I’m sure we are all familiar with the concept of ‘working towards the Führer’ in which competing members of the Nazi party would do whatever possible to please Hitler and gain access to his inner-circle. This would eventually evolve into a viscous cycle of competition within the party. The whole concept is based on the idea of Hitler being the Führer, all conquering and all powerful. However, I’m yet to see anyone suggest that the strings within the party were in fact being pulled by these competing factions, with Hitler acting as the puppet (more-so following Stalingrad when militarily Hitler had arguably lost whatever grip he previously had). Interested to hear other members thoughts on this...
...I don't know if I would use the word vicious...I thought Himmler was pretty powerful...he had a lot of intel to go on ...you said to get near his inner circle--so how much power/etc could the people outside of his inner circle have regarding being ''vicious''? inner circle being Himmler, Keital, etc......Himmler was inner circle, yet he was ''competing'' with Canaris and got him out of the picture--- ..of course you had the same backstabbing/lies/etc that we see in today's politics!!.--most of it between the 2 parties in the US....I would say it's ''common'' politics to try to get more--higher power ..... ..however, what's ''funny'' is during primaries of each party, they really denigrate the other candidate, calling them the Devil/etc...but after the primaries, they back their party's candidate--after they said the most vile things about them--hahahhahahah Hitler’s Inner Circle: The 10 Most Powerful Men in Nazi Germany
The "Working towards the Fuhrer" brought him the often radical solutions to what he perceived as being problems in his direction of travel. Kershaw's book "The End" showed how in the last year of the war the power broker line up had changed - Speer, Goebbels, Himmler, and Bormann. (With Speer making a move to present himself as one who could provide manpower and management for the reserve Army.) Hitler soon recovered from the set back at Stalingrad, scapegoats were to hand - they all wore uniforms, two years later in Berlin, he would still be playing the same record it was always others who had let him down.
One person who worked his way up into the inner circle was the physician (I use the word very loosely here), Morrel.
True, he was always there, smiling in the background almost as good a "photobomber" as Keitel. Hitler ( as best I can recall) rewarded him with a pension or a large cash endowment in recognition of his "services". Karl Brandt ( amongst other medics) was alarmed at the number and nature of the concoctions which Morrel had Hitler taking. An opportunist "quack" and "instant expert" who was tolerated ( barely) by others in AH's orbit.
When you are getting highly Euphoric drugs such as Cocaine, oxycodone (Eukodol), methamphetamine, and barbiturates every day it's no wonder he kept Morrel around.
