger, Stadtverwaltung im Dritten Reich: Verfolgungspolitik auf kommunaler Ebene am Beispiel Hannovers.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
September, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13634
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