Well, the following account comes from a Nazi Gauleiter who met Hitler and was expelled from the NSDAP by him in 1932. This account offers an interesting and “revisionist” view of the Führer because Krebs’s testimony suggests that Hitler was a stupid, impulsive villain rather than an evil genius. I have an opinion on the matter, but I’ll share it later.
Hitler had no plan, no clear concept of the objective he was working toward and the path he would tread, but rather only visions.
In February 1933, he summoned Max Habermann and tried to persuade him to undertake a peace mission to the Christian Trade Unions of France. On this occasion he stated that he planned to visit Stalin on the eve of the forthcoming Reichstag elections. From Moscow there should issue forth a peace manifesto to the world. The nations would learn that it was not the rule of the so-called dictators but rather that of the anonymous forces in the democracies that caused misery, distress, anarchy, and war. "We will provide Europe with a century of peace," he told Habermann. And Habermann had the impression that at least at that moment Hitler meant it sincerely.
To me it seems that this episode substantiates my analysis.
For Hitler, vastly different, even totally opposing options were open, because his goal was a purely egoistic one without any fixed objective substance. But it was precisely that which put him in a position to seize every possibility with swiftly striking force and smash the surprised opponent from the battlefield.
Of course, he was also a master of deception, but in my opinion only within limits sharply defined by time. To mount a major political campaign requiring long-range perseverance, such as was done by Metternich, Talleyrand, Disraeli, or even Bismarck, was beyond Hitler's competence.
For this assertion there is a plentitude of evidence, even from the years prior to 1933. Hitler's inability to think constructively, comprehensively, and authoritatively over longer periods of time emerged primarily before 1933 in the sometimes grotesque confusion of varied and contradictory opinions inside the party. Even those who had little use for programs and opposed any premature fixing of the party's development through rigid, possibly written, individual demands were convinced of the necessity of at least sketching an outline of the movement's path and objectives. But whenever this conviction led to a serious attempt at such an effort, it ran into disagreement and opposition from Hitler.
Naturally, what initially determined Hitler's attitude in this instance, too, was the tactician's fear of undesirable and hasty commitments. However, this fear was not always because there existed some secret plans that had to be kept from the public for the moment, but often because there were no plans on hand, and even because of an inability to create them.
In the year 1931 I had a discussion with Rudolf Hess about the future of the Reichstag and the states' parliaments after the "total" victory of the party. Hess was unable to give me any answer to the question of what was to become of these institutions and what a Nazi constitution would look like. "For a few years there won't be any elections," he opined; "the Communist party will naturally be outlawed! The power of the government must be strengthened." He did not speak of the creation of a pure dictatorship.
I am convinced that he was not silent in order to hide intentions of this sort but rather that the party leadership had no concrete constitutional plans. For example, Hess concluded the conversation with something like the following words: "In the decisive moment the correct idea will come to the Führer. Providence has always inspired him to do the right thing!"
Trust in Providence, inspiration, instinct-that was doubtless also Hitler's conception of his own task, because he did not feel equal to the conscious intellectual creation of a systematic formulation. That did not exclude, as already suggested, Hitler's zealous willingness to learn, his hunger for education. But to begin with, he only retained lessons that appeared useful to him in strengthening opinions he already held, and secondly, his quest for knowledge was limited to certain individual areas: political biographies, historical descriptions of a general nature, military history, defense policy, and so on.
[...]
Of course, a politician cannot be a specialist in all areas of knowledge. But he should have a general overview that will permit him to employ forces intelligently and to assess his own and oppositional strengths. Hitler possessed no such overview. Every attempt within the party to arrive at a theoretically clear formulation of the party's goals ran aground on this deficiency. To some extent, a substitute was found in Hitler's tactical and propagandistic skills. Probably the party would have collapsed because of the vagueness of its goals very early except that it was rescued by a favorable situation, the stupidity of its opponents, and the stubbornness of the passionately enthusiastic masses once they had been set in motion.
From autumn 1930 on, Hitler's inability to make long-range strategic plans, even in the area of practical politics - excepting the field of mass propaganda action - became noticeable with increasing frequency and force. With his sizable Reichstag delegation and his rapidly growing representation in the states' legislatures, Hitler could no longer avoid every concrete political decision, as he had previously done. Positions had to be taken on legislative proposals, cabinet formations, party alliances, and so on. Anyone with even a modicum of inside knowledge of conditions in the Brown House saw with amazement and shock the confusion and uncertainty that this necessity engendered for Hitler and most of his associates in the upper echelon.
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that for the party leadership the entire period from September 1930 to January 1933 consisted of a perpetual crisis of confidence, and above all self-confidence, which was hidden from the general public and from themselves only by increasingly wild pounding on the big propaganda drums.
[...]
Thus in the Brown House no one knew what to do other than to wait to see if someone else would do something. [...] The event resembles very much the bitter description given by Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz, in his book Sprengstoff, of the SA demonstration of May 1, 1923:
"Hitler fastened on his helmet!... He took his helmet off... He put it on again... He took it off again.. He marched home."
[...]
When, on the other hand, after eight or nine years, Hitler marched, not home but into Poland, France, and Russia, he did it out of the same internal situation, the same underestimation of the enemy's strength and overestimation of his own, which led him to misunderstand completely the real and actual situation. A few days before the silent mobilization of August 1939, Hitler spoke in Hamburg to a closed group of party officials and higher civil officials. He assured them that there could be no question ot a real threat of war. Perhaps it would go so far as a punitive expedition against Poland, if that country was foolish enough to reject the demand for a reincorporation of Danzig. But a conflict with England and France was completely impossible. Neither country had proper armaments: One's was too weak, the other's too old. Above all, both nations were defeatist with leaders who were decadent through and through.
Hitler similarly had no plans or proposals for the Reich presidential elections. He was hoping that Hindenburg would die, and when this hope was not fulfilled, he let Dr. Goebbels force him into the role of a candidate, a role for which he had undoubtedly not originally planned.
The infancy of Nazism: The memoirs of ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs