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Source D
The KPD observes the September 1930 Election.
While the revolutionary progress of the working-class movement increased unabated
even after the election of 14 September 1930, the bourgeoisie took a further step
along the way towards the creation of a fascist state. The Bruning Government,
which destroyed the surviving achievements of the revolution of 1918, which
dismantled the Weimar Constitution clause by clause, which eliminated the influence
of the parliament and turned itself into the executive organ of the employers’ frantic
offensive against the living standards of the proletariat… Has become a government
for the realisation of the fascist dictatorship.
(Fascism and Democracy in the Theses of the KPD, 1931-32)
Source E
Hermann Dietrich, Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister, comments on the fall of
Bruning on 30 May 1932.
The deeper reasons for Bruning’s removal lie in the fact that a class of people who
had ceased to exercise any decisive influence in the state, namely the old Prussian
element, decided that they would like to rule once more … This element made its first
attempts to seize power at the time of the formation of Bruning’s government.
Bruning was supposed to give the helm a turn to the right … But events were too
strong for him so he was dismissed because he did not fulfil the gentlemen’s
expectations.
Source F
Von Papen recollects his appointment as Chancellor in a ‘Cabinet of Barons’ in May
1932.
He (Schleicher) gave me a general survey of the political situation, described the
crisis within the cabinet, and told me that it was the President’s wish to form a
cabinet of experts, independent of the political parties. It had become technically
impossible to form a parliamentary cabinet, because no combination could command
a majority. The sole remaining constitutional solution was the formation of a
presidential cabinet by the chief of State … He no longer considered it possible to
combat a party as strong as the Nazis by negative means, which had only resulted in
the steady and threatening growth of their power …
Schleicher left me in no doubt that he was acting as spokesman for the army, the only
stable organisation remaining in the State, preserved intact and free of party political
strife by von Seeckt and his successors. He then turned the conversation to the
subject of who could lead the new cabinet…to my amazement Schleicher now
suggested that I should take over this task myself …
History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 64