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Since experience shows that during the final days there is a variety of coloured
posters, this poster with its completely black background will contrast with all the
others and will produce a tremendous effect on the masses …
Source R
Extracts Goebbel’s Diary on the closing days of Bruning’s cabinet.
8 May 1932: On Saturday the delegates come and give us some information. The
Fuhrer has an important interview with Schleicher in the presence of a few gentlemen
of the President’s immediate circle.
All goes well. The Fuhrer has spoken decisively. Bruning’s fall is expected shortly.
The President of the Reich will withdraw his confidence from him.
The plan is to constitute a Presidential Cabinet. The Reichstag will be dissolved.
Repressive enactments are to be cancelled. We shall be free to go ahead as we like
and mean to outdo ourselves in propaganda.
11 May 1932. The Reichstag drags on. Groener’s position is shaken. The army no
longer supports him. Even those with most to with him urge his downfall.
This is the beginning; once one of these men falls, the whole Cabinet, and with it the
system, will crash. Bruning is trying to salvage what he can.
Source S
From a conversation between Hitler and Hindenburg on 13 August 1932.
The President of the Reich opened the discussion by declaring to Hitler that he was
ready to let the National Socialist Party and their leader Hitler participate in the
Reich government and would welcome their Cupertino. He then put the question to
Hitler whether he was prepared to participate in the present government of von
Papen. Herr Hitler declared that … His taking part in Cupertino with the existing
government was out of the question. Considering the importance of the National
Socialist movement he must demand the full and complete leadership of government
and state for himself and his party.
Source T
Extract from a report of the Reich Minister of the Interior, summer, 1932.
Looked at politically, objectively, the result of the election is so fearful because it
seems clear that the present election will be the last normal Reichstag election for a
long time to come. The so-called race of thinkers and poets is hurrying with flags
flying towards dictatorship and thus towards a period that will totally be filled with
severe revolutionary disturbances. The elected Reichstag is totally incapable of
functioning, even if the Centre goes in with the National Socialists, which it will do
without hesitation if it seems in the interests of the party… The one consolation could
be the recognition that the National Socialists have passed their peak… But against
this stands the fact that the radicalism of the right has unleashed a strong radicalism
on the left. The communists have made gains almost everywhere and thus internal
political disturbances have become exceptionally bitter.
History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 72