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is said in the Weimar chapter about the Reichsbanner, the Republican
defence formation established mainly by Social Democrats. Its leader,
Otto Hirsing, is not mentioned in the index.
Despite the fact that the Weimar Republic did create a genuinely
‘modern’ political system for the German nation-state, Winkler
regards its constitution as fundamentally flawed. This was largely
due to the widespread distrust of parliamentary democracy among
the German middle class. The creation of a parallel source of power,
in the shape of the popularly elected president, weakened parliamentary
government and enabled the political parties in the Reichstag
to evade responsibility. With the election of an Ersatzkaiser in the
shape of �ield Marshal Hindenburg in 1925 this anomaly was to prove
fatal. Winkler stresses the part played by the East Elbian élite surrounding
Hindenburg for the disastrous decision to appoint Hitler
Chancellor. But he also points out that there were other, more deepseated,
causes of Hitler’s success. Quite apart from the appalling economic
difficulties created by the world depression, Weimar was burdened
with the widespread hostility of large sections of the propertied
and educated classes, which regarded the Republic as the child of
defeat and humiliation. Not only did they feel that the defeat should
be reversed, but they believed that Germany had a great new opportunity
to fulfil its destiny. With the Austro–Hungarian Empire dissolved
and Russia isolated under the Bolsheviks, the way seemed open
to recreate the mythical Reich of ancient tradition. The fact that the
National Socialists were led by an Austrian who, despite his own contempt
for Christianity, did not hesitate to invoke the Almighty when
declaiming his historic mission, strengthened the Nazi appeal to
romantic yearnings for a God-given imperium in which the Germans
would reign supreme. Winkler sees this vision as the bridge which
Hitler was able to build to the conservative classes in Germany before
1933. Certainly the greater German Reich, for which he took the credit,
was a widespread inspiration for the educated middle class. In
1920, for example, Hermann Oncken stated that the only aim left for
Germans after the collapse of the Habsburg Empire was the ‘return to
the greater German idea’. This idea could attract Lutherans, who saw
it as the extension of nationalist German Protestantism over central
Europe, and some Roman Catholics, who welcomed the chance to
redress the confessional imbalance in Germany. Winkler makes it
clear that Hitler, for all his rhetorical references to God, was con-
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