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November and 'Socialist General' SchleicherThe November 6, 1932 elections yielded 33.1% for the Nazis[4]: it dropped 2 million voters. Franz von Papen stepped down, and was succeeded by General von Schleicher as Reichskanzler on December 3. The political army officer Schleicher, had developed in atmosphere of semi-obscurity and intrigue that encompassed the Republican military policy. He had for years been in the camp of those supporting the Conservative counter-revolution. Schleicher's bold and unsuccessful plan was to build a majority in the Reichstag by uniting the Trade Unionist left wings in the various parties, including that of the Nazis led by Gregor Strasser. This did not prove successful either.In this brief Presidential Dictatatorship entr'acte, Schleicher took the role of 'Socialist General', and entered into relations with the Christian Trade Unions, the Left Nazis, and even with the Social Democrats. Schleicher's plan was for a sort of Labour Government under his Generalship. It was an utterly un-workable idea as the Reichswehr officers were hardly prepared to follow Schleicher on this path, and the working class had a natural distrust of their future allies. Equally, Schleicher aroused hatred amongst the great capitalists and landowners by these plans. The SPD and KPD could have achieved success building on a Berlin transport strike.Hitler learned from von Papen that the general had no authority to abolish the Reichstag parliament, whereas any majority of seats did. The cabinet (under a previous interpretation of Article 48) ruled without a sitting Reichstag, which could vote only for its own dissolution. Hitler also learned that all past crippling Nazi debts were to be relieved by German big business.On January 22, Hitler's efforts to persuade Oskar von Hindenburg (the President's son) included threats to bring criminal charges over estate taxation irregularities at the President's Neudeck estate (although 5000 extra acres were soon allotted to Hindenburg's property). Out maneuvered by von Papen and Hitler on plans for the new cabinet, and having lost Hindenburg's confidence, Schleicher asked for new elections. On January 28 von Papen described Hitler to Paul von Hindenburg as only a minority part of an alternative, von Papen-arranged government. The four great political movements, the SPD, KPD, Centre, and the Nazis were in opposition. If this continued there was real danger that the Centre and Nazi parties would radicalize further, and that in the end a vast united national bolshevist front would be formed against the ruling system.On 29 January Hitler and von Papen thwarted a last-minute threat of an officially-sanctioned Reichswehr takeover, and on 30 January 1933 Hindenburg accepted the new Papen-Nationalist-Hitler coalition with the Nazis holding only three of eleven Cabinet seats. Later that day, the first cabinet meeting was attended by only two political parties, representing a minority in the Reichstag: The Nazis and the DNVP led by Alfred Hugenberg (196 + 52 seats). Eyeing the Catholic Centre Party's 70 (+ 20 BVP) seats, Hitler refused their leader's demands for constitutional "concessions" (amounting to protection) and planned for dissolution of the Reichstag.Hindenburg, despite his misgivings about the Nazis' goals and about Hitler as a person, reluctantly agreed to Papen's theory that, with Nazi popular support on the wane, Hitler could now be controlled as chancellor. The date dubbed Machtergreifung (seizure of power) by the Nazi propaganda is commonly seen as the beginning of Nazi Germany.
Heil, er, me.
I didn't pay attention in my WWII lecture today.
