Though scholars have not paid a great deal of attention to Adolf Hitler's systematic bribery of his senior military officers during World War II, the fact that secret payments existed is not news. Top ranking officers received monthly tax-exempt supplements to their salaries which more than doubled their amounts. In 1941 and 1942, certain officers also received tax-exempt checks of RM 250,000 for milestone birthdays (55th, 60th, 65th ), and in 1944 a small group of officers were given tremendous landed estates, some valued at over RM 1 million, also with no tax liability. The base materialism of these practices appealed to historians in the DDR and the secrecy of these practices has appealed to journalists as recently as this year. Meanwhile, the importance of corruption in the context of Hitler's war and the virtual absence of resistance in the top ranks has brought leading historians to call for further investigation.[1]Yet a systematic analysis of the practice has been missing, perhaps for two reasons. In the first place, the source material is sparse. A few files in the Bundesarchiv together with occasional diary entries are all that document Hitler's cash gifts to his senior officers. Secondly, the study of modem corruption has a slippery nature due to the many things that are left unspoken (and unwritten) between the participants in corrupt transactions. This problem, of course, is not intrinsic to Nazi Germany alone.

Nonetheless, certain conclusions can be drawn from the available evidence. In my twenty minutes today I will focus on the basic plank - Hitler's monthly cash supplements to senior officers. Unlike large birthday checks and landed estates, which a relative few received, all senior officers received these supplements, which lasted until the end of the war. During and after the war there was a tendency among recipients, their relatives, and more recently their biographers to speak of cash gifts - if at all - in soft tones. Thus the money could appear not as a bribe, but as a legitimate part of one's salary.[2] Perhaps this tendency is symptomatic of the human conscience in uncomfortable situations in which those things left unsaid leave room for benign interpretations of one's behavior. It is my contention though, that even at the time there was no room for such interpretations. Any inclination by recipients to view the monthly supplement as anything but a bribe for loyal behavior - and a huge one at that - required a routine of mental gymnastics more daring than those usually performed in the course of corrupt practices.

Certainly Hitler understood what the generous flow of money and tax exemptions was to purchase. The deep suspicions that he had held of the military hierarchy before the removals of War Minister Werner von Blomberg and Amy Commander-in-Chief Werner von Fritsch in 1938 remained afterwards. Whatever the Wehrmacht command's affinity for the Nazi conception of Volksgemeinschaft,[3] whatever the extent to which the Ostheer would truly become 'Hitler's Army" in the years ahead with its willingness to condone or participate in murderous excesses,[4] it is clear from Hitler's statements that he maintained profound distrust of the senior command throughout the war. Part of the suspicion concerned the reluctance of conservative, largely aristocratic, largely Prussian officers to accept blindly the operational decisions of a man to whom Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt referred in 1944 as 'the bohemian corporal.'[5] Even after the removal or forced retirement of suspect officers in 1938, Hitler complained that the Wehrmacht command lacked the elan of the Nazi political leadership "because they still do not understand the new era,[6] and he said that he would have preferred to hand control of the Army - the “most insecure element of the state" - to his more politically oriented Gauleiter, who had the spirit that the Army leadership lacked.[7] Part of the suspicion also concerned the possible reluctance of senior officers to condone wholesale atrocities in the occupied territories. The example of Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz, an officer with a higher moral conscience than most, is poignant here. On 16 November 1939 as the new military commander in occupied Poland, Blaskowitz submitted to Army Commander-in-Chief Walther von Brauchitsch the first of his official protests concerning police atrocities. Hitler's response on seeing the report was choleric. Assuming that Blaskowitz's problems were common in the Army command, the Fuhrer ridiculed the latter's "childish mentality" and sneered that 'one cannot conduct a war with Salvation Army methods.[8]

The question was what to do about problems such as these, especially with larger projects than Poland on the horizon. Though he wistfully dreamed of purging the officer corps and filling it with younger, more Nazi oriented leaders.[9] Hitler viewed purges in the Stalinist style as a risk to the army's professional competence.[10] Even bloodless coups such as the Blomberg-Fritsch affair contained the problem of finding successors suitable both to Hitler and to military subordinates. The discovery of a respected officer with the character of von Brauchitsch, who without asking too many questions had accepted von Fritsch's office in 1938 (along with certain payments of his own), had not been easy.[11] The practical solution, especially in wartime, was to use the tools he had despite his suspicions. Hitler could accept that his Generals would not be good Nazis or that they might not care for his operational decisions, but he had to have their unquestioned obedience. It is in this context that the systematic practice of bribery of senior officers, which began in the summer of 1940, must be understood.

The basic form of financial corruption would consist of monthly tax-exempt payments into the bank accounts of Field Marshals and Grand Admirals, who would receive 4,000 Reichsmarks (RM) per month, and Generalobersten and General Admirals, who would receive RM 2,000 per month. These sums would be paid in addition to regular salaries and normal wartime supplements. Politely known as an Aufwandsentschädigung (compensation for expenses) the payment would come from a special account known as Konto 5 - part of a much larger and seemingly bottomless Chancellery discretionary fund, which itself ballooned from RM 150,000 in 1933 to RM 40 million by the end of the war.[12] The fund was administered through the Reich Chancellery by its Chief, Dr. Hans-Heinrich Lammers, without the customary supervision of the Reich Finance Ministry over fiscal year budgeting. Thus Lammers and his staff withdrew money from discretionary funds in accordance with Hitler’s criteria and answered to Hitler alone.

Interestingly, top-ranking civilian leaders had already been receiving such supplements since April 1936; Reich Ministers pocketed RM 4,000 per month and State Secretaries RM 2,000 in addition to their regular salaries. Since October 1937, Reichstag deputies had received a monthly RM 600 and deputies of the Prussian Staatsrat RM 500 per month as a special tax-exempt supplement as well, a figure which was deducted from the larger amounts if an official were eligible for more than one form of payment.[13] In spite of these general guidelines, exact amounts were left in some ways to Lammers's discretion. Thus Lammers paid himself an Aufwandsentschädigung of RM 8,000 per month (with no deductions) while Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels received RM 7,400 per month.[14] Leaving aside for now the implications of every senior official and parliamentary deputy helping himself to part of the state treasury each month with the approval of the Fuhrer himself, the interesting issue here is that Hitler did not include Germany's military leaders for several more years. Perhaps these supplements were a form of party cronyism to which suspect military officers were simply not invited.[15]

This exclusion vanished after the victory against France, less as a reward for a campaign brilliantly won than as a bribe for the campaign that was to come. On 31 July 1940 Hitler would announce to his supreme command and service chiefs that Germany would annihilate the Soviet Union the following spring. The war in the East would bring issues over which Hitler surely expected friction from some senior officers both in the context of operational planning and in the context of the murderous nature of the coming Weltanschauungskrieg. His concern over what Naval Commander-in-Chief Grand Admiral Erich Raeder - a man accustomed to speaking his mind to Hitler on strategic matters -would say about a massive commitment in the East with Great Britain still unbeaten, might have prompted Hitler to wait with this announcement until Raeder had left the room.[16] It also might have helped to prompt a tax-free birthday gift of RM 250,000 the following April - the first such bequest to a military officer -which Raeder happily accepted.[17] Yet concerns regarding protests from senior officers over a war of human annihilation were certainly real as well, and with the stakes higher in the approaching war with the Soviet Union, it is not surprising that Hitler would have wished to send clear messages to his senior command concerning incentives even before that campaign was announced.

In any event, Hitler would shower financial largesse on all senior officers beginning in July 1940. Hitler's public promotion of 12 Generaobersten to the rank of General Field Marshall on the 19th was followed three days later with private comments concerning the extension of the Aufwandsentschädigung  to the military. The comment, recorded in the diary of Hitler's army adjutant, Major Gerhard Engel, reads as follows:

(The Führer) talks about (the) promotions resulting from the French campaign and comes to talk about the honors (Ehrungen) that he has [given to1 the highest Wehrnacht generals. He did this consciously and with intent, and he has also learned from history here. In antiquity also, kings and emperors made large gifts to those who had done them some great service, and Prussian kings too were very generous in this respect. That was a very clever business, for the more one honors a heroic deed or achievement, the more one is obliged . . . completely irrespective of his outlook. . , to the one to whom he is indebted for this honor (Ehrung). . . Thus (the Führer) will also attach to promotions to the ranks of Generalfeldmarschall and Generaloberst a tax-free financial honor (Ehrung), which - he still will speak to Reichsminister Lammers (about this) - shall amount to RM 4,000 monthly with (the rank of ) Field Marshall, and with (the rank of) Generaloberst RM 2,000. When the war is finally won he will also not be tight- fisted in the distribution of land. Many noble estates originated in this way and even Frederick the Great was very generous in this respect. (The Führer) does not demand from a general that he be a National Socialist, but he does demand ... that politically, he submit completely to the state leadership and blindly execute orders that the state leadership desires. This will be easier for each, even against inner conviction, if he has received corresponding honors (Ehrungen) from the chief of state and through this must feel himself automatically bound. . . . [18]

Such payments began as per a Hitler order of 8 August 1940 with the addendum that newly-promoted Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring received RM 20,000 per month rather than a Field Marshal's share of RM 4,000.[19] It was immediately made very clear to the recipients what the money was for. Less than a week after this order, the Führer hosted a private ceremony in which he presented his new Marshals with their batons, which were themselves purchased through Hitler’s discretionary funds at the cost of RM 72,000[20] Hitler took pains to mention while presenting these expensive gifts the importance he placed on blind loyally in the military command. As a new General Field Marshal Fedor von Bock noted in his diary,

The Führer (presented) us (with) the Field Marshals' batons in the Reich Chancellery. He emphasize(d) how necessary the unity of the German people (is)- also in the future - and how absolutely necessary it is that the Wehrmacht to declare itself completely for National Socialist thought. [21]

Conspicuously absent from this ceremony was Blaskowitz, whose repeated complaints had earned him a warning from von Brauchitsch in February, reassignment in May, and the distinction of being the only Generaloberst not promoted to Generalfeldmarschall in July.[22]Good behavior would be rewarded. Friction could result in not only career stagnation, but also in a lesser share of the plums.

Senior officers who received the supplement seem to have told themselves that this was a legitimate payment which, after all, every Field Marshal or Generaloberst received. Frau Lucie-Maria Rommel made the distinction after the war between the illegitimacy of the larger gifts that some Field Marshals (excluding her husband) accepted and the monthly payments which all Field Marshals (including her husband) received. [23]Even in April 1944 Luftwaffe Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen - then the commander of the Second Air Fleet in Italy - commented when referring to his tax-free RM 4,000 per month bonus that, 'I am assuming that this sum first and foremost is to make possible an outward appearance which corresponds to rank.' Yet such logic is very strained. [24]There could have been no doubt that this money lay beyond the pale of usual military pay.

In the first place there was the precarious and insecure nature of the payments themselves, which was well-known to all. On reaching the rank of Generaloberst or Generalfeldmarschall, an officer would receive a secret correspondence from Lammers which informed the former of his new-found, tax-exempt fortune. For reasons which shall be seen, there is no documentation concerning the reaction of the recipients, but we can assume that in most cases this news was accepted with a certain satisfaction, such as that exhibited by General Erwin Rommel on learning of his substantial book royalties while in North Africa, or that recorded by Field Marshall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb on the outskirts of Leningrad in September 1941 when enthusiastically thanking Lammers for the “günstige Mitteilung" concerning his RM 250,000 birthday check[25]In any event, the prewar incident in which von Fritsch refused Hitler’s seemingly more. priceless gift of a gold Nazi party badge was not repeated when the stakes became materially more lucrative.[26] We can also assume (though this is not documented) that after the passage of many months, the concern that such money could suddenly be cut off would provoke emotions that were every bit as strong. Indeed, Lammers took special care to emphasize to recipients that this particular money came from the Fuhrer's discretionary funds rather than the military budget, and that it was "jederzeit widerruflich" Meanwhile, he remained ominously vague concerning the criteria that would be applied to the future payment of funds. Recipients were told:

Whether and in what amount one can expect further Aufwandsentschädigungen . . .remains reserved for my decision for47achl individual case, based on the authorization given to me by the Fuhrer. [27]

An agreement reached in later March 1943 between Lammers and the Chief of the Supreme Command, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, stipulated that reassignment to the Fuhrer reserve would not precipitate a halt in payments, but that dismissal or retirement would. [28]The death of a recipient would be followed by three months' worth of payments to the widow; if there were none, then payments would cease.[29] For the rest, recipients learned that payments depended on good behavior. Transfers to the bank account of Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus stopped in April 1943, not due to his capture by the Soviets at Stalingrad, which had taken place two months earlier, but rather due to his statements in captivity which blamed Hitler for the destruction of 6thArmy.[30] Field Marshall Erwin von Witzleben's flow of secret cash was naturally halted in connection with his role in the 20 July 1944 plot, with certain moneys demanded back from his surviving family after he was stripped of his rank and hanged. Payments for Field Marshals Erwin Rommel and Günther von Kluge, as well as to Generalobersten Franz Halder and Friederich Fromm, were all stopped due to their foreknowledge of the plot.[31] This principle could be taken to extremes under even less serious circumstances. General Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, who had commanded the western naval theater of operations, had been removed from duty on 30 June 1943. He was reinstated on 4 June 1944, but due to clerical error he had continued to receive his RM 2,000 monthly bonus. On discovering the mistake, Lammers's subordinates in the Reich Chancellery insisted that Marschall owed them eleven months' worth of payments, or RM 22,000 [32]

Lammers also distinguished these payments from normal supplements in another way. Unlike other forms of compensation, the amounts of which were published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, the Aufwandsentschädigung was to be kept absolutely secret. "Written correspondence in this matter, which is to be handled confidentially," he told Ferdinand Schörner on his promotion to Generaloberst,

should in principle not occur. In case - by way of exception - it becomes unavoidable, correspondence is to be directed only to me, with the clearly visible marking on the envelope, 'Eigenhändig!"

Lammers's preferred method was to inform new recipients in person, after which the latter would discreetly provide Lammers with a bank account number in which to deposit the funds and would sign their name to a statement that they understood all of the terms; in the case of military figures, however, Lammers often had to inform them by written correspondence. Even so, recipients still signed and return a short, pre-written statement confirming their earnest understanding of all the rules. No other form of monetary compensation contained this sort of insecurity, secrecy, or solemnity. [33]

The upshot was that everyone followed the rules, and those few who raised questions with Lammers did so with deference to the delicacy of it all. 'I am making reference," said von Richthofen when asking about the possibility of receiving a portion of his payments in Lire, 'to our very confidential and personal..written correspondence concerning the special monthly money transfer from the Führer to me as a Field Marshal [34]... The discreet nature of the practice is also made clear by the fact that as late as March 1943, Martin Bormann, Head of the Party Chancellery and soon to be Hitlef s Secretary, remained unfamiliar with it. [35]Yet the clearest testimonial to the practice's secrecy came from Hitler’ s Naval Adjutant, Rear Admiral Karl Jesko von Puttkamer, who had spent the entire war in Führer Headquarters, and yet had only a vague picture of the payments as late as the fall of 1944. Military adjutants themselves received secret payments from Konto 5 - albeit much smaller ones.[36] In November 1944, Puttkamer asked Chancellery officials which officers were receiving the Aufwandsentschädigung as well as the amounts in question. The reason for the query, he said, was related to recent personnel changes, but it is likely that Puttkamer was curious what his fellow adjutants were receiving. 'I need this data," he said, "in order to be able to form a picture for myself [as to] whether this affair is presently in order."[37] Chancellery officials provided Puttkamer with a list of senior officers, since, as they acknowledged, Puttkamer already knew that they were receiving such payments. Staff officers’ names were not to be provided, in order to avoid widening the circle of recipients. As for monetary amounts, Chancellery officials decided that it was ’...out of the question to report the amounts of these Aufwandsentschädigungen to the Rear Admiral.’ It had been a rule ever since payments to officers were begun in 1940, that the entire issue of Konto 5 was to be handled with the utmost discretion. [38] Puttkamer thus received only list of senior officers, but lower-ranking adjutants were left off the list, as were all money amounts[39]

The cash rewards, aside from being secret and dependent on behavior, were also simply too substantial to have been seriously viewed as legitimate. Even without them, senior officers were exceptionally well-paid. In mid-1940, General Field Marshals and Grand Admirals such as Keitel, von Brauchitsch, and Raeder made RM 26,500 per year, while Generalobersten and General Admirals made RM 24,000. In contrast, an Army Major made a mere RM 8,400 per annum while a staff sergeant could expect RM 2,838 at most. In addition, General Field Marshals and Generalobersten already received a tax-exempt wartime supplement (Wehrsold) of RM 300 and RM 270 per month respectively (staff sergeants received RM 60 per month), and a law of 1943 awarded General Field Marshals a Diensfaufwandentschädigung of RM 400 per month from the Reich Household. More supplements were granted for housing depending on rank, the locality in which one was stationed, and number of children. All of this means that with supplements, a Field Marshal could expect to receive RM 34,950 per year in publicly accountable funds before adding in supplements for housing, clothing, food, medical care, and so forth.[40] By granting the secret supplement from Konto 5, then, Hitler was adding for General Field Marshals a tax-free supplement 48,000 marks per year (RM 24,000 for Generalobersten). When one considers that the Konto 5 supplement was free of any income-tax liability, which after 1939 could have reached a maximum of 65% on yearly incomes over RM 2,400, one can see easily that the secret supplement far more than doubled what was an extremely high salary for Germany's top ranking officers [41]To make a sugary deal even sweeter, the deposits for July, August, and September of each year were made in a single tax-exempt lump sum of RM 12,000 or RM 6,000 at the beginning of each July.[42] In contrast, those infantry soldiers who drew the unenviable duty of searching for land mines earned the considerably smaller pay supplement of a single mark per day.[43]

The Aufwandsentschadigung was maintained throughout the war for all top officials not sullied by the events of 20 July 1944. Until the end, Lammers regarded it as an untouchable part of the overall budget, while recipients viewed it as a key part of their income, worth protecting especially with the war so obviously lost. In preparing the yearly budget in January 1945, the Reich Finance Ministry projected an especially dim year with higher expenses (which included caring for war-wounded as well as those who had lost their homes) and declining revenues.[44] Yet the suggestion from within the Reich Finance Ministry that the Führer's discretionary fund be cut met with a very cool reception from Lammers, because, as he said when referring to the fund, "[A] substantial reduction of requirements for fiscal year 1945 [is] hardly to be expected."[45] Mean- while, as the ring closed around Germany in February, March, and April, and as thousands of troops were being shot for desertion, those officers who had had their monthly payments deposited into banks which were located in the immediate path of the enemy quickly arranged to have their deposits shifted to accounts in what they hoped would be in safer locales. These included General Field Marshals Georg von Kuchler, Wilhelm List, Erich von Manstein, Maximilian von Weichs, and even the wife of Generaloberst Hansjürgen von Amim, who in March 1945, with her husband in American captivity, still moved his account of deposit from Breslau to Saxony.[46] Deposit arrangements were changed immediately for all who requested the service, and the final payment, deposited by Lammers's staff in May 1945, was double the usual monthly amount - a gesture designed either to encourage a fight to the very end or to raid the cookie jar one last time.[47]

During and after the war, those senior officers who never received birthday checks or landed estates were fond of professing outrage at those who had received such gifts from Hitler. After the disaster at Stalingrad, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock recorded in his diary a rumor from Hitler’s headquarters that the Fuhrer was paying "hush money' in sums of RM 250,000, and noted with some indignation that the rumor included him as a recipient.[48]Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, who received the most expensive landed estate that Hitler granted (RM 1.25 million), deservedly drew special outrage from those officers familiar with the shady circumstances by which it was acquired.[49] Manstein's face is said to have 'twitched once or twice" when hearing of these circumstances.[50] Yet no Field Marshall and no Generaloberst refused Hitler’s money in smaller, though still very substantial amounts. The fact that a few received much larger gifts does not eliminate the clearly evident, dubious character of the tax-exempt Aufwandsentschädigung or the corrupting influence which it surely had with those of lesser character than von Witzleben. Though one will never be able to measure the exact degree by which any given individual was affected by Hitler’s monthly supplements, the uncomfortable silence of Generaloberst Franz Halder at Nuremberg when confronted with the following argument spoke volumes. "I think it is material," said US. Deputy Chief Council James McHaney in 1948, "that.. .Field marshals accepted personally large sums of money from Hitler. I think this acceptance of money over and above their salary, their military pay, is of some significance with regard to the question of their personally following Hitler’s policies."[51]