Gau (district)- Main territorial unit in the intricate Nazi party structure. When reorganized in the mid 1920s, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) was divided into units corresponding roughly to the old Reichstag electoral districts. The Gau was also identical with a civil defense region. Each Gau was headed by a Gauleiter (district leader), appointed by Hitler and responsible to him. In turn, the Gau was broken down into Kreise (circuits), each being adminstered by a Kreisleiter. The next-smallest party unit was the Ortsgruppe (local group). In the cities the Ortsgruppen were subdivided into street cells (Zellen). This party structure was maintained basically after Hitler came to power. Additional Gaue were set up in 1938 for Austria and Czechoslovakia. In all, there were 42 Gaue. The Auslandorganisation, which supervised Germans abroad, was regarded as the forty-third Gau.
Gefolgschaft (followers)- Term used by Hitler to describe those who were governed by fidelity to the Fuhrer. Hitler adoped the ideal of military leadership and discipline as the most effective means of creating an orderly state. He insisted that for the people to be led was to cooperate voluntarily and not to be commanded. He regarded himself as an official carrying out the will of the people. Fuhrer and followers were expected to be faithful to each other.
Gefolgschaft was also the official name of the retinue provided by the Hitler Jugend. This organization was expected to furnish loyal support for the Fuhrer. Everything the youngsters did, even their play, was regarded as an important part of their ideological training as the Gefolgschaft of the leader. In 1935 a book of tales was published for the Hitler Jugend Gefolgschaft with their battle cry for its young readers: "No one shall live after the Fuhrer's death!"
Geheime Staatspolizei See Gestapo
Geheimer Kabinettsrat (Secret Cabinet Council)- A special secret cabinet set up by Hitler on February 4, 1938, to guide him in the conduct of foreing affairs. That day the Fuhrer dropped Constantin Freiherr von Neurath as Foreing Minister and replaced him with Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was more agreeable to a policy of aggression. Von Neurath was named presiding officer of the new cabinet. Its members included the chiefs of the three armed services as well as General Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Nazi propoganda attempted to depict the council as Hitler's supercabinet. Actually, it never functioned at all. At Nuremberg Hermann Goering denied the existence "even for a minute".
Gelb (yellow) Secret code name for the attack on France and the Low Countries in May 1940. On October 9, 1939, Hitler issued a war directive giving provisional orders for such an attack, known by the cover name Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). "I have decided, without further loss of time, to go over to the offensive. Any further delay will not only entail the end of Belgian and perhaps of Dutch neutrality, to the advantage of the Allies, but it will also increasingly strengthen the military power of the enemy, reduce the confidence of the neutral nations in Germany's final victory, and make it more difficult to bring Italy as a fully ally into the war." Operation Yellow was implemented in May 1940 with notable success.
Generalfeldmarschall (GFM; General Feild Marshal) The highest rank in the German armed forces. In addition to the prestige of an exalted rank, the Generalfeldmarschall received an annual salary of 36,000 reichsmarks plus allowances, all of it exempt from income tax. The honor had been used sparingly before the era of the Third Reich. In World War I only five general field marshals were named by Emperor William II, and not even General Erich Ludendorff was given the honor. In a flush of enthusiasm at the collapse of France, Hitler on July 19, 1940, created twelve new general field marshals: Walther von Brauchitsch, Wilhelm Keitel, Gerd von Rundstedt, Walther von Reichenau, Fedor von Bock, Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, Wilhelm List, Gunther Hans von Kluge, Erwin von Witzleben, and Luftwaffe General Erhard Milch. Albert Kesselring, and Hugo Sperrle. In naming these officers to the highest military rank the Fuhrer had the additional motive of strengthening his hold over the conservative military caste, which he mistrusted.
On January 31, 1943, Hitler conferred the honor on General Friedrich von Paulus in the hope that his besieged general would hold out at Stalingrad. By this time Hitler was furious with the officers who had disappointed him in the Russian campaign. The next day he told a war conference at his field headquarters: "This is the last Field Marshal that I shall appoint in this war." Ironically, that very day, orders came through for the naming of three more: Ernst von Busch, Ewald von Kleist, and Maximilian Freiherr von Weichs. Four more were subsequently named: Walther Model, Ferdinand Schoerner, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, and Robert Ritter von Greim. Erwin Rommel was made a field marshal in 1942. General Erich von Manstein, who held the rank himself, testified at Nuremberg that, of the many active general field marshals who took part in World War II, ten were sent home during the war and three lost their lives for bein implicated in the July Plot of 1944.
German-American Bund- A pro-Nazi organization in the United States during the early years of the Third Reich. Of the numerous American Nazi groups that emerged in the 1930s the largest was the Friends of New Germany, which in 1935 became the German-American Bund. Under the leadership of Fritz Kuhn the German-American Bund organized camps for its members and children in New Jersey and held mass meetings at Madison Square Garden in New York. Proud of his contacts with leading figures of the Third Reich, Kuhn conveyed to friends inside Germany a somewhat exaggerated picture of the strength and influence of his organization in the United States. The Steuben Society, a conservative German-American organization, warned Hitler that the American people were angered by the activities of the German-American Bund on their soil. The Fuhrer had ambivalent feelings about the Bund: on the one hand it supported the racial ties he so vehemently espoused, but on the other hand he was concerned about the possible effects on American public opinion. Officially Hitler disavowed the German-American Bund after protests were received from the American Ambassador in Berlin. The Fuhrer denied that German-Americans owed allegiance to Germany and promised "to throw any official into the North Sea who sent Nazi propoganda to the United States." The Bund made little headway in the United States and vanished during World War II.
German Labor Front- See Deutsche Arbeitsfront
German Workers' Party- See Deutsch Arbeiterpartei
German Youth Movement- See Bund Deutschermadel: Hitler Jugend
Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei; Secret State Police) A secret police force dedicated to the tast of maintaining the national Socialist regime. Hitler deemed it necessary to protect the existence of the Third Reich by a political police that would track down and eliminate all dissidents, complainers, and opponents. He regarded any individual, no matter what his status, as a potential suspect. His Gestapo became a symbol of the Nazi reign of terror
In the early days of the Nazi movement Hitler was protected by a personal bodyguard called the Stabswache, the Headquarters Guard. In the late 1920s this small group was enlarged into the SS, all of whose units were combined in 1929 under Heinrich Himmler. In April 1933 Hermann Goering incorporated the political police of Prussia into the Gestapo as Amt (Office) IV of the Reichssicherheithauptamt, the Central Security Office of the Third Reich. He set up headquarters in a suitable group of buildings on Prinz Albrechtstrasse in Berlin, formerly occupied by an arts and crafts school and not far from his own reconstructed palace.
Meanwhile, a struggle for power in the party took place between Goering and Himmler. Each wanted to be head of a unified political police force. At the time the meek-looking but overwhelmingly ambitious Himmler held a secondary post as police president of Munich. One of his assistants was Heinrich Muller, later to head the Gestapo. Himmler prepared the way by gradually taking control of the political police in a series of German states. Finally, in April 1934, he headed the entire unified political police force.
The Gestapo organization was extended throughout Germany and developed into the most important security organ of the state. It became autonomous and set up its own legal system, with power far exceeding that of any law court in the Third Reich, and began to exercise its right to assume control over the lives, freedom, and property of all Germans. In working for "the annihilation of the enemy," it could and did use any methods it deemed necessary. It hunted down Jews, Marxists, and Bolsheviks. It interrogated and imprisoned anyone who told an anti-Nazi joke. It made reports on persons who dared to celebrate Emperor William II's birthday, for they were considered dangerous monarchists opposed to National Socialism. The average citizen was in dread of the Gestapo because of rumors about those who disappeared into its headquarters and suffered tortures in its cellars.
Gestapo methods were crude but effective. Any person suspected of opposition to the Hitler regime was first given a warning. If that did not work, he was taken into custody "for the security of the State." The usual form of punishment was assignment to a concentration camp. If the victim was considered really dangerous, he was arrested, interrogated, and sometimes beaten to death. Where it was necessary to provide a semblance of legality, the accused was brought before the Volksgericht, the People's Court. Here justice was dispensed on an assembly line.
The Gestapo played a role in virtually all the major developments of the Nazi movement. It was at the fulcrum of events before and after Hitler became Chancelor. It was in the background of such important occurrences as the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis, the Anschluss between Germany and Austria, and the acquisition of Czechoslovakia. During World War II it was instrumental in breaking down resistance in the occupied countries. Gestapo agents were active during the terror in Poland, in the execution of Russian prisoners of war, and in the arrest and slaughter of the conspirators of July 1944. Not only was the Gestapo a formidable organization inside the Third Reich, but it extended its activities throughout Europe and even to the distant parts of the world. It followed the German armed forces into occupied countries and used its own tested methods to destroy all elements hostile to Nazi rule. Everywhere it was regarded as one of the cruelest police forces of modern times.
Gleiwitz Raid (Operation Himmler) A simulated assault on a German radio station by "Polish" troops on the evening before the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. In early August 1939 Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo, called in Alfred Helmut Naujocks and outlined to him details of a fictitious Polish attack on a small German radio station at Gleiwitz, just 1 mile from the Polish border. The idea was to make it appear that the attacking force consisted of Poles. Practical proof was needed, said Heydrich, for such attacks by Poles "for the foreign press as well as for propoganda." Naujocks, an adventurous daredevil, was delighted by the assignment. Leading a force of six SS men, he went ot Gleiwitz and waited fourteen days to study the situation. There he was told that he would be supplied with an expendable condemned criminal from one of the concentration camps, who would be dressed in a Polish uniform and left dead at the scene as "evidence."
At 7:30 on the evening of August 31, Naujocks and his commandos, clad in Polish uniforms, stormed into the radio station, first a fusillade of shots, and with pistol butts slugged the employees. One of the raisders seized an emergency transmitter and barked out in perfect Polish: "People of Poland! The time has come for war between Poland and Germany! Unite and smash down any German, all Germans, who oppose your war. Trample all resistance! The time has come!" The commandos fired more shots that could be heard by Radio Gleiwitz listeners. Then they fled, leaving the blood-soaked body (in civilian clothes) of the unfortunate camp inmate shot by them at the site of the raid.
The next day, in a high state of excitement, Chancellor Hitler informed the German people that they were at war with Poland. Among the reasons he gave for his invasion was "the attack by regular Polish troops on the Gleiwitz transmitter."
Goebbels's Final Testament On April 29, 1945, Dr. Goebbels added his ssignature as a witness to Hitler's political testament. He then wrote an appendix to the Fuhrer's testament in whihc he gave his own personal apologia. The text follows:
The Fuhrer has ordered me, should the defense of the Reich capital collapse, to leave Berlin, and to take part as a leading member of a government appointed by him.For the first time in my life, I must categorically refuse to obey an order of the Fuhrer. My wife and children join me in this refusal. Otherwise-quite apart from the fact that feelings of humanity and loyalty forbid us to abandon the Fuhrer in his hour of greatest need-I should appear for the rest of my life as a dishonorable traitor and common scoundrel, and should lose my self-respect together with the respect of my fellow citizens; a respect I should need in any future attempt to shape the future of the German Nation and State. . . . .
For this reason, together with my wife, and on behalf of my children, who are too young to speak for themselves, but who would unreservedly agree with this decision if they were old enough, I express an unalterable resolution not to leave the Reich capital, even if it falls, but rather, at the side of the Fuhrer, to end a life will have no further value to me if I cannot spend it in the service of the Fuhrer, and by his side.
Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods) Term used to describe the last days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker in late April 1945. The word was taken from the final part of Hitler's favorite opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner, which ends in an orgy of destruction. On April 1, the Fuhrer shifted his headquarters to a retreat just behind the old section of the Chancellery. Great clouds of smoke hovered in the midday sky over doomed Berlin. Russian artillery shells exploded incessantly, and gunfire thundered through the canyons of rubble. In the bunker, which was two stories deep and stocked with food, was gathered the remainder of Hitler's court.
The historian H.R. Trevor-Roper described the scene as a "cloud cuckoo-land." On April 21, Hitler ordered one last effort to throw the Russians back from Berlin. "Any commander who holds his men back," Hilter shouted, "will forfeit with his life within five hours." By this time the Fuhrer was deploying imaginary battalions and disposing of formations that existed only in his own mind. At a conference held the next day he went into a rage, crying that he had been deserted, surrounded by traitors, and smothered with lies and corruption. The end had come at last. His Third Reich had been a failure, and there was nothing left for him to do but die. His face, formerly tanned by the sun, was puffy and florid. He wore dark trousers, a field-gray tunic, a white collar with a black tie, and the Iron Cross as his only decoration.
Hitler gave way to despair: "My friends, I see that all is lost. I shall remain in Berlin. I shall fall here in the Reich Chancellery. I can serve the German people best in that way. There is no sense in continuing any longer." e urged the others to flee: "Ge out, get out! Go to South Germany. I'll stay here. It is all over anyhow." General Wilhelm Keitel cut in: "We won't leave you. I'd be ashamed to face my wife and children if I deserted you." Hitler waved him aside. Martin Bormann added his objection: "This would be the first time I ever disobeyed you. I won't go." General Alfred Jodl spoke up calmly: "I shall not stay in this mouse hole. We are soldiers. Give us an army group and orders to fight wherever possible. But I won't stay in this mouse hole." On other days Hitler would have had Jodl shot for this remark. Now he shrugged and said: "Do what you wish--it doesn't mean anything to me any more."
Then came successive shocks for the Fuhrer. On April 23, Hermann Goering sent a telegram to Hitler:
My Fuhrer! In view of your decision to remain at your post in the fortress of Berlin, do you agree that I take over, at once, the total leadership of the Reich, with full freedom of action, at home and abroad, as your deputy, in accordance with your decree of 29 June 1941? If no reply is received by ten o'clock tonight, I shall take it for granted that you have lost your freedom of action, and shall consider the conditions of your decree as fulfilled, and shall act for the best interests of our country and our people. You know what I feel for you in this gravest hour of my life. Words fail me to express myself. May God protect you, and speed you quickly here in spite of all. Your loyal Hermann Goering.
After this blow Hitler learned that Heinrich Himmler had been attempting on his own to start negotiations with the Allies. Hitler's rage was monumental at these evidences of treason by his closest associates. The news was now given him that the Allies had raided Obersalzberg from the air and had left the Berhof looking like a landscape on the moon. Hermann Fegelein, the brother-in-law of Eva Braun, attempted to escape from the bunker, but he was captured at Hitler's orders, taken out into the Chancellery yard, and shot.
On April 29, 1945, Hitler married Eva Braun in an underground ceremony. he dictated his last will and his political testament. The next afternoon, in the quiet of the bunker, he shot a bullet into his mouth. Eva Braun ended her life beside him. Following his instructions, his body was drenched with fuel and burned. After putting to death their six daughters, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels and his wife committed suicide.
Graf Spee- German pocket battleship, the pride of Nazism and symbol of Hitler's rising naval power. It was named after Graf Maximillian von Spee (1861-1914), German naval hero of World War I, who was defeated by a British squadron on December 8, 1914, in the Battle of the Falkland Islands and who went down with his flagship, the Scharnhorst. Launched at Wilhelmshaven in 1934, the Graf Spee was the third and last of the German pocket battleships designed by naval technicians to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles. She was a miracle of naval construction, a fast, light, heavily armored warship noted for firepower and speed. As long as three New York City blocks and as wide as a four-lane superhighway, she was protected by a belt of armor. She had six 11-inch guns, eight 6-inch rifles, and eight 19.7 inch torpedo tubes. Able to cruise at 26 knots, she could outrun any ship she could not outshoot.
At the outbreak of World War II, the Graf Spee, under the command of Capt. Hans Langsdorff and with a crew of 1,107, moved to the southern seas to prey on Allied commerce. The neutral nations of South America had drawn a 300-mile safety belt, which no belligerent warships were supposed to penetrate, but Hitler paid no attention. For several months, the Graf Spee cruised through the South Atlantic and sank at least nine ships. For the British Admiralty this was a serious challenge. In early December it urged Brazilian authorities to allow the sale of British fuel to Nazi firefighters at Brazilian ports. The British guessed that these fuel-laden freighters were on missions to refuel Nazi raiders at sea. They could be followed.
On the morning of December 13, 1939, the Graf Spee approached the coast of Uruguay. Waiting were three British cruisers patiently on the search for her, the fast 8,300 ton Exeter, the 7,030 ton Achilles, and the 6,985 ton Ajax. The three British ships surrounded the Graf Spee and sent volley after volley against her. Captain Langdorff turned his battereis on the largest British warship, the Exeter, and in four hours put her out of action. Below deck, imprisoned in the Graf Spee's holds, were sixty British seamen who had been captured in raids on merchant ships. The British sailors cheered wildly as the German ship shuddered violently from the impact of the British shells.
The struggle continued for fourteen hours. The Graf Spee was doing well, but Captain Langsdorff, concerned about the pounding from the Ajax and Achilles, ordered forced draft and turned southwest in search of a haven. Thirty of his crew had been killed, and some sixty of his seamen were wounded. Followed by the British warships, Captain Langsdorff sought refuge in the neutral waters of Montevideo harbor. In Montevideo he buried thirty-six of his crew and hospitalized the wounded. His damage control crew then went to work to repair the battered ship. He requested fifteen days to complete repairs, but the Uruguayan government informed him that he had to leave within two days or be interned with his crew. Meanwhile, the British cruisers waited outside the harbor. Though days away, British reinforcements sped toward Montevideo under forced draft. British radio reports spoke of overwhelming naval forces converging on the scene.
By this time, the attention of the entire world was riveted on the sensational drama taking place at Montevideo. At 6 pm on Sunday, December 17, the Graf Spee weighed anchor and moved uncertainly along the Rio de la Plata. Thousands of spectators on shore awaited the battle in the fading daylight. Suddenly the large warship stopped, and her accompanying tugboats moved away. A pillar of smoke from midships shot skyward. There were bursts of flame as explosions shattered the ship. Within three minutes she sank to the bottom of the harbor. Captain Langsdorff, his entire crew, and the captive British seamen reached shore safely and were interned. Three days later the depressed Captain Langsdorff, wrapped in the flag of the old Imperial Navy, put a bullet into his head. Hitler himself had given the order to scuttle the Graf Spee rather than see her humiliated in defeat. For the British the destruction of the powerful German warship was a hopeful sign at a time of little good news from the battlefronts.
Grossdeutscher Bund (Greater German League) A group of nationalistic youth organizations in the Weimar Republic. Led by Adm. Adolf von Trotha (1868-1940), a friend of President Paul von Hindenburg, the young patriots had an annual Lager (encampment) at which they sang patriotic songs and listened to nationalistic speeches. On June 17, 1933, the first encampment after Hitler took political power was surrounded by police and SS men, and the boys were sent home. The same day the Grossdeutscher Bund was ordered dissolved, and Baldur von Schirach was named Reich Youth Leader. When Admiral von Trotha protested, his home was searched and he was listed as a suspicious person for opposing Nazi Gleichschaltung, or coordination. In 1936, however, he accepted honorary membership in the navy division of the Hitler Jugend, the Hitler Youth.
Grossdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire) Designation of an expanded Germany that was intended to include all German-speaking people in one political entity. The idea originated in the early nineteenth century with the beginning of the German national movement and was presented originally by Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860). Arndt called for a single strong, proud realm including all Germans. The matter came to a head during the Revolution of 1848. The Frankfurt Assembly was hampered both by the wishes of the multinational Austrian movement and by the Prussian urge to lead Germany. Was there to be a Greater German (grossdeutsch) or a Little German (kleindeutsch) settlement? The latter solution would mean Prussian hegemony. German unification was achieved by Otto von Bismarck in 1871 in conformity with the kleindeutsch concept.
For Hitler, an Austrian by birth, the Third Reich could have no meaning unless Austria were included, nor could the Greater German program be successful without absorbing Czechoslovakia. He pushed the idea of expansion from the beginning of his regime: he regained the Saar region; he withdrew from the League of Nations; he remilitarized the Rhineland; he discarded the Treaty of Locarno; he won Anschluss with Austria; and he absorbed Czechoslovakia. Greater Germany included most of Western Europe during the early years of World War II. By 1944, German postage stamps were changed to read "Grossdeutsches Reich" instead of "Deutsches Reich." For the triumphant Hitler this was an achievement that had been desired throughout a century of German history.
Grun (Grun) Code name for Hitler's plan to conquer Czechoslovakia. In March 1938 the Fuhrer ordered Konrad Henlein, leader of the Sudeten German party in Czechoslovakia, to accelerate his campaign of disobedience and harrassment to inside the country. He then conferred with his generals and drew up plans to fabricate a pretext for war. On May 20, 1938, Hitler added this introductory paragraph to the text of Fall Grun (Case Green): "It is my unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future. To wait for, or bring about, the moment which is politically and militarily suitable is the tast of military leadership." The military leaders were reluctant to follow the Fuhrer in this dangerous scheme. For Hitler himself, the policy of appeasement, adopted by both Great Britain and France, was an uncomfortable barrier to be overcome by direct action.
Guernica- Spanish town attacked by the Condor Legion in a bombing from the air. Situated in the province of Vizcaya in the Basque country, on an outlet to the Bay of Biscay, Guernica was a town o 5,000 population, a religious center without military importance. In its center was an oak tree where the traditional liberties of the Basques were periodically confirmed in local celebrations. On April 27, 1937, at 4:30 on a cloudless Monday afternoon, German airmen descended on Guernica in a devastating raid. The bombing was denounced throughout the world as unnecessary. Critics charged that the Germans were testing the joint effect of explosive and incendiary bombs on civilians. In his memoirs, the German fighter ace Adolf Galland, who arrived in Spain shortly before the raid, called the bombing accidental and attributed it to the inexperienced crews. The Condor Legion, he insisted, was under orders to spare civilians as much as possible. The destruction of Guernica, he said, caused great depression among members of the Condor unit.
The bombing of Guernica was memorialized in a great painting. At the time of the air raid, the artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was engaged by the Loyalist goverment to pain a mural for its pavilion at a Paris fair to be held later that year. The attack on Guernica gave him his subject, and within a month he completed an extraordinary painting. The monochromatic mural, in black, gray, and white, is considered one of the great paintings of the twentieth century. Critics have praised the simplicity of Guernica which makes it a picture easily understood, and have pointed to the forms that are divested of all complications which could distract from their meaning. One critic has spoken of "signs of unmistakeable as those used by primitive artists." The painting, retained by the artist in trust for the Spanish nation, was shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Picasso stipulated that it was not to be returned to his native country as long as General Francisco Franco was alive.