Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (68 page)

That evening, Schleicher and Hammerstein sent their go-between Werner von Alvensleben to Goebbels’s apartment, where Hitler and Göring were waiting. His task was to gain information about the status of negotiations, but he went well beyond that, taking it upon himself to announce: “If the folks on Wilhelmstrasse are only pretending to negotiate with you, then the Reich defence minister and the army chief of staff would have to alert the garrison in Potsdam and sweep the entire pigsty on Wilhelmstrasse clean.”
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The Nazi leadership interpreted this ill-advised statement as proof that Hindenburg intended to appoint a Papen–Hugenberg cabinet and that the Reichswehr was considering a coup d’état. It was hardly beyond the realm of possibility that Hindenburg would be deposed and his son Oskar arrested. “So it’s a coup,” Goebbels commented. “A threat. In earnest or a joke? Reported to Göring and Hitler waiting in the room next door. Göring spoke immediately to Meissner and Papen…We deliberated at length. Hitler in full motion.”
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The NSDAP chairman took the rumours very seriously and had the leader of the Berlin SA, Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, put all Brownshirts in the German capital on high alert. The Nazi leadership also charged the “trustworthy” police major Walter Wecke, later commander of the Hermann Göring Regiment, with “preparing for a lightning strike to occupy Wilhelmstrasse with six police battalions.”
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Although it soon emerged that the rumours of a coup were entirely unfounded, they served to hasten the pace of developments. Papen saw his conviction that there was no time to lose reinforced, and late in the evening on 29 January, he presented Hindenburg with a final list of cabinet members. As had been agreed, it contained only three National Socialists: Hitler as chancellor, Frick as interior minister and Göring as Reich minister without portfolio, deputy Prussian interior minister and Reich commissioner for aviation. Three of the party-unaffiliated ministers had previously served in the Papen and Schleicher cabinets: Foreign Minister von Neurath, Finance Minister von Krosigk and Postal and Transport Minister Eltz-Rübenach. Reichswehr Minister von Blomberg, Economic and Agriculture Minister Hugenberg and Labour Minister Seldte were new appointments. The post of justice minister was left vacant because Papen wanted Hindenburg to think that negotiations with the Centre Party were under way and one ministry had to be left open in case of agreement; the position was intended to go to Franz Gürtner, who had held it under Papen and Schleicher. Swearing-in ceremonies were scheduled for 11 a.m. the following day.
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The Reich president’s decision was not announced publicly, so on 30 January 1933 the morning newspapers were still in the dark as to what was going on. Some still thought that the appointment of a Papen–Hugenberg cabinet excluding the National Socialists was the most likely outcome. The
Frankfurter Zeitung
speculated that Hitler would once again make impossible demands to avoid the responsibility of power.
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Schleicher had thought much the same, having told his cabinet on 16 January that “Hitler didn’t really want to come to power.”
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But the leader of the NSDAP was on the verge of his greatest triumph. Hitler and his entourage stayed up until 5 a.m. in the Goebbelses’ apartment, ever fearful that some unforeseen events would throw everything back up in the air.
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When Blomberg arrived at the Anhalter Bahnhof train station early that morning, Oskar von Hindenburg immediately took him to Wilhelmstrasse, where at 9 a.m. he was sworn in as the new Reich defence minister.

Meanwhile Papen summoned Hugenberg, Seldte, Duesterberg and Schmidt-Hannover to his apartment on Wilhelmstrasse to inform them that the new cabinet was about to be made official. When Duesterberg and Schmidt-Hannover protested against the hasty appointment of Hitler as chancellor, a “flustered” Papen interjected: “If a new government has not been formed by 11 a.m. the Reichswehr will be marching, and we will face a military dictatorship under Schleicher and Hammerstein.” Soon afterwards Hitler and Göring arrived. Once more, the NSDAP chairman demonstrated what a fine actor he was, immediately going up to Duesterberg, taking his hand and declaring in a solemn voice and with tears in his eyes: “I greatly regret the personal insults to you in my newspapers. I give you my word that I did not order them.”
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Around 10:45 a.m., a quarter of an hour before the scheduled swearing-in ceremonies, the group proceeded through the ministerial gardens to the Reich Chancellery, where Hindenburg had been residing since the summer of 1932, while the presidential palace was being renovated. Duesterberg later recalled that, as the other ministers designate arrived one by one, with the exception of Eltz-Rübenach, who had fallen ill, Hitler, Papen and Hugenberg negotiated the final unresolved questions in Meissner’s office. It was only now that Papen and Hitler revealed to the DNVP chairman that Hitler intended to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections. Hugenberg was taken aback and vehemently protested, arguing that the November 1932 election had accurately mirrored the relative strengths of the parties and that a fresh poll was unnecessary. In a grand gesture, Hitler gave his word of honour that the make-up of the cabinet would not change, regardless of the outcome of a new election. But the blindsided Hugenberg refused to give in even after Papen pleaded with him not to endanger the agreement, which had been so hard to reach. The formation of the new government looked as though it would fall through literally at the last minute. The appointed time for the swearing-in ceremony came and went, and Hindenburg was getting impatient. Meissner burst into the room, watch in hand, and complained: “It’s 11:15. You can’t keep the Reich president waiting any longer.” Duesterberg recalled: “At that point, Hugenberg relented. Hitler had got his way. Proud and triumphant, with his underlings in his wake, he marched victoriously up the stairs to the first floor, where the elderly gentleman was awaiting the new cabinet.”
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Hindenburg greeted the men and expressed his satisfaction that “the nationalist Right has finally been unified,” whereupon Papen read out the list of ministers. After being sworn in, Hitler gave a short speech in which he asked the Reich president to have faith in him and the new government.
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At around noon, the ceremony was concluded. In his diary, Goebbels wrote: “[Hindenburg] was quite moved at the end. That’s the way it should be. Now we have to win him over completely.”
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Hitler’s followers had been waiting on tenterhooks in the Hotel Kaiserhof, and when the freshly appointed chancellor returned there, to cheers from a crowd of admirers, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. “We all had tears in our eyes,” noted Goebbels. “We shook Hitler’s hand. He deserved this. Enormous celebrations.” Goebbels had not got a cabinet post, but he had received Hitler’s promise that he would be put in charge of the Education Ministry after the next election. “Right down to work,” he noted. “The Reichstag will be dissolved. New elections in four weeks. Until then I’m free of any office.”
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Later that day, Hitler gave a speech in which he thanked his party comrades for the “loyalty and devotion” that had made his political triumph possible. “The task that lies before us is massive,” he added. “We will have to be equal to it and we will be.”
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That evening, National Socialists celebrated Hitler’s appointment as chancellor with a torchlit parade lasting hours. “There’s a jubilant mood tonight in Berlin,” wrote Harry Kessler, who was as surprised as most people by Hitler’s elevation to chancellor. “SA and SS men, together with uniformed Stahlhelm members, are making their way through the streets, and the pavements are crowded with onlookers. In and around the Hotel Kaiserhof, it’s a veritable carnival.”
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Hitler, who greeted the marching columns of his supporters from the illuminated window of his new office, was euphoric. “The good doctor is a true wizard,” he praised Goebbels, who had hastily organised the celebrations. “Where did he get all the torches?”
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A few windows further down, Hindenburg stood stiff as a statue and received tributes from SA men. The newly appointed Nazis lost no time in exploiting the possibilities of radio. Speeches by Göring and Goebbels were broadcast on all stations in Germany except Bavaria’s Bayerischer Rundfunk. Göring compared the mood to that of August 1914, when “a nation also set out for new territory,” thereby establishing the melodramatic tone of Nazi propaganda, which would soon transform 30 January 1933 into a “day of national uprising.”
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Things only calmed down after midnight. While Hitler remained in the Chancellery and held one of his digressive monologues,
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Goebbels went to Potsdam to visit Prince August Wilhelm. There the celebrations continued for hours. “Everything completely intoxicating,” Goebbels noted. “At home at 3 a.m. Fall into bed as though dead. Exhausted.”
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—

January the 30th, 1933 saw something happen that hardly anyone would have thought possible at the end of December 1932. At the relatively young age of 43, Hitler had become the chancellor of the most powerful state in central Europe. Even his closest confidants like Goebbels regarded this twist of fate as “something out of a fairy tale.”
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Hess wrote to his wife on 31 January: “Am I dreaming or am I awake? I’m sitting in the chancellor’s office on Wilhelmplatz. Ministry employees silently approach on soft carpets bringing files for the Reich chancellor.” Even the day before, Hess had been afraid that everything would fall apart, especially as Hitler had confided to him that “a couple of times things were on a knife-edge” because of “intransigence” from Hugenberg, the “old shrew” in the cabinet.
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The formation of a “Cabinet of National Concentration” also seemed like a miracle to the NSDAP’s supporters. “It’s as though we’ve been blessed and are walking on air in an unbelievable dream,” wrote Emerentia Krogmann, the wife of the northern German wholesaler Carl Vincent Krogmann. “Hitler is Reich chancellor! It’s true! Farewell Marxism! Farewell Communism! Farewell parliament! Farewell Jews!—Here’s to Germany!”
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Luise Solmitz from Hamburg, who had turned away from Hitler in disappointment at the end of 1932, was equally enthusiastic: “What a cabinet!!! We didn’t dare to dream of this last July. Hitler, Hugenberg, Seldte, Papen!!! A large portion of my German hopes are attached to each one of them. National Socialist vigour, German nationalist reason, the apolitical Stahlhelm and the unforgettable Papen…This is a memorable 30 January.”
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Hitler’s conservative coalition partners also believed they had achieved their goals. When an acquaintance warned Papen about Hitler’s thirst for power, he replied: “You’re wrong. We engaged him for our ends.”
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And in response to accusations of betrayal from the Pomeranian estate owner Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, the vice-chancellor shot back: “What do you want? I have Hindenburg’s confidence. In two months, we’ll have pushed Hitler so far into a corner he’ll squeak.”
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It was impossible to underestimate more fatally Hitler’s will to power and determination to dispose of his conservative cabinet members as soon as possible. Hugenberg was famously quoted as telling the Leipzig mayor, Carl Goerdeler, the day after Hitler’s appointment that he had committed “the greatest act of foolishness” in his life by concluding an alliance with the “biggest demagogue in world history,” but it is unlikely that Hugenberg said any such thing.
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The super-minister felt that he was the most powerful figure in Hitler’s cabinet and believed, along with the other conservatives, that they could keep the new chancellor in check and direct him for their own purposes. Another bit of fiction is the oft-repeated story of Erich Ludendorff writing to Hindenburg at the end of January and accusing the Reich president of “delivering [Germany] up to one of the biggest demagogues of all time.” Ludendorff is supposed to have stated: “I solemnly prophesy that the man will cast our empire into the abyss and bring unimaginable misery to our nation. Coming generations will curse you in your grave for this decision.”
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These would have been prophetic words indeed, had Ludendorff actually written them. The reality, however, was that while Ludendorff was initially sceptical of the Hitler government, the two men would re-establish contact after Hindenburg died in August 1934. In April 1937, Hitler and Ludendorff met in Munich and were officially “reconciled.” The “hero of Tannenberg” was a useful spokesman for the Führer’s drive to rearm the Wehrmacht. When Ludendorff died that December, the Nazis staged a pompous state funeral for the former general.
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Not only Hitler’s conservative helpers, but many of his democratic opponents initially assumed that Papen and Hindenburg would hold the true power in the cabinet. On 31 January, Harry Kessler recorded a conversation he had had with the banker and politician Hugo Simon: “He sees Hitler as a prisoner of Hugenberg and Papen. ‘The poor fellow,’ who’s not very clever, has been delivered up, hands and feet bound, to those cagey conspirators.” Kessler apparently shared this estimation. A few days later, he predicted that the government would not last long since only the intrigues of the “windbag” Papen were holding it together: “Hitler must have already realised that he has fallen into a trap. His hands and feet are tied in government, and he has no room to manoeuvre either forward or back.”
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The
Vossische Zeitung
initially consoled itself with the idea that Hitler had not succeeded with his policy of “all or nothing”: “He moves into Wilhelmstrasse not as a dictator who knows no other law than his own will. This is not a Hitler cabinet. It is a Hitler–Papen–Hugenberg government that is full of contradictions, even if it clearly agrees that a complete break has to be made with what came before it.” However, the newspaper called this government “a dangerous experiment that can only be followed with profound concern and deepest distrust.”
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