No subject

study, Hitler networked with considerable success among the great and =
the
good. His early sponsors included the Bechsteins, owners of the piano
company. They invited him to receptions at their house in Munich and
showered him with gifts, including his first luxury car, a red Mercedes
worth 26,000 marks. Elsa Bruckmann, who was born Princess Cantacuzene of
Romania, introduced Hitler to the wealthy industrialists who frequented =
the
=91salon Bruckmann=92 and presented Hitler with his first riding whip =
(until
that point, he had carried a cane). Indeed, all three of Hitler=92s =
prized
leather whips were presents from high society ladies. Throughout the =
1920s,
his access to elite society steadily increased. There was no need for =
Hitler
to assimilate himself to the social norms of his hosts, for his
attractiveness lay precisely in his louche, somewhat uncouth manners and =
the
=91aroma of adventure=92 that surrounded him. There was an undeniable =
frisson in
welcoming a guest who left his revolver and bodyguards at the door when =
he
entered a salon.

The Nazi movement acquired supporters as high up in the traditional =
social
elite as it was possible to go. Among Hermann G=F6ring=92s close =
associates was
Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, son of the Kaiser, who became =
interested
in Nazism in 1926 and joined the Stormtroopers in 1930. Through August
Wilhelm, G=F6ring gained access to his brother Crown Prince Wilhelm von
Preussen, and to the princes of Hessen, Christoph and Philipp. G=F6ring =
was
renowned (and resented by some Nazis) for his sycophantic attraction to =
the
high-born, but he was not alone. Himmler, too, targeted the nobility, in =
the
firm belief that they embodied the principles of selective breeding =
espoused
by his SS. By 1938 nearly a fifth of all senior SS officers were titled
noblemen (the figure for the lower officer ranks was 10 per cent). From =
a
sample of 312 families of the old nobility, the Freiburg historian =
Stephan
Malinowski found 3592 individuals who joined the Nazi Party, including =
962
who did so before the seizure of power in January 1933. These noble =
Nazis
included members of the oldest and most distinguished East Elbian =
families:
the Schwerins supplied 52 party members, the Hardenbergs 27, the =
Tresckows
30, and the Schulenburgs 41.

The very highest-born families, descendants of the ruling dynasties of =
the
German principalities, were especially susceptible to the party=92s =
appeal.
Duke Ernst August of Braunschweig (who was married to one of the =
princesses
of Prussia) was a regular donor to the party and a close associate of
several Nazi leaders (though he never became a card-carrying Nazi); Duke
Carl Eduard von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (a grandson of Queen Victoria, =
born
Prince of Great Britain and Ireland, and known to his British friends as
Charlie Coburg) joined the party in 1933 and became an =
SA-Gruppenf=FChrer in
1936. Some princely families flocked to the party en masse =96 14 from =
the
House of Hesse, ten from the Schaumburg-Lippes, 20 from the Hohenlohes =
and
so on. In all, it seems that between a third and half of the eligible
members of German princely families joined the party. As the American
scholar Jonathan Petropoulos observed in his study of the princes of =
Hessen,
if princes had constituted a profession, =91they would have rivalled
physicians as the most Nazified in the Third Reich (doctors=92 =
membership
peaked in 1937 at 43 per cent)=92.[*] Reck-Malleczewen himself was =
confronted
with the extent of elite support when he visited a Berlin nightclub =
early in
1939 and found it heaving with =91young men of the rural nobility, all =
of them
in SS uniforms=92.

An interest in the relationship between the traditional elites of German
society and the National Socialist movement developed only quite =
recently.
There are various reasons for this: the celebration of German military
resistance as the moral foundation stone of the new Federal Republic =
created
an implicit linkage between high birth and principled opposition to Nazi
criminality; many of the relevant archival sources are still in the =
hands of
the families and some are less willing than others to support research; =
and
for a long time it was widely believed that Nazism was in essence a =
movement
of the downwardly mobile petite bourgeoisie =96 shopkeepers, clerks, =
tradesmen
and minor officials who saw in the movement=92s authoritarian racist =
politics
a promise of rescue from d=E9classement and proletarianisation. Nobles =
were
too small a social group, of course, to make a significant contribution =
to
Nazi electoral success, but d=92Almeida is surely right to suggest that =
the
closeness between parts of the Nazi leadership and parts of the upper =
social
stratum helps to explain why a coterie of senior German politicians of
mainly noble descent were prepared to entrust the Nazi leader with high
office in January 1933.
[snip]