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com 3 April 2015

HITLER’S GOVERNMENT
Administrative Chaos and Control

Competing Offices
Hitler allowed senior party
members to develop
institutions that mirrored,
rivalled and often contradicted
official government
organisations. One example of
this is Buro Ribbentrop, a
foreign policy institute set up
by Hitler’s foreign policy
advisor and later Ambassador
to London Joachim Von
Ribbentrop.

The official German Foreign

Ministry, led by Konstantin Von
Neurath was threatened and
angered by the development
of a rival foreign policy
organisation that had the
blessing of the Fuehrer. Both
organisations sought to
undermine one another and
both created mutually
contradictory foreign policies.
For example, during the 1930s
China and Japan were at war,
Neurath argued that Germany
should support China as the
Weimar Government had
done, and gain access to the
country’s vast mineral
resources. In direct
contradiction of this,
Ribbentrop created favourable
ties with Japan and
encouraged Hitler to see them
as natural allies.
Informal Style
Because Hitler rarely wrote anything down and rarely signed
any official paperwork, finding evidence about Hitler's beliefs
about his own style of government is quite a challenge for
historians. The lack of detail in itself is telling, Hitler hated
bureaucrats and paperwork, believing that most matters could
be dealt with informally, and an inner circle of favourites who
he felt he could rely on and trust were feted by the Fuehrer as
a result. Hitler's love of informality saw a virtual court
establish itself at Berchtesgardten in Bavaria, his mountain
top residence and retreat. He disliked going to Berlin,
believing that it was a corrupted and morally bankrupt city,
that the 20's and 30's under the Weimar Government had
seen a flowering of vice, prostitution, sexual permissiveness
and liberal thought, designed to corrupt and weaken the
German people.So accessing the Fuehrer was often difficult,
and he seems to have preferred it that way, he constantly
feared assassination attempts, and believed that the best way
to keep his lieutenants pliable and eager to please was to keep
them at arms length. When senior Nazis did want to
communicate with Hitler they had to go through his

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secretary, Hans Heinrich Lammers, who worked as a barrier

between Hitler and the world. Lammers would take policy
initiatives from other Nazis to Hitler and normally
communicate the idea verbally to him, with much of the
detail being lost in translation.

The illusion of order

Ribbentrop and Hitler would often give a verbal reply, sometimes even a grunt
Neurath (contd) of approval, and Lammers would then interpret what it was
exactly the Fuehrer wanted to be done. He would then repeat
Buro Ribbentrop was located in this message back to the Nazi in question. This often
office buildings directly opposite
tortuous process, allied with the fact that Hitler's favourites,
the Foreign Ministry on the
for example Joachim Von Ribbentrop, Herman Goering and
Wilhelmstrasse.
Robert Ley were all given powerful but unofficial positions.
The purpose of creating these They created informal parallel organisations that competed
rivalries for Hitler was to prevent with established government ministries, often with farcical
challenges to his power. Hitler and sometimes disastrous results. Hitler introduced into the
was suspicious of experts and
German system of government (previously the most efficient
specialists such as Neurath (who
and well ordered in the world) an enormous degree of chaos,
only joined the Nazi Party in
1937), was not seen as a loyalist
rivalry and maladministration, and it was an environment in
by Hitler, but more significant he which the top Nazis and their associates were able to enrich
had an immense amount of themselves enormously. (below: Hans Lammers)
diplomatic expertise and could
potentially contradict Hitler,
advise moderation, caution and
restraint.

Ribbentrop, a former champagne

salesman, impressed Hitler with
his supposed knowledge of
international affairs, but merely
served to mislead the Fuehrer.
Hitler placed immense trust in
Ribbentrop, but the version of
world affairs that he received
from his advisor was often
derived more from Ribbentrop’s
imagination.

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Hitler presented a view of the world where he as the defender of the German people was to be the
scourge of greed and corruption, the source of which he maintained was the previous liberal Weimar
Government and the Jews.

Without a doubt one of the most corrupt and embezzling regimes in the 20th Century was born in
January 1933, and it was allowed to exist in no small part by Hitler and his informal, chaotic style of
government.

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