Page 169 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

156 The American Diplomats

ties had been so extensive and brutal that many citizens doubted whether
the upcoming election for the reichstag on March 5 could be “a free expres-
sion of the will of the people.” sackett immediately realized that a new
24
order—to use the Nazi terminology—was being imposed on Germany.
leon dominian, the U.s. consul general in stuttgart, an especially astute
observer, vividly described the nazification of rural areas. By mid-February
1933, a “band of National socialists” had moved from village to village,
terrorizing anyone suspected of not being sympathetic to the Nazi cause,
and that automatically included Jews. the Nazis openly carried weapons,
and groups of four or five of them could be seen almost daily and especially
on weekends, frightening ordinary citizens with their “arrogant and swag-
gering attitude.” they saw to it that local police chiefs were replaced with
Nazi sympathizers. dominian did not think that the Nazis would win the
election on March 5, but that would not matter because they would most
likely retain power by force. 25
dominian also described how the Nazis’ “militaristic policy” had been
translated into repressive measures. early in 1933, they summarily dissolved
the local branch of the “international Women’s Organization for Peace and
liberty,” only one of several societies in stuttgart devoted to “cordiality
between Germans and other nationalities” to be disbanded. rotary Clubs
were also on the Nazi list of proscribed associations. it had become risky
for citizens even to utter the words “liberalism” and “democracy,” because
they aroused expressions of “positive hatred” by local Nazis. dominian
concluded that the country had reverted to the “political philosophy which
guided its leaders since 1871 up to 1918.” the new rulers of Germany “repre-
sent the cynical militarism of their predecessors of pre-Weimar days.” 26
the election on March 5 gave Hitler a clear majority in the reichstag and
hence the mandate he had sought to continue in office. there could be no
doubt, as sackett put it, that “Hitler has won an unprecedented triumph.
democracy in Germany has received a blow from which it may never re-
cover. . . . the much heralded third reich has become a reality. What form
this third reich will finally take is not yet clear in these critical days of po-
litical confusion and uncertainty.” in a series of dispatches sackett then de-
27
scribed the measures taken by the Nazis to solidify their power: the continu-
ous purging from public office of members of the opposition, the arbitrary
arrest of citizens suspected of favoring democratic or left-wing parties, the
closing of some Jewish shops, the continuing suppression of newspapers,
the release from prison of five men in Beuthen who had been sentenced to

For more details on the election, see above, pp. 106, 109.