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

THE LAST DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC 1931-33 155later be Hitler’s ambassador to Tokyo) demolished him. Ott simply stated that”the defense of the frontiers and the maintenance of order against both Nazisand Communists was beyond the strength of the forces at the disposal of thefederal and state governments. Jt is therefore recommended that the Reichgovernment should abstain from declaring a state of emergency.” 160To Papen’s pained surprise, the German Army which had once sent theKaiser packing and which more recently, at Schleicher’s instigation, had eliminatedGeneral Groener and Chancellor Bruening, was now cashiering him. Hewent immediately to Hindenburg with the news, hoping that the President wouldfire Schleicher as Minister of Defense and retain Chancellor Papen – and indeedproposing that he do so.”My dear Papen,” the stout old President replied, ”you will not think muchof me if I change my mind. But I am too old and have been through too muchto accept the responsibility for a civil war. Our only hope is to let Schleichertry his luck.””Two great tears,” Papen swears, rolled down Hindenburg’s cheeks. A fewhours later, as the deposed Chancellor was clearing his desk, a photograph ofthe President arrived for him with the inscription, ”Ich hatf einen Kameraden!”The next day the President wrote him in his own handwriting of the ”heavyheart” he felt in relieving him of his post and reiterating that his confidence inhim ”remains unshaken.” That was true and would shortly be proved.On December 2 Kurt von Schleicher became Chancellor, the first generalto occupy that post since General Count Georg Leo von Caprivi de Caprarade Montecuccoli, who had succeeded Bismarck in 1890. Schleicher’s tortuousintrigues had at last brought him to the highest office at a moment when thedepression, which he little understood, was at its height; when the Weimar Republic,which he had done so much to undermine, was already crumbling; whenno one any longer trusted him, not even the President, whom he had manipulatedso long. His days on the heights, it seemed obvious to almost everyonebut himself, were strictly numbered. The Nazis were sure of it. Goebbels’ diaryfor December 2 included this entry: ”Schleicher is named Chancellor. He won’tlast long.”Papen thought so too. He was smarting from wounded vanity and thirstingfor revenge against his ”friend and successor,” as he calls him in his memoirs.To get Papen out of the way Schleicher offered him the Paris embassy, but hedeclined. The President, Papen says, wanted him to remain in Berlin ”withinreach.” That was the most strategic place to weave his own web of intriguesagainst the archintriguer. Busy and agile as a spider, Papen set to work. As thestrife-ridden year of 1932 approached its end, Berlin was full of cabals, and ofcabals within cabals. Besides those of Papen and Schleicher, there was one atthe President’s Palace, where Hindenburg’s son, Oskar, and his State Secretary,Meissner, held sway behind the throne. There was one at the Kaiserhof hotel,where Hitler and the men around him were plotting not only for power butagainst each other. Soon the webs of intrigue became so enmeshed that by NewYear’s, 1933, none of the cabalists was sure who was double-crossing whom. Butit would not take long for them to find out.SCHLEICHER: THE LAST CHANCELLOR OF THE REPUBLIC