‘The day is not far off…’: The Millennial Reich and the Induced Apocalypse

Summary

‘The day is not far off’, Hitler told a journalist in 1931, ‘when we shall be living in great times once more.’ Hitler, furthermore, wanted the reporter to spread the good word, explaining that ‘what we now need is that intelligent writers should make clear to the citizens of Germany the historic turning point at which Germany stands today. We are on the threshold of a unique epoch in our history.’ This essay will discuss the Nazi belief, shared by many leaders and Old Guard followers alike, that Germany had reached a turning point of world historical significance, a time from which a millennial New Age would be born from the chaos of Weimar. To achieve the Millennial Reich, Hitler believed that the eschatological conflict between Aryan and Jew had to come to a ‘Final Solution’ (in all its apocalyptic connotations).

Weimar Apocalypse

The chaos of post-war Weimar Germany was experienced by many individuals who became Nazis as a time of apocalypse. Street fighting between the extreme left and the extreme right, political assassinations, seemingly endemic unemployment, a devastating hyperinflation followed by an equally crippling depression, combined with what for many Germans was a cultural decay of unparalleled proportions, all fused together and collapsed any sense of order. Many individuals who would convert to Nazism interpreted this period as not simply hard times, but in apocalyptic fashion, as a total ‘collapse’ of German civilization.