The army selected 2 August 1934 as a day of parades and marches. Defeat in the First World War having deprived it of a victory date, it had chosen to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the mobilization date for that disastrous war.
Paul Ludwig Hans von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, who had served in the Prussian Army during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, served in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870—1871, retired in 1911, and then returned to service to become a Field Marshal and
Germany’s most famous living son, died at 9 a. m. on the morning of 2 August 1934. Hurried orders changed army parades into memorial services.
The Enabling Act of March 1933 gave the National Socialist Cabinet—in effect Adolf Hitler—the right to make laws, even nonconstitutional laws, providing that the powers of the President remained undisturbed. Now President Hindenburg was dead and Hitler had no wish to disturb the powers of the President. He simply assumed them.
The power of the President had been made enormous by the otherwise rather liberal Weimar Constitution. Article 48 enabled the President to suspend the basic rights of any citizen. It was this that made it legal to set up concentration camps, three of which were opened in 1933. A law dated 28 February 1933 provided the Nazis with the right to put opponents into protective custody (Schutzhaft). Henceforth, anti-Nazis would simply disappear.
Even before Hindenburg’s death. Hitler had arranged the way in which he would take power of President and Chancellor. “Der Fiihrer und Reichskanzler,” he called himself, modestly adding that the stature of Hindenburg precluded anyone replacing him. Technically, the post of President remained vacant during Hitler’s time, enabling Hitler to avoid taking the oath to uphold the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the men in the Defense Ministry—Blomberg and Reichenau—had also been preparing for the day of Hindenburg’s death. Reichenau had been laboring over the words of a new oath for the army and navy to swear to the new President. Instead of an oath that obliged the soldiers to uphold the Constitution, the nation, and its lawful establishments, Reichenau substituted one that pledged personal allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
Some believed that Reichenau and Blomberg were motivated by a desire to return to the old German Army tradition of swearing loyalty to a monarch. But Adolf Hitler was now more powerful than any constitutional monarch. He had virtually eliminated the power of the Reichstag, was empowered to ignore the Constitution, and commanded fierce loyalty from his huge Nazi Party and SA men. Now he took over the powers of the presidency, which included the rank of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
To make quite certain that nothing went wrong in this vital step to total power. Hitler moved quickly and with great cunning. Knowing that in personal confrontation he was indomitable, he sent for Blomberg and the service chiefs. On the morning of 2 August, said Admiral Erich Raeder, testifying, after the Second World War at
Nuremberg, Hitler had them in his study and read aloud the text of the oath before asking them to repeat it. If any of the men in that room had doubts about the legality or the morality of the oath, they did not show them. Raeder said it came as no surprise to him since he had sworn a personal oath to Kaiser Wilhelm.
To make the army swear unquestioning loyalty to a man who was not constrained by the Constitution, by monarchy, or by any legal restrictions made the army into a Nazi institution in a way that Rohm’s SA had never been and still was not. The brownshirt oath promised only to obey orders that were not illegal acts.
The armed services swore to carry out any action—criminal or otherwise—that Hitler cared to try. There was not even provision for Hitler’s sickness or insanity. To order the army to take such an oath was an act of folly. It was, moreover, an act for which Blomberg had no legal authority. But in Hitler’s Germany anything could be legalized, as Blomberg’s action was three weeks later.
On the evening of President von Hindenburg’s death, every army unit held a religious service and every officer and man took the oath of allegiance on the flag of his regiment:
“I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fiihrer of the German Reich and people. Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and will be ready as a brave soldier to risk my life at any time for this oath.”
That oath was to affect profoundly all attempts to remove Hitler as the war turned unmistakably against Germany. It would pr-event withdrawals that might have preserved army units from destruction, delay capitulation in 1943 at Stalingrad until losses became catastrophic, and keep the army obedient long after its commanders were convinced that their Fiihrer was unbalanced.
World History
