Foreign policy may be unscrupulous. It is not the task of diplomacy to allow a nation to founder heroically, but rather to see that it can prosper and survive. England and Italy are the only two possible allies for Germany. So long as Germany does not fend for herself, nobody will fend for her. Her lost provinces cannot be regained by solemn appeals to Heaven or by pious hopes in the League of Nations, but only by force of arms. Germany must not repeat the mistake of fighting all her enemies at once. To attack France for purely sentimental reasons would be foolish. What Germany needs is increase of territory in Europe. Germany’s pre-war colonial policy was a mistake and should be abandoned. Germany must look for expansion to Russia, and especially to the Baltic States. No alliance with Russia can be tolerated. To wage war together with Russia against the West would be criminal, for the aim of the Soviets is the triumph of international Judaism. Such were the “granite pillars” of his policy.
The ceaseless struggles and gradual emergence of Adolf Hitler as a national figure were little noticed by the victors, oppressed and harassed as they were by their own troubles and party strife. A long interval passed before National Socialism, or the “Nazi Party”, as it came to be called, gained so strong a hold of the masses of the German people, of the armed forces, of the machinery of the State, and among industrialists not unreasonably terrified of Communism, as to become a power in German life of which world-wide notice had to be taken. When Hitler was released from prison at the end of 1924 he said that it would take him five years to reorganise his movement.
One of the democratic provisions of the Weimar Constitution prescribed elections to the Reichstag every four years. It was hoped by this provision to make sure that the masses of the German people should enjoy a complete and continuous control over their Parliament. In practice of course it only meant that they lived in a continual atmosphere of febrile political excitement and ceaseless electioneering. The progress of Hitler and his doctrines is thus registered with precision. In 1928 he had but twelve seats in the Reichstag. In 1930 this became 107; in 1932, 230. By that time the whole structure of Germany had been permeated by the agencies and discipline of the National Socialist Party, and intimidation of all kinds and insults and brutalities towards the Jews were rampant.
It is not necessary in this account to follow year by year this complex and formidable development, with all its passions and villainies and all its ups and downs. The pale sunlight of Locarno shone for a while upon the scene. The spending of the profuse American loans induced a sense of returning prosperity. Marshal Hindenburg presided over the German State, and Stresemann was his Foreign Minister. The stable decent majority of the German people, responding to their ingrained love of massive and majestic authority, clung to him till his dying gasp. But other powerful factors were also active in the distractednation to which the Weimar Republic could offer no sense of security, and no satisfaction of national glory or revenge.
Behind the veneer of republican governments and democratic institutions, imposed by the victors and tainted with defeat, the real political power in Germany and the enduring structure of the nation in the post-war years had been the General Staff of the German army or Reichswehr. They it was who secretly laid the basis for German rearmament and who made and unmade Presidents and Cabinets. They had found in Marshal Hindenburg a symbol of their power and an agent of their will. But Hindenburg in 1930 was eighty-three years of age. From this time his character and mental grasp steadily declined. He became increasingly prejudiced, arbitrary, and senile. An enormous image had been made of him in the war, and patriots could show their admiration by paying for a nail to drive into it. This illustrates effectively what he had now become—“the Wooden Titan”. It had for some time been clear to the generals that a satisfactory successor to the aged Marshal would have to be found. The search for the new man was however overtaken by the vehement growth and force of the National-Socialist movement. After the failure of the 1923 Putsch in Munich Hitler had professed a programme of strict legality within the framework of the Weimar Republic. Yet at the same time he had encouraged and planned the expansion of the military and para-military formations of the Nazi Party. From very small beginnings the S.A., the Storm Troops or Brownshirts, with their small disciplinary core, the S.S., grew in numbers and vigour to the point where the Reichswehr viewed their activities and potential strength with grave alarm.
At the head of the Storm Troop formations stood a German soldier of fortune, Ernst Roehm, the comrade and hitherto the close friend of Hitler through all the years of struggle. Roehm, Chief of Staff of the S.A., was a man of proved ability and courage, but dominated by personal ambition and sexually perverted. His vices were no barrier to Hitler’s collaboration with him along the hard and dangerous path to power. Pondering most carefully upon the tides that were flowing in the nation, the Reichswehr convinced themselves with much reluctance that, as a military caste and organisation in opposition to the Nazi movement, they could no longer maintain control of Germany. Both factions had in common the resolve to raise Germany from the abyss and avenge her defeat; but while the Reichswehr represented the ordered structure of the Kaiser’s Empire, and gave shelter to the feudal, aristocratic, land-owning, and well-to-do classes in German society, the S.A. had become to a large extent a revolutionary movement fanned by the discontents of temperamental or embittered subversives and the desperation of ruined men. They differed from the Bolsheviks whom they denounced no more than the North Pole does from the South.
For the Reichswehr to quarrel with the Nazi Party was to tear the defeated nation asunder. The Army chiefs in 1931 and 1932 felt they must, for their own sake and for that of the country, join forces with those to whom in domestic matters they were opposed with all the rigidity and severeness of the German mind. Hitler, for his part, although prepared to use any battering-ram to break into the citadels of power, had always before his eyes the leadership of the great and glittering Germany which had commanded the admiration and loyalty of his youthful years. The conditions for a compact between him and the Reichswehr were therefore present and natural on both sides. The Army chiefs gradually realised that the strength of the Nazi Party was such that Hitler was the only possible successor to Hindenburg as head of the German nation. Hitler on his side knew that to carry out his programme of German resurrection an alliance with the governing élite of the Reichswehr was indispensable. A bargain was struck, and the German Army leaders began to persuade Hindenburg to look upon Hitler as eventual Chancellor of the Reich. Thus by agreeing to curtail the activities of the Brownshirts, to subordinate them to the General Staff, and ultimately, if unavoidable, to liquidate them, Hitler gained the allegiance of the controlling forces in Germany, official executive dominance, and the apparent reversion of the Headship of the German State. The Corporal had travelled far.
There was however an inner and separate complication. If the key to any master-combination of German internal forces was the General Staff of the Army, several hands were grasping for that key. General Kurt von Schleicher at this time exercised a subtle and on occasions a decisive influence. He was the political mentor of the reserved and potentially dominating military circle. He was viewed with a measure of distrust by all sections and factions, and regarded as an adroit and useful political agent possessed of much knowledge outside the General Staff manuals and not usually accessible to soldiers. Schleicher had long been convinced of the significance of the Nazi movement and of the need to stem and control it. On the other hand, he saw that in this terrific mob-thrust, with its ever-growing private army of S.A., there was a weapon which, if properly handled by his comrades of the General Staff, might reassert the greatness of Germany, and perhaps even establish his own. In this intention during the course of 1931 Schleicher began to plot secretly with Roehm. There was thus a major double process at work, the General Staff making their arrangements with Hitler, and Schleicher in their midst pursuing his personal conspiracy with Hitler’s principal lieutenant and would-be riva
l, Roehm. Schleicher’s contacts with the revolutionary element of the Nazi Party, and particularly with Roehm, lasted until both he and Roehm were shot by Hitler’s orders three years later. This certainly simplified the political situation, and also that of the survivors.
Meanwhile the Economic Blizzard smote Germany in her turn. The United States banks, faced with increasing commitments at home, refused to increase their improvident loans to Germany. This reaction led to the widespread closing of factories, and the sudden ruin of many enterprises on which the peaceful revival of Germany was based. Unemployment in Germany rose to 2,300,000 in the winter of 1930. The Allies offered a far-reaching and benevolent easement of Reparations. Stresemann, the Foreign Minister, who was now a dying man, gained his last success in the agreement for the complete evacuation of the Rhineland by the Allied armies, long before the Treaty required.
But the German masses were largely indifferent to the remarkable concessions of the victors. Earlier, or in happier circumstances, these would have been acclaimed as long steps upon the path of reconciliation and a return to true peace. But now the ever-present overshadowing fear of the German masses was unemployment. The middle classes had already been ruined and driven into violent courses by the flight from the mark. Stresemann’s internal political position was undermined by the international economic stresses, and the vehement assaults of Hitler’s Nazis and certain capitalist magnates led to his overthrow. On March 28, 1930, Bruening, the leader of the Catholic Centre Party, became Chancellor. Bruening was a Catholic from Westphalia and a patriot, seeking to re-create the former Germany in modern democratic guise. He pursued continuously the scheme of factory preparation for war. He had also to struggle towards financial stability amid mounting chaos. His programme of economy and reduction of Civil Service numbers and salaries was not popular. The tides of hatred flowed ever more turbulently. Supported by President Hindenburg, Bruening dissolved a hostile Reichstag, and the election of 1930 left him with a majority. He now made the last recognisable effort to rally what remained of the old Germany against the resurgent, violent, and debased nationalist agitation. For this purpose he had first to secure the re-election of Hindenburg as President. Chancellor Bruening looked to a new but obvious solution. He saw the peace, safety, and glory of Germany only in the restoration of an Emperor. Could he then induce the aged Marshal Hindenburg, if and when reelected, to act for his last term of office as Regent for a restored monarchy to come into effect upon his death? This policy, if achieved, would have filled the void at the summit of the German nation towards which Hitler was now evidently making his way. In all the circumstances this was the right course. But how could Bruening lead Germany to it? The Conservative element, which was drifting to Hitler, might have been recalled by the return of Kaiser Wilhelm; but neither the Social Democrats nor the trade union forces would tolerate the return of the old Kaiser or the Crown Prince. Bruening’s plan was not to recreate a Second Reich. He desired a constitutional monarchy on English lines. He hoped that one of the sons of the Crown Prince might be a suitable candidate.
In November 1931 he confided his plans to Hindenburg, on whom all depended. The aged Marshal’s reaction was at once vehement and peculiar. He was astonished and hostile. He said that he regarded himself solely as trustee of the Kaiser. Any other solution was an insult to his military honour. The monarchical conception, to which he was devoted, could not be reconciled with picking and choosing among royal princes. Legitimacy must not be violated. Meanwhile, as Germany would not accept the return of the Kaiser, there was nothing left but he himself, Hindenburg. On this he rested. No compromise for him! “J’y suis, j’y reste.” Bruening argued vehemently and perhaps over-long with the old veteran. The Chancellor had a strong case. Unless Hindenburg would accept this monarchical solution, albeit unorthodox, there must be a revolutionary Nazi dictatorship. No agreement was reached. But whether or not Bruening could convert Hindenburg, it was imperative to get him re-elected as President, in order at least to stave off an immediate political collapse of the German State. In its first stage Bruening’s plan was successful. At the Presidential elections held in March 1932 Hindenburg was returned, after a second ballot, by a majority over his rivals, Hitler and the Communist Thaelmann. Both the economic position in Germany and her relations with Europe had now to be faced. The Disarmament Conference was sitting at Geneva, and Hitler throve upon a roaring campaign against the humiliation of Germany under Versailles.
In careful meditation Bruening drafted a far-reaching plan of Treaty revision; and in April he went to Geneva and found an unexpectedly favourable reception. In conversations between him and MacDonald, and Mr. Stimson and Mr. Norman Davis from America, it seemed that agreement could be reached. The extraordinary basis of this was the principle, subject to various reserved interpretations, of “equality of armaments” between Germany and France. It is indeed surprising, as future chapters will explain, that anyone in his senses should have imagined that peace could be built on such foundations. If this vital point were conceded by the victors, it might well pull Bruening out of his plight, and then the next step—and this one wise—would be the cancelling of Reparations for the sake of European revival. Such a settlement would of course have raised Bruening’s personal position to one of triumph.
Norman Davis, the American Ambassador-at-Large, telephoned to the French Premier, Tardieu, to come immediately from Paris to Geneva. But, unfortunately for Bruening, Tardieu had other news. Schleicher had been busy in Berlin, and had just warned the French Ambassador not to negotiate with Bruening because his fall was imminent. It may well be also that Tardieu was concerned with the military position of France on the formula of “equality of armaments”. At any rate, Tardieu did not come to Geneva, and on May 1 Bruening returned to Berlin. To arrive there empty-handed at such a moment was fatal to him. Drastic and even desperate measures were required to cope with the threatened economic collapse inside Germany. For these measures Bruening’s unpopular Government had not the necessary strength. He struggled on through May, and meanwhile Tardieu, in the kaleidoscope of French Parliamentary politics, was replaced by M. Herriot.
The new French Premier declared himself ready to discuss the formula reached in the Geneva conversations. The American Ambassador in Berlin was instructed to urge the German Chancellor to go to Geneva without a moment’s delay. This message was received by Bruening early on May 30. But meanwhile Schleicher’s influence had prevailed. Hindenburg had already been persuaded to dismiss the Chancellor. In the course of that very morning, after the American invitation, with all its hope and imprudence, had reached Bruening, he learned that his fate was settled, and by midday he resigned to avoid actual dismissal. So ended the last Government in post-war Germany which might have led the German people into the enjoyment of a stable and civilised constitution and opened peaceful channels of intercourse with their neighbours. The offers which the Allies had made to Bruening would, but for Schleicher’s intrigue and Tardieu’s delay, certainly have saved him. These offers had presently to be discussed with a different System and a different man.
CHAPTER IV
THE LOCUST YEARS,* 1931–1933
THE British Government which resulted from the General Election of 1931 was in appearance one of the strongest and in fact one of the weakest in British records. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, had severed himself, with the utmost bitterness on both sides, from the Socialist Party which it had been his life’s work to create. Henceforward he brooded supinely at the head of an Administration which, though nominally National, was in fact overwhelmingly Conservative. Mr. Baldwin preferred the substance to the form of power, and reigned placidly in the background. The Foreign Office was filled by Sir John Simon, one of the leaders of the Liberal contingent. The main work of the Administration at home was done by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, who soon became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Labour Party, blamed for its failure in the financial crisis and sorely stricken at the polls, was led by the extre
me pacifist, Mr. George Lansbury. During the period of four and a quarter years of this Administration, from August 1931 to November 1935, the entire situation on the Continent of Europe was reversed.
All Germany was astir and great events marched forward. Papen, who succeeded Bruening as Chancellor, and the political general, Schleicher, had hitherto attempted to govern Germany by cleverness and intrigue. The time for these had now passed. Papen hoped to rule with the support of the entourage of President Hindenburg and of the extreme Nationalist group in the Reichstag. On July 20 a decisive step was taken. The Socialist Government in Prussia was forcibly ousted from office. But Papen’s rival was eager for power. In Schleicher’s calculations the instrument lay in the dark, hidden forces storming into German politics behind the rising power and name of Adolf Hitler. He hoped to make the Hitler Movement a docile servant of the Reichswehr, and in so doing to gain the control of both himself. The contacts between Schleicher and Roehm, the leader of the Nazi Storm Troopers, which had begun in 1931, were extended in the following year to more precise relations between Schleicher and Hitler himself. The road to power for both men seemed to be obstructed only by Papen and by the confidence displayed by Hindenburg in him.
In August 1932 Hitler came to Berlin on a private summons from the President. The moment for a forward step seemed at hand. Thirteen million German voters stood behind the Fuehrer. A vital share of office must be his for the asking. He was now in somewhat the position of Mussolini on the eve of the march on Rome. But Papen did not care about recent Italian history. He had the support of Hindenburg and had no intention of resigning. The old Marshal saw Hitler. He was not impressed, “That man for Chancellor? I’ll make him a postmaster and he can lick stamps with my head on them.” In palace circles Hitler had not the influence of his competitors.
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