Fun and Games In Germany And Australia

[rogue06]

Your constant tactic, through various means, is to dismiss without actual rebuttal. You keep complaining that people take action against you because you have an opinion other than theirs, and then argue about moderation (bannable offense), when in reality, people disagree with your empty intellectually dishonest tactics.

Pretty much.

It's rare when she offers a rebuttable that is more than simple hand waving dismissals. And in the few cases that she does go beyond that it tends to last one or two posts as any questioning of her statements inevitably leads back to the same shopworn stratagems.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Yet, you provide an answer with no actual rebuttal in it.

Well you did ask. N.B. If some names are unknown to you you can look them up for yourself. If you do actually read the following very brief outline of the sequence of events following the 6 November 1932 election you will find it completely refutes the comment by rogue06 that "Rather that they had enough support to be elected into office as the primary power They were the ones forming the coalition and not being asked to join by another group as a junior member. IOW, the voters put them in charge."

Enjoy!

It should first be noted that for Hitler personally the 6 November election result was the third painful defeat of that year and that following the November elections the NSDAP and the Centre Party no longer had a parliamentary majority. As a result of that loss Papen believed that Hitler would accept an invitation to join his cabinet. Hitler waited three days before refusing to discuss any NSDAP participation in the government although he was prepared to engage in written exchanges of ideas.

On 17 November at a cabinet meeting Papen acknowledged his attempts to rally Germany’s nationalist parties had failed. He dissolved the cabinet in order to leave the way clear for the Reich president [Hindenburg] to open negotiations with the leaders of the political parties.
Hindenburg, while accepting von Papen’s resignation asked him to stay as a caretaker to continue government business. The exit of Papen was greeted with relief by many in Social Democrat circles who realised what damage von Papen had wreaked over Prussia which had effectively destroyed the last bulwark of the Weimar Republic. However, who would follow von Papen as chancellor was unknown.

On 18 November Hindenburg started negotiations with party leaders with the aim of forming a “cabinet of national concentration” ranging from the Centre Party to the NSDAP. It should be noted that he first met with Hugenberg leader of the DNVP not Hitler. Hugenberg supported continuing rule by presidential decree.. The DVP chair [Dingeldey] warned against Hitler regarding him as both unpredictable and not averse to trying to seize power even it meant going against the will of the Reich president. Kaas, Chair of the Centre Party was more moderate as was Schaffer leader of the BVP and while both agreed that the NSDAP should be part of the new government neither were prepared to offer suggestions about who should chancellor. Schaffer also opined that it was those around Hitler, more than the man himself, that posed the real danger and suggested that for that reason any Hitler led government must include counterweights from other parties in order to prevent abuses of power.

On 19 November Hitler was invited by phone to a personal audience with Hindenburg.

According to Meissner’s minutes [Meissner was the Head of the Office of the President] Hindenburg appealed to Hitler to set aside personal interests and, as the leader of a large movement, not to rule out being part of a nationalist government. Hitler was unmoved telling Hindenburg he would only join a governing cabinet if he received “political leadership”. However, he did show a willingness to compromise on any such cabinet’s make-up assuring Hindenburg that he did not want to fill the remaining ministerial positions with National Socialists.
When Hindenburg asked him if he was prepared to initiate discussions with other parties about the policies of a potential coalition, Hitler’s response was that the President would first need to call upon him to form a government.

This was nothing more than brinkmanship by Hitler. He then suggested to Hindenburg the possibility of ruling by virtual decree via an enabling law from the Reichstag. This was a legal option to be used in moments of crisis. It required a two thirds parliamentary majority and had been used in the October crisis of 1923. This permitted the government to act independently of the Reichstag and without constantly having to approach the president for emergency decrees.

Hindenburg said he would think about it which demonstrates Hindenburg was not wholly against Hitler becoming chancellor.

Two days later on 21 November Hindenburg met a second time with Hitler and charged him with forming a government but only under the condition that he create “a stable working majority with a set, unified agenda in the Reichstag.” That would only be possible if Hitler secured the support of both the Centre Party and the DNVP. However, Meissner had already notified Hitler of Hindenburg’s intent thereby allowing Hitler to have ready a carefully prepared letter.

In that letter Hitler demanded that he be given “the authority that all previous bearers of Your Excellency’s presidential power have possessed”—i.e. the comprehensive powers of a chancellor of a presidential cabinet as had been enjoyed by Brüning and Papen. This was a step too far for Hindenburg who was not prepared to accede to this demand. And to all intents and purposes negotiations broke down.

Again two days later on 23 November, Hitler officially renounced Hindenburg’s mandate to negotiate with other parties to form a parliamentary majority as “impossible to fulfil for internal reasons.” A day later Hindenburg officially refused Hitler’s request to be charged with the leadership of a presidential cabinet. Hindenburg’s justification repeated the arguments of 13 August the Reich president felt unable to take responsibility for entrusting his “comprehensive presidential powers to the leader of a party that had always stressed its desire to rule exclusively and that was negatively inclined towards the measures which [Hindenburg] himself personally favoured and judged politically and economically necessary.” The letter continued that under such circumstances, there was reason to fear that a Hitler-led presidential government “would inevitably become a single-party dictatorship exacerbating the tensions within the German people in a way incompatible with [Hindenburg’s] oath of office and conscience.”

Having already been in correspondence with Meissner this letter was no surprise to Hitler and Hindenburg did not change his mind even when a small group of industrialists, bankers and agricultural producers submitted a petition on 19 November calling upon the president to give the “leader of the largest nationalist group”—i.e. Hitler, “responsible directorship” of a presidential cabinet.

With Hitler’s rejection by Hindenburg, and aside from von Papen, the only other option was Schleicher. Schleicher and the defence minister had already approached Hitler on 23 November to ascertain if he would support a cabinet headed by Schleicher and Hitler had refused also stressing that he would not permit any of his people to serve in such a cabinet. Once again we see Hitler's brinkmanship in action.

On 25 November another two days later, Schleicher announced that nothing would be gained by a change of chancellor. The following day on 26 November Hindenburg refused to honour Papen’s request not to be charged with forming a new government. Schleicher then assumed responsibility for negotiating with the leaders of the various political parties. However, it would appear that he also used those meetings to test out the possibility of his own candidacy for chancellor.

Hitler continued to play hard to get and remained absent from Berlin and travelled to Weimar where he had some local speaking engagements. On 30 November he refused an invitation from Meissner to return to Berlin for a meeting. He cordially, but effectively, stated that as long as neither side changed its position further talks were pointless.

By 1 December it was clear that a decision concerning the position for chancellor would have to be made and Hindenburg invited Papen and Schleicher to a meeting for that purpose. Schleicher reported on the lack of progress he had made with his negotiations but suggested “waiting to see how the Nazi camp would develop.” He also revealed for the first time how, in his mind, a cabinet led by himself might be able to find a way out of this current crisis.. Schleicher’s idea was to get some National Socialists, under the leadership of Gregor Strasser, to join the cabinet, thereby dividing the NSDAP. Schleicher believed that by doing this he could gain support from across the political divide including dissident Nazis who would be willing to support measures necessary to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment.

Hindenburg discounted this suggestion considering it too uncertain. He refused to accept further delay and asked Papen to continue heading the government. Papen agreed to this under the condition that “he would be given all the authority of the presidency in the conflict with the Reichstag that was sure to come.” Hindenburg agreed acknowledging that it was a matter of “preserving Germany from the damage that would result from a violation of the duties of the Reichstag.”

In other words, Hindenburg had decided upon a “battle cabinet” that would institute the emergency plans drawn up in August and September and dissolve the Reichstag, postpone new elections indefinitely, and force through changes to the constitution that would divorce the government from the parliament.

You should realise by now that these individuals were almost as bad as the Nazis in their wanton disregard for democracy. Schleicher also mistakenly thought he could control Hitler.

Hence on 2 December Papen convened his cabinet [effectively a revamp of his former cabinet] to inform them of Hindenburg’s decision. At this point Schleicher played his trump card. In response to Justice Minister Gürtner’s question concerning the Reichswehr preparedness to “meet all coming eventualities,” Schleicher summoned Lieutenant Colonel Eugen Ott into the cabinet. It should be noted that over the preceding weeks Schleicher had ordered Ott to test out feelings in the Reichswehr over preparedness to deal with internal unrest and simultaneously secure Germany’s borders. The results of that testing of the waters were negative. Ott’s report left a “devastating impression” on those at the meeting, as Finance Minister von Krosigk noted in his diary. Or to put it more bluntly, should serious disorder/civil war break out the army could not be relied upon to support the government.

At this point Papen declared that the situation had changed and he would have to renounce his mandate. This was reluctantly accepted by Hindenburg and Schleicher got his heart's desire and was made chancellor.

Now you have to understand the divisions with the NSDAP. Individuals like Strasser and Röhm were socialists and social radicals and politically were at odds with Hitler. Strasser at this juncture demanded a change in the all-or-nothing approach to getting the chancellorship and advocated greater flexibility towards the Schleicher cabinet disregarding the demand for the position of chancellor as a categorical precondition for joining the government. His position in that regard was strengthened by the Thuringian election of 4 December where the Nazis suffered heavy losses [compared to the July result the party lost 40% of its votes].

On the morning of 8 December, Strasser wrote to Hitler announcing his intention to resign from all his party offices and give up his Reichstag mandate. In justifying his decision, Strasser wrote that he thought Hitler’s strategy of trying to create political chaos in the hope that the chancellorship would then drop into his lap was “wrong, dangerous and not in the general German interest.” With the hindsight of nearly 90 years how wrong and yet how right he was. However, the divisions between individuals within the NSDAP leadership is another complicated and separate issue.

On 10 December the newly appointed chancellor General Schleicher in a conversation with the Bavarian State President considered that the National Socialist danger to have been “overcome”. That feeling was emphasised by Goebbels’ diary entry for Christmas Eve “1932 has been one long run of bad luck. It should be smashed to pieces.”

[rogue06]

Well you did ask. N.B. If some names are unknown to you you can look them up for yourself. If you do actually read the following very brief outline of the sequence of events following the 6 November 1932 election you will find it completely refutes the comment by rogue06 that "Rather that they had enough support to be elected into office as the primary power They were the ones forming the coalition and not being asked to join by another group as a junior member. IOW, the voters put them in charge."

Enjoy!

It should first be noted that for Hitler personally the 6 November election result was the third painful defeat of that year and that following the November elections the NSDAP and the Centre Party no longer had a parliamentary majority. As a result of that loss Papen believed that Hitler would accept an invitation to join his cabinet. Hitler waited three days before refusing to discuss any NSDAP participation in the government although he was prepared to engage in written exchanges of ideas.

On 17 November at a cabinet meeting Papen acknowledged his attempts to rally Germany’s nationalist parties had failed. He dissolved the cabinet in order to leave the way clear for the Reich president [Hindenburg] to open negotiations with the leaders of the political parties.
Hindenburg, while accepting von Papen’s resignation asked him to stay as a caretaker to continue government business. The exit of Papen was greeted with relief by many in Social Democrat circles who realised what damage von Papen had wreaked over Prussia which had effectively destroyed the last bulwark of the Weimar Republic. However, who would follow von Papen as chancellor was unknown.

On 18 November Hindenburg started negotiations with party leaders with the aim of forming a “cabinet of national concentration” ranging from the Centre Party to the NSDAP. It should be noted that he first met with Hugenberg leader of the DNVP not Hitler. Hugenberg supported continuing rule by presidential decree.. The DVP chair [Dingeldey] warned against Hitler regarding him as both unpredictable and not averse to trying to seize power even it meant going against the will of the Reich president. Kaas, Chair of the Centre Party was more moderate as was Schaffer leader of the BVP and while both agreed that the NSDAP should be part of the new government neither were prepared to offer suggestions about who should chancellor. Schaffer also opined that it was those around Hitler, more than the man himself, that posed the real danger and suggested that for that reason any Hitler led government must include counterweights from other parties in order to prevent abuses of power.

On 19 November Hitler was invited by phone to a personal audience with Hindenburg.

According to Meissner’s minutes [Meissner was the Head of the Office of the President] Hindenburg appealed to Hitler to set aside personal interests and, as the leader of a large movement, not to rule out being part of a nationalist government. Hitler was unmoved telling Hindenburg he would only join a governing cabinet if he received “political leadership”. However, he did show a willingness to compromise on any such cabinet’s make-up assuring Hindenburg that he did not want to fill the remaining ministerial positions with National Socialists.
When Hindenburg asked him if he was prepared to initiate discussions with other parties about the policies of a potential coalition, Hitler’s response was that the President would first need to call upon him to form a government.

This was nothing more than brinkmanship by Hitler. He then suggested to Hindenburg the possibility of ruling by virtual decree via an enabling law from the Reichstag. This was a legal option to be used in moments of crisis. It required a two thirds parliamentary majority and had been used in the October crisis of 1923. This permitted the government to act independently of the Reichstag and without constantly having to approach the president for emergency decrees.

Hindenburg said he would think about it which demonstrates Hindenburg was not wholly against Hitler becoming chancellor.

Two days later on 21 November Hindenburg met a second time with Hitler and charged him with forming a government but only under the condition that he create “a stable working majority with a set, unified agenda in the Reichstag.” That would only be possible if Hitler secured the support of both the Centre Party and the DNVP. However, Meissner had already notified Hitler of Hindenburg’s intent thereby allowing Hitler to have ready a carefully prepared letter.

In that letter Hitler demanded that he be given “the authority that all previous bearers of Your Excellency’s presidential power have possessed”—i.e. the comprehensive powers of a chancellor of a presidential cabinet as had been enjoyed by Brüning and Papen. This was a step too far for Hindenburg who was not prepared to accede to this demand. And to all intents and purposes negotiations broke down.

Again two days later on 23 November, Hitler officially renounced Hindenburg’s mandate to negotiate with other parties to form a parliamentary majority as “impossible to fulfil for internal reasons.” A day later Hindenburg officially refused Hitler’s request to be charged with the leadership of a presidential cabinet. Hindenburg’s justification repeated the arguments of 13 August the Reich president felt unable to take responsibility for entrusting his “comprehensive presidential powers to the leader of a party that had always stressed its desire to rule exclusively and that was negatively inclined towards the measures which [Hindenburg] himself personally favoured and judged politically and economically necessary.” The letter continued that under such circumstances, there was reason to fear that a Hitler-led presidential government “would inevitably become a single-party dictatorship exacerbating the tensions within the German people in a way incompatible with [Hindenburg’s] oath of office and conscience.”

Having already been in correspondence with Meissner this letter was no surprise to Hitler and Hindenburg did not change his mind even when a small group of industrialists, bankers and agricultural producers submitted a petition on 19 November calling upon the president to give the “leader of the largest nationalist group”—i.e. Hitler, “responsible directorship” of a presidential cabinet.

With Hitler’s rejection by Hindenburg, and aside from von Papen, the only other option was Schleicher. Schleicher and the defence minister had already approached Hitler on 23 November to ascertain if he would support a cabinet headed by Schleicher and Hitler had refused also stressing that he would not permit any of his people to serve in such a cabinet. Once again we see Hitler's brinkmanship in action.

On 25 November another two days later, Schleicher announced that nothing would be gained by a change of chancellor. The following day on 26 November Hindenburg refused to honour Papen’s request not to be charged with forming a new government. Schleicher then assumed responsibility for negotiating with the leaders of the various political parties. However, it would appear that he also used those meetings to test out the possibility of his own candidacy for chancellor.

Hitler continued to play hard to get and remained absent from Berlin and travelled to Weimar where he had some local speaking engagements. On 30 November he refused an invitation from Meissner to return to Berlin for a meeting. He cordially, but effectively, stated that as long as neither side changed its position further talks were pointless.

By 1 December it was clear that a decision concerning the position for chancellor would have to be made and Hindenburg invited Papen and Schleicher to a meeting for that purpose. Schleicher reported on the lack of progress he had made with his negotiations but suggested “waiting to see how the Nazi camp would develop.” He also revealed for the first time how, in his mind, a cabinet led by himself might be able to find a way out of this current crisis.. Schleicher’s idea was to get some National Socialists, under the leadership of Gregor Strasser, to join the cabinet, thereby dividing the NSDAP. Schleicher believed that by doing this he could gain support from across the political divide including dissident Nazis who would be willing to support measures necessary to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment.

Hindenburg discounted this suggestion considering it too uncertain. He refused to accept further delay and asked Papen to continue heading the government. Papen agreed to this under the condition that “he would be given all the authority of the presidency in the conflict with the Reichstag that was sure to come.” Hindenburg agreed acknowledging that it was a matter of “preserving Germany from the damage that would result from a violation of the duties of the Reichstag.”

In other words, Hindenburg had decided upon a “battle cabinet” that would institute the emergency plans drawn up in August and September and dissolve the Reichstag, postpone new elections indefinitely, and force through changes to the constitution that would divorce the government from the parliament.

You should realise by now that these individuals were almost as bad as the Nazis in their wanton disregard for democracy. Schleicher also mistakenly thought he could control Hitler.

Hence on 2 December Papen convened his cabinet [effectively a revamp of his former cabinet] to inform them of Hindenburg’s decision. At this point Schleicher played his trump card. In response to Justice Minister Gürtner’s question concerning the Reichswehr preparedness to “meet all coming eventualities,” Schleicher summoned Lieutenant Colonel Eugen Ott into the cabinet. It should be noted that over the preceding weeks Schleicher had ordered Ott to test out feelings in the Reichswehr over preparedness to deal with internal unrest and simultaneously secure Germany’s borders. The results of that testing of the waters were negative. Ott’s report left a “devastating impression” on those at the meeting, as Finance Minister von Krosigk noted in his diary. Or to put it more bluntly, should serious disorder/civil war break out the army could not be relied upon to support the government.

At this point Papen declared that the situation had changed and he would have to renounce his mandate. This was reluctantly accepted by Hindenburg and Schleicher got his heart's desire and was made chancellor.

Now you have to understand the divisions with the NSDAP. Individuals like Strasser and Röhm were socialists and social radicals and politically were at odds with Hitler. Strasser at this juncture demanded a change in the all-or-nothing approach to getting the chancellorship and advocated greater flexibility towards the Schleicher cabinet disregarding the demand for the position of chancellor as a categorical precondition for joining the government. His position in that regard was strengthened by the Thuringian election of 4 December where the Nazis suffered heavy losses [compared to the July result the party lost 40% of its votes].

On the morning of 8 December, Strasser wrote to Hitler announcing his intention to resign from all his party offices and give up his Reichstag mandate. In justifying his decision, Strasser wrote that he thought Hitler’s strategy of trying to create political chaos in the hope that the chancellorship would then drop into his lap was “wrong, dangerous and not in the general German interest.” With the hindsight of nearly 90 years how wrong and yet how right he was. However, the divisions between individuals within the NSDAP leadership is another complicated and separate issue.

On 10 December the newly appointed chancellor General Schleicher in a conversation with the Bavarian State President considered that the National Socialist danger to have been “overcome”. That feeling was emphasised by Goebbels’ diary entry for Christmas Eve “1932 has been one long run of bad luck. It should be smashed to pieces.”

So is this where everyone sneers about your ability to Google and then start to demand sources for every over simplified assertion about a complex subject? Help me, I'm new to this sort of hand waving dismissal.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

So is this where everyone sneers about your ability to Google and then start to demand sources for every over simplified assertion about a complex subject? Help me, I'm new to this sort of hand waving dismissal.

Read any authoritative biography of Hitler or any accredited historical work charting the rise of Nazism. It's all there.

[rogue06]

Read any authoritative biography of Hitler or any accredited historical work charting the rise of Nazism. It's all there.

So from now on any time you start up one of your games of demanding sources we should simply tell you to do the research yourself.

Gotcha.

Bookmarked for posterity.

[CivilDiscourse]

Well you did ask. N.B. If some names are unknown to you you can look them up for yourself. If you do actually read the following very brief outline of the sequence of events following the 6 November 1932 election you will find it completely refutes the comment by rogue06 that "Rather that they had enough support to be elected into office as the primary power They were the ones forming the coalition and not being asked to join by another group as a junior member. IOW, the voters put them in charge."

Enjoy!

It should first be noted that for Hitler personally the 6 November election result was the third painful defeat of that year and that following the November elections the NSDAP and the Centre Party no longer had a parliamentary majority. As a result of that loss Papen believed that Hitler would accept an invitation to join his cabinet. Hitler waited three days before refusing to discuss any NSDAP participation in the government although he was prepared to engage in written exchanges of ideas.

On 17 November at a cabinet meeting Papen acknowledged his attempts to rally Germany’s nationalist parties had failed. He dissolved the cabinet in order to leave the way clear for the Reich president [Hindenburg] to open negotiations with the leaders of the political parties.
Hindenburg, while accepting von Papen’s resignation asked him to stay as a caretaker to continue government business. The exit of Papen was greeted with relief by many in Social Democrat circles who realised what damage von Papen had wreaked over Prussia which had effectively destroyed the last bulwark of the Weimar Republic. However, who would follow von Papen as chancellor was unknown.

On 18 November Hindenburg started negotiations with party leaders with the aim of forming a “cabinet of national concentration” ranging from the Centre Party to the NSDAP. It should be noted that he first met with Hugenberg leader of the DNVP not Hitler. Hugenberg supported continuing rule by presidential decree.. The DVP chair [Dingeldey] warned against Hitler regarding him as both unpredictable and not averse to trying to seize power even it meant going against the will of the Reich president. Kaas, Chair of the Centre Party was more moderate as was Schaffer leader of the BVP and while both agreed that the NSDAP should be part of the new government neither were prepared to offer suggestions about who should chancellor. Schaffer also opined that it was those around Hitler, more than the man himself, that posed the real danger and suggested that for that reason any Hitler led government must include counterweights from other parties in order to prevent abuses of power.

On 19 November Hitler was invited by phone to a personal audience with Hindenburg.

According to Meissner’s minutes [Meissner was the Head of the Office of the President] Hindenburg appealed to Hitler to set aside personal interests and, as the leader of a large movement, not to rule out being part of a nationalist government. Hitler was unmoved telling Hindenburg he would only join a governing cabinet if he received “political leadership”. However, he did show a willingness to compromise on any such cabinet’s make-up assuring Hindenburg that he did not want to fill the remaining ministerial positions with National Socialists.
When Hindenburg asked him if he was prepared to initiate discussions with other parties about the policies of a potential coalition, Hitler’s response was that the President would first need to call upon him to form a government.

This was nothing more than brinkmanship by Hitler. He then suggested to Hindenburg the possibility of ruling by virtual decree via an enabling law from the Reichstag. This was a legal option to be used in moments of crisis. It required a two thirds parliamentary majority and had been used in the October crisis of 1923. This permitted the government to act independently of the Reichstag and without constantly having to approach the president for emergency decrees.

Hindenburg said he would think about it which demonstrates Hindenburg was not wholly against Hitler becoming chancellor.

Two days later on 21 November Hindenburg met a second time with Hitler and charged him with forming a government but only under the condition that he create “a stable working majority with a set, unified agenda in the Reichstag.” That would only be possible if Hitler secured the support of both the Centre Party and the DNVP. However, Meissner had already notified Hitler of Hindenburg’s intent thereby allowing Hitler to have ready a carefully prepared letter.

In that letter Hitler demanded that he be given “the authority that all previous bearers of Your Excellency’s presidential power have possessed”—i.e. the comprehensive powers of a chancellor of a presidential cabinet as had been enjoyed by Brüning and Papen. This was a step too far for Hindenburg who was not prepared to accede to this demand. And to all intents and purposes negotiations broke down.

Again two days later on 23 November, Hitler officially renounced Hindenburg’s mandate to negotiate with other parties to form a parliamentary majority as “impossible to fulfil for internal reasons.” A day later Hindenburg officially refused Hitler’s request to be charged with the leadership of a presidential cabinet. Hindenburg’s justification repeated the arguments of 13 August the Reich president felt unable to take responsibility for entrusting his “comprehensive presidential powers to the leader of a party that had always stressed its desire to rule exclusively and that was negatively inclined towards the measures which [Hindenburg] himself personally favoured and judged politically and economically necessary.” The letter continued that under such circumstances, there was reason to fear that a Hitler-led presidential government “would inevitably become a single-party dictatorship exacerbating the tensions within the German people in a way incompatible with [Hindenburg’s] oath of office and conscience.”

Having already been in correspondence with Meissner this letter was no surprise to Hitler and Hindenburg did not change his mind even when a small group of industrialists, bankers and agricultural producers submitted a petition on 19 November calling upon the president to give the “leader of the largest nationalist group”—i.e. Hitler, “responsible directorship” of a presidential cabinet.

With Hitler’s rejection by Hindenburg, and aside from von Papen, the only other option was Schleicher. Schleicher and the defence minister had already approached Hitler on 23 November to ascertain if he would support a cabinet headed by Schleicher and Hitler had refused also stressing that he would not permit any of his people to serve in such a cabinet. Once again we see Hitler's brinkmanship in action.

On 25 November another two days later, Schleicher announced that nothing would be gained by a change of chancellor. The following day on 26 November Hindenburg refused to honour Papen’s request not to be charged with forming a new government. Schleicher then assumed responsibility for negotiating with the leaders of the various political parties. However, it would appear that he also used those meetings to test out the possibility of his own candidacy for chancellor.

Hitler continued to play hard to get and remained absent from Berlin and travelled to Weimar where he had some local speaking engagements. On 30 November he refused an invitation from Meissner to return to Berlin for a meeting. He cordially, but effectively, stated that as long as neither side changed its position further talks were pointless.

By 1 December it was clear that a decision concerning the position for chancellor would have to be made and Hindenburg invited Papen and Schleicher to a meeting for that purpose. Schleicher reported on the lack of progress he had made with his negotiations but suggested “waiting to see how the Nazi camp would develop.” He also revealed for the first time how, in his mind, a cabinet led by himself might be able to find a way out of this current crisis.. Schleicher’s idea was to get some National Socialists, under the leadership of Gregor Strasser, to join the cabinet, thereby dividing the NSDAP. Schleicher believed that by doing this he could gain support from across the political divide including dissident Nazis who would be willing to support measures necessary to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment.

Hindenburg discounted this suggestion considering it too uncertain. He refused to accept further delay and asked Papen to continue heading the government. Papen agreed to this under the condition that “he would be given all the authority of the presidency in the conflict with the Reichstag that was sure to come.” Hindenburg agreed acknowledging that it was a matter of “preserving Germany from the damage that would result from a violation of the duties of the Reichstag.”

In other words, Hindenburg had decided upon a “battle cabinet” that would institute the emergency plans drawn up in August and September and dissolve the Reichstag, postpone new elections indefinitely, and force through changes to the constitution that would divorce the government from the parliament.

You should realise by now that these individuals were almost as bad as the Nazis in their wanton disregard for democracy. Schleicher also mistakenly thought he could control Hitler.

Hence on 2 December Papen convened his cabinet [effectively a revamp of his former cabinet] to inform them of Hindenburg’s decision. At this point Schleicher played his trump card. In response to Justice Minister Gürtner’s question concerning the Reichswehr preparedness to “meet all coming eventualities,” Schleicher summoned Lieutenant Colonel Eugen Ott into the cabinet. It should be noted that over the preceding weeks Schleicher had ordered Ott to test out feelings in the Reichswehr over preparedness to deal with internal unrest and simultaneously secure Germany’s borders. The results of that testing of the waters were negative. Ott’s report left a “devastating impression” on those at the meeting, as Finance Minister von Krosigk noted in his diary. Or to put it more bluntly, should serious disorder/civil war break out the army could not be relied upon to support the government.

At this point Papen declared that the situation had changed and he would have to renounce his mandate. This was reluctantly accepted by Hindenburg and Schleicher got his heart's desire and was made chancellor.

Now you have to understand the divisions with the NSDAP. Individuals like Strasser and Röhm were socialists and social radicals and politically were at odds with Hitler. Strasser at this juncture demanded a change in the all-or-nothing approach to getting the chancellorship and advocated greater flexibility towards the Schleicher cabinet disregarding the demand for the position of chancellor as a categorical precondition for joining the government. His position in that regard was strengthened by the Thuringian election of 4 December where the Nazis suffered heavy losses [compared to the July result the party lost 40% of its votes].

On the morning of 8 December, Strasser wrote to Hitler announcing his intention to resign from all his party offices and give up his Reichstag mandate. In justifying his decision, Strasser wrote that he thought Hitler’s strategy of trying to create political chaos in the hope that the chancellorship would then drop into his lap was “wrong, dangerous and not in the general German interest.” With the hindsight of nearly 90 years how wrong and yet how right he was. However, the divisions between individuals within the NSDAP leadership is another complicated and separate issue.

On 10 December the newly appointed chancellor General Schleicher in a conversation with the Bavarian State President considered that the National Socialist danger to have been “overcome”. That feeling was emphasised by Goebbels’ diary entry for Christmas Eve “1932 has been one long run of bad luck. It should be smashed to pieces.”

Well, to be clear. I pointed out your dismisive tactic. You should have pointed this to the actual person you used it on, not the person who called you out.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Well, to be clear. I pointed out your dismisive tactic. You should have pointed this to the actual person you used it on, not the person who called you out.

At least now you are aware that the initial comment made by rogue06 was wrong.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

So from now on any time you start up one of your games of demanding sources we should simply tell you to do the research yourself.

Gotcha.

Bookmarked for posterity.

Judging from your latest remark re Manetho I know where you get much of your information - Wiki.

[seer]

So are they hiding the unvaccinated in their attics and stuff?

[rogue06]

Judging from your latest remark re Manetho I know where you get much of your information - Wiki.

Ironic coming from someone who just posted a wall of text resulting from frantic Googling.

Btw, does Wiki provide citations including page numbers now?

[Cow Poke]

Read any authoritative biography of Hitler or any accredited historical work charting the rise of Nazism. It's all there.

H_A's definitions...
Authoritative - any biography that backs my argument
Accredited - same as above

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Ironic coming from someone who just posted a wall of text resulting from frantic Googling.

Btw, does Wiki provide citations including page numbers now?

You appear to be the expert on using Wiki.

[Sparko]

Well you did ask. N.B. If some names are unknown to you you can look them up for yourself. If you do actually read the following very brief outline of the sequence of events following the 6 November 1932 election you will find it completely refutes the comment by rogue06 that "Rather that they had enough support to be elected into office as the primary power They were the ones forming the coalition and not being asked to join by another group as a junior member. IOW, the voters put them in charge."

Enjoy!

It should first be noted that for Hitler personally the 6 November election result was the third painful defeat of that year and that following the November elections the NSDAP and the Centre Party no longer had a parliamentary majority. As a result of that loss Papen believed that Hitler would accept an invitation to join his cabinet. Hitler waited three days before refusing to discuss any NSDAP participation in the government although he was prepared to engage in written exchanges of ideas.

On 17 November at a cabinet meeting Papen acknowledged his attempts to rally Germany’s nationalist parties had failed. He dissolved the cabinet in order to leave the way clear for the Reich president [Hindenburg] to open negotiations with the leaders of the political parties.
Hindenburg, while accepting von Papen’s resignation asked him to stay as a caretaker to continue government business. The exit of Papen was greeted with relief by many in Social Democrat circles who realised what damage von Papen had wreaked over Prussia which had effectively destroyed the last bulwark of the Weimar Republic. However, who would follow von Papen as chancellor was unknown.

On 18 November Hindenburg started negotiations with party leaders with the aim of forming a “cabinet of national concentration” ranging from the Centre Party to the NSDAP. It should be noted that he first met with Hugenberg leader of the DNVP not Hitler. Hugenberg supported continuing rule by presidential decree.. The DVP chair [Dingeldey] warned against Hitler regarding him as both unpredictable and not averse to trying to seize power even it meant going against the will of the Reich president. Kaas, Chair of the Centre Party was more moderate as was Schaffer leader of the BVP and while both agreed that the NSDAP should be part of the new government neither were prepared to offer suggestions about who should chancellor. Schaffer also opined that it was those around Hitler, more than the man himself, that posed the real danger and suggested that for that reason any Hitler led government must include counterweights from other parties in order to prevent abuses of power.

On 19 November Hitler was invited by phone to a personal audience with Hindenburg.

According to Meissner’s minutes [Meissner was the Head of the Office of the President] Hindenburg appealed to Hitler to set aside personal interests and, as the leader of a large movement, not to rule out being part of a nationalist government. Hitler was unmoved telling Hindenburg he would only join a governing cabinet if he received “political leadership”. However, he did show a willingness to compromise on any such cabinet’s make-up assuring Hindenburg that he did not want to fill the remaining ministerial positions with National Socialists.
When Hindenburg asked him if he was prepared to initiate discussions with other parties about the policies of a potential coalition, Hitler’s response was that the President would first need to call upon him to form a government.

This was nothing more than brinkmanship by Hitler. He then suggested to Hindenburg the possibility of ruling by virtual decree via an enabling law from the Reichstag. This was a legal option to be used in moments of crisis. It required a two thirds parliamentary majority and had been used in the October crisis of 1923. This permitted the government to act independently of the Reichstag and without constantly having to approach the president for emergency decrees.

Hindenburg said he would think about it which demonstrates Hindenburg was not wholly against Hitler becoming chancellor.

Two days later on 21 November Hindenburg met a second time with Hitler and charged him with forming a government but only under the condition that he create “a stable working majority with a set, unified agenda in the Reichstag.” That would only be possible if Hitler secured the support of both the Centre Party and the DNVP. However, Meissner had already notified Hitler of Hindenburg’s intent thereby allowing Hitler to have ready a carefully prepared letter.

In that letter Hitler demanded that he be given “the authority that all previous bearers of Your Excellency’s presidential power have possessed”—i.e. the comprehensive powers of a chancellor of a presidential cabinet as had been enjoyed by Brüning and Papen. This was a step too far for Hindenburg who was not prepared to accede to this demand. And to all intents and purposes negotiations broke down.

Again two days later on 23 November, Hitler officially renounced Hindenburg’s mandate to negotiate with other parties to form a parliamentary majority as “impossible to fulfil for internal reasons.” A day later Hindenburg officially refused Hitler’s request to be charged with the leadership of a presidential cabinet. Hindenburg’s justification repeated the arguments of 13 August the Reich president felt unable to take responsibility for entrusting his “comprehensive presidential powers to the leader of a party that had always stressed its desire to rule exclusively and that was negatively inclined towards the measures which [Hindenburg] himself personally favoured and judged politically and economically necessary.” The letter continued that under such circumstances, there was reason to fear that a Hitler-led presidential government “would inevitably become a single-party dictatorship exacerbating the tensions within the German people in a way incompatible with [Hindenburg’s] oath of office and conscience.”

Having already been in correspondence with Meissner this letter was no surprise to Hitler and Hindenburg did not change his mind even when a small group of industrialists, bankers and agricultural producers submitted a petition on 19 November calling upon the president to give the “leader of the largest nationalist group”—i.e. Hitler, “responsible directorship” of a presidential cabinet.

With Hitler’s rejection by Hindenburg, and aside from von Papen, the only other option was Schleicher. Schleicher and the defence minister had already approached Hitler on 23 November to ascertain if he would support a cabinet headed by Schleicher and Hitler had refused also stressing that he would not permit any of his people to serve in such a cabinet. Once again we see Hitler's brinkmanship in action.

On 25 November another two days later, Schleicher announced that nothing would be gained by a change of chancellor. The following day on 26 November Hindenburg refused to honour Papen’s request not to be charged with forming a new government. Schleicher then assumed responsibility for negotiating with the leaders of the various political parties. However, it would appear that he also used those meetings to test out the possibility of his own candidacy for chancellor.

Hitler continued to play hard to get and remained absent from Berlin and travelled to Weimar where he had some local speaking engagements. On 30 November he refused an invitation from Meissner to return to Berlin for a meeting. He cordially, but effectively, stated that as long as neither side changed its position further talks were pointless.

By 1 December it was clear that a decision concerning the position for chancellor would have to be made and Hindenburg invited Papen and Schleicher to a meeting for that purpose. Schleicher reported on the lack of progress he had made with his negotiations but suggested “waiting to see how the Nazi camp would develop.” He also revealed for the first time how, in his mind, a cabinet led by himself might be able to find a way out of this current crisis.. Schleicher’s idea was to get some National Socialists, under the leadership of Gregor Strasser, to join the cabinet, thereby dividing the NSDAP. Schleicher believed that by doing this he could gain support from across the political divide including dissident Nazis who would be willing to support measures necessary to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment.

Hindenburg discounted this suggestion considering it too uncertain. He refused to accept further delay and asked Papen to continue heading the government. Papen agreed to this under the condition that “he would be given all the authority of the presidency in the conflict with the Reichstag that was sure to come.” Hindenburg agreed acknowledging that it was a matter of “preserving Germany from the damage that would result from a violation of the duties of the Reichstag.”

In other words, Hindenburg had decided upon a “battle cabinet” that would institute the emergency plans drawn up in August and September and dissolve the Reichstag, postpone new elections indefinitely, and force through changes to the constitution that would divorce the government from the parliament.

You should realise by now that these individuals were almost as bad as the Nazis in their wanton disregard for democracy. Schleicher also mistakenly thought he could control Hitler.

Hence on 2 December Papen convened his cabinet [effectively a revamp of his former cabinet] to inform them of Hindenburg’s decision. At this point Schleicher played his trump card. In response to Justice Minister Gürtner’s question concerning the Reichswehr preparedness to “meet all coming eventualities,” Schleicher summoned Lieutenant Colonel Eugen Ott into the cabinet. It should be noted that over the preceding weeks Schleicher had ordered Ott to test out feelings in the Reichswehr over preparedness to deal with internal unrest and simultaneously secure Germany’s borders. The results of that testing of the waters were negative. Ott’s report left a “devastating impression” on those at the meeting, as Finance Minister von Krosigk noted in his diary. Or to put it more bluntly, should serious disorder/civil war break out the army could not be relied upon to support the government.

At this point Papen declared that the situation had changed and he would have to renounce his mandate. This was reluctantly accepted by Hindenburg and Schleicher got his heart's desire and was made chancellor.

Now you have to understand the divisions with the NSDAP. Individuals like Strasser and Röhm were socialists and social radicals and politically were at odds with Hitler. Strasser at this juncture demanded a change in the all-or-nothing approach to getting the chancellorship and advocated greater flexibility towards the Schleicher cabinet disregarding the demand for the position of chancellor as a categorical precondition for joining the government. His position in that regard was strengthened by the Thuringian election of 4 December where the Nazis suffered heavy losses [compared to the July result the party lost 40% of its votes].

On the morning of 8 December, Strasser wrote to Hitler announcing his intention to resign from all his party offices and give up his Reichstag mandate. In justifying his decision, Strasser wrote that he thought Hitler’s strategy of trying to create political chaos in the hope that the chancellorship would then drop into his lap was “wrong, dangerous and not in the general German interest.” With the hindsight of nearly 90 years how wrong and yet how right he was. However, the divisions between individuals within the NSDAP leadership is another complicated and separate issue.

On 10 December the newly appointed chancellor General Schleicher in a conversation with the Bavarian State President considered that the National Socialist danger to have been “overcome”. That feeling was emphasised by Goebbels’ diary entry for Christmas Eve “1932 has been one long run of bad luck. It should be smashed to pieces.”

Please provide cites and sources for the information above.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Please provide cites and sources for the information above.

These are the works I consulted:

Ian Kershaw Hitler Penguin Books, 1998 chapter 9 “Levered into Power”
Thomas Childers The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Simon & Schuster, 2017, chapter 7 “The Impossible Happens”
Joachim C Fest Hitler Verlag Ullstein GmbH & Co, 1973 Viertes Buch: Die Zeit des Kampfes “Vor den Toren zur Macht”
Anna Von Der Goltz Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis, OUP, 2009 chapter 8 “The Marshall and the Corporal”

[rogue06]