23. On Oct. 28, 1938, the Head of the Reich Chancellery (Lammers)—the link between Hitler and state ministers—had written to Hitler’s adjutant begging to report on urgent state matters, adding that he had not spoken with the Führer for more than six weeks. Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, II: 245.
24. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 145.
25. Wiedemann, Der Mann, 69; also available, translated, in Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, II: 207–8. After 1933, Hitler almost never wrote anything either. The important exception was perhaps his “Four Year Memorandum” (1936), written in anger and frustration at the 1935–6 economic crisis; Hitler passed copies of the memorandum only to two people, both in the military: Göring and Blomberg. (Much later, a third copy went to Speer.) The Economics Minister did not get a copy. Kershaw, “Working towards the Führer,” 90.
26. Stalin “enjoyed settling . . . trivial issues,” one biographer has noted. He “got used to the idea that people couldn’t manage without him, that he must do everything.” Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 147.
27. Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship, 70.
28. Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 397 (citing BA Koblenz N 1340/384); Speer, Erinnerungen, corrected ms. (2nd version), chapter 1; and Schroeder, Er War Mein Chef, 78–81.
29. Shirer, Rise and Fall, 275–6. As Bracher noted, “among the men closest to the Führer, all joined long before the big wave of newcomers in March 1933.” They were distinguished by “the right of immediate access.” Bracher, German Dictatorship, 277; Bracher, Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung, 607.
30. Kershaw, “Nature of the Hitler Dictatorship,” 117; Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, 527–91; Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, II: 207. Adolf Eichmann would testify that, “No sooner had Hitler made a speech—and he invariably touched on the Jewish question—then every party or government department felt that it was up to them to do something.” When it came to specific incidents—such as the pogrom known as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), on Nov. 8–9, 1938, which would leave around 100 Jews dead and 7,500 Jewish businesses vandalized—Hitler explicitly approved the action. On Dec. 6, 1938, Göring warned the Gauleiters against initiatives predicated upon the Führer’s presumed wishes. Von Lang, Eichman Interrogated, 59; Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, VI: 179–81 (Nov. 10, 1938); Friedlander, “Path that Led into the Abyss.” See also Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Verwaltung. Kershaw presented the concept very broadly—a small businessman besting a competitor by questioning his Aryan credentials; ordinary people perniciously denouncing neighbors to the Gestapo to settle private scores—and in that guise, it could be tantamount to just living under Nazi rule. Kershaw himself writes, moreover, that “there was never any suggestion that Hitler might be bypassed or ignored, that anyone but he could make a key decision. And, once he finally decided to act, he did so . . . with ruthlessness.” Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, 328. See also Kershaw, “Uniqueness of Nazism”; and Mommsen, “Hitler’s Position,” 163–88; Kershaw, Nazi Dictatorship (4th ed.), 59–79. The basic idea that minions were in competition to gain the favor of the Führer, creating a dynamic that radicalized policy, appears in Hannah Arendt. Seweryn Bialer had called this phenomenon “preemptive obedience.” Bialer, Stalin’s Successors.
31. Zhuravlyov’s denunciation followed the formation of the commission on the NKVD. Beria had passed the letter to Stalin on Oct. 13, 1938. Khaustov and Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD, 249–50; Na prieme, 245–6. See also Shreider, NKVD iznutri, 237. Zhuravlyov briefly got a promotion to Moscow, but Beria would send him to run the Karaganda camps. Yezhov’s response—accepting guilt, claiming poor health, confessing he “had taken badly the appointment of Beria as my deputy. I saw in this an element of lack of trust towards me,” and requesting to resign—is misdated as Sept. (rather than Nov.) 23, 1938. Kostrychenko and Khazanov, “Konets Kar’ery Ezhova,” 129–30 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1003, l. 82–4); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoie upravlenie, 552–4 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1003, l. 82–4); Petrov and Jansen, Stalinskii pitomets, 355–9 (RGASPI, f. 671, op. 1, d. 265, l. 16–26ob.). See also Sudoplatov and Sudoplatov, Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness, 59. This is another example where Sudoplatov’s memoir comports with archival materials.
