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Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von
Beneckendorff und von
Hindenburg, known universally
as Paul von Hindenburg (listen
(help·info)) (October 2, 1847 –
August 2, 1934) was a German
field marshal and
statesman.
Hindenburg enjoyed a long if
undistinguished career in the
Prussian army, eventually
retiring in 1913. He was
recalled at the outbreak of the
First World War, and first came
to national attention, at the
age of sixty-six, as the victor
at Tannenberg in 1914. As
Germany's supreme commander
from 1916, he and his chief of
staff, Erich Ludendorff, rose
in the German public's esteem
until Hindenburg came to
eclipse the Kaiser himself.
Hindenburg retired again in
1919, but returned to public
life one more time in 1925 to
be elected as the second
President of Germany.
Though 84 years old and in poor
health, Hindenburg was obliged
to run for re-election in 1932
as the only candidate who could
defeat Adolf Hitler, which he
did in a runoff. In his second
term as President, he did what
he could to oppose the Nazi
Party's rise to power, but was
eventually obliged to appoint
Hitler as Chancellor in January
1933. In March he signed the
Enabling Act of 1933 which gave
special powers to Hitler's
government. Hindenburg died the
next year, after which Hitler
declared the office of
President vacant and made
himself Head of State.
The famed zeppelin Hindenburg
that was destroyed by fire in
1937 had been named in his
honour, as is the causeway
joining the island of Sylt to
mainland Schleswig-Holstein,
the Hindenburgdamm, built
during his time in office.
 German
army
Hindenburg
was born in Posen, Prussia
(since 1919 Poznań,
Poland) 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, Karl Ludwig
Schwickart, and his wife
Julie Moennich. Hindenburg
was embarrassed by his
mother’s non-aristocratic
background, and for this
reason hardly mentioned
her at all in his memoirs.
His younger brothers and
sister were Otto, born in
Aug 24 1849, Ida, born in
Dec 19 1851, and Bernhard,
born in Jan 17 1859. His
paternal grandparents were
Eleonore von Brederlow and
her husband Otto Ludwig
von Beneckendorff und von
Hindenburg, by whom he was
still a remote descendant
from the illegitimate
daughter of Heinrich VI,
Count of Waldeck. He was
also a descendant of
Martin Luther.
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. Meanwhile, he
married Gertrud von Sperling,
also an aristocrat, by whom he
had an only daughter,
Annemarie. 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 of
the Eighth Army, then locked in
combat with two Russian armies
in East Prussia.
Hindenburg was victorious in
the Battle of Tannenberg and
the Battle of the Masurian
Lakes against the Russian
armies. 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.
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 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.
Presidency
1925 election
In 1925, Hindenburg had no
interest in running for public
office. In the first round of
the presidential elections held
on 29 March 1925, 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 (DVP) and
German National People's Party
(DNVP) was regarded as too
dull, it seemed likely that
Marx would win. Admiral Alfred
von Tirpitz, one of the leaders
of the DNVP, visited Hindenburg
and urged him to run.
Hindenburg initially demurred,
but under strong pressure from
Tirpitz applied over several
meetings, 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 in the second
round of voting held on 26
April 1925. He was aided by the
support of the Bavarian
People's Party (BVP), which
switched its support from Marx,
and the refusal of the
Communist Party of Germany
(KPD) to withdraw its
candidate, Ernst Thälmann.
First
term
Hindenburg took office on 1925
May 12. For the first five
years after taking office,
Hindenburg fulfilled his duties
of office with dignity and
decorum. For the most part,
Hindenburg refused to allow
himself to be drawn into the
maelstrom of German politics in
the period, and sought to play
the role of a republican
equivalent of a constitutional
monarch. Although often
referred to as the Ersatzkaiser
(substitute Emperor),
Hindenburg made no effort to
restore the monarchy and took
his oath to the Weimar
Constitution seriously.
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 such as
economics that he did not, and
did not want to, understand. He
was surrounded, however, by a
coterie of advisers
antipathetic to the Weimar
constitution. These advisers
included his son, Oskar, Otto
Meissner, General Wilhelm
Groener, and General Kurt von
Schleicher. This group were
known as the Kamarilla. The
younger Hindenburg served as
his father's aide-de-camp and
controlled politicians' access
to the President.
Schleicher was a close friend
of Oskar and came to enjoy
privileged access to
Hindenburg. It was he who came
up with the idea of
Presidential government based
on the so-called "25/48/53
formula". Under a
"Presidential" government the
head of government (in this
case, the chancellor), is
responsible to the head of
state, and not a legislative
body. The "25/48/53 formula"
referred to the three articles
of the Constitution that could
make a "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, who would rule
under the provisions of Article
48. If the Reichstag should
threaten to annul any laws so
passed, Hindenburg could
counter with the threat of
dissolution. Hindenburg was
unenthusiastic about these
plans, but was pressured into
going along with them by his
son along with Meissner,
Groener and Schleicher.
Presidential
government
The first attempt to establish
a "presidential government" had
occurred in 1926–1927, but
foundered for lack of political
support. During the winter of
1929–1930, however, 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 (Zentrum), 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 democratic
governance altogether is
unclear. 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 as
Chancellor 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,
though 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".
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 fulfill 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 von
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 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 eyes the perfect
gentleman"".
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".
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 him 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".
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 von 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.
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 I, 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 the Jews had actually
sought to undermine Germany
during the Great 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 was appointed president
per Hitler's last testament
upon the dictator's suicide, 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.
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".
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.
Source : Some
of the information on this page
came from a Wikipedia
article and is
licensed under the GNU
Documentation License.
©2008
www.geneticmatrix.com.
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