What was the motive of Hitler's inner circle?

By: Simon Heffer / The Daily Telegraph
Translation: Telegrafi.com

Why did so many Germans support Nazism? Analysis is not needed to understand how oppressive the regime was - from the moment Hitler took power in January 1933: in its virulent anti-Semitism and determination to humiliate and destroy the opposition, its fundamental evils were obvious from the start. In this superficial book – Hitler's people [Hitler's People] – Richard J Evans, expert on the Third Reich, analyzes the people who made Nazism work and who helped it cause – during its dozen toxic years of rule – so much misery.

The book is superficial because much of its content is known to anyone knowledgeable about this darkest chapter of recent history. It begins with Hitler, in a long essay (a fifth of the book, excluding footnotes) that the author says is essential to understanding the cult that ran Nazism and the motivation of its members. As an introduction to the Fyrer, it's great, but it shows little new about it – although I didn't know that Ferdinand Porsche's design for [the car] Volkswagen it was based on drawings made by Hitler himself.

In this chapter, and the ones that follow on the key leaders of Hitler's circle (Göring, Goebbels, Röhm, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg and Speer), Evans analyzes Hitler's state of mind and why it led him to such murderous fanaticism, while asking how his court became so complicit in such heinous crimes – like genocide. Each had their own reasons, although the common denominators seem to be disillusionment after the 1918 armistice, underlying anti-Communist and anti-Semitic tendencies, unemployment and a willingness to suspend all moral judgment and do exactly as he told them.

Those who survived long enough to seek justification in conversations with their captors or in the dock at Nuremberg usually blamed someone else or claimed faith in blind obedience and undying loyalty to Hitler. One or two of them, like [Heinrich] Himmler, were so narrow-minded that they thought they could play a useful role in building post-war Germany. Again, much of this is familiar to students of the subject, and because many of the butchers were present at the same events, there are elements of repetition – Evans seems to have had no feedback from his own editors.

But as the author seeks to explore Nazidom's middle-ranking figures, and others further down the supply chain, the book seems to veer into slightly sketchier territory. [Rudolf] Hess and [Franz] von Papen were, in different ways, unremarkable minds who were used by Hitler as useful idiots. It is a fascinating essay on [Reinhard] Heydrich, the organizer of the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, which finally sealed the Nazi policy of genocide against the Jews. It turns out that he was only fit for duty in the SS, as he had been kicked out of the old-fashioned German Navy in 1931 for indecent behavior towards a young woman. He was also an accomplished violinist.

General (later Field Marshal) Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb had retired twice before being reassigned to lead men on the Eastern Front – after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. He was disgusted by the sight of mass executions of Jews and Communists, but responded that German soldiers did not kill women and children: well, they did, and Leeb's revulsion at this eventually led him to retire for the third time. However, he had seen what happened and denied having played any part in it. His complicity was somewhat obvious, and he is one of the few characters whose relatively short prison sentence (three years) has horrified many. Evans notes the large number of functionaries and other prominent figures in West Germany who flourished after the war despite their Nazi records: the punishment against believers seems to have been accidental.

But, then, it seems that chance played an alarming role in establishing the connection between previously normal individuals and the excesses of Nazism. Karl Brandt, a talented young surgeon, entered Hitler's circle partly through the ambition of his wife, Anni Rehborn, who was an Olympic swimmer and an "Aryan" beauty whom Hitler was attracted to. Brandt plunged deeper and deeper into the Nazi world, until he began to implement what could be euphemistically called a policy of euthanasia—more precisely, murder—against the mentally ill and the physically disabled, beginning with children and moving on to adults. When the church leaders expressed their outrage, Brandt's expertise was applied to the killing of Jews. He too went into denial, but at least he ended up on the gallows.

Evans also writes about several women who devoted themselves to the cause: among them Ilse Koch – the wife of [camp] Buchenwald's commandant – who escaped death; the camp guard, Irma Grese, or "the beautiful beast of Belsen" who did not escape; and the director Leni Riefenstahl, whose dubious reputation now seems to have been buried and whom the author again seeks to condemn. In a concluding chapter, he again asks why so many were deceived by Hitler, and the answer is not simple: he concludes that the best way to understand is to study the biographies of those who were drawn to the illusion. He is right. /Telegraph/