The power of these three ideas (and the spectre of communism) in appealing
to the electorate, is powerful indeed, although the anti-Semitic aspect should
probably not rank with the other three factors in its provenance.? The chance that Hitler was given these axes
to grind and a demagogic power so intense brought him electoral power. Meinecke notes
other instances of chance working for Hitler.?
The election of Hugenberg to the leadership of the DNVP in June 1930 was
won by chance as some opponents of his were not there to cast their votes ?
votes which would have lost Hugenberg the election.? The election allowed the formation of the National Opposition (to
the Young Plan) and then the formal Harzburg Front of October 1931.? This gave Hitler a majority in parliament in
1933, but had Hugenberg?s opponents turned up so much could have been
different. Hitler?s
appointment is another ?chance? in Meinecke?s eyes.? The ?un-needed? appointment which followed no trend or pattern
was the result, in Meinecke?s eyes, of von Hindenburg?s weakness.? His inability to deal with his son, Schleicher,
Muller, Papen and Bruning is hardly a weakness so much as a lack of
strength.? Meinecke notes the successes
in reversing Versailles, in rebuilding the economy, in securing allied support
for an increased military, in setting up rival youth groups to the Hitler Youth
and in the elections of November 1932 which were much reduced on their previous
standing.? The general trend (despite
the result of the elections in Lippe-Detmold) was against the Nazis, and Meinecke
is probably right in agreeing with Julius Strasser who believed that Hitler had
?missed the boat? in January 1933 and that the Nazis were on the way to
obscurity like the DDP before them..Meinecke
attributes the final trigger of the Deutsche Katastrophe to Hindenberg?s
weak character and his inability to stand up for the Weimar Republic, as have
so many other historians.? This is a
conclusion which I accept.? However, the
growth of the homo faber class, the primacy of militarism, the end of
the reasonable human nature and the view that Nazism was not a specifically
?German? event, yet was apparently born of German characteristics in Germany
and nowhere else I do not accept.