"Seizure of power": There was an alternative to Hitler in 1933

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In retrospect, it seems inevitable: Adolf Hitler, the undisputed leader of the party with by far the most electorate, was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933 and immediately established his dictatorship, with which he ruled Germany for twelve and a half years.

This process is generally known as a “seizure of power” - a term that the NSDAP chief himself used only very rarely.

This choice of words was never happy, because Hitler did not “take hold” of anything;

rather, he was offered the office of head of government.

Nevertheless, his supporters until 1945 and almost all historians after the war presented the appointment as practically without an alternative. The notes in Joseph Goebbels' diary in the decisive weeks gave cause for doubt.

Nevertheless, so far no researcher has been able to do more than speculate as to what a different solution to the political crisis of 1932/33 could have looked like.

That changes with an article by the Stuttgart historian Wolfram Pyta and his Frankfurt colleague Rainer Orth, which will appear in the latest issue of the “Historischen Zeitschrift” (HZ) at the beginning of April 2021;

it had recently attracted ingloriously through the publication of a wild polemic under a false name.

It would certainly be good for German history if this one slip remained.

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In any case, Pyta and Orth show how serious and at the same time stimulating can advance research.

For the first time, based on previously unknown or neglected fragments of information, the two authors can specifically describe "how a Reich Chancellor Hitler could have been prevented".

Pyta is identified as the biographer of the second and last Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, who appointed Hitler Chancellor under Article 53 of the Weimar Constitution.

Orth wrote the essential study of Franz von Papen's actions in 1933/34.

This intriguer was Chancellor of the Reich for 186 days in 1932 and was one of the main actors in Berlin politics in the run-up to Hitler's appointment.

Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen and Reich Defense Minister General Kurt von Schleicher put their heads together at a horse race in the autumn of 1932

Source: picture-alliance / dpa

Even contemporaries knew how the last Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, General Kurt von Schleicher, who had been in office since December 3, 1932, fundamentally imagined the alternative to Hitler: as a "cross front", i.e. as an alliance across all party lines from the trade unions to to parts of the NSDAP.

The decisive figure here, which is also already in hundreds of books, would have been Gregor Straßer, as Reich Organizational Leader, the second man in the NSDAP.

The problem: After a lost power struggle with Hitler, Straßer resigned from all party offices on December 8, 1932 and took a two-week vacation abroad, so he disappeared from the political scene.

So far, this retreat has been considered the end of a realistic conception of the “transverse front”.

This is exactly where Pyta and Orth come in, because they can show that it was not about failure, but about a new beginning.

Both have a knack for finding important sources in unexpected places, but at the same time meticulously checking the authenticity of such documents.

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About half a dozen essential testimonies underpin the reinterpretation of Schleicher's tactics at the turn of the year 1932/33.

It concerns, for example, the diary of Strasser's adjutant Paul Schulz, which his son published under a pseudonym as a private print only a few years ago.

There is also a memorandum from the last days of 1932, which most likely reflects Strasser's opinion of Hitler at the time and which has been handed down in excerpts in denazification files in the Hamburg State Archives.

Or letters that have been handed down in a file from the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP to an otherwise little-known Strasser supporter named Hans Reupke.

The relevance of such documents first has to be considered, but resourcefulness in this regard characterizes Pyta and Orth.

Based on this material, the two historians can now conclusively reconstruct how Chancellor Schleicher advanced his concept of an alternative to Hitler even after Strasser's withdrawal from NSDAP functions.

Adolf Hitler "swore in" the parliamentarians of the NSDAP in the Berlin hotel "Kaiserhof" in August 1932. The second man of the NSDAP, Gregor Strasser, sits on Hitler's left.

Source: picture alliance / akg-images

The starting point is a reinterpretation of this very resignation on December 8, 1932. The setback of the NSDAP in the Reichstag elections on November 6 (a good two million fewer voters had voted for the Hitler movement than before on July 31, 1932; their share sank from 37.3 to 33.1 percent) had led to a violent dispute within the party leadership.

On November 30th, the decisive National Socialists met in Weimar to deliberate: “Decisive conference”, stated Goebbels: “Straßer is in favor of participation.

Otherwise paints black on black.

Hitler sharply against him.

Stay consistent.

Bravo! ”In fact, the head of the organization spoke out in favor of participation of the NSDAP as a junior partner in a new government, while the chairman wanted everything or nothing: the chancellorship for himself or total opposition.

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The next vote, a local election in Thuringia of little importance in itself, turned out to be even worse for the National Socialists: On December 4, they lost 40 percent or more of their votes in some constituencies.

Thereupon a confrontation broke out in Berlin on December 8th.

Hitler threatened suicide: "If the party falls apart, I'll break up in three minutes";

Straßer buckled.

At least that is the previous interpretation.

According to Pytas and Orth's research, however, it might be wrong.

They brush against the grain of the resignation letter from the second man of the Nazi movement, known only as a draft: “By pointing out that the NSDAP does not want to commit one-sidedly to a 'brutal confrontation with Marxism' for the 'implementation of German socialism', but rather rather, 'to form a large, broad front of working people', he was on equal terms with Hitler on ideological issues. ”That in no way makes Strasser a democrat;

he remained a staunch National Socialist - albeit one who was prepared to abandon the typical verbal radicalism in favor of a moderate policy of practice.

An intrigue that led to forgery

Autopsy of a Hitler forgery: On January 30, 1933, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor, Franz von Papen becomes Vice Chancellor.

This was preceded by an oral agreement from which forger Konrad Kujau wanted to capitalize.

Source: WELT / Sven Felix Kellerhoff and Dominic Basselli

The withdrawal from the party leadership “was not a surrender to Hitler, but a declaration of war”, judge the “HZ” authors: “By releasing himself into political freedom, Hitler lost control of him.” In fact, it soon came about renewed, albeit indirect, contacts between Schleicher and the now former head of the Reich organization.

A confidante of Strasser also sent a memorandum to the State Secretary in the Reich President's Office, which was clear.

Because in it Hitler was attested "a disgusting Byzantinism and a pathological imperial instinct";

he was a failure “in the field of state-political tactics”, who avoided “intercourse with men of high intellectual quality” and “instead surrounded himself with inferior creatures”.

On January 3, 1933, Schleicher met with Strasser and made him an offer: the vice-chancellorship and the function of Reich Commissioner for Prussia, i.e. in fact control of almost three quarters of the Reich.

The former NSDAP functionary wanted to get involved, his adjutant Paul Schulz stated, if the next Reichstag elections did not take place before November 1933.

There was a clear calculation behind this: With the rank of second man in the Reich government, Straßer probably wanted to establish his own list as a catchment basin for the NSDAP voters who were disappointed by Hitler's Vabanque game.

The time factor was doubly important: firstly, Straßer had to prove himself as a “capable government politician”, and secondly, there was at least the chance that the NSDAP, which was almost bankrupt in 1932/33, would no longer be able to pay for its massive propaganda campaigns.

"Precisely because Strasser had not broken publicly with Hitler, he remained an incalculable figure," write Pyta and Orth: "Hitler and his paladins grudgingly had to take note of Strasser's strategic foresight, who took every step with care."

Gregor Straßer came to Hindenburg three days after meeting Schleicher.

Little more was known about this conversation than that it had taken place.

The two historians did not find a protocol or something similar either, but they did find information: Paul Schulz noted that the appointment went “very well”;

Hitler, on the other hand, was "very dismayed," stated Goebbels.

Schleicher was obviously satisfied too, because he presented his concept of a government “from Straßer to the center” to the cabinet on January 16, 1933.

Now the Reich President would have had to make his contribution: In order to implement the concept of his Chancellor, he had to dissolve the Reichstag, which at any time with the destructive majority of the NSDAP and KPD (together 296 of 584 members) could express mistrust in the Chancellor, and the Postpone due elections beyond the 60-day period prescribed by the Constitution.

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Source: Salzgeber & Company Medien

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Hindenburg now had two clear alternatives: Either he opted for a Schleicher cabinet, which was expanded by Straßer, and postponed the new election until autumn 1933. Or he appointed Hitler as Reich Chancellor, who wanted a new election as soon as possible, forgetting the defeat of November 1932 close.

So it was mainly about the time factor.

"Hindenburg's choice of Hitler's solution is not only due to the close proximity of the two protagonists in terms of content," say Wolfram Pyta and Rainer Orth: "It was also his specific handling of the resource of time that allowed him to make this decision."

In fact, this lets the hitherto always puzzling promotion of the NSDAP leader appear in a new light.

The Reich President was undoubtedly closer to a solution Schleicher-Strasser, and personally he had great reservations about Hitler's character - on January 26, 1933, he emphasized that he did not want to appoint the “Austrian private” as Chancellor.

In most of the standard works on the Weimar Republic and in many Hitler biographies, Hindenburg's shift is explained with his senility;

the 85-year-old was at that time a puppet in the hands of a "camarilla" made up of East Elbe landowners and reactionaries like Franz von Papen.

Wolfram Pyta sees it differently in his much-praised biography of the second and last Reich President: Hindenburg always had a sure instinct for power and was by no means decrepit.

A little physically limited, but mentally up-to-date, he always knew what he was doing.

When, in the last week of January 1933, he had to choose between decelerating and accelerating, he decided - he alone - for the NSDAP boss.

The two authors bring this very pointedly to the formula: "Hindenburg did not favor an 'interim solution' with Straßer, but a 'final solution' with Hitler." Everyone was actually surprised by this - even Joseph Goebbels, who was probably at noon on January 30, 1933 in his diary notebook wrote: “The time has come.

Hitler is Chancellor of the Reich.

Like in fairy tales!"

How could things have continued if Hitler had not been appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933?

Read more about it on March 22nd on WELTGeschichte.

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