increase of fourteen. On the whole it seemed as if the steady decline of the bourgeois Center parties, which had been going on for years, had at last come to a halt. It was significant that the NSDAP’s losses were evenly distributed throughout the country, and hence could not be considered regional setbacks. They’reflected a weariness with Nazi propaganda. Even in predominantly agricultural regions, such as Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, or Pomerania, which in the preceding elections had contributed the strongest and most reliable support for the NSDAP and thus gave the party quite another cast from the urban petty bourgeois party it had been originally, the Nazis suffered considerable losses.46 And although party leaders promised they would “sweat and fight until this disgrace is wiped out,” the wave continued to ebb in the local elections of the following week. The party’s march to victory seemed broken at last, and even though it could still be called a large party, it was no longer a myth. The question was precisely whether it could continue to exist as an ordinary party, or whether its survival depended on its being a myth.
Papen, in particular, was gratified by the outcome of the elections. Conscious of a great personal success, he turned to Hitler with the proposal that they put aside old quarrels and have another try at a union of all nationalistic forces. The Chancellor’s self-assured tone made Hitler only too aware of his own weakness; the Fuhrer’s response was to stay away from Berlin and remain inaccessible for days on end. On the eve of the elections he had issued a call to the party disdaining all thought of a reconciliation with the government and calling for “adamant continuation of the struggle until this partly overt, partly camouflaged opponent is brought to his knees” and a stop put to the reactionary policies that were driving the country into the arms of Bolshevism. Papen had to dispatch a second official letter to him before, after a deliberate delay of several days, he sent a rejection which he cloaked once again in a series of unfulfillable demands. The Chancellor received similar cold answers from the other nationalist parties.
The government, then, had only two alternatives, neither of which was very popular: either to dissolve the Reichstag once more and thus obtain a political breathing spell, as risky as it was expensive, or else to take the open step against the Constitution that had long been contemplated. This would involve using presidential and military powers to ban the Nazi party, the Communist Party, and possibly other parties. Then the rights of the legislature would be drastically pruned, a new electoral law promulgated, and Hindenburg established as a kind of superauthority in the midst of representatives of the old ruling class whom he would appoint to the seats of power. The argument in Papen’s circles went that the parliamentary-democratic “rule of the minorities” had obviously failed. The new state they were planning would ensure the “rule of the best” and thus undercut such wild ideas about dictatorship as the Nazis were advocating. Papen hinted at some of these matters in a speech delivered on October 12. Many of the details remained nebulous and indeed were never worked out. But the concept as a whole had progressed far beyond the stage of mere theory. In his reactionary bluntness Hindenburg’s neighbor and confidant, old Oldenburg-Januschau, averred that he and his friends would shortly “brand the German people with a constitution that would make their senses reel.”47
While Papen was still drawing up blueprints for the sort of state “which will not be pushed around as the plaything of political and social forces, but will stand unshakably above them,” he suddenly met with unexpected resistance on the part of Schleicher. The general had originally chosen Papen to serve as a willing and handy instrument for taming the Hitler party within the framework of a broad nationalist coalition. Instead, Papen had become involved in a futile personal dispute with Hitler. As he consolidated his position with Hindenburg, he had also shown less of that docility that would have made him useful to the publicity-shy general. “Well, what do you think of that?” Schleicher would occasionally remark sarcastically to a visitor. “Little Franz has discovered himself.” Unlike Papen, Schleicher took a serious view of the problems of a Depression-shaken industrial state. There was more to the question than the proposition that the government must be strong. He therefore had little patience with the Chancellor’s plans. Schleicher had no intention of letting the army be used to help put over this scheme. For it would mean virtual civil war, with the troops pitted against Nazis and Communists, who together were almost 18 million strong at the polls and had millions of militant followers at their disposal. But there was another factor in Schleicher’s change of front, and probably this was the decisive one. He had meanwhile discovered, or thought he had discovered, how at last to carry out his plan of taming and gradually wearing down the National Socialist Party. All that was needed was a different constellation.
With some mental reservations, therefore, Schleicher advised Papen to resign and let Hindenburg in person negotiate with the party leaders for a “Cabinet of National Concentration.” On November 17 Papen followed this recommendation, secretly hoping that the talks would fail and he would once more be summoned to the chancellorship. Two days later Hitler, cheered by a hastily assembled crowd, drove the few yards from the Hotel Kaiserhof to the presidential palace. But two talks with Hindenburg proved fruitless. Hitler obstinately demanded a presidential cabinet with special powers, whereas Hindenburg, directed by Papen in the background, would not hear of this. If the country were still to be governed by special decree, he saw no reason to dismiss Papen. Hitler, the President said, could become Chancellor only if he could put together a parliamentary majority, something the Nazi party leader was clearly in no position to do. Hindenburg’s state secretary, Meissner, summed up the matter in a letter dated November 24:
The President thanks you, my dear Herr Hitler, for your willingness to assume the leadership of a presidential cabinet. But he believes he could not justify it to the German people if he were to give his presidential powers to the leader of a party which has always stressed its exclusiveness, and which has taken a predominantly negative attitude toward him personally as well as toward the political and economic measures he has considered necessary. In these circumstances the President must fear that a presidential cabinet led by you would inevitably develop into a party dictatorship, with all the consequences of a drastic intensification of the antagonisms within the German nation that that would involve. The President, in view of his oath and his conscience, could not take the responsibility for this.48
This was another and painful rebuff. “Once again the revolution is facing closed doors,” Goebbels angrily noted. Nevertheless, this time Hitler succeeded in hiding the defeat by adroit propaganda. In a detailed letter he analyzed with considerable acumen the inherent contradictions of Hindenburg’s offer, sketching for the first time the solution finally arrived at on January 30. What attracted particular attention at the presidential palace was his suggestion of a new approach to the process of forming a government. All that was needed was legislation which would free Hindenburg from involvement in the daily business of politics and thus relieve him of onorous responsibilities. This was a proposal whose importance to the further course of events can scarcely be overestimated. Certainly it did a great deal to persuade the President to assent to the claims of the man to whom, a short while back, he had at most been willing to concede the postal ministry.
Although Papen had counted on the negotiations coming to naught and himself returning to the Chancellor’s office, things turned out differently. For in the meantime Schleicher had got in touch with the Nazi party through Gregor Strasser and was exploring the possibilities of having the Nazis enter a cabinet under his own leadership. This was basically a maneuver and one typical of Schleicher: he reasoned that a generous offer of a share in the administration would produce an explosive conflict among the members of the Hitler party. The blasting powder lay ready to hand. Gregor Strasser had, in the face of recent setbacks, argued repeatedly that the party should adopt more conciliatory tactics. Goring and especially Goebbels had denounced all “halfway solutions” and insisted on demanding undivided power.
On the evening of December 1, Schleicher was summoned to the presidential palace along with Papen. Where did he stand? Hindenburg asked Papen. Papen outlined his plan for a constitutional reform involving a virtual
But Hindenburg, scarcely troubling to examine the plan, waved this away. Schleicher persisted, pointing out that his plan would spare the President the unpleasantness of violating his oath of office. But by now the doddering old man could not bear to part with his favorite Chancellor, regardless of constitutional questions.
Schleicher, however, refused to accept defeat. When Papen, later in the evening, asked whether the Reichswehr would be ready to back his actions, Schleicher flatly refused to give any such assurances. To Papen that night, and at a cabinet meeting next day, he spoke of a study made by his ministry, based on a three-day war
