HITLER NAMED GERMAN CHANCELLOR

Berlin, Germany January 30, 1933

At noon on this date in 1933 in Berlin, German president and World War I hero Paul von Hinden­burg appointed Adolf Hitler, an Austrian now with German citizen­ship, Reichs­kanzler of the post­war Wei­mar Republic, a par­li­a­mentary repre­sen­ta­tive demo­cracy of 65 mil­lion people that had replaced the im­perial form of govern­ment in 1919 and exiled their kaiser, Wilhelm II, to the Nether­lands. Hinden­burg reversed his ear­lier opposi­tion to Hitler as chan­cellor, believing that at this moment in time the appoint­ment could pos­si­bly end the vola­tile polit­ical divi­sive­ness, incom­pe­tence, and corrup­tion as well as the eco­no­mic crisis that menaced the young and fragile nation.

The 85-year-old ex-General Field Marshal and former head of the army and the 43‑year-old former deco­rated lance cor­po­ral in the Kai­ser’s army had first met each other 16 months before, when the out­spoken, uncon­ven­tional, and dyna­mic Hitler had long ago emerged as the face of the increa­singly popu­lar National Social­ist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. In fact, in Novem­ber 1931 Hitler became a can­di­date to replace the vener­able Hinden­burg as Reich Presi­dent in the 1932 national elec­tions, the year during which the ultra­nationalist Nazi Party emerged as the largest party in the Reichs­tag, although the National Socialists failed to win an out­right major­ity. Forced into a run­off, Hinden­burg deci­sively beat Hitler in the second round of voting on April 1, 1932. His elec­tion loss to the living legend be damned: The impor­tant thing was that the elec­tions of 1932 had secured Hitler’s standing as a pol­i­ti­cian of national signif­i­cance, which in turn helped him claw his way into a coa­li­tion government in which he would quickly emerge as top dog.

When Hitler was sworn in as the demo­cra­tically elected chan­cellor of Germany on Janu­ary 30, 1933, he was not yet Germany’s Fuehrer (“leader”). The con­cept of Fuehrer had been around for decades in Germany, arising out of the German Youth Move­ment of the early twen­tieth century. But Hitler rode the con­cept right to the cen­ter of national power in 1933. Within months of his elec­tion (com­monly referred to in Germany as Macht­er­greifung, meaning “seizure of power”), Hitler began building on par­lia­mentary statutes, notably the Reichs­tag Fire Decree, he had per­suaded the elderly and ailing Hinden­burg to put in place. He silenced the inde­pen­dent judi­ci­ary and the free press (the Nazis labeled the latter Die Luegen­presse, “The Lying Press”) and banned all poli­ti­cal parties except his own. Wielding the power of expanded state police agencies, he created a dic­ta­tor­ship in all but name. After Hin­den­burg’s death on August 2, 1934, Hitler con­soli­dated the duties of pre­si­dent and chan­cellor, becoming Germany’s Fuehrer at the head of the Third Reich. (The Wei­mar Republic nomi­nally existed until 1945 because the Nazis never for­mally repealed the Wei­mar con­sti­tu­tion.) For the next 11 years, Hitler loosed a regime of serial vio­lence and revenge, terror, misery, race hate, and geno­cide on Germany and half the world unparalleled in the twentieth century.

Sir Ian Kershaw is my go-to historian for al­most all things related to the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. His two-volume bio­graphy (subtitled 1889–1936: Hubris and 1936–1945: Nemesis) metic­u­lously detailed the man and the nation he led to per­dition. For people who suspect that 1,500 pages require too much arm­chair time (it did me), I suggest reading Ker­shaw’s abridged ver­sion, Hitler, A Biography, at 1,000 pages or Peter Langerich’s 2019 version, at 965 pages, Hitler, A Biography. The best short bio­graphy of Hitler, at 190 pages, is by another Brit­ish his­torian, A. N. Wilson. I found his bio­graphy Hitler dead on in explaining the essen­tials of what made Hitler, Hitler. Ame­r­ican his­torian R.H.S. Stolfi’s 2011 bio­graphy, Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, at just over 500 pages, focuses the spot­light more on the dic­tator’s per­sonality and less on his evil actions. In Volker Ullrich’s two-volume study, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 and Hitler: Downfall 1939-1945, this German histo­rian and jour­nalist like­wise focuses on Hitler’s person­ality traits that made him so attrac­tive to Germans and explains how Hitler used his con­sider­able talent as an organ­izer, orator, actor, and poli­ti­cian as well as his cold-blooded ruth­les­sness to claw his way to power and stay there until his suicide in 1945. You may wish to read an older bio­graphy of Hitler, titled Hitler, by Joachim Fest, who actually lived through the Nazi years and served in the Ger­man Wehr­macht before being captured by the Amer­i­cans. Fest’s probing study offers the per­spec­tive of another German his­torian on a dema­gogue who trau­ma­tized his country and the rest of Europe using state-sponsored intimi­dation, war, and genocide.—Norm Haskett

The Rise of der Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, 1930–1934

Adolf Hitler becomes German Chancellor: Hitler at Reich Chancellery window, January 30, 1933Adolf Hitler greets President Hindenburg as new Reichstag convenes, March 1933

Left: Newly appointed Chancellor Hitler at the window of the Reich Chan­cellery on Berlin’s Wilhelm­strasse receiving ova­tions on the evening of Janu­ary 30, 1933. Presi­dent Hinden­burg (elected the second presi­dent of the Wei­mar Repub­lic in 1925) was no admirer of Hitler, dismis­sively referring to him as “that Bohe­mian corporal” (boeh­mischer Gefreiter) or “house­painter.” Ini­tially he refused to name Hitler chan­cellor; instead, he appointed fellow army officer Maj. Gen. Kurt von Schleicher to the posi­tion. Politi­cal in­trigue and divi­sive­ness (Nazis, German com­mu­nists, and social­ists were at each other’s throats liter­ally and figu­ra­tively), cabi­net crises, and back­room nego­ti­a­tions prompted an exas­perated Hinden­burg to end govern­ment insta­bility by appointing Hitler to head a new cabi­net and naming ex-Chan­cellor Franz von Papen from the Cath­o­lic Center Party as vice-chancellor. The under­standing was that Papen would act as a “check” on Hitler’s more dis­turbing ten­dencies and encourage him to tamp down on the law­less­ness and street vio­lence and ruth­less­ness of the Sturm­abteilung (SA), the “Brownshirts,” the Nazi Party’s paramilitary thugs.

Right: Chancellor Hitler and Hindenburg in his imperial spiked helmet, pointy symbol of authority in the kaiser period, on March 21, 1933, known as the “Day of Pots­dam.” On that day the newly elected Reichs­tag was consti­tuted with an opening cere­mony in Pots­dam’s Baroque Gar­ri­son Church. The Pots­dam gala was a Nazi propa­ganda pitch to demon­strate unity between Hitler’s popu­list move­ment and the old aristo­cratic, conser­va­tive, and Prus­sian military elite represented by the walrus-whiskered Hindenburg.

Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler, Berlin, May 1, 1933Hitler, Hindenburg, and Goering, Tannenberg Memorial, East Prussia, August 1933

Left: Hindenburg and Hitler ride in an open-top car at the May Day rally, where Hindenburg had delivered a speech in Berlin’s Lustgarten, May 1, 1933. The day had been declared the “Day of National Labor.” Twenty-four hours later Hitler banned and disbanded German trade unions.

Right: Hitler, Hindenburg, and Hermann Goering at a mas­sive demon­stra­tion at the Tannen­berg Memo­rial near Tannen­berg, East Prussia (today Olsztyn, Poland) in August 1933. The castle-like memorial of 8 towers around a central court­yard com­mem­o­rated the anni­ver­sary of the Second Battle of Tannen­berg (August 23–30, 1914), a victory over the Russians that made Field Marshal Hinden­burg a national hero. Against his wishes Hinden­burg was buried on August 7, 1934, 5 days after his death, in the central yard of the Tannenberg Memorial during a large state funeral.

How Hitler Came to Power