The Great Counter Revolution: Nazi Germany

by Gwynn Compton

The National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP or Nazi) was perhaps the most counter revolutionary dictatorship that history has ever born witness to. From the twisted ideological world of the demagogue Adolf Hitler; to its extreme implementation by such notorious figures as Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi dictatorship which ruled Germany from 1933, then progressively Europe from 1938 onwards, proved itself to be a horrifying lesson in how far counter revolution could be taken, and the nightmares it could turn into reality. From a dictatorship based on terrorising the left and using a mixture of coercion and legitimacy to gain power, Hitler, the ideological drive of the regime, would finally turn his gaze eastwards in 1941, and unleash the most massive counter revolutionary war that the world has ever seen.

The Nazi regime's nature as an extreme counter-revolutionary dictatorship can be traced back to the party's early days as a group during the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary upheavals that characterised the period immediately following Germany's defeat in World War I. In Bavaria itself, the Räterepublik was one of the more successful communist revolutionary attempts, eventually crushed with the help of Weimar government forces working with right wing Freikorps militia forces lead to the establishment of a counter-revolutionary government, which supported various right wing groups.(1) In this atmosphere of the völkisch right, it is little wonder that the Nazi party, and it's then rising star, Adolf Hitler, were so heavily influenced by their combined experiences in Munich at the time, as well as the trauma of defeat in the war. The völkisch politics of Munich and Bavaria were only one facet of the emerging Nazi ideology and style. From the Freikorps emerged the idea of the Sturmabteilung, more commonly known as the SA.(2) This paramilitary wing of the NSDAP party was to later play a violent role in the forming of the counter-revolutionary Nazi dictatorship.

Understanding the origins of the Nazi party, and it's formulation as an anti-communist party is key to seeing how it became a counter-revolutionary dictatorship. A glance over the program of the NSDAP reveals little about the ideal to smash Bolshevism yet encourages the promotion of Germans and German interests above all others.(3) Yet the party program was not exclusively adhered to, as when the Nazi party finally obtained power through electorial "success" (they did not win a majority of the vote, yet their high percentage, 33% by the time of Hitler's appointment to Chancellor, made them the largest party in the Reichstag) it was the combination of the violent attacks of the SA on the opposition to the regime, for the most part communists, though other political creeds and minority groups were caught up, and the use of the Reichstag Fire Decree of February 1933, that gave the Nazi party control over Germany. (4) Counter-revolution had been a part of German politics since the war, and Hitler and the Nazi's took it to new extremes. The Reichstag Fire and the following "Law against the New Formulation of Parties in July 1933, gave the Nazi's the legal grip on power, and it was left to the SA, the Gestapo, and Hitler's personal body guard, the SS, to enforce that power.

To examine the extent of counter-revolution as a major facet of Nazi ideology, one must only look to how counter-revolution evolved itself into the "crusade" against Bolshevism, Operation Barbarossa. The massive invasion of Russia was the culmination of counter-revolutionary ideas, voiced in the form of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy in Hitler's work Mein Kampf. However, it was the implementation of counter-revolution within the Soviet Union that showed the true extent of the counter-revolutionary facets to Adolf Hitler's ideology. The use of the SS Sonderkommando (not to be confused with the Jewish concentration camp guards) in rear area actions during the Barbarossa campaign underlined the idea of it being a show down between Nazism and Communism. The order that allowed the Sonderkommando to operate in conjunction with advanced Wehrmacht forces was justified by Field Marshall Keitel, a leading Nazi supporter within the Heer;

…that the downfall of 1918, the German people's period of suffering which followed and the struggle against National Socialism - with the many blood sacrifices endured by the movement - can be traced to Bolshevik influence. No German should forget this. (5)

Yet Keitel's order for the Wehrmacht to ignore the rules of war in the East were further suplemented when Himmler informed selected SS leaders that a population reduction of some 30 million Slavs would be required in the east.6 If these two statements, both from powerful figures within the regime were not enough, General Jodl, Chief of Operations staff in Wehrmacht High Command (OKW), provided perhaps the starkest show of counter-revolutionary drive within Nazi Germany, excluding Hitler himself, "…all Bolshevist leaders or commissars must be liquidated forthwidth."(6)

Far earlier than Barbarossa, the Nazi regime's counter-revolutionary activities were put into action in Spain by the involvement of German forces in supporting General Franco in the Spainish civil war. To Hitler, involvement in Spain was crucial for halting any jewish-bolshevik threat to the Reich and Spain was essentially where the line would be drawn in the sand.(7) Yet it was Poland where the Sonderkommando/Einsatzgruppen would first be unleashed, and this merely played itself out as a form of brutalising the local population into submission.(8) Yet the imperialist aims of Hitler's Reich over Poland were part of the counter-revolutionary drive of Hitler's ideology, and the conquering of Poland was a step towards a military counter-revolution in the Soviet Union which would both eradicate jewish-bolshevism, and provide the German people with the Lebensraum which Hitler believed the master race required.

Only in analysing the barbarity of the war in Russia, can one truly see the extent and the methods employed by the Nazi regime to reach their counter-revolutionary and racial goals. In the "Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars" issued June 6, 1941, 18 days prior to the launching of Barbarossa contains the following examples of counter-revolution in preparation.

The army must be aware of the following:

1. In this battle it would be mistaken to show mercy or respect for international law towards such elements (political commissars)….

2. The barbaric, Asiatic fighting methods are originated by the political commissars. Action must therefore be taken against them immediately, without further consideration, and with all severity.(9)

The German counter-revolution was not to be carried out solely by the Sonderkommando, but local populations in the east were also encouraged to take out their anger against Jews and Communists.(10) Yet this was permissible only for a time, and only so long as the German's needed their help. As the Ostheer (Eastern Army) and the Sonderkommando with their assorted SS assistance, eventually local populations were being caught up, and as shown earlier, the plan was to starve off approximately 30 million "slavs" in the East.

The SS in particular ran extensive recruiting campaigns in occupied Europe, these campaigns were based around a crusade of Europe against bolshevism, rather than Germany against bolshevism.

A selection of Waffen SS recruiting posters aimed at non Germans.

The latter three posters are aimed at Germans and are general propaganda posters,

not Waffen SS recruiting ones. (11)

The preoccupation of Waffen SS recruiting aimed at the anti-bolshevik crusade shows clearly how much this aspect of Nazi ideology mattered. If one was to try to divide the Nazi ideology into three key areas, they would be racial: social Darwinist ideas about Jews and subhuman races, nationalist: promotion of German culture, the ideal of a greater German Reich and the primacy of Germany as the master of Europe, and counter-revolution: anti-bolshevik counter-revolution tied in closely with the anti-Semite sentiments of the regime.

The SS, both the Waffen SS and the various security organisations of the SS, most notoriously the Einsatzgruppen/Sonderkommando, were the key tools in this counter-revolutionary pillar of National Socialism. Yet the war against bolshevism was closely tied into the racial programs of the regime, and thus the genocide of the Jewish population in Europe was essentially the precussor to another genocide against the Slavs in the East. Furthermore the war in Poland had softened up the Wehrmacht to working with the SS for removing obstacles for occupation, in Poland this was the ruling class, but in Russia it was to be both Communists, Jews, and ultimately a large number of Russians.(12) License for this barbarism was given by Hitler in the early stages of planning for Barbarossa, yet he most clearly showed it in a speech on the 31st of March, 1941,

Communism is an enormous danger for our future. We must forget the concept of comradeship between soldiers. A Communist is no comrade before or after the battle. This is a war of annihilation. If we do not grasp this, we shall still beat the enemy, but thirty years later we shall again have to fight the Communist foe. We do not wage war to preserve the enemy." (13)

The concept of a war of annihilation was key to how counter-revolutionary Nazi ideology was going to be brought into reality. Yet the SS alone could not bring this to fruition, and thus the Wehrmacht, and more over, the Ostheer was to be brought in to assist in the brutal plan to annihilate bolshevism. And while the Ostheer and the Heer in general were not Nazis, the hatred of bolshevism did indeed run deep in their ranks. For the main, the illegal Barbarossa orders were passed onto troops, only in a few cases did commanders refuse to pass the orders on. Yet many soldiers took a grotesque interest in the counter-revolutionary activities, and the 6th Army was forced to issue the following order in August 1941,

In various places within the army's area of responsibility, organs of the SD, of the Reichsführer's SS and chiefs of the German Police have been carrying out necessary executions of criminal, bolshevik and mostly Jewish elements. There have been cases of off-duty soldiers volunteering to help the SD with their executions, or acting as spectators and taking photographs.(14)

The order went on to prohibit soldiers from the army participating in any such action unless directly ordered to. The level of counter-revolutionary fervour had spread far beyond the Nazi party itself and had begun to infest even the Wehrmacht itself.

The Nazi regime was clearly the most counter-revolutionary dictatorship that has existed. It's invasion of Russia, it's aim to annihilate bolshevism, has never been tried since. The sheer scale and size of it's attempts to uproot and destroy it's supposed Jewish-bolshevik conspiracy go beyond the norms of war and diplomacy. The methods employed by the SS and in assistance to them, the Wehrmacht, demonstrate clearly the great extent to which counter-revolution had become not just part of the party and state, but also of social life. With communism having been largely defeated in Germany following the defeat in World War One, the Nazi counter-revolution merely crushed its remaining elements within Germany, and then sought to finish the job by invading Russia. Through the methods of genocide and occupation, the Nazis hoped that they could once and forever defeat bolshevism.

Bibliography

Arad, Y., Gutman, I., Margaliot, A., Documents on the Holocaust, 8th Edition, United States, 1999

Beevor, A., Stalingrad, London, 1998

Brooker, P., Twentieth Century Dictatorships, London, 1995

Carruthers, B. & Erickson, J., The Russian Front 1941-1945, London, 1999

Halliday, F., Revolution and World Politics, London, 1999

Kershaw, I., Hitler 1889-1936 Hubris, London, 1998

Kershaw, I. Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis, London 2000

Wendel, M. The Third Reich Factbook, http://www.axishistory.com

Wendel, M. The Third Reich Forum, forum.axishistory.com

1. Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889 - 1936 Hubris, London, 1998, pp.170-171
2. ibid pp. 173
3. Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman, Abraham Margaliot, Documents on the Holocaust, 8th Edition, United States, 1999, pp 15-18
4. Paul Brooker, Twentieth-Century Dictatorships, London, 1995, pp. 40
5. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad, London, 1998, pp. 14
6. Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis, London, 2000, pp. 353
7. ibid pp. 17
8. ibid pp.241
9. Arad, pp. 376
10. ibid pp. 389
11. Compiled by Marcus Wendel, The Third Reich Factbook, www.skalman.nu/third-reich/propaganda.htm, accessed 19/4/03
12. Kershaw, Nemesis, pp. 354-355
13. ibid pp. 256
14. Beevor, pp. 55