And yet,if von Papen had possesed the patience to wait a while,it is probable that the decline in Nazi morale,as Goebbels’ diary has showed,would have done for them.The November 1932 election,the 3rd in two years,had seen a loss of 34 seats.Even more important than the number of seats lost was the fact that they had actually lost seats.The aura of supremacy which came with being the largest party in the Reichstag and which was actually one of their biggest selling points had been broken.The long election campaigns on 1932 had taken their toll on their donors’ pockets which were not,as the party may have thought,bottomless.With hindsight,Hitler himself may have added to this lack of backing through a tactical error commited when,after losing the Chancellorship to von Papen,he had allowed Goebbels to take a more radical line against the reactionary nature of the Papen regime.This radical line had seen its high point during the autumn of 1932,where the Nazis had cooperated with the Communists in support of the Berlin transport workers’ strike,which had broken out in protest against the wages policy of the Government.Whatever the cause of the shortage of funds,the fact was that the movement was running on empty.
And then,in January 1933 von Papen decided to be the unlikely saviour of Nazism.He concocted a cabinet formula that would conceed the Chancellorship to Hitler but would,supposedly,be filled with enough Nationalists in key positions so as to keep Hitler ‘on message’.Colleagues were not as naive and expressed their fears which von Papen allayed with the foolish words “Don’t worry,we’ve hired him” (21).
But Hitler was no-one’s puppet and the Enabling Law of the 24th March 1933 meant he need no longer tolerate the old conservatives as their votes were no longer needed for legislation.During the purges,von Papen was sent into quasi-exile by the man he had ‘hired’ and Hitler laughed at his foolishness – a laughter not shared by those who feared that this man’s folly had done for an awful lot of people.
FOOTNOTES
(a):’Mittelstand’
The German lower-middle class,including artisans,small tradesmen and
small peasent farmers
(b):’Black-red’
Black for the Catholic Centre Party and red for the Social Democrats
(c):’Reichslanbund’
A pressure group concerned with farmers’ subsidies,import tariffs and minimum prices.
(d):’Junker’
Landowning aristocrat typically associated with extreme conservatism, support of the monarchy/military, and protectionist policies for agriculture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1)Fritz Thyssen,I Paid Hitler ,(pg 55)
(2)James and Suzanne Pool,Who Financed Hitler(pg 163)
(3)Fritz Thyssen,I Paid Hitler (pg 50-51)
(4)Jeremy Noakes,Nazism-The Rise to Power (pg 2)
(5)WA Coupe,Cartoons of the Third Reich,History Today,Sep 1998 issue.
(6)Jeremy Noakes,Nazism-The Rise to Power(pg 76)
(7)Hams Mommsen,From Weimar to Auschwitz(pg 25)
(8)Mira Wilkins:American Business abroad;Ford on Six Continents,(pg 96)
(9)James and Suzanne PoolWho Financed Hitler(pg 112)
(10)Dick Geary,Who voted for the Nazis,From History Today,Oct 1998 issue
(11)Otto Strasser,Hitler and I,(pg114)
(12)Daniel Guerin:Fascism and Big Business(the whole book)
(13)Dick Geary,Who voted for the Nazis.From History Today,Oct 1998 issue.
(14)Statement published in Der Ruhrarbeiter,a Labour Front paper,(from Daniel Guerin:Fascism and Big Business,Pathfinder,1939)
(15)Gustave Le Bon:The Psychology of peoples
(16)Jeremy Noakes,Nazism-The Rise to Power(pg 76)
(17)James and Suzanne Pool:Who Financed Hitler(pg 438)
(18)Goebbels:My Part in Germany’s fight(pg 112)
(19)Jeremy Noakes,Nazism-The Rise to Power(pg 115)
(20)Encyclopedia Britannica:Agrarian League
(21)Jeremy Noakes,Nazism-The Rise to Power(pg 121)