TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century / TIME, Almanac of the 20th Century.ISO / portrait / hitler / hitler.004 < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-02-27 | 14KB | 305 lines

<text> <title> (Hitler) Hitler Into Chancellor </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--Hitler Portrait </history> <link 00048><link 00042><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> February 6, 1933 Hitler Into Chancellor </hdr> <body> Except for beer, which few Germans consider alcoholic, Adolf Hitler touches no alcoholic tipple. Neither does he smoke. Hot water he calls "effeminate." Last week, on the biggest morning of his life, this pudgy, stoop-shouldered, toothbrush-mustached but magnetic little man bounded out of bed after four hours sleep, soaped his soft flesh with cold water, shaved with cold water, put on his always neat but never smart clothes and braced himself for the third of his historic encounters with Paul von Heneckendorf und von Hindenburg, Der Reichsprasident. At their first meeting last August, upstart Hitler was not so much as invited to sit down, despite the fact that he represented 230 Reichstag Deputies, by far the largest party in the Fatherland. "With what power, Herr Hitler," growled Old Paul, "do you seek to be made Chancellor?" "Precisely the same power that Mussolini exercised after his March on Rome!" chirped cheeky Adolf. (One scowling bust of Il Duce, two portraits of Frederick the Great adorn Herr Hitler's office.) "So!" bristled Der Reichsprasident with the air of a Prussian schoolmaster about to squelch an urchin. "Let me tell you, Herr Hitler, if you don't behave, I'll rap your fingers!" Thus a complete break last August--at which time Adolf Hitler had been called in only to be asked by the President whether he would enter and support the "Cabinet of Monocles" headed by Lieut. Colonel Franz von Papen. With dejected, hangdog mien Der Osaf left Der Reichsprasident. In November things were different. On the one hand losses in Germany's general election shrank the Hitler Party, still largest, from 230 to 195 Reichstag seats. On the other hand, popular hatred and unrest at the reactionary policies of the "Cabinet of Monocles" forced Chancellor von Papen to resign. When Der Osaf (as Signor Mussolini is the"Honorary Corporal (Supreme Commander) of the Fascist Militia,"so Herr Hitler is the Oberste Sturmabteilungenfuhrer or Supreme Leader of his brown-shirted Storm Troops) was summoned a second time to the Presidential Palace he was bidden to sit down by Der Reichsprasident for what Germans call a "conference of four eyes"--i.e. not even a secretary was present. Called in for a moment, State Secretary Dr. Otto Meissner emerged to gasp, "Extraordinary cordiality!" All the same, Herr Hitler was not given carte blanche to form a Cabinet. The President attached seven complex and, as events proved, impossible conditions. After 14 days of Cabinet crisis there emerged as Chancellor, out of a welter of intrigue, "His Field Grey Eminence," suave, sly Defense Minister General Kurt von Schleicher. By his friends the General's adroit scheming is said to have "made and broken" as Chancellor both fashionable, aristocratic Franz von Papen and his predecessor, pious, ascetic Dr. Henrich Bruning. Papen-Hitler Plot. First sign that the von Schleicher Cabinet might be cracked by the same sort of intrigue that made it, came when Hitler & von Papen, both smarting in eclipse, met at Cologne for a night conference (TIME, Jan. 16). Soon afterward they were joined by "The Hearst of Germany," small, cyclonic Nationalist Party Leader Dr. Alfred Hugenberg and, reputedly, by Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, famed during his six years as president of the Reichsbank. Only President von Hindenburg could oust General von Schleicher as Chancellor and to do so he had only to refuse to sign a decree giving von Schleicher power to dissolve the Reichstag. Such power the President had given to all his Chancellors since enough Hitler Deputies began to be elected to make it impossible for a Cabinet opposed by Der Osaf to get a vote of confidence. Last week General von Schleicher, knowing that the Reichstag was about to meet this week, called on President von Hindenburg to ask for what had become "the usual powers of dissolution." They were refused. The interview was as short as that of Hindenburg and Hitler last August. In effect Old Paul kicked out General von Schleicher & Cabinet, accepted their resignations. Why? Straightforward and outspoken, President von Hindenburg has never concealed his preference for Franz von Papen as Chancellor. "With a heavy heart," he declared amid the Cabinet crisis last fall, "I have repressed my own personal inclination to re-appoint Colonel von Papen and I have commissioned Defense Minister General von Schleicher to form a new Cabinet." Next day, ousted von Papen received a photograph of Der Reichsprasident inscribed in Old Paul's firm hand, Ich hatte einen Kameraden ("I had a Comrade"). By last week Comrade von Papen had convinced Comrade von Hindenburg that the best interests of the Fatherland demanded appointment of the leader of the largest party to be Chancellor. Proposing himself as Vice-Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia, Comrade von Papen argued that with this "safeguard" (himself) in the Cabinet it would be safe to appoint Hitler Chancellor. Devious but cogent, this proposition won 85-year-old Comrade von Hindenburg's "Ja!" "Yes, Yes Indeed!" When sober, cold-water-shaven Adolf Hitler turned up for the third historic time at the President's Palace last week, he found Old Paul all smiles and spruce Colonel von Papen ready to pop the question: "Will you, Herr Reichsprasident, entrust Herr Hitler with a mandate to form a Cabinet?" "Yes. Yes." said President von Hindenburg. "Yes indeed." Outside the Palace, thousands of Hitlerites roared guttural victory cheers. "Heil Hitler! Deutschland erwache! Juda verrecke!" they bellowed as he emerged waving his black felt hat. "Hail Hitler! Germany awake! Perish Juda!" Wasting not a second, Chancellor Hitler piled into his Mercedes beside the chauffeur, shot off between lines of police to form his Cabinet with record speed. There were rumors, doubtless untrue, but alarming, that General von Schleicher & Friends were about to attempt a "General's Putsch" and proclaim restoration of the House of Hohenzollern. In less than an hour the new Hitler Cabinet had met for a brief conference in the Reich Chancellery and Germans were staring at this slate: Chancellor--Adolf Hitler Vice-Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for the State of Prussia--Franz von Papen. Foreign Minister--Baron Constantin von Neurath. Minister of Interior--Dr. Wilhelm Frick (Reichstag Leader of the Hitler Party). Defense--Lieut. General Werner von Blomberg. Finance--Count von Krosigk. Economics & Food--Alfred Hugenberg. Labor--Franz Seldte (Leader of Germany's "Steel Helmet" War veterans). Minister Without Portfolio, Reich Commissioner for Air and State Minister of Interior for Prussia--Hermann Wilhelm Goring (Hitlerite Speaker of the Reichstag). Significance. At first glance this Cabinet seemed to bristle with anti-Hitler "safeguards": No. 1: von Papen No. 2: von Neurath who was Foreign Minister in the past two cabinets, is tolerably well liked in France where Hitler is Beelzebub. No. 3: General von Blomberg, never before in politics, a crony of President von Hindenburg, who can be trusted to keep the Army out of Hitler mischief. No. 4: Count von Krosigk, another hold-over firmly entrenched in his Ministry of Finance. On second glance, the Cabinet was seen to give Adolf Hitler a handsome slice of power, providing the Centre Parties support him when the Reichstag meets, which seemed not improbable, considering the "safeguards." As Chancellor, Herr Hitler hopes shortly to provoke an election and go to the country with a matchless slogan: "For Hindenburg and Hitler!" As Minister of Interior, Hitler-Henchman Frick will control Germany's electoral machinery and the Federal police. Speaker Goring, another Hitler henchman will have similar control, as Prussian Minister of Interior, in Germany's largest state. Potentially last week formation of the Hitler Cabinet was of such maximum importance that Berlin's famed Der Tag (not a Hitler organ) cried: "This historic day marks the birth of a new Germany!" "In appointing this Cabinet," warned the Socialist Vorwarts, "the President has assumed a fearful responsibility. He is the guarantor that this Government shall not depart from a constitutional basis and that it shall resign immediately as soon as defeated in the Reichstag." Reassured the Borsen (Stock Exchange) Courier: "Hitler the Chancellor will be a different man than Hitler the agitator." On Berlin change stocks rose two or three points on news of the Hitler Cabinet, closed after losing most of their small gains. Slightly ludicrous was the appointment of Dr. Hugenberg (who is constantly proposed for Chancellor by his newspapers), to the Ministry of Economics and Food. Rise of Hitler. Recalling that Napoleon was born in Corsica, loyal Hitlerites boast: "Our Leader is more German than Napoleon was French!" The new Chancellor was born to the wife of an Austrian customs inspector on the German frontier of Austria in 1889. Shy, nervous and inclined to keep to himself, Adolf was encouraged by his mother to do water-colors. In his teens he became an orphan, went to Vienna, tried to be a painter, became a builder's helper ("house painter" to his critics) and emigrated to Munich with $4 in his pocket rather than perform his Austrian compulsory military service. No coward, he enlisted in the German Army in 1914, mostly fought against British troops, never learned English, picked up a little French, won an Iron Cross and ended the War in a hospital, gassed. In the early 1920's War-Veteran Hitler plunged into local Munich politics, rose by sheer gift of gab, lung power and personal magnetism to such eminence that on the night of Nov. 8, 1923 he with General Erich Ludendorff attempted the famed "Beer Putsch." In the presence of the Military Governor of Bavaria, General von Kahr, spellbinder Hitler leaped upon a beer-greasy table and bellowed: "I proclaim the Nationalist Revolution! Von Kahr and his brother officers will please join me. I guarantee their safety." Governor von Kahr did join Hitler and Ludendorff ("at the point of a pistol," he afterwards testified). Enough other beer- soused Bavarians joined to make it necessary for a Reichswehr regiment to shoot several people. When Ludendorff and Hitler were tried for high treason the General was acquitted, the upstart given a light prison sentence from which he was released in a few month ("as insane," say enemies). Starting from scratch again, but with confidence in his own spellbindery, Adolf Hitler slowly worked up the fantastic party he calls National Socialist, Nazi Fascist. Its program consists of stentorian appeals to every form of German prejudice. Essentially Nationalists and patrioteers, the Nazis insert "Socialist" into their party's name simply as a lure to discontented workers. "Marxism is not Socialism!" Herr Hitler has absurdly postulated. "The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists." Today it is no exaggeration to state that the Nazi Party is pledged to so many things that it is pledged to nothing. Abolition of interest ("usury"), expulsion of Jews from Germany, confiscation of department stores and the parceling out of their different departments to small merchants: these are but three pledges mouthed at Nazi mass meetings. More basic are the Party's pledges to "scrap" the Treaty of Versailles and pay not a pfennig more in Reparations--but all German statesmen have those aims! That precisely is the point. In so far as it has a doctrine, National Socialism promises the bulk of the German people whatever they want. Also its "Storm Battalions" offer shelter, food and a pittance to perhaps 200,000 German unemployed. The money comes from rich Germans who expect favors from Chancellor Hitler and from every German who has dropped a copper into the box thrust at him by a young Storm Trooper. Results count, and are measured by votes. In 1928 the Party won a ludicrous twelve Reichstag seats; in 1930 it became second largest party with 107 seats. It has been largest since last August. The fact that entrenched, conservative German industrialists like Fritz Thyssen count themselves Herr Hitler's friends; the fact that ex-Kaiser Wilhelm's fourth Son Prince August ("Auwi") Wilhelm is a Nazi; and the fact that Germany's new Cabinet is so full of "safeguards," sufficiently explained last week the equanimity with which best posted observers greeted the advent of Chancellor Hitler. Enterprising Manhattan reporters managed to find local "Nazi" headquarters in the beery Yorkville neighborhood. Patient knocking at last aroused six preoccupied Teutons, some curiously clad in pajamas, all with well-thumbed newspapers in hand. "Maybe we send a cable," said the spokesman. "Maybe we celebrate tonight." Pointing to the new Chancellor's photograph he added pridefully: "Just like Mussolini ja?" </body> </article> </text>