92 years ago today, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Today’s readers might be surprised to discover that many mainstream British journalists honestly reported on this historic event, and many well-informed Britons celebrated it.
The Daily Mail for example carried the following article, under the headline, HITLER’S HOUR OF TRIUMPH.
For Adolf Hitler yesterday was ‘Der Tag’.
It witnessed the triumph of twelve palpitating years of political activity; it saw the success of a personal campaign for power which had often seemed about to founder in a storm of ridicule and abuse.
The importance of Hitler’s victory is difficult to exaggerated. The German Chancellorship is one of the highest political offices in the world, and a few short years ago it seemed to be utterly beyond the reach of the leader of the young generation of German patriots.
The story of Hitler’s rise to fame opens in 1921. The sullen and dispirited Germany of those days needed a virile new leader, and one came to them in the beer-gardens and cafés of Munich. Adolf Hitler, a handsome young corporal who, with two wounds and the Iron Cross, had survived the war, suddenly appeared among the listless idlers and proclaimed his message to them over the foaming steins.
He harangued them on the iniquities of the Versailles Treaty and the servility of the German Government, and included pacifists, profiteers and Jews in a sweeping denunciation. The soul of Germany, he said, must be reborn in the rising generation; no more reparations must be paid; the Polish Corridor must revert to the Reich; at home the power of the capitalists and landowners must be broken; Young Germany must be up and doing.
Next there appeared on the walls of Munich strongly worded posters in red announcing this programme as that of the new National Socialist Party. The ‘Hitler Guard’ was formed, and young men began to show themselves in the streets wearing armlets of red, white, and black and adorned with the swastika, soon to become known throughout the world as the emblem of the ‘Nazis’.
The German Fascist party was born. It gained ground quickly in Germany, and its drastic proposals for upsetting the work of the Paris Peace Conference, together with its strong anti-French bias, soon began to trouble the chancelleries of Europe and cause concern to the League of Nations.
In the ensuing years fierce storms burst around the new party. A new ‘army’ – the famous Brown Shirts – was created, inspired with the will to rebuild Germany and with a passionate hatred of Bolshevism which resulted in continuous conflict with the German Communists.
In 1923 Hitler associated himself with Ludendorff in an abortive coup d’état in Bavaria and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in a fortress for high treason. But he was released a little more than a year later and rededicated himself to the service of his party. A converted mansion in Munich, known as the Brown House, became his closely guarded headquarters.
How great was the progress of his party the world only came to realise in September 1930, when in the Reichstag elections the Nazis won 107 seats, compared with a former representation of nine members. A year later, with a party membership of 700,000 and an estimated following of 15,000,000 he was able to declare himself ready for power at the head of the ‘only party able to stem the wave of Bolshevism which would otherwise sweep Europe.’ In October 1931 he held at Brunswick a spectacular review of 60,000 of his Brown Shirts without weapons.
Hitler was then on the threshold of triumph, but 1932 proved to be a year of disappointments. First he entered the lists against Paul von Hindenburg in the Presidential election, and although he mustered over 9,000,000 votes he was soundly beaten by Germany’s greatest war hero.
The Reichstag elections of July and November brought first a triumph and then a setback, but left Hitler at the head of the strongest party in the Parliament. His 107 seats of the 1930 election jumped to 230 in July, but this figure was reduced to 195 in November, when the next strongest parties were the Social Democrats, with 121 seats, and the Communists, with 100.
First Herr von Papen and then General von Schleicher were called to the Chancellorship, while Adolf Hitler was passed over. Amid talks of a march of the Brown Shirts army on Berlin, Hindenburg stood firm. He had no liking for the young leader, and they could not come to terms. Hitler might have served in the Ministries of von Papen and von Schleicher, but he preferred to bide his time. ‘I have only to wait,’ was the prophetic statement he made to The Daily Mail at the time.
At the age of 43 he assumes the mantle of Bismarck, and may well look forward to a long career as a statesman. He has won through to the Chancellorship against heavy odds. He was born in Austria and became a naturalised German only a year ago. He had no wealth or special training to serve him, for before the war he worked as a house-decorator. Good looks and a charming personality have helped him on his way, but most of all he owes his success to his intensity of purpose and his ability to inspire the masses with his burning oratory.
