William Shirer's account of the decade between 1930 and 1940 continues with his introduction to the men who would become the sub-leaders of the outlaw Third Reich under Adolf Hitler...I have spoken before of Shirer's unbridled and barely contained disgust with Hitler and his gang of miscreants, and here he does not disappoint, venting his feelings in his descriptions with gusto...The Nazi Party had already branded him as unfriendly, and he was under watch for any contact with those who were "enemies of the state"...
Like all successful journalists, he maintained a network of informants to garner information, tips and secrets which he passed on when he could...He guarded their identities not only from the Nazis, but from each other, never fully knowing all that were covertly working for the Third Reich...There were some hangers-on whom everyone knew were counter-spies, but he treated them as if he didn't know, sometimes gathering a snatch of truth from them in an unguarded moment...It was a balancing act that kept him in the know, but could turn deadly at any time...
Some of his sources did not even realize they were sources, being members of the working staffs in the party as well as in the government itself...Shirer knew how to get these people to give up bits of information in exchange for simply letting others retain a sense of self-importance...Some of those higher in the Nazi food chain were notorious for telling too much, if a person could tolerate their obnoxious personalities long enough...
A major example of this was Alfred Rosenberg, chief of the party Foreign Affairs Office, whom Shirer, in his inimitable descriptive style, characterized as a "crackbrained, doughy-faced dolt"...Hitler himself regarded Rosenberg as uninspired and weak, which by Der Fuehrer's own admission was the reason he appointed Rosenberg as chairman of the Nazi Party during his enforced absence in Landsberg Prison...
Rosenberg was the author of "The Myth of the Twentieth Century," a book so jumbled that even the addled mind of Adolf Hitler was unable to sort through it, dismissing it as "impossible to get through"...Hitlerjugend Fuehrer, Baldur von Schirach, was said to have remarked, "Rosenberg was a man who sold more copies of a book no one had ever read than any other author in German history"...Its million-seller status can only be explained by the same selling point as Mein Kampf; if it wasn't on your home bookshelf in Nazi controlled Germany, you were under suspicion as subversive...
After Hitler's assumption of power in 1933, Rosenberg, who was inexplicably dubbed the party "philosopher" by Hitler, hosted a regular gathering for journalists which he called a Bierabend, where invited guests from the press could talk to and get to know Nazi party officials and Third Reich bosses...Each event featured at least one member of Hitler's inner circle plus a few deputy toadlings (Shirer said these became excellent sources as they loved to pad their own resumes by boasting) who would rotate between tables of reporters every few minutes to talk and answer questions...
Rosenberg's career in Nazi Germany may have come about solely because his ambitions were rejected in the Soviet Union...Born in Estonia, which since 1721 had been part of the Czarist Russian empire until the Bolshevik Revolution, his architecture degree under Soviet tutelage opened no career doors for him...
Proving my theory that the only good Nazis are the dead ones, Rosenberg was rehabilitated for his crimes at the end of a rope following his conviction at the Nuremberg Trials...He has since then meekly blended in with his surroundings...
Like all successful journalists, he maintained a network of informants to garner information, tips and secrets which he passed on when he could...He guarded their identities not only from the Nazis, but from each other, never fully knowing all that were covertly working for the Third Reich...There were some hangers-on whom everyone knew were counter-spies, but he treated them as if he didn't know, sometimes gathering a snatch of truth from them in an unguarded moment...It was a balancing act that kept him in the know, but could turn deadly at any time...
Some of his sources did not even realize they were sources, being members of the working staffs in the party as well as in the government itself...Shirer knew how to get these people to give up bits of information in exchange for simply letting others retain a sense of self-importance...Some of those higher in the Nazi food chain were notorious for telling too much, if a person could tolerate their obnoxious personalities long enough...
A major example of this was Alfred Rosenberg, chief of the party Foreign Affairs Office, whom Shirer, in his inimitable descriptive style, characterized as a "crackbrained, doughy-faced dolt"...Hitler himself regarded Rosenberg as uninspired and weak, which by Der Fuehrer's own admission was the reason he appointed Rosenberg as chairman of the Nazi Party during his enforced absence in Landsberg Prison...
Rosenberg was the author of "The Myth of the Twentieth Century," a book so jumbled that even the addled mind of Adolf Hitler was unable to sort through it, dismissing it as "impossible to get through"...Hitlerjugend Fuehrer, Baldur von Schirach, was said to have remarked, "Rosenberg was a man who sold more copies of a book no one had ever read than any other author in German history"...Its million-seller status can only be explained by the same selling point as Mein Kampf; if it wasn't on your home bookshelf in Nazi controlled Germany, you were under suspicion as subversive...
After Hitler's assumption of power in 1933, Rosenberg, who was inexplicably dubbed the party "philosopher" by Hitler, hosted a regular gathering for journalists which he called a Bierabend, where invited guests from the press could talk to and get to know Nazi party officials and Third Reich bosses...Each event featured at least one member of Hitler's inner circle plus a few deputy toadlings (Shirer said these became excellent sources as they loved to pad their own resumes by boasting) who would rotate between tables of reporters every few minutes to talk and answer questions...
Rosenberg's career in Nazi Germany may have come about solely because his ambitions were rejected in the Soviet Union...Born in Estonia, which since 1721 had been part of the Czarist Russian empire until the Bolshevik Revolution, his architecture degree under Soviet tutelage opened no career doors for him...
Proving my theory that the only good Nazis are the dead ones, Rosenberg was rehabilitated for his crimes at the end of a rope following his conviction at the Nuremberg Trials...He has since then meekly blended in with his surroundings...
Hermann Goring was a featured guest at some of the Bierabends if, for no other reason, than he was unlikely to ever miss an evening of beer and sausage on someone else's expense account...Shirer described him as a ruthless, self-obsessed man who, when the occasion called for it and was to his advantage, could be charming and affable, but was also a brutal "blood swiller"...Always confident in his Number Two status with the Third Reich, he enjoyed firing off a few zingers of his own, such as:
"When I criticized Ribbentrop's qualifications to handle British problems, the Fuehrer pointed out to me that Ribbentrop knew 'Lord So and So' and 'Minister So and So'...
To which I replied, 'Yes, but the difficulty is that they know Ribbentrop'..."Unfortunately Goring's ego matched his own bulk, allowing him to believe he was indispensable to the regime...He learned his true worth shortly before the Nazi collapse when Hitler slapped a death sentence on him for suggesting he take over the reins of government since the Red Army had Berlin surrounded...He ended his own days in a typically cowardly fashion by swallowing cyanide hours before his scheduled noose fitting in Nuremberg...
Shirer had plenty of descriptive adjectives for Ribbentrop as well, referring to the Foreign Minister as "ridiculous," "insufferable," and an "ignorant nincompoop"...These were his more endearing qualities as Shirer related several anecdotes of his embarrassing and numerous diplomatic faux pas...
The lesser reprobates listed among the Nazi roster of villains did not escape Shirer's acerbic depictions of their characters...Julius Streicher was described as a "sadistic, pornographic Jew-baiter" and an "unspeakably vulgar psychopathic pervert"...Joseph Goebbels came close to being complimented by Shirer as "arrogant, but not unintelligent," yet at least equally "repugnant" as the other slime gathered at the feet of Herr Hitler...
Hitler's choice for Minister of Education was a man imminently unqualified for teaching, but certainly fitting to the subject matter the Nazis valued most highly on the curriculum...The Weimar Republic had fired Dr. Bernhard Rust as a schoolmaster for "an instability of the mind," yet his belief in the Nazi's crackpot racial theories drove even the great German universities to either bend to the new programs of studies, or have it forced onto them, such as the renowned University of Berlin which became in effect a veterinary academy...
The aforementioned Baldur von Schirach was characterized as shallow, empty-minded and silly...Heinrich Himmler at first struck him as "insignificant, mediocre," but later showed himself to be "sinister" and "murderous"...Fritz Sauckel was a "piggish, brutal, stupid little man" who served Hitler well as provider of labor, slave labor to be exact...His final service to the German people was as a rope decoration at Nuremberg...
Rudolf Hess was listed as the most loyal and least ambitious of Hitler's sucklings, described by Shirer as "muddled" and "emotionally juvenile"...Robert Ley was thought of as a "stammering drunk" by industrialist Fritz Thyssen...Even his secretary complained that he was "always drunk"...Remembered for his "Strength Through Joy" program (the naming of which always struck this reviewer as smacking of Marxist origins), he didn't even bother waiting for his trial to begin at Nuremberg before taking the wimp's way out by suicide in his cell...
Wilhelm Frick was thought of by Shirer as "competent, but colorless" with no knowledge at all of the world beyond Nazi Germany...Upon receiving his death penalty at Nuremberg, he stated he had only done his duty, then dutifully took his step through the gallows trapdoor...
The despicable Martin Bormann was said to be a "molelike man" who slipped beneath Shirer's radar in his "Berlin Diary," yet emerged later as the invisible hand behind the power who controlled all access to the Fuehrer, preventing Hitler from being told of disturbing, yet conflicting complaints by his deputies charged with maintaining his administration...The jury is still out on exactly where, when and how his death occurred...
Occasionally Hitler slipped up, and hired someone actually competent at his job, such as Freiherr von Fritsch, who was responsible for rebuilding the German Army in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles...Having faithfully done his duty, he soon ran afoul of Himmler and Goring, who manufactured evidence of homosexuality against Fritsch...The charges were disproven by the indignant Field Marshal, but his reputation and career were destroyed...His mysterious death later served as inspiration for Wehrmacht officers who conspired to remove their Fuehrer from power...
One of the sadder figures encountered by Shirer was American Ambassador William E. Dodd, a man uncommonly qualified for a duty he reluctantly accepted from President Roosevelt, he not only spoke fluent German, but understood the culture and was an admirer of the Old Germany...An avid historian, he found kinship with Shirer...His later life, after his resignation from foreign service, was marred with the knowledge of his promiscuous daughter's involvement in a communist spy ring...
It was not out of character for Hitler to appoint men to high positions who, like him, had a history of criminal behavior, sexual perversion or a complete lack of skills suitable for their jobs, as he was elected by popular vote from a German populace willing to settle for considerably less than the best...He could have chosen competent, dedicated and highly qualified men, such as Roosevelt did with Dodd, but instead gathered a band of furtive, self-serving sycophants content to destroy their own nation in their quest for personal aggrandizement...
Instead of choosing a staff which could shore up areas where he was weak, making him look better as a leader, Hitler chose mediocre men possibly fearing that someone more capable would try to replace, rather than reinforce him...His suspicious and devious nature worked against him in this case...From my studies, he also habitually kept his cohorts apart in their duties, even overlapping them thinking the resulting jealousy would prevent them organizing a coalition against him...
Shirer wrote his many articles and books with the same aim as most historians, wanting his recollections to serve as a guide, as well as a warning, for the coming generations charged with selecting their own leadership...As to whether his efforts have prevailed, look around you...
Part III will review Shirer's aptly named section, "The Road to Armageddon"...
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