Fehmegerichte- (Fehme Courts)- Secret courts in the Weimar Republic composed of rightist members of paramilitary organizations. The name was taken from the medieval Fehmegerichte, courts that dispensed a brutal form of justice at a time when ordinary law courts were without power. The Fehmegerichte of the early 1920s were set up to punish those suspected of denouncing rightist nationalists either to the Reich disarmament authorities or to the Allied Control Commission. Because members of the Fehmegerichte were also connected with the Reichswehr, they became known as the Black Reichswehr. Such freebooter Fehmists as Edmund Heines eventually transferred their allegiance to the growing Nazi movement.
Feinhorer (Listeners to Enemy Broadcasts) Persons who listened to enemy broadcasts during World War II. They were included in the category of Volksschadlinge, or enemies of the people. Teen-agers were encouraged to denounce their parents, who made a practice of listening to the British BBC or other Allied broadcasts.
Feldjagerkorps (Sharpshooter Corps)- A shock formation of the SA used in the early days of the Nazi movement to fight the battle of the streets against the Communists. The Feldjagerkorps was disbanded in 1933 after Hitler became Chancellor and was incorporated into the regular police.
Felix- Code name for the prospective capture of Gibraltar, the Spanish Canary Islands, and the Portugeuse Cape Verde Islands. In a directive issued on November 12, 1940, Hitler spoke of destroying the British position in the western Mediterranean. General Francisco Franco was anxious to profit from Hitler's patronage, but he was unwilling to pay any price for it. Hitler was attracted by the possibility of isolating the British and regarded Gibraltar as a key point in this area. His directive was clear-cut:
Spain and Portugal- Political measures to bring about the entry into the war of Spain in the near future have been instituted. The aim of German intervention in the Iberian peninsula (cover name Felix) will be to drive the English from the Western Mediterranean.i. Gibraltar is to be captured and the Straits closed
ii. The English are to be prevented from gaining a foothold at any other point on the Iberian peninsula in the Atlantic Islands.
Hitler's ambition to close the Mediterranean to the British Fleet was never achieved. Within a month of this directive he quietly ordered that Felix be dropped "because the political conditions no longer exists."
Fifth Column- Hitler's network of secret sympathizers and supporters engaged in espionage, sabotage, and other subversive activities inside foreign countries. The term fifth column originally referred to Franco sympathizers inside Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, as described by Gen. Emilio Mola in a radio address on October 1 or 2, 1936, while he was leading a column of troops against the city. He referred to a fifth column of sympathizers inside Madrid. Shortly after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, a rumor spread that the Nazis were creating a worldwide network of conspirators to conquer nations from the inside. Nazi success with the Anschluss in Austria and the Munich Agreement in Czechoslovakia lent credence to the belief in a German fifth column. The swift conquest of Poland in 1939 and of Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France in 1940 seemed to confirm the idea. Fear of the German fifth column spread ahead of the German armies that penetrated Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Soviet Union. Later, historical analysis revealed that there were only two groups comparable to the fifth column most people were certain existed; these were in Poland and Yugoslavia. The popular belief was much exaggerated during the period when Hitler overextended himself in Europe. It is probable that unreasoning fear of the German fifth column achieved more for Hitler than the fifth column itself.
Films in the Third Reich- "I want to exploit the film as an instrument of propoganda." This statement was made by Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propoganda. At Hitler's instigation, Goebbels was directed to achieve Gleichschaltung, or coordination, of all the arts and media of communication in the Third Reich. The prospect of controlling the film industry was a task Goebbels relished, for not only was he interested in films, he was obsessed by them. As a young man he had been fascinated by motion pictures. In his position of political power in Nazi Germany he was able to do more than indulge in his favorite pastime: he could place his imprint upon every phase of the industry from production to acting to distribution.
Even on his busiest day, the Propoganda Minister found time to see at least one film and to write about it. His predilection for film actresses was never a secret. The little man with the piercing eyes, crippled foot, deep, resonant voice, and turned-on charm exerted a tremendous appeal on established film actresses as well as on ambitious starlets. Many could advance their careers if they could win the attention of the Propoganda Minister with the insatiable appetite for attractive women. Goebbels would entertain them either in the privacy of his office at the Ministry or at parties held frequently at his estate in Schwanenwerder, near Berlin.
The German film industry had won a worldwide reputation for originality and creativeness during the existence of the Weimar Republic. Such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) had set a new standard for film making. But the entire industry, in the view of Hitler and Goebbels's first concern was to purge Jews from every level of film making. He would "life the film industry out of the sphere of liberal and economic thought" and clothe it in National Socialist ideology.
Accordingly, as soon as the Nazis achieved political power, Goebbels moved to eliminate Jews and liberals from the production of films. The great figures of German films were forced into compulsory or voluntary exile. Among them were the directors Fritz Lang, Wilhelm Dieterle, and Ernst Lubitsch; the composers of film music Kurt Weill, Freidrich Hollander, Hanns Eisler, and Mischa Spoliansky; the actors Fritz Kortner, and Conrad Veidt; and the actresses Elisabeth Bergner, Marlene Dietrich, and Mady Christians. Conrad Veidt, although not a Jew, wrote the word Jude (Jew) across a racial questionnaire, packed his bags, and left Germany in disgust. Brigitte Helm was accused of "race defilement" because she had married a Jew.
The campaign against Jews in films persisted throughout the life of the Third Reich. A Jewish actor named Leo Reuss fled from Germany to Vienna, where he dyed his hair and beard blond and specialized in Aryan roles much praised by nazis. he then revealed himself as a Jew and emigrated to Hollywood. The beautiful actress Renate Muller, hounded by the Gestapo, committed suicide in 1937 at age thirty rather than yield to harassment by Goebbels's Propoganda Ministry. All Germany was stirred by the case of Joachim Gottschalk, one of the nation's most popular actors. The handsome young actor, who had married a Jew, repeatedly refused to follow a suggestion from Nazi officials that he divorce hsi wife and leave his half-Jewish child. In 1940, the Gestapo gave the wife, accused of Rassenschande, or race defilement, and her child one day to pack and join the home, they found Gottschalk, his wife, and his child dead. The news spread quickly through Berlin's artistic quarter, and there was a near revolt in the film studios.
Some film stars made their peace with the Nazi regime and decided to remain in Germany. These included the actors Emil Jannings, Heinrich George, Werner Kraus, and Gustav Grundgens and the actresses Lil Dagover and Pola Negri. The actress Anny Ondra, who was married to the boxer Max Schmeling, continued to work during the Nazi period.
The Final Solution See Endlosung, Die.
Flaschenbiergustav (Beer-Bottle Gustav)- Term of derision used by early Nazi orators to describe Gustav Stressemann, whose authority as Chancellor was restored after the failure of Hitler's Beer-Hall Putsch in 1923. Stresseman had written his doctoral dissertation on the economics of the German brewery industry. Nazi speakers, from Hitler to local leaders, regarded Stressemann as an especially dangerous political enemy and often expressed their contempt for him.
Focke, Wulf-190 (Fw-190)- Highly successful German combat plane. The Fw-190 was put on the production line in 1941, less than a year after the Messerschmitt-109 had been withdrawn following its defeat in the Battle of Britain. The Fw-190 was a superlatively designed aircraft that remained victorious in combat for two years. The Fw-190A-8 had a 1,700-horsepower air-cooled engine, a wingspan of 34.5 feet, a top speed of 408 miles per hour at 20,600 feet, and an armament of two 13-mm machine guns and four 20-mm cannon. Later designs were even faster. The plane quickly demonstrated its superiority to the British Spitfire by executing fast turns that would have torn the wings off any other fighter plane then in use. In June 1942 a Luftwaffe pilot in trouble landed his Fw-190 almost intact on British soil. British designeers studied the remarkable German plane, copied most of its features, and on short order produced the Hawker Fury to fight back on equal terms.
Four-Year Plan- Hitler's scheme for national self-sufficiency, devised in the summer of 1936. On September 9, 1936, at the annual Nazi party rally held in Nuremberg. Hitler proclaimed a Four-Year Plan to alter the structure of German economic life. The proclamation, read by Adolf Wagner, on behalf of the Fuhrer, contained these ideas:
I [Hitler] today present the following as the new Four-Year Plan. In four years Germany must be wholly independent of foreign areas in those materials which can be produced in any way through German ability, through our chemical and machine industry, as well as through our mining industry. The re-building of this great German raw material industry will serve to give employment to the masses. The implementation of the plan will take place with National Socialist energy and vigor. But in addition, Germany cannot relinquish the solution of its colonial demands. The right of the German people to live is surely as great as that of other nations. . .The success of this plan is merely a question of our energy and determination. National Socialists have never recognized the word "impossible".
Hitler entrusted the implementation of the Four-Year Plan to Hermann Goering, who became more and more interested in economic matters. During the next two years, in 1937 and 1938, it became obvious that Goering, an amateur in economic affairs, was increasingly in conflict with the more conservative views of Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics. On November 15, 1937, Schacht tendered his resignation from the economics ministry, effective the next January 15. In January 1939 he was removed from the presidency of the Reichsbank. Both posts went to Walther Funk, an economist who had been a close adviser of the Fuhrer.
The Four-Year Plan was continued into the war years under Goering's control, and the office was extended in the midst of the conflict. Again and again, Goering utilized forced labor on behalf of the plan, justifying this practice on the ground that the German people were fighting for their very existence.
Fragebogen, Der (The Questionnaire)- Book by Ernst von Salomon, published in 1951, in whihc the author gave detailed answeres in 791 pages to the 131 questions of the Allied military government's Fragebogen. After the defeat of Germany in 1945 the occupation authorities issued several detailed questionnaires to be used as a basis for denazification. The questionnaires were served on all Germans suspected of having directed, assisted, or collaborated with the National Socialist regime from 1933 to 1945. They were designed as a method of excluding from the future administration of Germany all those who had had any responsibility for the crimes of National Socialism.
In his book, Von Salomon, a writer of ability and a former right-wing activits, sought to disassociate himself from any guilt for the excesses of Nazism. He minimized his early association with the Freikorps, the freebooter paramilitary units that had a direct influence on the National Socialist movement and supplied it with much of its ideology, street tactics, and personnel. He admitted only that he possessed "the good, old-fashioned Prussian virtures". In long answers Von Salomon portrayed himself as a gay bohemian, contemptuous of dirty politics. Throughout, he adopted a tone of amused cynicism and mockery, attacking the naive set of questions with a spirited defense of the German people against individual and collective guilt for the crimes of Nazis.
The books was enormously successful in Germany where it sold a quarter of a million copies within three years. German cities condemned it stronly on both political and moral grounds and expressed the fear that it might have a deleterious effect on Germany's future. Outside Germany the book was denounced of evidence of deep-rooted tendencies of the Germany character that had not been eliminated with the fall of Hitler.
Frankfurt Trial- A trial held at Frankfurt am Main, of the chief SS officers who worked at the extermination camp of Auschwitz. Also known as the Auschwitz Trial, it took place from December 20, 1963, to August 20, 1965, the longest legal case in German records. Robert Karl Mulka and other SS defendants came mostly from middle-class families. Eight had a higher education. ;Most claimed that they were as innocent as their victims: "I knew only one mode of conduct: to carry out the orders of superiors without reservations" (Boger). "I had nothing to do with it" (Hocker). "I believed in the Fuhrer. I wanted to serve my people (Stark). "I naturally sought to save as many Jewish lives as possible" (Dr. Lucas). "No one died by my hand" (Hantl).
The testimony brought out such items as these:
Frauenschaften (Women's Organizations)- National Socialist women's auxiliaries. Founded as early as October 1, 1931, they had as their main task after Hitler came to political power the coordination of all women's organizations, including professional groups, into a National Socialist Frauenfront (Women's Front). Other women's organizations, especially the democratic, humanitarian societies, were accused of Marxism, enmity to the family, advocacy of abortion, and lack of patriotism. They were all brought into line with Nazi ideology. Hitler regarded any kind of feminism or women's liberation movement as forbidden activity. He expected women to play an inferior role in society. Above all, women were to be responsible for the task of bearing and rearing future leaders of the National Socialist state.
Freikorps (Free Corps)- Paramilitary units which after the defeat of Germany in 1918 became the available "force in being" for the formation of the new German army. The name was taken from the first Freikorps, a voluntary corps organized by a Major Lutzow in 1813 as the kernel of an army designed to win liberation from Napoleon. After 1919 a new freikorps, composed of former officers, demobilized soldiers, military adventureres, fanatical nationalists, and unemployed youths, was organized by Captain Kurt von Schleicher. Rightist in political philosophy, blaming Social Democrats and Jews for Germany's plight, the Freikorps called for the elimination of "traitors to the Fatherland." Friekorps units began to spring up all over Germany. At first Paul von Hindenberg and other generals supported the formation of these freebooter squads, but the behavior fo the volunteers eventually made them obnoxious to the old military clique. Freikorps units fought with Allied approval against the Bolsheviks in Lithuania and Latvia in 1919. Later, after the formation of a national army, remnants of the Freikorps formed murder squads to attack officials of the Weimar Republic.
Fuhrer Worship (Leadership worship) The practice during the Third Reich of presenting a larger-than-life image of the leader as an idol endowed with superhuman qualities. The Fuhrer was depicted to his people as a teetotaler, vegetarian, nonsmoker, and asexual bachelor, as a man without human ties of love or freindshipp. In popular legend he exemplified his people's yearning for greatness.
Germany became a vast camp of Hitler saluters. The new German greeting was "Heil Hitler!". This most frequent adaptation to Nazi ritual was an obligation for all citizens on every possible occasion. Everyone used the greeting: the butcher, the baker, the janitor, the bus conductor, the high official. Every child in the Third Reich was expected to use the greeting throughout the day. Boys and girls were told to denounce their own parents for failure to use the greeting or for reducing the salute to the infintessimal movement of the right arm accompanied by an inarticulate mumble.
Fuhrerbunker (Leader's Bunker)- Subterranean headquarters below the Chancellery and its garden in Berlin where Hitler spent his last days, from April 20 to 30, 1945. The Fuhrerbunker was constructed during World War II some 50 feet below the ground. It could be reached through the New Chancellery by descending a stairway from the butler's pantry. There were two levels. On the upper level was a dining passage separating six rooms on each side. On one side were the kitchens; on the other, the servants' quarters and three additional guest rooms. At the end of the central passage a curved stair led down to Hitler's own deeper bunker. This area had seventeen rooms, all small, cramped, and uncomfortable: Hitler's suite of three rooms, a map room used for conferences, the dressing room and bedroom and Eva Braun, the bedroom of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, the rooms of Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger, lavatories and bathrooms, an emergency telephone exchange, a drawing room, guardrooms, an anteroom and cloakroom, and a "dog bunker". From the cloakroom an emergency exit led up four flights into the Chancellery garden.
From April 22 to May 1, 1945, the following were present in the bunker:
The following were the major visitors to the bunker between April 20 and April 25, 1945
Fuhrerlexikon- The Nazi Who's Who. Published in 1934, it gave brief accounts of the Nazi party leaders and hierarchy, especially those who had taken part in the political drive for power. The lexicon gave the names of National Socialist fighters, martyrs, politicians, industrial managers, civil servants, lawyers, and technologists. There were some omissions, notably the name of Joachim von Ribbentrop, who at the time was regarded as a parvenu. Included also were the names of many third-rate, comparatively unknown Nazis. No women were mentioned, nor were there many names of the older military figures. A second edition was contemplated, but it never appeared.
Fuhrerprinzip (Leadership Principle)- Concept, outlined by Hitler in Mein Kampf, that the new Germany must be an authoritarian state with power emanating from the leader at the top. As early as July 1921 Hitler insisted that the Fuhrerprinzip (Fuhrer principle) be the law of the Nazi party. In Mein Kampf he denounced democracy as nonsense and made it clear that the coming Third Reich would be a dictatorship. "Every man will have advisers to help him, but the decision will be made by one man." "Irresponsible parliamentarianism" would be succeeded by the absolute responsibility of a leader and an elite of assistant leaders. The principle was applied to all National Socialist organizations; thus Frau Gertrud Scholtz-Klink became Fuhrerin of the National Socialist Frauenschaften