Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich
The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich was a six-member ministerial council created in Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler on 30 August 1939, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland - which provoked the beginning of World War II - with the purpose of allowing the continuation of the Nazi government, especially in relation to the war effort, while Hitler concentrated on prosecuting the war. The council has been described as functioning as a "war cabinet," although this assessment is disputed.
This institution should not be confused with the Reich Defense Council, which was established in 1938 and met only two times.
Background
Immediately before his planned invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler, the Führer and Reich Chancellor of Nazi Germany, anticipated spending an increasing amount of time prosecuting the war, to the detriment of his domestic duties. This would be a problem because the Enabling Act of 1933 had transformed what had been the democratic Weimar Republic into a totalitarian dictatorship in which all "legislation" was done by decrees which required Hitler's signature. A solution was needed to allow the domestic affairs of the country - at least as far as they involved the war effort - to continue. Thus a decree was issued on 30 August 1939 creating the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich to act in Hitler's stead, and setting out its membership and procedures.The idea for the Council appears to have originated with Göring, with Hitler agreeing to it in order to get legislation needed for the war effort quickly put into action. Hitler retained the right to overrule the council. In effect, his power had been delegated to the council, which did not replace him.
Members
The members of the council were:| Portrait | Name | Member since | Notes |
| Hermann Göring | 30 August 1939 | Hitler's designated heir and head of the Four Year Plan – which controlled the war economy – who served as the Council's chairman. | |
| Rudolf Hess | 30 August 1939 | The Deputy Führer, as the representative of the Nazi Party. | |
| Martin Bormann | 29 May 1941 | After Hess's flight to Scotland, he was replaced on the Council by Bormann, his former Chief of Staff and Personal Secretary. After 1 September 1939, however, Bormann was in personal attendance on Hitler in his role as Secretary to the Führer, and therefore could not represent the office of the Deputy to the Führer on the Council when Hitler was away from Berlin. | |
| Wilhelm Frick | 30 August 1939 | The Interior Minister, as the General Plenipotentiary for the Reich Administration. | |
| Heinrich Himmler | 24 August 1943 | After Frick's dismissal as the Interior Minister and the General Plenipotentiary of the Reich Administration, he was replaced on the Council by Himmler, his successor in these posts. | |
| Walther Funk | 30 August 1939 | The Economics Minister, as the General Plenipotentiary for the Economy. | |
| Wilhelm Keitel | 30 August 1939 | The Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, as the representative of the military. | |
| Hans Lammers | 30 August 1939 | The Chief of the Reich Chancellery, representing Hitler. |
All Council members were also members of the larger Reich Cabinet proper, which had met for the last time on 5 February 1938.
Authority and actions
The council, per Hitler's decree, was given the right to issue decrees "with the force of law" for the whole period "of the current foreign policy tension". These decrees did not have to be signed by Hitler, and were instead signed by Göring, with countersignatures by Frick or Lammers. The decrees were prepared by departments of the Reich government. Hitler was only consulted in cases where the council was uncertain of what course of action to take.Because Hitler has confined the council to issuing decrees which were only effective within "the territory of the German Reich" - which included the General Government which consisted of Göring, Frick and Keitel - or Frick, Funk and Keitel - which could also issue decrees using Frick's authority as Plenipotentiary for Reich Administration or for economic matters Göring's authority as head of the war economy super-agency, the Four Year Plan.
According to Wilhelm Frick, in a lecture on "The Reich Administration during Wartime," delivered on 7 March 1940 at the University of Freiburg:
Within the organization of our state, the position of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich is characterized by the fact that for the duration of the war, it became the highest permanent organ of the Reich with comprehensive jurisdiction, responsible only to the Fuehrer. … In order to perform its duties, the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich has the power to issue decree laws. This power is restricted only so far as the Fuehrer may order the passing of a law by the Reich Cabinet or the Reichstag. Otherwise the legislative power of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich is without restriction, it has the power to regulate everything by decree.
The council, upon coming into existence, immediately began issuing decrees touching on all aspects of Reich defense. Following the outbreak of the war on 1 September 1939, it appointed Nazi Party Gauleiters to the position of Reich Defense Commissioner in each of the 15 Military Districts to organize civil defense and mobilization. Later in the war the council would decree a change in jurisdiction from the Wehrkreis to the Gau level, and all 42 Gauleiters became Reich Defense Commissioners. Another decree, issued on 5 September 1939, increased the penalties for certain criminal acts against persons or property during wartime. Another, issued on 7 September 1939, involved a ban on listening to foreign radio broadcasts.
Despite these decrees, the council had little real practical impact, aside from reducing even further the policy influence of the individual ministries, continuing the trend of turning each into a mere technical apparatus which implemented decisions from above. The Council met on only a small number of occasions, and not after mid-November 1939, Göring having essentially lost interest in it.
Historian Martin Broszat points out that:
In theory this new War Cabinet could have become a new collegiate organ of the Reich government with Göring at the head of the cabinet. in practice, however, Göring did not make use of such possibilities. Instead, like Hitler, he soon urged that any extensive legislative schemes should be shelved during the war. On 5 June 1940, a Führer decree was also issued that ordered 'that all laws and regulations which are not directly relevant to the defense of the Reich must be postponed indefinitely'.
Although Broszat refers to the council as a "war cabinet", Hitler biographer, historian Ian Kershaw, points out that a true war cabinet would have included Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, and the Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. In Kershaw's assessment:
...Hitler's own sharp antennae towards any restriction on his power, any limitation to the principles of his untrammeled personalized rule, vitiated from the outset the possibility of a true delegation of the head of government's role to Göring and the erection of a genuine 'war cabinet'. Such was Hitler's sensitivity to anything which might impose limits on his own freedom of action, or constitute a possible internal threat to his position, that he would block Lammer's feeble attempts to reinstate cabinet meetings in 1942, and even refuse permission for ministers to gather occasionally for an evening around a beer table.