Third Reich

Führer

‘Leader’: Adolf Hitler’s title as head of the Nazi Party and, from 2 August 1934, after President Hindenburg’s death, also as head of state, the ‘Führer and Reich Chancellor’.

Hitler took the title of Führer in 1921, when he assumed leadership of the Nazi Party with dictatorial powers. It underpinned the ‘leader principle’ (Führerprinzip): every level of the party, and later of the state, owed absolute obedience to the one above it and ultimately to a single leader.

When President Paul von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, a law prepared in advance merged the offices of president and chancellor. Hitler, now ‘Führer and Reich Chancellor’, became head of state and supreme commander of the armed forces, and that same day soldiers swore an oath in his name. A plebiscite on 19 August endorsed the change. From then on no office in Germany could remove him.