Underground Humour In Nazi Germany, 1933-1945

Dr F K M Hillenbrand, F. K. M. Hillenbrand

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134860128
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Not all Germans living under Hitler succumbed passively to the rhetoric and horror of the Nazi regime. Covert popular opposition in the form of humorous resistance was wider spread than is commonly thought. Embracing jokes, stories and 60 cartoons, this is the only collection in English of underground anti-Nazi humour. It is, as such, an invaluable contribution to the social history of twentieth century Germany.

1 REPRESENTATIVES OF THE OLD ORDER

PRESIDENT VON HINDENBURG

In 1932, the last year of the Weimar Republic, political jokes began to circulate at an ever-increasing rate. Many centred on the President. In office since 1925, he stood for re-election in March 1932 and on that occasion just failed to get the absolute majority required by the constitution; a month later a second election resulted in an absolute majority for the old President. Hindenburg was then nearly eighty-five years old. By the majority of German moderates he was remembered from the war as a venerable father-figure,¹ but by some merely as a man of average ability inexplicably elevated to mythological greatness,² or as less a man than a national monument,³ or even, in stark contrast to both these images, as a ‘Zero paving the way for Nero.’⁴

2 Hitler – a German fate

3 Potsdam, 21 March 1933

The President’s frequently vacillating attitude as Head of State during that turbulent year showed his age.⁵ Despite the now diminishing periods of mental lucidity,⁶ which became embarrassing toward the end,⁷ Hindenburg retained his distrust of ‘that Bohemian corporal’⁸ for a very long time. As late as 26 January 1933 – only four days before he appointed Hitler Reich Chancellor – Hindenburg declared that he would not think of such a possibility.⁹ According to another source the President is reputed to have said, ‘He can at best be made Postmaster General, then he can … my backside on the stamps!’¹⁰

It may well be that most of the jokes about the President’s senility originated in Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda, and might have been inspired by Hitler’s vindictiveness. When Hitler came to power, what Hindenburg thought of him can hardly have remained a secret to him.

Soon after 30 January 1933 (the day of Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor), the following story circulated in Berlin:

[1] On the balcony of his palace the old President is watching the seemingly endless columns of Stormtroopers in their brown shirts marching past carrying their torchlights. Hindenburg, confusing this scene in his memory with his famous victory over Russia in 1914,¹¹ asks his Secretary of State, ‘Meissner, is there no end to these Russian POWs?’¹²

Hindenburg eventually submitted to repeated demands by his immediate entourage¹³ to sign the document which effected Hitler’s chancellorship. This may be the background reflected in the following two jokes:

[2] A lady is waiting in the anteroom for an interview with the President. Before going in, she is about to unwrap a bunch of flowers she has brought along, when Secretary of State Meissner warns her, ‘Please don’t leave any paper lying about here, Madam; the old gentleman might sign it otherwise!’

[3] The Wilhelmstrasse¹⁴ has to be swept several times a day in order to prevent Hindenburg from signing any wastepaper lying about.

Even nastier:

[4] The Wilhelmstrasse is closed for traffic every morning from eight to nine in order to enable Hindenburg to have some exercise; he enjoys spinning a top without being endangered by traffic.

[5] Hitler has an audience with the old President. After he has left, Hindenburg asks his Secretary of State, ‘Tell me, Meissner, how long has Brüning been wearing a moustache?’¹⁵

[6] Which is the smallest concentration camp in Germany? Neudeck. It has only one prisoner: Hindenburg.¹⁶

This list of jokes about Hindenburg may best be concluded by relating an event which, though it may seem hardly credible, is nevertheless historically correct. When Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hitler seized his chance to use the state funeral to promote his own Nordic fantasies. He gave the official farewell, which was broadcast, with these words: ‘And now, old warrior, depart on your journey to Valhalla!’¹⁷

And so the funeral of Germany’s grand old man, a life-long practising Christian, took place to the musical accompaniment of an orchestra playing Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods.’¹⁸

SECRETARY OF STATE DR MEISSNER

Dr Hans Otto Meissner (1880–1953) was the Head of the Presidential Chancellory under Ebert, von Hindenburg and eventually also under Hitler. Together with von Papen he was instrumental in bringing about the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor.¹⁹ Although Meissner maintained his influential position as confidant of the aged President he did not attempt to enforce any restrictions on the new masters of Germany during the street excesses of the Stormtroopers in the early weeks of 1933.²⁰ During the war Meissner was critical of Ribbentrop²¹ and also, in retrospect, of Hitler’s spellbinding effect on Oscar von Hindenburg, the President’s son and adjutant.²² Meissner was considered by contemporaries alternatively as a careerist²³ or as the typical non-political senior civil servant.²⁴ His ‘longevity’ as the servant of three régimes so utterly dissimilar to each other is reflected in these jokes:

[7] Meissner, the political quick-change artiste, is also known as the Chameleon.²⁵

[8] Although the world has been submerged by another flood, much more devastating than Noah’s, someone did survive – Dr Meissner, on the top of the Himalayas.²⁶

VON PAPEN

Franz von Papen (1879–1969) became the penultimate Reich Chancellor of the Weimar Republic when he succeeded Brüning in June 1932. General Kurt von Schleicher, who succeeded von Papen on 2 December 1932, had been responsible for von Papen’s appointment as he had for Brüning’s before him, in 1930.²⁷ As the man behind the throne, the General became known, not inappropriately, as the ‘field-grey eminence’,²⁸ and by the Nazis as ‘primo de Schleicheros’,²⁹ because they suspected him of playing with the idea of a coup d’état.

As the new Reich Chancellor, von Papen soon won the old President’s confidence, and before long this confidence developed into a close friendship. Von Hindenburg approved of von Papen’s ‘cabinet of barons’,³⁰ which was to include General von Schleicher as Minister of Defence.

Von Papen’s aristocratic background, his excellent horsemanship,³¹ his military service in an exclusive cavalry regiment before the war,³² and his connections with industry and the Catholic Church³³ were all assets for his high office. On the debit side there was his character itself³⁴ and certain aspects of his former diplomatic career³⁵ and these...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Representatives of the Old Order
• 2. Hitler
• 3. Other Personalities of the Third Reich
• 4. Institutions of the Third Reich
• 5. The Jews
• 6. Aspects of the Third Reich
• 7. The Anschluss
• 8. The Third Reich as seen by Others
• 9. Hitler’s War
• 10. The End of the Third Reich, Year Zero and Aftermath
• Epilogue
• Sources of jokes
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index