Paul von Hindenburg
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| Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg | |
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| In office 12 May 1925 – 2 August 1934 |
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| Preceded by | Friedrich Ebert |
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| Succeeded by | Adolf Hitler (Führer and Chancellor) |
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| Born | 2 October 1847 Posen, Germany |
| Died | 2 August 1934 Neudeck, Germany |
| Political party | None |
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, known universally as Paul von Hindenburg (2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German Field Marshal and statesman.
An important figure during World War I, he also served as President of Germany from 1925 to 1934. The famed zeppelin that was destroyed in the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 had been named in his honour, as has the causeway joining the island of Sylt to mainland Schleswig-Holstein, the Hindenburgdamm, built during his time in office.
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[edit] German army
Hindenburg was born in Posen, Prussia (since 1919 Poznań, Poland) [1] on Podgorna street, the son of Prussian aristocrat Robert von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, and his wife, Luise Schwickart, the daughter of a medical doctor. Hindenburg was embarrassed by his mother’s non-aristocratic background, and for this reason hardly mentioned her at all in his memoirs.
After his education at the Wahlstatt (now Legnickie Pole) and Berlin cadet schools, he fought in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). Hindenburg remained in the army, eventually being promoted to general in 1903. He retired from the army for the first time in 1911, but was recalled on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke. Hindenburg was given command on the Eighth Army, then locked in combat with two Russian armies in East Prussia. Assigned as his army Chief of Staff was the staff officer Erich Ludendorff, fresh from the siege of Liege on the Western Front.
Hindenburg was victorious in the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of the Masurian Lakes against the Russian army. Although historians attach much of the credit to the then-little known staff officer Max Hoffmann, these successes made Hindenburg a national hero. In November 1914, he was promoted to the rank of field marshal, and given the position of Supreme Commander East (Ober-Ost).
Hindenburg succeeded Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff in 1916, although real power was exercised by his deputy, Erich Ludendorff. From 1916 onwards, Germany became an unofficial military dictatorship, often called the "Silent dictatorship" by historians.
In September 1918, Ludendorff advised seeking an armistice with the Allies, but in October, changed his mind and resigned in protest. Ludendorff had expected Hindenburg to follow him by also resigning, but Hindenburg refused on the grounds that in this hour of crisis, he could not desert the men under his command. Ludendorff never forgave Hindenburg for this. Ludendorff was succeeded by Wilhelm Groener, a staff officer who served as Hindenburg's assistant until 1932. In November 1918, Hindenburg and Groener played a decisive role in persuading the Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate for the greater good of Germany.
Hindenburg, who was a firm monarchist throughout his life, always regarded this episode of his life with considerable embarrassment, and almost from the moment the Kaiser abdicated, Hindenburg insisted that he had played no role in the abdication and assigned all of the blame to Groener. Groener for his part loyally went along with this in order to protect the reputation of his chief.
[edit] Aftermath of the war
At the conclusion of the war Hindenburg retired a second time, and announced his intention to retire from public life. In 1919, Hindenburg was called before a Reichstag Commission that was investigating the responsibility for both the outbreak of war in 1914 and for the defeat in 1918.
Hindenburg had not wanted to appear before the commission, and had been subpoenaed. The appearance of Hindenburg before the commission was an eagerly waited public event. Ludendorff, who had fallen out with Hindenburg over the decision to continue seeking the armistice in October 1918, was concerned that Hindenburg might reveal that it was he who had advised seeking an armistice in September 1918. Ludendorff wrote a letter to Hindenburg, informing him that he was writing his memoirs and threatened to expose that Hindenburg did not deserve the credit that he had received for his victories. Ludendorff's letter went on to suggest that how Hindenburg testified would determine how favorably Ludendorff would present Hindenburg in his memoirs.
When Hindenburg did appear before the commission, he refused to answer any questions about the responsibility for the German defeat, and instead read out a prepared statement that had been reviewed in advance by Ludendorff's lawyer. Hindenburg testified that the German Army had been on the verge of winning the war in the fall of 1918, and that the defeat had been precipitated by a Dolchstoß ("stab in the back") by disloyal elements on the home front and by unpatriotic politicians. Despite being threatened with a contempt citation for refusing to respond to questions, Hindenburg simply walked out of the hearings after reading his statement. Hindenburg's status as a war hero provided him with a political shield and he was never prosecuted.
Hindenburg's testimony was the first use of the Dolchstoßlegende. The field marshal credited an unnamed British general for first uttering the phrase, and the term was adopted by nationalist and conservative politicians (including the neither left- nor right-wing Adolf Hitler) who sought to blame the socialist founders of the Weimar Republic for the loss of the war.
Afterwards, Hindenburg had his memoirs entitled Mein Leben (My Life) ghost-written in 1919-20. Mein Leben was a huge bestseller in Germany, but was dismissed by most military historians and critics as a boring apologia that skipped over the most controversial issues in Hindenburg's life. Afterwards, Hindenburg retired from most public appearances and spent most of his time with his family. A widower, Hindenburg was very close to his only son, Major Oskar von Hindenburg and his granddaughters.
[edit] Presidency
In 1925, Hindenburg had no interest in running for public office. In the first round of the 1925 presidential elections, no candidate had emerged with a majority and a run-off election had been called. The Social Democratic candidate, Prime Minister Otto Braun of Prussia, had agreed to drop out of the race and had endorsed the Catholic Center Party's candidate, Wilhelm Marx.
Since Karl Jarres, the joint candidate of the two conservative parties, the German People's Party and German National People's Party was regarded as too dull, it seemed likely that Marx was going to win the presidency. One of the leaders of the German National People's Party, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, visited Hindenburg and told him that only his candidacy could stop Marx.
Hindenburg initially demurred, but under strong pressure from Tirpitz applied over several meetings, he ultimately broke down and agreed to run. Though Hindenburg ran during the second round of the elections as a non-party independent, he was generally regarded as the conservative candidate.
Largely because of his status as Germany's greatest war hero, Hindenburg won the election. Also assisting Hindenburg's election victory were the decision of the Bavarian People's Party to abandon its support of Marx and to throw its support behind Hindenburg, and the refusal of the Communist Party of Germany to withdraw its candidate for the Presidency, Ernst Thälmann from the race.
In 1927, a group of Junkers started a fundraising campaign to present Hindenburg with the birthday gift of the estate of Neudeck. Though the campaign was started by the Junkers, it was in fact German corporations who contributed the bulk of the money. Some have mistakenly seen this as proof of the evidence of the influence of German big business on Hindenburg.
Although Hindenburg very much appreciated the gift of Neudeck, which became his favorite place to rest and relax, Hindenburg despised all businessmen as vulgar upstarts who had in his opinion unjustly usurped the social prestige that rightfully belonged to the Junkers. Somewhat controversially, Hindenburg had Neudeck registered in the name of Oskar von Hindenburg as a way of ensuring his son would avoid the inheritance taxes when he died. It has been falsely suggested that knowledge of this irregularity led to Adolf Hitler blackmailing Hindenburg into appointing him Chancellor in January 1933.
The American historian Henry Ashby Turner has rebutted these allegations by pointing out that on 4 January 1933, Ludendorff’s newspaper Germania broke the story of Neudeck being registered in the younger Hindenburg’s name. Thus, since the matter was public knowledge, it could not possibly have been the basis of blackmail.
For the first five years after taking office, Hindenburg fulfilled his duties of office with considerable dignity and decorum. For the most part, Hindenburg refused to allow himself to be drawn into the maelstrom of German politics in the period 1925 - 1930, and sought to play the role of a republican equivalent of a constitutional monarch.
Indeed, Hindenburg was often referred to as the Ersatzkaiser (Substitute Emperor). Contrary to the hopes of monarchists, Hindenburg made no effort to restore the monarchy. Hindenburg took his oath to the Weimar Constitution very seriously and was determined to remain loyal to the letter of the Constitution.
What Hindenburg was not loyal to was the democratic spirit of the Constitution, which he allowed himself to be persuaded was a document lacking value. In Hindenburg’s mind, as long as his actions were within the letter of the law, it didn't matter if they were against its spirit.
However, Hindenburg had little interest in playing politics. The only two areas that Hindenburg interested himself were military spending and agrarian subsidies for Junkers.
In 1928, with the formation of a "Grand Coalition" government headed by the Social Democrat, Hermann Müller, Hindenburg insisted on Groener as Defense Minister.
In private, Hindenburg often complained that he missed the quiet of his retirement and bemoaned that he had allowed himself to be pressured into running for President. Hindenburg carped that politics was full of issues that he did not understand such as economics and more importantly he did not want to understand.
On the other hand, the Kamarilla (camarilla) that Hindenburg had surrounded himself with had other plans for him. The Kamarilla were a group of friends and advisors of Hindenburg who exercised great influence on him.
The most important members of this group included the field marshal's son, Major Oskar von Hindenburg, Otto Meissner the influential chief of the Presidential Chancellery, Groener and Kurt von Schleicher, an ambitious political general and protégé of Groener.
The most powerful member of the camarilla was Oskar von Hindenburg, who moved into the Presidential Palace with his father and served as his aide-de-camp. By all accounts an unintelligent man who sought to shamelessly exploit his father's name, the younger von Hindenburg was Field Marshal Hindenburg’s closest associate, and largely controlled politicians' access to the President.
Since Schleicher was a close friend of Oskar von Hindenburg, he came in his turn to enjoy privileged access to the President. It was Schleicher who came up with the idea of Presidential government based on the so-called "25/48/53 formula".
Presidential governments were governments in which the Chancellor owed his office to the confidence solely of the President rather than the Reichstag. The "25/48/53 formula" referred to the three articles of the Constitution that made "Presidential government" possible.
- Article 25 allowed the President to dissolve the Reichstag.
- Article 48 allowed the President to sign into law emergency bills without the consent of the Reichstag. However, the Reichstag could cancel any law passed by Article 48 by a simple majority within sixty days of its passage.
- Article 53 allowed the President to appoint the Chancellor.
Schleicher’s idea was to have Hindenburg appoint a man of Schleicher’s choosing as Chancellor, have him rule via Article 48 and to have Hindenburg threaten to use Article 25 should the Reichstag vote to annul any laws passed under Article 48.
Schleicher’s intention was to gradually undermine democracy legally via "Presidential government" and ultimately create an authoritarian government. "Presidential governments" were legal within a strictly legalistic interpretation of the Constitution, but clearly violated its spirit.
Hindenburg was not enthusiastic about these plans, but was pressured into going along with them by his son along with Meissner, Groener and Schleicher.
The first attempt to establish a "presidential government" had occurred in 1926 - 1927, but had foundered owing to the unwillingness of any of the leading German politicians to go along with the scheme. During the winter of 1929 - 1930, Schleicher had more success.
After a series of secret meetings attended by Meissner, Schleicher, and Heinrich Brüning, the parliamentary leader of the Catholic Center Party, Schleicher and Meissner were able to persuade Brüning to go along with the plan for "presidential government". How much Brüning knew of Schleicher’s ultimate plans to abolish democracy is a matter of some controversy.
Schleicher then set about making worse a bitter dispute within the "Grand Coalition" government between the Social Democrats and the German People’s Party over whether the unemployment insurance rate should be raised by a half a percentage point or a full percentage point.
The end result of these intrigues by Schleicher was the fall of Müller’s government in March 1930 and Brüning being named Chancellor by Hindenburg.
Brüning's first act was to introduce a budget calling for steep spending cuts and sharp tax increases. When the budget was defeated in July 1930, Brüning had Hindenburg sign the budget into law via Article 48. When the Reichstag voted to cancel the budget, Brüning had Hindenburg dissolve Reichstag only two years into its mandate, and had the budget passed again by Article 48.
The September 1930 elections saw the Nazis making an electoral breakthrough, going from 2% of the vote in 1928 to 17% in 1930. Also making striking, through not as dramatic gains in the 1930 elections was the Communist Party of Germany.
After the 1930 elections, Brüning continued to govern largely through Article 48; his government was kept afloat by the support of the Social Democrats who voted not to cancel his Article 48 bills in order not to have another election that could only benefit the Nazis and the Communists.
Hindenburg for his part grew increasingly annoyed at Brüning, complaining that he was growing tired of using Article 48 all the time to pass bills. Hindenburg also found the detailed notes that Brüning submitted explaining the economic necessity of each of his bills to be incomprehensible.
Brüning continued with his policies of raising taxes and cutting spending in order to deal with the Great Depression; the only areas where government spending rose was in the area of defense and in the subsidies for Junkers in the so-called Osthilfe (Eastern Aid) program. Both of these spending increases reflected Hindenburg's concerns.
In October 1931, Hindenburg and Hitler had their first meeting. The Hindenburg-Hitler meeting was a disaster as both men took an immediate and immense dislike to one another. In private, Hindenburg disparagingly referred to Hitler as "that Austrian corporal", "the Bohemian corporal" and sometimes just simply as "the corporal".
Hitler in turn, often described Hindenburg as "that old fool" and "the old reactionary". Right up until January 1933, Hindenburg often stated that he would never appoint Hitler as Chancellor under any circumstances. On 26 January 1933, Hindenburg told a group of his friends: "Gentlemen, I hope you will not hold me capable of appointing this Austrian corporal to be Reich Chancellor".[1]
[edit] January 1932 - January 1933: A year of decisions
Although Hindenburg was now lapsing in and out of senility, he was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932, as the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg had wanted to leave office in 1932, but was urged by the Kamarilla to run again in order to keep Hitler out of office.
Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to stay in office, but wanted to avoid an election. The only way this was possible was for the Reichstag to vote to cancel the election with a two-thirds supermajority. Since the Nazis were the second-largest party, their co-operation was vital if this was to be done.
Brüning met with Hitler in January 1932 to ask if he would agree to the President's demand to forgo the election. Hitler stated he would only if Brüning would fulfil a set of impossible demands.
Brüning rejected Hitler's demands as totally outrageous and unreasonable. By this time, Schleicher had decided that Brüning had become an obstacle to his plans and was already plotting Brüning's downfall. Schleicher convinced Hindenburg that the reason why Hitler had rejected Brüning's offer was because Brüning had deliberately sabotaged the talks to force the elderly president into a grueling re-election battle.
During the election campaign of 1932, Brüning had campaigned hard for Hindenburg's re-election. As Hindenburg was in bad health and a poor speaker anyhow, the task of travelling the country and delivering speeches for Hindenburg had fallen upon Brüning. Hindenburg’s campaign appearances usually consisted simply of appearing before the crowd and waving to them without speaking.
In the first round of the election held in March 1932, Hindenburg emerged as the frontrunner, but failed to gain a majority. In the runoff election of April 1932, Hindenburg defeated Hitler for the Presidency.
After the presidential elections had ended, Schleicher held a series of secret meetings with Hitler in May 1932, and thought that he had obtained a "gentleman's agreement" in which Hitler had agreed to support the new "presidential government" that Schleicher was building. At the same time, Schleicher, with Hindenburg's complicit consent, had set about undermining Brüning's government.
The first blow occurred in May 1932, when Schleicher had Hindenburg sack Groener as Defense Minister in a way that was designed to humiliate both Groener and Brüning. On 31 May 1932, Hindenburg sacked Brüning as Chancellor and replaced him with the man that Schleicher had suggested, Franz von Papen.
"The Government of Barons" as von Papen's government was known, openly had as its objective the destruction of German democracy. Like Brüning's government, von Papen's government was a "presidential government" that governed through the use of Article 48.
Unlike Brüning, von Papen ingratiated himself to Hindenburg and his son through the use of the most oleaginous flattery. von Papen's easy charm and his sense of humour made him Hindenburg's favorite Chancellor. Much to Schleicher's annoyance, von Papen quickly replaced him as Hindenburg's favorite advisor.
The French Ambassador André François-Poncet reported to his superiors in Paris that "It's he [Papen] who is the preferred one, the favorite of the Marshal; he diverts the old man through his vivacity, his playfulness; he flatters him by showing him respect and devotion; he beguiles him with his daring; he is in [Hindenburg's] eyes the perfect gentleman"".[2]
In accordance with Schleicher's "gentleman's agreement", Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag and set new elections for July 1932. Schleicher and von Papen both believed that the Nazis would win the majority of the seats and would support von Papen's government. Hitler staged an electoral comeback, with his Nazi party winning a solid plurality of seats in the Reichstag.
Following the Nazi electoral triumph in the Reichstag elections held on 31 July 1932, there were widespread expectations that Hitler would soon be appointed Chancellor. Moreover, Hitler repudiated the "gentleman's agreement" and declared that he wanted the Chancellorship for himself. In a meeting between Hindenburg and Hitler held on 13 August 1932, in Berlin, Hindenburg firmly rejected Hitler's demands for the Chancellorship.
The minutes of the meeting were kept by Otto Meissner, the Chief of the Presidential Chancellery. According to the minutes:
"Herr Hitler declared that, for reasons which he had explained in detail to the Reich President that morning, his taking any part in cooperation with the existing government was out of the question. Considering the importance of the National Socialist movement, he must demand the full and complete leadership of the government and state for himself and his party.
The Reich President in reply said firmly that he must answer this demand with a clear, unyielding No. He could not justify before God, before his conscience, or before the Fatherland the transfer of the whole authority of government to a single party, especially to a party that was biased against people who had different views from their own. There were a number of other reasons against it, upon which he did not wish to enlarge in detail, such as fear of increased unrest, the effect on foreign countries, etc.
Herr Hitler repeated that any other solution was unacceptable to him.
To this the Reich President replied: "So you will go into opposition?"
Hitler: "I have now no alternative".[3]
After refusing Hitler’s demands for the Chancellorship, Hindenburg had a press release issued of his meeting with Hitler that implied that Hitler had demanded absolute power and had his knuckles rapped by the President for making such a demand. Hitler was enraged by this press release.
However, given Hitler’s determination to take power legally, Hindenburg’s refusal to appoint Chancellor was an impassable quandary for Hitler.
When the Reichstag convened in September 1932, its first and only act was to pass a massive vote of no-confidence in von Papen’s government. In response, von Papen had Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag for elections in November 1932.
The second Reichstag elections saw the Nazi vote drop from 37% to 32%, though the Nazis once again remained the largest party in the Reichstag. After the November elections, there ensued another round of fruitless talks between Hindenburg, von Papen, von Schleicher on the one hand and Hitler and the other Nazi leaders on the other.
The President and the Chancellor wanted Nazi support for the "Government of the President's Friends"; at most they were prepared to offer Hitler the meaningless office of Vice-Chancellor. On 24 November 1932, during the course of another Hitler-Hindenburg meeting, Hindenburg stated his fears that " ... a presidential cabinet led by Hitler would necessarily develop into a party dictatorship with all its consequences for an extreme aggravation of the conflicts within the German people".[4]
Hitler for his part, remained adamant that Hindenburg give him the Chancellorship and nothing else. These demands were incompatible and unacceptable to both sides and the stalemate continued. To break the political stalemate, von Papen proposed that Hindenburg declare martial law and do away with democracy via a presidential putsch.
von Papen won over Oscar Hindenburg with this idea and the two persuaded Hindenburg for once to forgo his oath to the Constitution and go along with this plan. Schleicher, who had come to see von Papen as a threat, blocked the martial law move by unveiling the results of a war games exercise that showed if martial law was declared, the Nazi SA and the Communist Red Front Fighters would rise up, the Poles would invade and the Reichswehr would be unable to cope.
Whether this was the honest result of a war games exercise or just a fabrication by von Schleicher to force von Papen out of office is a matter of some historical debate. The opinion of most leans towards the latter, for in January 1933 von Schleicher would tell Hindenburg that new war games had shown the Reichswehr would crush both the SA and Red Front Fighters and defend the eastern borders from a Polish invasion.
The results of the war games forced von Papen to resign in December 1932 in favor of von Schleicher. Hindenburg was most upset at losing his favorite Chancellor, and suspecting that the war games were faked to force von Papen out, came to bear a grudge against Schleicher.
von Papen for his part, was determined to get back into office and on 4 January 1933, von Papen met with Hitler to discuss how they could bring down Schleicher’s government, though the talks were inconclusive largely because von Papen and Hitler each coveted the Chancellorship for himself.
However, von Papen and Hitler agreed to keep talking. Ultimately, von Papen came to believe that he could control Hitler from behind the scenes and decided to support him for Chancellor. von Papen then persuaded Meissner and the younger Hindenburg of the merits of his plan, and the three then spent the second half of January pressuring Hindenburg into naming Hitler as Chancellor. Hindenburg was most loath to consider Hitler as Chancellor and preferred that von Papen hold that office instead.
However, the pressure from Meissner, von Papen and the younger Hindenburg was relentless and by the end of January, the President had decided to appoint Hitler Chancellor. On the morning of 30 January 1933, Hindenburg swore Hitler in as Chancellor at the Presidential Palace.
[edit] The Machtergreifung
Hindenburg played a supporting but key role in the Nazi Machtergreifung (Seizure of Power) in 1933. In the "Government of National Concentration" headed by Hitler, the Nazis were in the minority. Besides Hitler, the only other Nazi ministers were Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick.
Most of the other ministers were hold-overs from the von Papen and von Schleicher governments, and the ones who were not, such as Alfred Hugenberg of the D.N.V.P., were not Nazis.
This had the effect of assuring Hindenburg that the room for radical moves on the part of the Nazis was limited. Moreover, Hindenburg's favorite politician, von Papen, was the Vice-Chancellor and the Reich Commissioner for Prussia.
Hitler's first act as Chancellor was to ask Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag so that the Nazis and D.N.V.P. could increase their number of seats and pass the Enabling Act. Hindenburg agreed to this request.
In early February 1933, von Papen asked for and received an Article 48 bill signed into law that sharply limited the freedom of press. After the Reichstag fire, Hindenburg signed into law the Reichstag Fire Decree.
At the opening of the new Reichstag on 21 March 1933, at the Kroll Opera House, the Nazis staged an elaborate ceremony, in which Hindenburg played the leading part, that was meant to mark the continuity between the Prussian-German tradition and the new Nazi state.
The ceremony at the Kroll Opera House had the effect of reassuring many Germans, especially conservative Germans, that life would be fine under the new regime. On 23 March 1933, Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act into law.
Though Hindenburg was in increasingly bad health, the Nazis made sure that whenever Hindenburg did appear in public it was in Hitler’s company. During these appearances, Hitler always made a point of showing the utmost respect and reverence for the President.
In private, Hitler continued to detest Hindenburg, and expressed the hope that "the old reactionary" would die as soon as possible, so that Hitler could merge the offices of Chancellor and President into one.
Hitler was always very conscious of the fact that the President was the Supreme Commander-In-Chief of the German armed forces, and that given that Hindenburg was a revered figure in the German Army, that if the President decided to sack Hitler as Chancellor, there was little doubt that the Reichswehr would side with Hindenburg. Thus, as long as Hindenburg lived, Hitler was always very careful to avoid offending him.
The only time Hindenburg ever objected to a Nazi bill occurred in early April 1933. The Reichstag had passed a Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service that called for the immediate sacking of all Jewish civil servants at the Reich, Land, and municipal levels.
Hindenburg refused to sign this bill into law until it had been amended to exclude all Jewish veterans of World War One, Jewish civil servants who served in the civil service during the war and those Jewish civil servants whose fathers were veterans. Hitler, who believed that no Jews had actually fought in the war, amended the bill to meet Hindenburg’s objections.
Hindenburg remained in office until his death at the age of 86 from lung cancer at his home in Neudeck, East Prussia on 2 August 1934 (exactly two months short of his 87th birthday).
One day before Hindenburg's death, Hitler flew to Neudeck and visited him. Hindenburg, old and senile, thought he was meeting Kaiser Wilhelm II, and called Hitler "Your Majesty".
He would be Germany's last president until 1945, when Karl Dönitz became president, as following Hindenburg's death, Hitler declared the office of President to be permanently vacant, effectively merging it with the office of Chancellor under the title of Leader and Chancellor (Führer und Reichskanzler), making himself Germany's Head of State and Head of government, thereby completing the progress of Gleichschaltung.
Weimar's Constitution implied that in case of a president's death or inability to hold office, the chancellor would replace him until new presidential elections could be held. Hitler, though, with the Enabling Act in force, never asked for them.
Instead, Hitler had a plebiscite held on 19 August 1934, in which the German people were asked if they approved of Hitler merging the two offices. The Ja (Yes) vote amounted to 90% of the vote.
Hindenburg himself was said to be a monarchist who favored a restoration of the German monarchy. Though he hoped one of the Prussian princes would be appointed to succeed him as Head of State, he did not attempt to use his powers in favour of such a restoration, as he considered himself bound by the oath he had sworn on the Weimar Constitution.
It has been alleged that Hindenburg’s will asked for Hitler to restore the monarchy. However, the truth of this story cannot be established as Oskar von Hindenburg destroyed the portions of his father’s will relating to politics.
It has been argued that the political testament of Hindenburg’s will that was made public in 1934, in which Hindenburg expresses the greatest thanks for Hitler was forged by Oskar von Hindenburg as a way of ingratiating himself with Hitler.
[edit] Burial
Hindenburg was buried in the Tannenberg memorial near Tannenberg, East Prussia (today: Stębark, Poland) against the wishes he had expressed during his life. Hindenburg always said he wanted to be buried next to his beloved wife. In 1945, German troops removed his and his wife's coffins, to save them from the approaching Soviets, to Marburg an der Lahn in western Germany (Hindenburg was an Honorary Citizen of this town). The caskets of Hindenburg and his wife were found in an abandoned salt mine on 27 April 1945 by U.S. Army Ordnance troops. Later that month, he and his wife were interred anew in the famous Elisabeth Church in the North Tower Chapel.
He still rests there, although the church chapter recently voted to keep the lights switched off at his tomb. Will Lang Jr., correspondent of Life, wrote an article (6 March, 1950) about how the United States Army Ordnance troops found the coffins. His tombstone simply states "Paul von Hindenburg 1847-1934".
[edit] Evaluation
Although he was widely esteemed in his time, his biographers John Wheeler-Bennett and Andreas Dorpalen have argued that beneath Hindenburg's façade of strength and power was a weak-willed and not particularly intelligent man who, while well-meaning, was highly dependent upon the advice of others to make decisions.
In Wheeler-Bennett's phrase, Hindenburg was the "Wooden Titan"; a man who looked impressive on the outside but who was hollow and empty on the inside.
[edit] Popular culture
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is rumoured to be related to von Hindenburg.
[edit] References
- ^ Jäckel, Eberhard Hitler in History page 8.
- ^ Turner, Henry Hitler's Thirty Days to Power page 41.
- ^ Noakes, Jeremy & Pridham, Geoffrey (editors) Nazism 1919-1945 Volume 1 The Rise to Power 1919-1934 pages 104-105.
- ^ Jäckel, Eberhard Hitler in History page 8.
[edit] Sources
- Asprey, Robert The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I, New York, New York, W. Morrow, 1991.
- Bracher, Karl Dietrich Die Aufloesung der Weimarer Republik; eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der Demokratie Villingen: Schwarzwald, Ring-Verlag, 1971.
- Dorpalen, Andreas Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964.
- Eschenburg, Theodor "The Role of the Personality in the Crisis of the Weimar Republic: Hindenburg, Brüning, Groener, Schleicher" pages 3-50 from Republic to Reich The Making Of The Nazi Revolution edited by Hajo Holborn, New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
- Feldman, G.D. Army, Industry and Labor in Germany, 1914-1918, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966.
- Görlitz, Walter Hindenburg: Ein Lebensbild, Bonn: Athenäeum, 1953.
- Görlitz, Walter Hindenburg, eine Auswalh aus Selbstzeugnissen des Generalfeldmarschalls und Reichpräsidenten, Bielefeld: Velhagen & Klasing, 1935.
- Hiss, O.C. Hindenburg: Eine Kleine Streitschrift, Potsdam: Sans Souci Press, 1931.
- Jäckel, Eberhard Hitler in History, Hanover N.H.: Brandeis University Press, 1984.
- Kershaw, Sir Ian, Hitler. 1889-1936: Hubris New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998; German edition, Munich, 1998, p. 659.
- Kitchen, Martin The Silent Dictatorship: The Politics of the High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916-1918, London: Croom Helm, 1976.
- Maser, Werner Hindenburg: Eine politische Biographie, Rastatt: Moewig, 1990.
- Noakes, Jeremy & Pridham, Geoffrey (editors) Nazism 1919-1945 Volume 1 The Rise to Power 1919-1934, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Exeter, United Kingdom, 1983.
- Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John Hindenburg: the Wooden Titan, London : Macmillan, 1967; New York, Morrow, 1936.
- Turner, Henry Ashby Hitler's thirty days to power : January 1933, Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1996.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- http://www.rosenberg-wpr.de/Hindenburg/Hindenburg.htm (German only, with many photos)
- http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/HindenburgPaul/index.html (German only, some photos)
| Preceded by Erich von Falkenhayn |
Chief of the General Staff 1916 – 1919 |
Succeeded by Wilhelm Groener |
| Preceded by Friedrich Ebert |
President of Germany 1925 – 1934 |
Succeeded by Adolf Hitler (Führer and Chancellor) |
| Presidents of Weimar Germany (1919–1933) |  |
|---|---|
| Friedrich Ebert • Walter Simons (acting) • Paul von Hindenburg |
| Chiefs of the German General Staff (1871–1919) |
|---|
| Helmuth von Moltke the Elder | Alfred Graf von Waldersee | Alfred Graf von Schlieffen | Helmuth von Moltke the Younger | Erich von Falkenhayn | Paul von Hindenburg | Wilhelm Groener | Hans von Seeckt |
