Page 170 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 157

death for brutally murdering an alleged Communist, and, finally, the es-
tablishment of concentration camps. these accounts gave a vivid picture
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of Nazi conduct, but it was a subordinate, the chargé d’affaires Gordon,
who comprehensively analyzed the aims of the National socialists and their
policies for achieving them. He based his conclusions on a close reading of
Nazi literature; frequent conversations with political leaders, among them
the former chancellor Brüning; and at least one conversation with Hitler.

nazism as totalitarian

in his quest for an all-embracing explanation of Nazism, Gordon used
a term for the New Order that anticipated one that was widely adopted
by political scientists and historians after World War ii, specifically after
the publication in 1951 of Hannah arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.
On June 24, he wrote to the acting secretary of state that the Nazis, more
than any previous political party, at least in the West, were guided by the
principle of “totality,” which meant that Germany was to be turned into an
“exclusive one party state” in which all political and social organizations
must be subordinated to the Führer. the reichstag had been fully emascu-
lated with the expulsion of the social democrats and Communists; these
measures reduced the chamber to 446 deputies, leaving the 288 Nazis in a
commanding position. they were only ten votes short of the two-thirds
majority needed to change the Constitution. and they would surely find
these ten among the Nationalists. this is exactly what happened on March
23 when they adopted the enabling act, which in effect granted Hitler dic-
tatorial power. it seemed likely that the reichstag would not meet at all
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for the next four years. Gordon predicted that “a new revolutionary wave”
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would soon sweep the country to further implement the principle of “total-
ity.” Other diplomats in Berlin, including the new american ambassador
(dodd) and Gordon’s colleague, the consul Geist, soon began to use the
more modern term. Geist, for example, wrote on december 19 that the Na-
zis had brought labor under their control with the creation of the German
labor Front (deutsche arbeitsfront), and thus had moved a step closer to
the “realization of the totalitarian idea.” 31
Gordon’s theory of totality was convincing, and the more he examined
Hitler’s regime, the more evidence he found to buttress his argument. as he
put it, within one “crowded joyous week” in april 1933 the Nazis had made
clear their intention not only to rule dictatorially but also to dominate all so-