Book Two: Triumph and Consolidation
- Shirer begins this chapter by introducing us to General Kurt von Schleicher, a man who Shirer believes was more responsible than anyone for putting the final nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic.
- Schleicher played a major role in getting Heinrich Bruening appointed as Chancellor, and in arranging talks between Chancellor Bruening, President Paul von Hindenburg, and Hitler.
- Because Hindenburg's term as President was set to end in 1932, there were questions about what should be done when his term was over.
- Bruening wanted to restore the Hohenzollern monarchy and pair it with a constitutional democracy like Great Britain's, but Hindenburg wasn't game.
- Bruening was also concerned that if presidential elections were called in 1932, Hitler might run for the position and actually win.
- Since he didn't want that to happen, Bruening hit upon a scheme that he thought might solve his problems for the time being: he asked the leading members of the Reichstag (Hitler included) to agree to a proposal that Hindenburg's term as President be prolonged.
- As he figured, no new elections would mean no new opportunities for the Nazi Party to claim even more power than it already had.
Hitler Against Hindenburg
- While Chancellor Bruening was doing his political wheeling and dealing, Hitler was doing some scheming of his own.
- Because they were at cross-purposes, they couldn't come to a mutually satisfactory agreement, and in the end, an election was called when the end of Hindenburg's term as President drew nigh.
- Hitler obsessed for a while about whether he should run for president.
- Hitler feared that if Hindenberg decided to run again and beat Hitler in the election, then Hitler's reputation as invincible would be damaged. Also, he wasn't even a German citizen yet.
- Goebbels kept urging him to run, but Hitler kept vacillating.
- All this indecision made Goebbels so anxious that he went to see a Greta Garbo movie just to get his mind off things. (This is the kind of detail that makes the book so interesting and unique.)
- Once Hindenberg declared his candidacy, Hitler decided to run for President.
- Shirer tells us that Hitler's campaign was a bitterly fought, confusing effort. It was also groundbreaking.
- Germany had never seen a propaganda campaign like it: they distributed eight million pamphlets and twelve million copies of their party newspapers; held three thousand meetings a day (huh?); propaganda films and gramophone records were broadcast from loudspeakers on trucks.
- In case you didn't catch it, let's have one of those facts again: three THOUSAND meetings a day.
- Talk about psychological bombardment…
- Despite all that propaganda noise, Hitler didn't win. Hindenburg collected 49.6% of the votes to Hitler's 30.1%.
- But because Hindenburg had failed to win a majority, a second election would have to be called.
- Hitler started campaigning again right away, and in the second election he increased his vote by roughly 6.5%.
- It wasn't enough, though. Hindenburg had also increased his vote, and he now had the absolute majority that he needed to be declared President for another term.
- As Hitler considered what to do next, the republican government struck back.
- Germany's national and state governments got their hands on secret documents that suggested the Nazis were going to take over by force and terrorize the citizens.
- Together, Chancellor Bruening and one of the German Army generals convinced President Hindenburg to sign a decree that would official suppress Hitler's own paramilitary force.
- The decree was signed in April 1932, and Hitler—to the surprise of some of his cronies—decided not to offer any resistance.
- In the meantime, General Schleicher was scheming behind the scenes to undermine the position of the German Army general who had supported the decree.
- Schleicher's motivations weren't clear to anyone other than himself at this point, and it wasn't until much later that his aims became obvious.
- First, he wanted to incorporate the S.A. into the German Army to bring it under his control.
- Second he wanted to bring Hitler into the government, where he could be controlled, too.
- Shirer explains how Schleicher's schemes eventually resulted in the resignation of the German Army general in question, as well as the dismissal of Chancellor Bruening. The way was now clear for the next stage of his plan.
Fiasco of Franz von Papen
- At this point, Shirer re-introduces Franz von Papen: a figure who made a brief appearance in the opening chapter of TRFTR, where Shirer briefly recounts the flurry of political activity that swirled around Berlin in the days before Hitler became Chancellor of the German Reich.
- Through General Schleicher's political scheming, Franz von Papen became the newest Chancellor of the German Reich in July 1932.
- Schleicher himself was named Minister of Defense, and three of Chancellor Papen's first official acts were to dissolve the sitting government, call new elections, and reverse the former ban on the S.A.
- The lifting of the ban on the S.A. resulted in a brutal wave of political violence and murder. The Nazi storm troopers fought in the streets with Communists, and there were multiple riots. Schleicher knew that mayhem on the streets could only benefit the cause of an authoritarian takeover. Tensions were particularly high in Prussia.
- In response, Papen did three significant things: he banned political parades; he kicked out the Prussian government and appointed himself Reich Commissioner for Prussia; and he declared martial law in Berlin.
- Papen's actions removed any chance that the forces of the Left or even of the center would put up resistance to the overthrow of the democratic republic.
- Like Chancellor Bruening before him, Chancellor Papen was unwittingly readying the ground for Hitler.
- In the days leading up to the July 1932 elections, the Nazis campaigned hard. When the numbers came in on the big day, it was a huge victory, winning two hundred and thirty seats in the Reichstag.
- The Nazis were now the biggest party in Parliament, but they still didn't have a majority.
- Despite increasing his votes by millions in just a few years, in this latest election Hitler had still won only 37% percent of the vote. Most Germans didn't support him.
- But now that his party was the largest in the Reichstag, Hitler felt that he had considerable bargaining power. He presented a list of demands to his co-schemer Schleicher, and was confident that he'd be given whatever he wanted.
- Hitler's hopes were disappointed. Suddenly, Schleicher seemed to be waffling. Once again, political tensions began to rise in Berlin.
- New rounds of political scheming and manipulation began in the summer of 1932, all of which led to yet another election being called in the autumn of that year.
- The election of November 1932 produced a less definitive win for the Nazis: they lost 34 seats in the Reichstag, which took them down to a total of 196.
- With that in mind, Chancellor Papen reached out to Hitler, but Hitler wasn't yet ready to play by Papen's rules. The would-be Fuehrer was still intent on seizing more power for himself. Why are we not surprised?
- More schemes and intrigues ensued: General Schleicher convinced Papen to resign because he couldn't form a stable government; President Hindenburg offered Hitler an appointment as Chancellor if he'd agree to certain caveats; Hitler refused to accept Hindenburg's conditions.
- Finally, Schleicher himselfstepped into the Chancellorship, which had apparently been his end-game all along.
Schleicher: The Last Chancellor of the Republic
- As Shirer tells us, Chancellor Schleicher stayed in power for roughly two months before all of his political intriguing blew up in his face.
- He began by offering to make Gregor Strasser his Vice-Chancellor—hoping, no doubt, to "split the Nazis" by sowing the seeds of dissension in their party.
- Strasser didn't take the bait—not at first, anyway—but the changing political landscape did lead to a major blowout between Strasser and Hitler that had life-changing consequences for Strasser.
- When it became clear that he and Hitler had fundamentally different views about the direction the Nazi Party should take under Schleicher's new government, Strasser resigned all his positions in the party and told the newspapers all about it.
- Strasser's resignation could have spelled the ruin of the Nazi Party, as he had a considerable following of his own and might easily have formed a new political party to rival Hitler's.
- He never got the chance to do it, though, because when he left Germany for a short vacation in Italy, Hitler swooped in and took over the political territories and organizations that his rival had built up for the Nazis.
- In the meantime, Franz von Papen—so recently ousted from his position as Chancellor—began his own behind-the-scenes plotting.
- He arranged a "secret" meeting with Hitler, in which Hitler learned that President Hindenburg hadn't given Chancellor Schleicher the power to dissolve the Reichstag.
- That meant that the Nazis could overthrow Schleicher whenever they wanted.
- Hitler also learned Papen had arranged for certain German businessmen to take on the Nazi Party's considerable debts, which was a huge an unexpected help to the financially-struggling party.
- Schleicher, in the meantime, worked to convince the German public that they should be happy to see him in power.
- He announced a number of plans to redistribute German land and wealth, and explained that although they'd benefit the average German, they'd be detrimental to the wealthy landowners and industrialists who benefited from the capitalist system.
- The wealthy landowners and industrialists weren't too thrilled about that, and they whipped up an outcry of their own.
- Schleicher and Hitler each tried to get the upper hand.
- Finally, after shady back-room dealings, Hitler was appointed Chancellor, and his cabinet approved.
- I was a fateful event for Germany, and eventually, for the rest of the world.
- Shirer wraps up this chapter by noting that the Nazis were still, at this point, a minority in the government, and he offers a detailed review of the state of the Reichstag in the winter of 1933.
- Shirer's description of this shows what a tragedy he thinks this is: "In this way, by way of the back door, by means of a shabby political deal with the old-school reactionaries he privately detested, the former tramp from Vienna, the derelict of the First World War, the violent revolutionary, became Chancellor of a great nation." (2.6.144)