Germany Never Elected Hitler - The Machtergreifung | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1933 Part 1 of 3 - YouTube (1)
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Nazi Party, walks out of the offices
of German President Paul von Hindenburg with tears in his eyes.
He is greeted by a small crowd cheering and saluting him with the Hitler Salute.
When he gets into his car, he repeats; "we did it, we did it."
Against all democratic principles, he has been appointed Chancellor of the German Reich.
It is the beginning of the downfall of Germany and a prelude to tens of millions of deaths.
Welcome to Between-2-Wars a chronological summary of the interwar years, covering all
facets of life, the uncertainty, hedonism, and euphoria, and ultimately humanity's descent
into the darkness of the Second World War.
I'm Indy Neidell.
In our previous episode about German elections, we left things off as Germany had once again
managed to elect a parliament incapable of selecting a government with majority support.
Parts of the electorate had abandoned traditional parties for the Communists on the extreme
left or the Nazis on the outer right.
Chancellor Franz von Papen of the Conservative Zentrum party had convinced President Paul
von Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree making Papen dictator of Prussia.
Hitler had snubbed Papen's attempt to forge a nazi-conservative coalition, and finally,
in a showdown with the Reichstag, Hindenburg and Papen dissolved parliament and called
for new elections on November 4.
Exciting stuff.
While that election campaign starts, Papen remains Chancellor by emergency decree and
continues to court the NSDAP, the Nazis, for a coalition.
His Nazi counterpart and ally Gregor Strasser was one of the first Nazi members of parliament
and is now Reichsorganisationsleiter, General Secretary of the party, the second most powerful
Nazi after Hitler.
Strasser is one of the last members of the left NSDAP still in the party leadership.
In the early days of the party, together with his brother Otto Strasser, he had led a faction
with outspoken anti-bourgeois, left-leaning sympathies.
In 1925 he even challenged Hitler's leadership over ideas about proposing Soviet-style land
reforms.
But Hitler, with support of the ultra-reactionary party right wing defeats Strasser in a public
showdown at the party leadership summit at Bamberg in 1926.
Hitler rails against the leftists, labeling them Nationalbolsheviken, and decrying them
as traitors to the Nazi cause.
Strasser backs down, and it is here that Hitler gets confirmed as the absolute leader of the
party - the Führer.
Despite Strasser's loss and that his leftist economic views have no real effect on the
party anymore, he is appointed Reichspropagandaleiter, Head of Propaganda.
Together with his apprentice Joseph Goebbels he now continues the campaign that will make
the Nazis a real force in German politics.
Now, by Goebbels' had, by his own account, already abandoned any sympathy for the left
during the Bamberg showdown.
But he bridges Strasser's economic leftism and Hitler's ultra-racist positions by converging
them around anti-semitism where their views are already aligned anyway.
Goebbels and Strasser now perfect the Nazi racist, antisemitic newspeak where "Socialism"
means "solidarity within the German race" - "Bolshevik" is synonymous with "Jew" - "Bourgeoisie"
indicates "Jewish middle class" - "Banker" is "a Jew" - "Capitalism" is the "Jewish conspiracy
of international finance" - and so on.
The issue is not a new one in this the "National Socialist German Workers Party."
And yet, Hitler opposes continued Socialist sounding rhetoric at first, but Goebbels convinces
him to play along.
Not only is this instrumental in making the NSDAP acceptable to former Socialists with
Nationalist sympathies, but it also saves Strasser from Hitler's ire.
And it's a success, attracting huge amounts of violent Socialist militants and activists
dissatisfied with the floundering Communist Party.
Between 1925 and 1930, NSDAP membership grows from 26,000 to 389,000.
In May 1929, Strasser loses but survives yet another showdown with Hitler when Strasser
dares to propose entertaining the idea of a coalition with the Social Democrats, or
even the Communists for a state government in Saxony.
This episode also marks a final break with Goebbels, now his successor as head of propaganda.
But despite the infighting, between1928 and 1930, Strasser advances his position and rebuilds
the party into a model of efficiency.
He introduces a structure closely mirroring the provincial structure of Germany, with
Gauleiters instead of provincial governors, and the Sturmabteilung or SA structured like
the state and federal police.
He appoints Reichsleiters to handle a state-like administration and restructures the party
leadership like a shadow cabinet of the chancellery.
By 1932, the NSDAP is a complete state within the state, poised and pouncing at a takeover
of the country.
For that Hitler has two plans; A Hitler wins the Presidency and appoints
Strasser Chancellor.
B Hitler doesn't win the Presidency, and they demand that Hitler is appointed Chancellor.
Strasser considers both ideas unrealistic and has only one plan: enter into a coalition
with the conservatives and settle for key cabinet positions.
When plan A falls through, he takes this to Papen, without informing Hitler.
But already before the July polls, Hitler finds out from British journalist Sefton Delmer
and once again blows a gasket at Strasser.
The rest of the leadership calm Hitler down enough to not make a public scene and to pay
lip service to Strasser's and Papen's agreement.
With the Parliament seats gained in July, Hitler stays his course and snubs Papen.
Strasser, though, is less optimistic about the November elections and continues negotiations
with Papen as the new election campaign starts.
Now, street violence coming mostly from the Nazis against the Communists was the central
theme of the July election, this election campaign we see the Communists go after the
Social Democrats, for Ernst Thälmann, leader of the Communist Party the KPD, has smelled
blood.
In July the new votes he captured came almost exclusively at the expense of the center-left
Social Democrats, the SPD.
And if you have found a winning formula, why not roll with it?
Well, that is what he does!
Their main slogan is still that they are the only genuine anti-fascist alternative.
But now, they add the SPD to this list of fascists by labeling them 'social fascists.'
The SPD themselves position Social Democracy as the alternative to everything - against
von Papen - against the Nazis - against the Communists.
The Nazis, on Goebbels orders, had toned down the anti-semitic rhetoric in 1930 and in July,
but now it creeps back into their main campaign focus.
And the patchwork of Conservative parties, including Zentrum and the German National
People's Party DNVP, run on an identity campaign to return Germany to an imagined glorious
past.
And while they all rail against each other, something essential happens in the background:
the economy starts to recover.
Not overnight, it has been in recovery for many months, but now people begin to notice
it in their wallets and on the job market.
It's a combination of Papen's repeal of several of the draconian austerity measures set by
his predecessor, and the early effects of overall European recovery from the 1929 October
crash.
Moreover, many of the briefly canceled social security programs, part of German welfare
capitalism, have been reintroduced.
Together, it leads to a lower sense of financial urgency, which coupled with exhaustion over
the constant elections suppresses voter turnout, which sinks from 84.1% in July to 80.6% in
November.
On election day, the biggest losers are actually the Nazis, but the Social Democrats also take
a beating, an essential beating.
The NSDAP loses 34 seats to 196, but is still the biggest party.
Papen's conservative block combined gains 16 seats to 154 or 26.3%, making them the
second-biggest faction.
The moderate and liberal centrist parties are now wholly insignificant, but the change
on the left flank has dramatic effects.
The SPD lose 12 seats, out of which 11 go to the KPD- the Communists.
So even with the NSDAP losses, 50.7% of votes in the Reichstag are either for Communists
or Nazis.
This means nothing has changed - the extremists on both ends can still block the formation
of a government by merely abstaining from voting.
It was so close.
If the Communists had taken only four fewer seats from SPD, a new grand coalition would
have been possible.
But now even if a coalition of SPD and KPD was ideologically possible, which it isn't,
they don't have the votes for that either.
Instead, the only viable alternatives are yet another election or a coalition of Conservatives
and Nazis, right?
Well, now with the losses of the NSDAP and the improving economy, Papen comes up with
another plan.
He will take charge of the country as dictator of Germany.
Now, Papen and his Minster of the Interior Wilhelm, Baron von Gayl, advise Hindenburg
to prorogue the Reichstag for six months and only then hold new elections.
In that time they will devise a new constitution.
It is his old plan of a return to constitutional Monarchy.
New elections in the spring should give them time to build a sufficient base to get this
through the new Reichstag.
Hindenburg likes the idea, but before they can start putting it into play, they meet
resistance.
The execution of the plan depends on having the Riechswehr, the army on their side, but
Reichswehr Minister Kurt von Schleicher has some serious concerns with this plan.
During the only major violent clash between police, Communists, and Nazis in the November
election campaign, one of his generals, Eugen Ott was playing war games and coming up with
disaster scenarios.
According to Ott, the Reichswehr is in no position to resist the Nazi paramilitaries
without launching a civil war.
His scenarios predict that the Communists would build a third front.
And in various versions of the events that then unfold, Ott foresees doom.
Such as; Invasion by Poland, intervention by the USSR, a secession of Bavaria as a Nazi
State, occupation by the Western Allies, and several other effects that lead to the end
of Germany.
Not a single scenario foresees a successful outcome for the Reichswehr.
To put it bluntly: combined, the NSDAP and KPD armed forces are now in many ways superior
to the better equipped German armed forces.
So Schleicher suggests another plan: appease the Nazis and the Communists and use Strasser
to break up the NSDAP from within.
It's an old idea called Querfront, in English the Third Position, that supporters of a Conservative
Revolution have toyed with for over a decade.
In basic terms, it combines the reactionary social positions of the extreme right with
some collectivist, labor-friendly fiscal policy of the radical left.
Sound familiar?
You got it - it's the Strasser position!
Now, for the Conservative mainstream, this has been an unacceptable idea until now, but
under the dreadful prospects of the Ott scenarios, most of the Conservative cabinet backs Schleicher's
plan.
Unsurprisingly, Strasser is also all for it.
Somewhat surprisingly, he also indicates that he will have no problem to get Hitler and
the rest of the NSDAP behind it too.
On December 3, 1932, Hindenburg dismisses Papen and makes Schleicher new Chancellor
of Germany and dictator of Prussia by emergency decree.
Meanwhile, Strasser takes the proposal for a coalition with Hitler as deputy Chancellor
to the rest of the Nazi leadership.
This time Hitler doesn't explode, the election losses have left him more cautious.
Instead, Strasser meets immediate opposition from Reichstag President Hermann Göring and
from Josef Goebbels, who favor an "all or nothing" approach.
Now, Hitler has spent the last few weeks in meetings with industrialists and bankers,
working tirelessly to convince and assure them that they have no Socialist measures
to fear from the National Socialists.
Then his new industrialist and banker friends have been put pressure on Hindenburg to accept
Hitler, even as Chancellor, but they have also impressed on Hitler the need for diplomacy.
While the NSDAP leaders argue, Schleicher starts making known his intent for a Third
Front through a broad coalition.
Not only is this met with skepticism by the general public, but it also infuriates Conservatives
who deride him as the Red General.
