Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

HINDENBURG'S STICK 465But when the weak-kneed Papen appeared before Hindenburg thenext day, he again let himself be intimidated. For the sake of his ownprestige, the old man could no longer retreat. He roughly commandedPapen as a soldier to form a cabinet. In mad haste the ministers weresought out, some by telegram; all of them former officers whom theField Marshal more or less ordered to their posts. Some, indeed, couldnot have been induced in any other way. There was Konstantin vonNeurath, ambassador to London, who became Foreign Minister;Wilhelm Baron von Gayl, one of the economic leaders of the junkers inthe province of East Prussia, a frequent guest in the Hindenburghousehold. Schleicher became Reichswehr Minister; for finances therewas an outstanding specialist, Count von Schwerin-Krosigk, despite hisname no junker but an official. But it was hard to overlook that theseven leading men of the cabinet were all nobles. For justice, however,Schleicher had found a commoner from the Bavarian South; this newMinister of Justice was the same Franz Gurtner, who had been unable tofind the patriotic murderers; who had freed Hitler from prison longbefore the end of his term, who had made it possible for him to speak inpublic, and who finally had failed to throw full light on the death of GeliRaubal.On June 2, Papen was Chancellor. On the third, the last remnant ofparliamentarian democracy voluntarily abdicated before the new coup:the Prussian diet, with two hundred and fifty-three votes, the NationalSocialists in the lead, adopted the Communist motion to give the Braungovernment a vote of no-confidence.Now Papen and Schleicher attempted to forge and educate theNational Socialists. The Reichstag was dissolved; thus far Hitler hadhad his way. But when he expected the prohibition of the S.A. to belifted, Papen demanded that Hitler first give a clear, written promise tosupport him even after elections. Hitler wanted to put nothing inwriting, but finally let himself be persuaded. On the estate of Severin inMecklenburg, belonging to Goebbels's brother-in-law, Walter Granzow,Hitler dictated a memorandum. Meanwhile, Schleicher was waiting forhim on a near-by estate near the little city of Furstenberg. Hitler dictatedin haste and was not sure whether what he had written was the rightthing. He gave the