As part of an effort to preserve the "state within a state", starting in the mid-1930s, the military began to more and more Nazify itself in an effort to persuade Hitler that it was not necessary to end the traditional "state within a state", to prevent Gleichschaltung ("synchronisation") being imposed by engaging in what Omer Bartov called a process of "self-Gleichschaltung".[36] As part and parcel of the process of "self-Gleichschaltung", the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg in February 1934, acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate dishonorable discharge.[22] In this way, 74 Jewish soldiers lost their jobs for no other reason than that they were Jewish.[22] Again, on his own initiative Blomberg had the Reichswehr in May 1934 adopt Nazi symbols into their uniforms.[37] In August 1934, again on Blomberg's initiative and that of the Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the entire military took an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler, who was most surprised at the offer; the popular view that Hitler imposed the oath on the military is false.[38] The intention of Blomberg and Reichenau in having the military swear an oath to Hitler was to create a personal special bond between Hitler and the military, which was intended to tie Hitler more tightly towards the military and away from the NSDAP.[38] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about the oath to Hitler: