Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

536 DER FUEHRERdouble game; but whether knowingly or not, when he recommended tothe President a majority government under Hitler's leadership, he wasrecommending exactly what he had been pre-paring consciously, andsometimes unconsciously, for two years.Hindenburg received the same advice from the most responsible andprobably most influential of his advisers, State Secretary Otto Meissner.Meissner's chief aim was to free the old man from the oppressiveburden of his own terrifying political position, to relieve him from theposition of a dictator governing against the Reichstag. The Center waswilling to give a Hitler government its vote, if this government wereprepared to rule by strictly parliamentary means. The GermanNationalists, it is true, demanded that the Reichstag be sent home for along period. Would it not be possible to adjourn the Reichstag for alimited time in strict accordance with the constitution and in this waysatisfy both sides?Oh yes, this was possible, said Hitler. In his person, in his movement,the principle of democracy and the principle of leadership fused into aunit; he was the man to satisfy both sides, to adjourn the Reichstag inaccordance with the constitution.Two days before Schleicher's fall, Hitler might have accepted a Papencabinet. Now, after his adversary had fallen, he was unbending. 'Acompromise solution is now out of the question,' writes Goebbels onJanuary 28, after discussing the situation with Hitler; but 'we are all stillvery skeptical and are not cheering too soon.' Negotiations went on fortwo days. The German Nationalists put up the hardest struggle againstHitler's chancellorship; they fought for a Papen government that wouldbe tougher than Papen himself; in this the party of landed property andheavy industry doubtless did what the interests it represented desired. Itfought against the Schleicher-Meissner formula of a majoritygovernment under Hitler's leadership; it fought against a participation ofthe Center in the new government. In their fight against the Center, theyalso had Papen on their side; meanwhile, not only Meissner demandedparticipation of the Center; Hitler also desired it, to avoid being entirelyat the mercy of the German Nationalists. The Stahlhelm, under itsleaders Franz Seldte and Theodor Duesterberg, also forced its way intothese negotiations; the two asserted that they