Daniel Lerner - The Nazi Elite.pdf - On Totalitarianism - antonif

THE

NAZI ELITE

by Daniel Lerner

with the collaboration of

Ithiel de Sola Pool and George K. Schueller

Introduction by Franz L. Neumann

Hoover Institute Studies

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Nazi movement was in many ways a laboratory model of

ominous forces which continue to appear in many parts of the

world. Violent movements of reaction which challenge the values

of our liberal heritage appear again and again in much the same

form. It is therefore important to study, as Mr. Lerner has done,

the dynamics of the strongest of such movements.

Who were the Nazi leaders? What was their relation to the

established and respected elite of the old society? Were they

upstart revolutionists or did they represent the vested interests?

How did the propagandists, the policemen, the army, and the ad-

ministrators get along together? It is to such questions that Mr.

Lerner has addressed himself in this study of the Nazi elite.

HOOVER INSTITUTE STUDIES

August 1951

Series B: Elite Studies, No. 3

THE NAZI ELITE

by Daniel Lerner

with the collaboration of

Ithiel de Sola Pool and George K. Schueller

Introduction by Franz L. Neumann

The Hoover Institute and Library

on War, Revolution, and Peace

Stanford University

Stanford University Press

THE HOOVER INSTITUTE STUDIES

This series of studies undertakes to describe the world revolution of our

time and its consequences for world politics and national policy. These

studies were conducted by the Hoover Institute and Library on War, Rev-

olution, and Peace as part of its research project on Revolution and the

Development of International Relations (RADIR Project).

The studies and their publication were made possible by funds granted by

Carnegie Corporation of New York. That Corporation is not, however, the

author, owner, publisher, or proprietor of this publication, and it is not

to be understood as approving by virtue of its grant any of the statements

made or views expressed therein.

Harold H. Fisher, Chairman of the Hoover Institute

C. Easton Rothwell, Vice -Chairman of the Hoover Institute

Daniel Lerner, Director of Research

Ithiel de Sola Pool, Assistant Director of Research

STANFORD UNr/ERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA

of the Leland Stanford Junior University

Printed in the United States of America

by Stanford University Press

INTRODUCTION

The Fuehrer lexikon, The Nazi Who's Who of 1934, was an old stand-by

during World War II for all those who had, in one way or another, to deal

with Nazi Germany. On the whole, it proved a reliable guide to the Nazi

Party elite. Its deficiencies were quite evident to every user: The Lexicon

was clearly padded by the inclusion of certain Germans of high repute (par-

ticularly military and academic figures) who, while sympathetic to certain

policies of the Nazi movement, could not then be considered Nazis; but it

omitted equally important figures (particularly industrialists and bankers

and high civil servants) who, while not having joined the Party, were quite

indispensable to its victory. With these two limitations, the Lexikon proved,

indeed, a reliable guide. The present study by Professor Daniel Lerner

and his associates uses the biographical data of the Lexikon in order to an-

alyze the Nazi Party leadership as a counter elite "specialized in the use

of organization, propaganda, and violence to gain power. "

It will be my task in this Introduction not so much to praise this study,

which deserves it without qualification, but rather to indicate its relevance

for the study of Nazism and for political science.

Some may infer from the study that an elite may seize power if it dedi-

cates itself wholeheartedly to "organization, propaganda, and violence. "

Clearly, the study neither says nor implies this. Such would be the view of

a school of thought which believes violence alone to be the lever of history

and which thus considers the historical setting as totally irrelevant. The

Babeuf , Blanqui, Bakunin school has its modern counterpart in the little

book of Curzio Malaparte,* which found wide circulation in pre-1933 Ger-

many. Malaparte, spreading the gospel of putschism, considered Mussolini's

March to Rome the prototype, and ridiculed Hitler as the "would-be leader"

because of his reliance on opportunist parliamentary methods. On this basis,

Malaparte predicted that Hitler would never come to power. His analysis

thereby reenforced the smugness of German Social Democracy, followed

with the prediction, on the day that Hitler came to power, that National So-

cialism would be blocked by parliamentary legality.

The opposite was indeed true. It was precisely Hitler's "legality" that

made his victory possible, and it is here— precisely at this point— that the

differences between the Nazi and the Bolshevik elites become clear. The

Bolsheviks indeed came to power through a classical revolution; the Nazis

did not. They did not because they could not, and they knew they could not.

Hitler had attempted his putsch in 1923. It had failed lamentably be-

cause he could not then gain support of the army, the high civil service,

and the industrial and banking classes. To those groups, a putsch involved

Coup d'Etat . the Technique of Revolution , translated by Sylvia Saun-

ders (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc. , 1932).

tSee my Behomoth : The Structure and Practice of National Socialism

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 32.

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