rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

THE LAST DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 1931-33 145much of the time by presidential decree without the consent of Parliament. Theprovocation to take such a step admittedly had been great; the politicians intheir blindness had made it all but inevitable. As recently as May 12, though,he had been able to win a vote of confidence in the Reichstag for his financebill. But where Parliament could not agree he had relied on the authority of thePresident to govern. Now that authority had been withdrawn. From now on,from June 1932 to January 1933, it would be granted to two lesser men who,though not Nazis, felt no urge to uphold a democratic Republic, at least as itwas presently constituted.The political power in Germany no longer resided, as it had since the birthof the Republic, in the people and in the body which expressed the people’swill, the Reichstag. It was now concentrated in the hands of a senile, eightyfive-year-oldPresident and in those of a few shallow ambitious men around himwho shaped his weary, wandering mind. Hitler saw this very clearly, and itsuited his purposes. It seemed most unlikely that he would ever win a majorityin Parliament. Hindenburg’s new course offered him the only opportunity thatwas left of coming to power. Not at the moment, to be sure, but soon.He hurried back to Berlin from Oldenburg, where on May 29 the Nazis hadwon an absolute majority in the election for the local diet. The next day he wasreceived by Hindenburg, who confirmed the points of the deal which the Nazileader had secretly worked out with Schleicher on May 8: the lifting of the banon the S.A., a presidential cabinet of Hindenburg’s own choosing, dissolution ofthe Reichstag. Would Hitler support the new government? Hindenburg asked.Hitler replied that he would. That evening of May 30, the Goebbels’ diary wasbrought up to date: ”Hitler’s talk with the President went well . . . V. Papenis spoken of as Chancellor. But that interests us little. The important thing isthat the Reichstag is dissolved. Elections! Elections! Direct to the people! Weare all very happy.” 152 FIASCO OF FRANZ VON PAPENThere now appeared briefly on the center of the stage an unexpected andludicrous figure. The man whom General von Schleicher foisted upon the octogenarianPresident and who on June 1, 1932, was named Chancellor of Germanywas the fifty-three-year-old Franz von Papen, scion of an impoverished family ofthe Westphalian nobility, a former General Staff officer, a crack gentleman rider,an unsuccessful and amateurish Catholic Centrist politician, a wealthy industrialistby marriage and little known to the public except as a former militaryattache in Washington who had been expelled during the war for complicity inthe planning of such sabotage as blowing up bridges and railroad lines while theUnited States was neutral.”The President’s choice met with incredulity,” wrote the French ambassadorin Berlin. ”No one but smiled or tittered or laughed because Papen enjoyed thepeculiarity of being taken seriously by neither his friends nor his enemies . . . Hewas reputed to be superficial, blundering, untrue, ambitious, vain, crafty and anintriguer.” 153 To such a man – and M. François-Poncet was not exaggerating –Hindenburg, at Schleicher’s prompting, had entrusted the fate of the flounderingRepublic.