Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933
The secret meeting of 20 February 1933, a meeting of Adolf Hitler after the seizure of power with 27 industrialists in Hermann Goering's headquarters in the Reichstag President's palace to finance the election campaign of the NSDAP in the semi-free parliamentary elections of 5 March 1933.
At this meeting was for the current campaign for the parliamentary election, which the Nazi party wanted to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority in favor of the Enabling Act, along with the fighting front black and white red and that should prove to be the last multi-party parliamentary elections of the German Reich, an election fund of three million marks for the Nazi Party and the battlefront Black -White-Red decided, of which about 2 million are detectable received as payment. 75 % of the sum went to the NSDAP.
Participant
At the meeting the following business representatives participated in:
The invited Paul Reusch did not participate; he pretended to be on foreign travel. Carl Friedrich von Siemens has to be represented by his private secretary, Wolf -Dietrich joke of life. Robert Bosch has an invitation in a letter rejected open.
Expiration
The participants were invited by Hermann Goering. As a handed- Telegram from February 16, 1933 at Krupp occupied, he invited Krupp for the February 20, 1933 by 18 clock in the Reichstag President's Palace a. The stated purpose was stated that Hitler would explain his policies. Following a comprehensive report of the informant Martin Blank to Paul Reusch, appeared on February 20 with 15 minutes late Hermann Goering accompanied by Walther Funk and gave a short speech in which he stressed the importance of the current election campaign. Then Hitler appeared. He pleaded guilty to a one and a half hour speech without private property, extolled the superiority of dictatorship over democracy and argued that the NSDAP would be the only salvation from the communist threat. The basis of the NSDAP was the nationalist idea and the idea of fortification. Life is a continuing struggle that only a bulit people can exist and only an embattled nation could have a thriving economy.
In his speech, Hitler declared that democracy was to blame for the rise of communism. In a surviving record of his speech reads:
" Today, we face the following situation: Weimar has imposed on us a certain form of constitution, with which one has placed us on a democratic basis. But that we have been bestowed no powerful government. On the contrary, communism had to after, as I initially criticized democracy, into drill deeper into the people. "
Then Hitler declared that he needed the entire power of the state to crush Communism:
" We have to get all the instruments of power in the hand, if we want to throw out the other side completely to the ground. [ ... ] We need to Prussia [Note: simultaneous state elections ] still 10, still win 33 seats in the kingdom. That's when we use all the powers, not impossible. Only then begins the second action against communism. "
After Hitler's speech Krupp expressed the thanks of the parties and particularly stressed the commitment to private property and to the fortification. After Hitler left the meeting. Göring gave a short speech in which he pointed out that the coffers of the NSDAP were empty, and asked the gentlemen present to remedy. The Cabinet had unanimously decided not to finance the election campaign of public funds. Then Goering left the meeting and Hjalmar Schacht spoke. Schacht urged to raise three million Reichsmarks. As a key he committed:
Blank noted that 1 million Reichsmarks from the western coal and iron industry, 100,000 Reichsmarks for the engineering of Wolfgang Reuter, and 100,000 Reichsmarks were promised by Siemens immediately. For the 500,000 Reichsmarks in the chemical industry have no commitment can be given. At the suggestion of Fritz Springorum the distribution key NSDAP 75% and 25% battlefront Black -White-Red was decided.
About the importance of this campaign contribution for the NSDAP is listed on the same day Joseph Goebbels in his diary:
" We are pushing for the election on a very large sum, which relieves us of having a stroke all the money worries. I will alert equal to the whole propaganda apparatus, and an hour later they rattle the presses. Now we will turn up to maximum speed. If no unusual glitch more at running, then we have already won on the line. "
The next day Fritz Springorum wrote to Paul Reusch:
" At this meeting, Mr. Hitler has given a representation of the political development of the last fourteen years and set out his basic attitude to the political events, as well as to the economy, individual personality and private property in a way that he probably the rest loose agreement of all 27 men, were present, has received. "
The manager of the RDI Ludwig Kastl wrote on February 25, 1933 Krupp:
" I think it's a great, not to say outrageous disgrace to industry to raise 3 million in the shortest possible time. About the distribution key (only 20% of the black -white- red block ), I am outraged. I can but in the matter change anything. After the elections, it will be in the circle of participants again have to speak about the matter. "
Donate
The money was paid into the special account " Nationale Treuhand, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht " at Bankhaus Delbrück Leo & Co. The money was then transferred to Rudolf Hess and the Franz- wedding -Verlag. The rest was paid directly to Alfred Hugenberg and Papen in the fund.
One in the IG Farben Trial List of deposit receipts and an identical complete list of all payments for Hjalmar Schacht from April 5, 1933 show payments to the special account in the amount of 2.021 million Reichsmarks. Omits to staggered payments, then had arrived until Election Day 1,660,000 Reichsmarks, ie over 95% of ultimately reached final total. Single payer occurred several times in action, especially the mining club with his record-breaking contribution of a total of 600,000 Reichsmarks. Overall, there were 14 different depositors. An assignment to the participants of the meeting is not always immediately apparent. In the source " Nuremberg Trials " is not listed a campaign donation from Kurt Schmitt in the amount of 10,000 Reichsmarks.
At the Papen - fund 162,500 Reichsmarks were, according to a correspondence between the shaft and Hugenberg Hugenberg discount, paid, of which 100,000 Reichsmarks of IG Farben, 35,000 Reichsmark from the western industrial and 27,500 Reichsmarks from the western lignite industry. Heavy industry had about 215,000 Reichsmarks directly to Hugenberg.
In his memoirs, Hjalmar Schacht briefly mentioned the meeting and confirmed that 3 million Reichsmark have been paid. He points out that were left over from the 3 million, 600,000 Reichsmark after the election.
Consequence of developments
The other conditions were then favorable for the NSDAP, so that they could achieve significant gains in the Reichstag elections March 5, 1933, but failed - to many observers surprisingly - the absolute majority. The actual statements found this centrally supported by the meeting and the effected payments development in the seizure of power by Chancellor Hitler by the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933.
Review of research
In the Marxist research, including Kurt Paetzold, this meeting is considered as further evidence of the financing of the Nazi Party by the big industry.
In contrast, the historian Henry Ashby Turner has indeed indicated that the generosity of entrepreneur was not entirely voluntary, the meeting called but as a "milestone: the first major substantive contribution of organizations of big business for the Nazi cause. " Even the British historian Ian Kershaw evaluates in his biography of Hitler that the payment by " political blackmail " had been concluded.
The British historian Adam Tooze other hand, writes:
"Once, quite apart from its consequences, is one of this meeting of 20 February to the most notorious examples of the willingness of the German big business, Hitler assist in the preparation of his dictatorial regime. The evidence for this is not to rid the world "