Cabinet agrees a propaganda ministry; SA drive Jewish lawyers from Breslau’s courts

Politics and power

Government, terror and persecution

1. Government 17:00, Berlin, Reich Chancellery

   The cabinet agrees to a propaganda ministry

   At a ministers’ meeting at 17:00 Hitler argued for a Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda that would unite scattered offices and, above all, prepare the public for important government measures, citing the planned support for farmers in the fats question. Press chief Funk was to become its state secretary; costs would be small, and an advertising monopoly might even bring a surplus. Hugenberg asked for a postponement, but Hitler insisted that the work had to begin before the Reichstag opened, saying the existing Reich Centre for Home Service had failed completely, and the cabinet agreed. The press expected Goebbels to be appointed early in the week and the ministry to move into the Reich Press Office’s rooms in the Prinz-Friedrich-Leopold-Palais on Wilhelmplatz. Hitler also read out Hindenburg’s flag decree, to be announced next day, and Göring proposed a new amnesty that would also benefit Nazis in prison.^1,4

2. Persecution 10:30 onwards, Hamburg; Breslau; Frankfurt am Main; Dresden; Gotha

   Department stores forced to close

   In Hamburg at about 10:30 some 20 SA men blocked the entrances of the Karstadt store in Mönckebergstrasse and raised the swastika on its roof; once the police had been told, SA-Oberführer Böckenhauer withdrew them, and the store reopened before closing again at noon of its own accord. As crowds took up a threatening stance outside other stores, the police ordered every department store and chain store in the city to close for the day. In Breslau a number of department stores and Jewish shops, among them Wertheim, Tietz and the Ehape chain store, were shut at midday while SA men told the public not to buy in department stores; in Frankfurt SA groups cordoned off the department stores, which then closed. In Dresden the police, after consulting higher authority, insisted that chain stores closed that morning be allowed to reopen. In Gotha a group smashed the stock of the Woolworth store; according to the first official findings, they were Communists posing as Nazis.^3,5,6,7

3. Persecution Breslau

   Jewish judges and lawyers driven from the Breslau courts

   SA men entered the regional and district courts in Breslau and demanded that the Jewish judges and lawyers leave the building. They did so; after a while the police occupied the courts and the SA withdrew. An SA detachment also occupied the Breslau produce exchange while its board was fixing the official prices, searched those present for weapons and ordered them out, so that no official quotations were published.^5,6

4. Terror Magdeburg; Bochum; Aachen

   Magdeburg’s mayor and Ruhr union leaders in custody

   At midday an SA detachment came to Magdeburg town hall and told Mayor Reuter to give up his office and follow them; as he left with them, a police squad took him into ‘protective custody’, together with the deputy mayor Goldschmidt. In Bochum SA men had occupied the trade union house and the offices of the metalworkers’ and miners’ unions during the night; the miners’ leader and Social Democratic Reichstag deputy Husemann and several other union officials were taken into ‘protective custody’, and the miners’ union telegraphed protests to the Reich interior minister, Papen and Hindenburg. In Aachen SA men occupied the offices of the Centre party paper Der Volksfreund.^3,5

5. The states Karlsruhe; Lübeck; Berlin

   Commissioners take over in Baden and Lübeck

   In Karlsruhe the Reich commissioner Wagner put commissioners in charge of the Baden ministries, among them the Landtag deputy Walter Köhler for finance, the Reichstag deputy Rupp for justice and the newspaper editor Otto Wacker for education, and State President Schmitt was taken into ‘protective custody’. In Lübeck the Reich took over the powers of the highest state authority, entrusted to the syndic Völtzer, who that evening removed Senator Geister from office. Göring formally summoned the new Reichstag to meet at the Kroll Opera at 17:00 on 21 March, after the morning services in Potsdam, and the Prussian Landtag was called for 22 March.^3,4,5,6

6. Propaganda evening, Berlin

   Hitler at the Kaiserdamm, and a letter to Papen

   In the evening Hitler addressed a Nazi rally in the exhibition halls at Kaiserdamm in Berlin before Sunday’s local elections, broadcast on most German stations after an introduction by Goebbels, who called it the largest indoor rally the capital had ever seen and claimed that nothing was more lawful than the new state. Hitler claimed that Germany’s fate had now been settled for good. In an undated letter to Papen, answering his complaint that SA men had stopped foreign cars, threatened diplomats’ wives and torn flags from their cars, Hitler insisted that SA men had in fact prevented worse, that a ‘systematic barrage’ of complaints aimed to halt the ‘national uprising’, and that he would not be turned from destroying Marxism.^2,4,5,6

   Sources disagree. The letter to Papen is undated; the editors of the Reich Chancellery files date it 11 March because it refers to an incident of 10 March as ‘yesterday’. The SA’s own report blamed ‘wild civilians’; a Foreign Office note said a young SA man tore the flag from the Romanian envoy’s car.