← In Our Time
In Our Time
Paul von Hindenburg
00:52:09
How the cult of personality around this German WWI figurehead helped usher in Hitler.
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- [00:00]
Melvyn Bragg
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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Anna von der Goltz
Trip Planner by Expedia.
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Chris Clark
You were made to have strong opinions about sand.
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Anna von der Goltz
We were made to help you and your friends find a place on the.
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Colin Storer
Beach with a pool and a marina.
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Anna von der Goltz
And a waterfall and a soaking tub.
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Chris Clark
Expedia Made to Travel.
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Colin Storer
BBC Sounds Music.
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Melvyn Bragg
Radio Podcasts this is in our time from BBC Radio 4 and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. Paul von Hindenburg, 1847-1934, won Germany's presidential election twice during the Weimar Republic as a candidate of national unity. He'd been famous since 1914 as the victorious commander at the Battle of Tannenberg against Russian invaders, soon burnishing his fame on the Western Front. And Hindenburg claimed he would have won there too, if enemies at home hadn't stabbed Germany in the back. And while he gained his second term as a Stop Hitler candidate, President Hindenburg was to appoint Hitler as chancellor, a move so disastrous the Germans were later to ask if the myth of Hindenburg had always been an illusion. With me to discuss Paul von Hindenburg her Anna von der Goltz, professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. colin Storer, associate professor in Modern European History at the University of Warwick and Chris Clark, Regis, professor of History at the University of Cambridge. Chris Clark, where did Hindenburg's life begin and what was his childhood like?
- [01:48]
Colin Storer
Well, the story starts in a place which was then called Posen. It was the capital city of a province of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia. It's today called Poznan. It's in Poland. It's an interesting place for the life of a man like this to start. His father was a lieutenant stationed in that town as an officer in the Prussian army. But it was an interesting place because it was a place where there'd been nationalist a lot of nationalist mobilization, both among Germans and among Poles. It was an area of mixed settlement with the Poles and Germans. It had been taken from Poland during the second partition of Poland in the late 18th century. So there are still lots of Poles around. And in 1846, the year before Hindenburg was born, Posen was the place where a small insurrection was attempted by the Polish intelligentsia. It didn't work out. It was betrayed to the police and suppressed. In 1848, when he was one year old, there was a revolution in the German states, right across Europe, in fact. And in the context of that revolution, the Poles tried another uprising in the suppression of which his father was involved. So it's a place where Poles had been mobilizing around the idea of a reborn Polish nation. Germans mobilized against the Poles pursuing the ideal of an emergent German nation state. And in other words, it's important to note this because it means that Hindenburg grew up in the environment of an emergent German nation state. We sometimes think of him as, as a man of the old Prussia, but actually his life was intertwined with the emergence of the new German state.
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Melvyn Bragg
Can you tell us something about his personal circumstances? It's been mentioned in some of the notes that he came from an aristocratic family, for instance.
- [03:22]
Colin Storer
Yes, an aristocratic family. Their full name was Bennikendorf und von Hindenburg. They had both names because an earlier generation had tried to fuse the two families in order to acquire, to keep hold of valuable properties. They had a very nice estate at a place called Neudek, which today is called Ogrodzeniec, also in Poland. And so he used to. He spent his summ, a child on the rolling lawns and with beautiful established trees and had very happy memories of that. But his life proper really took place in Poznan and he, as a young boy of 11, he already knew he wanted to pursue the career of a military officer. He joined a cadet school and then later on went to a cadet school in Berlin. From the very beginning he knew the army was for him. I don't think he ever thought seriously about any other way of life than that.
- [04:10]
Melvyn Bragg
Why were the Prussians fighting so many wars so close to home in the 19th century?
- [04:15]
Colin Storer
Yes, there are quite a few of them. There are lots of them. Yeah. It's true there was a war with Denmark which the Prussians fought alongside the Austrians over the Schlesing Holstein. Question. I'm not going to trouble.
- [04:25]
Melvyn Bragg
Please don't trouble. Anyone with good men have died on.
- [04:30]
Colin Storer
So we'll leave that one to, to one side. But the really important ones are the, the war against Austria which is Prussia fighting Austria effectively for the right to control the future of Germany. That's really what this is about. And in 1866 that war takes place and its big sort of, you know, major engagement is the battle of Konigskretz, which also happens to be the place where Hindenburg first sees action. He's actually struck in the head by a bullet, not properly speaking in the head, but his helmet is bored through by a bullet which cuts the top of his head, leaving him. I think he's Knocked out briefly, but otherwise unharmed. And he goes on to lead his company or to join his company for an assault on some Austrian positions. So he shows quite a lot of courage in that situation. Then in 1870, there's another war. This time the Prussians are fighting the French. The French are foolish enough to declare war against Prussia, and as a consequence of that war against France, Germany is unified. The Prussians persuade the South German states, Bavaria, Baden and Wurtemberg, who fought as allies against the French with Prussia, to join them to form a permanent or lasting union of the German states. This is the new German Empire which emerges in 1871. And Hindenburg is actually present at Versailles when this new empire is proclaimed. So, you know, it's hard to think of a career which is more tightly wound up with the emergence of this new German nation state, which is a revolutionary event because the center of Europe had traditionally been weak and fragmented. Now suddenly there's this massive German thing in the middle of Europe and power is not coming from the periphery anymore as it used to, from Britain and France or from Russia in the East. It's now parked right in the center of the continent. And Disraeli rightly commented, this is the German Revolution, a greater revolution in its consequences than the French revolution of the 18th century.
- [06:20]
Melvyn Bragg
Colin, thank you very much. Colin Collinsorro how did Hindenburg distinguish himself in the military from the beginning? Did he stand out from the begin?
- [06:28]
Chris Clark
In a way, yes. As Chris has already mentioned, he's there at the decisive battle of Koniggratz in the Austro Prussian War. He'd been just too young to take part in the war against Denmark. He's still a cadet, I think he's commissioned as a lieutenant in 1865. So he's there to take part in the next two of Germany's wars of unification. And as you might expect, for I think he's about 18 years old at this point. He's very enthusiastic about these conflicts. He writes about war being the natural sphere of a soldier. And he goes off sort of ready to win glory and all the rest.
- [07:04]
Melvyn Bragg
Of it, or to die a beautiful.
- [07:06]
Chris Clark
Death indeed, which, as Chris has already said, he very nearly does at the Battle of Koeniggratz. And he's very proud of that wound he sustains in this. He supposedly keeps the helmet with the bullet hole in it for the rest of his life and displays it in his office as president, apparently. So I think it really distinguishes himself because he's quite a junior officer at this point. He's not sort of taking part in big decisions. But he's there leading men on the front, front lines and he really distinguishes himself through that sense of personal bravery. But also this reputation that he gains both here and later as being unflappable, steady someone who is not going to be disrupted out of the course that they've set on. And this is a reputation that he really carries through with him from this very early point.
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Melvyn Bragg
He's a very big man, isn't he, with a particularly big head?
- [07:58]
Chris Clark
Yeah. A good target, possibly, yes. Yeah, I think he's 6 foot 6. He's a big sort of powerful looking man even, even as a young man. If you see photographs of him, apparently blonde haired and sort of the archetypal, sort of stereotypical German Prussian officer in many ways when you see these photographs of him and that sort of the power of his presence only grows as he gets older and you know, he looks the part, I think helps to explain some of his popularity and some of the reason why the myths grow up around him. Because he looks like people want him to be. That being said, after the two conflicts against Austria and France, his career sort of isn't that spectacular. He settles into a rut, if you like, of peacetime military work and he steadily rises up through the ranks, but not because he distinguishes himself by standing out from the crowd, but more because he is seen as being steady.
- [09:02]
Melvyn Bragg
Why did he. Why was recalled from retirement in 1914?
- [09:07]
Chris Clark
Essentially, he's pretty much explicitly appointed as a figurehead. So the guy that von Moltke, who is the head of the General staff, really wants to send to East Prussia to rescue the situation is Erich Ludendorff.
- [09:19]
Melvyn Bragg
Ludendorff.
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Chris Clark
The problem is that Ludendorff, although he's been seen as one of the sort of rising stars of the German general staff before the First World War. And although he's distinguished himself in Belgium in the early days of the conflict, he doesn't have seniority and he doesn't quite have the tip top aristocratic background that is necessary to be an army commander in the German army at that point.
- [09:43]
Melvyn Bragg
Thank you, Anna von der Goltz. Russia had invaded Germany and undeniably Germany defeated their second army in August 1914. What was Hindenburg's role then?
- [09:55]
Anna von der Goltz
His role in the actual battle of Tannenberg was actually of relatively little substance. As Colin explained, he was chosen largely as a figurehead and didn't actually have much input into the planning of the battle. The plan was pretty much in place when he arrived, so overall I would say not much. You know, some have credited him with not changing course at a moment when Ludendorff was showing nerves. But I think this might well be one of those examples where there's a certain mythology about Hindenburg's level headedness that actually colors that interpretation as well.
- [10:32]
Melvyn Bragg
How did Tannenberg become such a myth and how was his career bound up with that?
- [10:39]
Anna von der Goltz
Tannenberg was important really for a number of different reasons. One had to do with the fact that it was a very decisive victory at a point where the Western Front was already facing stalemate. Things weren't going according to plan there. The German population had been promised a swift victory in the west in a matter of six weeks. It was already clear at this point that this wasn't going to happen. And Tannenberg, on the other hand, was a sort of resounding victory where you had, you know, around 50,000 Russian dead, over 90,000 prisoners taken. German casualties only numbered in the 10 to 15,000. So this was in many ways an old fashioned military victory, more like those in the war of unification that we already talked about. And so it stood out in contrast to what was happening in the West. At the same time, it was also important that it was fought against Tsarist Russia. Russia had invaded the province of East Prussia in August 1914. There was a lot of anxiety and fear at that moment. The press was full of stories about atrocities committed. And of course the whole mobilization of the German population for war rested on the idea of this being a defensive war, which was actually quite hard to maintain in lots of ways because Germany was marching through neutral Belgian territory at this point. And so what was happening in East Prussia really served the purpose of sort of highlighting that this was a war fought for the defense of the homeland. And Russia was sort of the traditional enemy, not just of nationalist Germans, but also of social democracy. So the fact that this was fought against Tsara's troops really meant that large segments of the German population felt that this was a victory that truly mattered. It had an almost civilizational quality. And then the naming of the battle played a key role. So the battle was actually fought near the town of Allenstein. I think the first press reports about it mentioned the names Gilgenburg and Otters, but it was then named after the battle of 1410 where the Teutonic Knights had been defeated by Polish and Lithuanian troops. And this had been commemorated especially by Polish nationalists in the 19th century. Chris already alluded to Hindenburg's upbringing in Posen. He was very aware of this, had a keen sense actually of the politics of memory, the politics of history and indeed took credit for naming the battle Tannenberg. He wrote to his W that he had actually asked the Kaiser personally to give it this name. And that meant the Tannenberg was almost immediately seen as a battle of mythical proportions.
- [13:34]
Melvyn Bragg
From Chris, back to you. Krista. Why did his reputation grow so steadily?
- [13:39]
Colin Storer
Well this is the most stupendous fact about Hindenburg's early life is his ascendancy in German public opinion. He becomes a figure whose kind of dominance over the German imagination can scarcely be imagined. I mean it's very difficult to exaggerate and I think.
- [13:53]
Melvyn Bragg
Why was it you think?
- [13:54]
Colin Storer
Well I think Anna's mentioned some of the reasons. I mean it's just such an important victory in symbolic terms. The choice of the name was brilliant as she pointed out. He was proud of having branded it with the name Tannenberg. And in general he was a, he was brilliant at branding, in particular branding himself and he was media savvy. I mean the square headedness we were talking about before is part of this. It's the haircut that makes him look as if he could put three bottles of Grolch on the top of his head. It's not actually the shape of his skull and so how he looked, the way he held his chin up whenever he was being photographed. The fact that even during the really difficult moments on the Eastern Front he was always available to meet with journalists. There was always time for a sitting with a portrait painter or photographer, whereas Ludendorff was always busy telephoning and racing around in cars and so on to this part of that part of the front. Hindenburg had a fairly, by the standards of the Eastern Front, fairly relaxed daily routine. So he was someone who knew how to cultivate the press. He had a gift for harvesting other people's laurels in particular Ludendorffs. It was in that respect a very, he called it himself, a very effective marriage. And the, the consequences are extraordinary. I mean his image is seen everywhere. All sorts of buildings and structures are named after him. The so called Nagelsoilen, these colossi made of wood which are wheeled around in big towns. And the idea is you buy for good money an iron nail. You nail the nail into this wooden image of Hindenburg and that that money goes to support the front, to support the war effort. And you know, these, these enormous Hindenburg statues are seen everywhere. And part of the reason for that is there's nobody else to fill this role. The, the natural candidate would have been the Emperor. The Emperor fails Miserably in this role, he's indiscreet, volatile, can't keep his mind on any one subject. He's an embarrassment. So he moves off to the Imperial Headquarters and is shielded from any kind of exposure to the press because his staff are worried that he'll cause embarrassments. And that leaves the arena to Hindenburg, who exploits his popularity in the most extraordinary way, soon learning how to turn it into political influence.
- [15:58]
Melvyn Bragg
Thank you, Colin. Germany's facing defeat in 1918. How was Hindenburg tarnished in that process?
- [16:06]
Chris Clark
I mean, one of the amazing things about this, in some ways, is that Hindenburg isn't particularly tarnished by this defeat. Despite the fact that he's been set up as this amazing, godlike general who can do no wrong, somehow he manages to avoid taking the blame. And I think this is something that's really key to the understanding of Hindenburg's career, really. Certainly after 1916. He's got a real talent, almost a genius for ducking responsibility and blame. And while at the same time appearing to be this dutiful, loyal man who is above party interest and all this kind of thing, is he actually effective? There's much more style over substance here. The word I've used before, earlier on, figurehead, he has become that figurehead. But I think part of this is that by 1918, the legend has become more important than what Hindenburg is actually doing. So I think one of the reasons that explains why he survives this defeat is that he's almost, to use a modern phrase, too big to fail in a way that there's too much at stake with this image of Hindenburg, and people on the civilian front have bought into it. After the change of government in 1918, First Prince Max von Baden, who's appointed as the first civilian chancellor, and then Friedrich Ebert, who succeeds in, they both say at numerous points, Hindenburg must be retained at the head of the army because only he can hold the army together, only he can bring the troops back in good order. And, I mean, I think, as we see later on, that that isn't at all true. But there is this idea that he is somehow supernaturally gifted to achieve these things.
- [17:49]
Melvyn Bragg
Anna.
- [17:51]
Anna von der Goltz
I would say he was actually, in some ways, actually strengthened even, or his mythical standing was in some ways strengthened by the defeat, certainly in Republican circles, because this staying in his post and enabling the orderly transition after the revolution really endeared him to many Democrats and Republicans. And if we want to understand the power of his Myth in the 1920s and his eventual election, certainly in 1990, 1932. I think this period is actually key.
- [18:19]
Melvyn Bragg
He claimed that he would have won had he not been stabbed in the back. Was he stabbed in the back?
- [18:26]
Anna von der Goltz
No, he was not. But the stab in the back it was.
- [18:30]
Melvyn Bragg
What did he mean by it?
- [18:31]
Anna von der Goltz
He meant that the army had been within reach of victory and treacherous forces on the home front, socialists, pacifists, had stabbed the army in the back, quite literally had committed treason and fomented revolution and had snatched victory from the German army. This was of course self serving. The flip side of an army stabbed in the back is sort of the myth of Hindenburg's and the army's infallibility grace.
- [19:01]
Colin Storer
I would add to what Anna just said that, you know, Hindenburg, when push really came to shove and Hindenburg was asked, you know, as the moment for an armistice approach and Hindenburg was asked, can we keep fighting? His answer was an unequivocal no. He and Ludendorff agreed, no, we've, we're just, we've run out of gas. We're about to be crushed. It's, it's over. And that was of course acknowledging the military defeat, the military failure on the Western front.
- [19:25]
Melvyn Bragg
This is 1918.
- [19:26]
Colin Storer
This is 1918, in the autumn of 1918. So he had clearly indicated to the government at the time, we cannot continue. But then when he was asked during a public inquiry into the conduct of the war and the reasons for the defeat and so on, that's when he turned on the Republic and said, we were stabbed in the back by union leaders and pacifists, as Anna was saying. I mean, it was an extraordinary betrayal. Just one of many examples of how Hindenburg, the man of duty and honor, broke his own word of honor and.
- [19:54]
Melvyn Bragg
Got away with it.
- [19:55]
Colin Storer
And got away with it.
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Melvyn Bragg
Why did you get away with it?
- [19:57]
Colin Storer
Well, it's very difficult. I mean, I think it's what Colin and Anna were saying that, you know, it's this myth which is just much, much bigger than the man. And the interesting thing about these myths is they're not just made by the person around whom they accumulate. They're something in which other people invest. And so Germans had projected their hopes onto Hindenburg and that was the thing that nobody wanted to fail. They didn't want to lose that integrating figure. And the point that Anna made about, you know, how important it was that he stayed on deck, as it were, at the. Of course it's still a landed commander, not a naval one, but he stayed there. The contrast with the Kaiser who fled to Holland on the advice of Hindenburg incidentally leaving Hindenburg alone. Yes, it was a failure, yes, it was a defeat. But on the other hand there was Hindenburg, the man of duty and service.
- [20:45]
Chris Clark
One of the interesting things I think about this at the end of the war is the troops actually fighting on the front are pretty sick of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. You know, they have lost faith in this myth. It's the people back home who have invested so much in this idea of Hindenburg and he's going to save us and he, he's going to win the war.
- [21:02]
Anna von der Goltz
I think it's also the fact that the new transitional government, the civilian government, relies on him so heavily during the transition, then makes it very hard to counter the stab in the back myth. One Hindenburg popularizes it, he doesn't invent it, but his appearance at this parliamentary Investigation Committee in November 1919 really signifies the public breakthrough afterwards. The phrase stab in the back is widely known, but because he is the person who utters it and the civilian leadership had previously relied on him so heavily and actually had actually used his sort of mythical authority to back their own policies up to a point, it makes it very hard to counter things that he had said publicly, which is why they also originally didn't want him to testify. They wanted Ludendorff to testify, but Ludendorff actually quite cleverly insisted that he would only do so if Hindenburg testified as well. And he then refused to answer any questions, produced this pre prepared memorandum which talked about the German army being stabbed in the back and then burdened the Republic with this accusation of treason, essentially which really was extremely corrosive and burdened political discourse for years.
- [22:19]
Melvyn Bragg
So he's not a politician, but he became president in 1925. How was that? Colin?
- [22:25]
Chris Clark
This requires a little bit of background, I think. The Article 41 of the Weimar Constitution says that the Reich President will be elected by the whole German people. And Article 43 says that they serve a term of seven years. The first president of the Weimar Republic, Friedrich Ebert, is never elected by a popular mandate. He is elected by parliamentarians because the political situation is so dangerous in 1919 that it's felt that the public can't be allowed to go to the polls. It will be marred by violence. So what happens is his term is repeatedly extended by parliament. The idea is there will be a national poll as soon as it's safe. That kind of never happens. And in 1922, Abette's term is fixed as ending at the end of June 1925. At the end of 1924, a group of sort of rights leaning organisations come together and come to sort of the same conclusion that Hitler comes to about the same time that a violent challenge to the Weimar Republic hasn't succeeded. So the way to transform German politics is to capture the presidency and they begin to talk about this idea of running a united right wing candidate who is going to become president and then reshape the Republic from within. Almost. Hindenburg's name is put forward and is immediately rejected because he's regarded as being too old, too political, too unpolitical. Sorry. What happens in February 1925? Ebert suddenly dies of appendicitis and that sort of torpedoes everybody's plans. Negotiations for a united right wing candidate fail as all the various political parties scrabble to put forward their candidate for the presidency. And so what happens when the poll takes place in March 1925? Nobody wins the absolute majority necessary to win outright. So it has to go to a run off election. At that point some of the pro Republican candidates, the Social Democrat and the candidates, the German People's Party and Liberal Party, drop out in favour of Wilhelm Marx, a former Chancellor. This panics the right and they then go cast around for someone who can beat Marx and then they go for Hindenburg.
- [24:41]
Melvyn Bragg
Thank you very much, Anna. In this first presidency, what happened to Hindenburg's reputation?
- [24:47]
Anna von der Goltz
I mean, first of all, he's absolutely ubiquitous as president. He's head of State. There's a huge cultural component to this Hindenburg. Films, both movies and documentaries proliferate. There are lots of illustrators, books with pictures of him. He becomes an advertising icon. He frequently speaks on the radio, so he's at least as famous at this point and as omnipresent as he had been during the First World War. Politically, something quite interesting happens which is that he quickly becomes an icon almost of republican stability because he does not initially do much to sort of overturn the republican order and turn the Weimar Republican into an openly authoritarian system. He actually endorses Stresemann's, the Foreign Minister's conciliatory foreign policy. In some ways he backs, for instance, Germany signing the Treaty of Locarno, which accepts sort of the status quo of the western borders, the entry into the League of Nations he doesn't oppose. He also keeps Friedrich Ebert's predecessors right hand man, State Secretary Otto Meissner, who moves to the right in subsequent years and actually still serves once Hitler's chancellor. But initially this retention is seen as evidence of Hindenburg's constitutionality. So his republican credentials grow. The Nationalist right, which had elected him in large numbers was sort of slowly becoming disappointed, but did not quite turn their backs on him.
- [26:28]
Colin Storer
He benefits in part by the fact that his, his own political vision is a rather inchoate one. He is forming and does have quite a consistent political outlook. And it's about, it's what Colin was talking about. It's about unifying the right, creating a consolidated German political culture which will extend from the center to the far right, but will exclude socialists, Marxists, internationalists, Communists, Unreliables of that kind, as he sees them in the easter message of 1925, just before his elected president. He says, I extend my hand to every German who thinks in a German way and seeks confessional and social peace. That means not union leaders, not people who use a Marxist language of class war, not in other words, social Democrats. It's dog whistle for I extend my hand to people of the center and the right. And I think that helps to explain why in the end it will be possible for people on the right, whatever their disappointments may be in the 1920s that Anna was talking about, it will be possible for them to work together with Hindenburg in 1932.
- [27:33]
Melvyn Bragg
He stands again. He's in his 80s. Why did he do that?
- [27:36]
Chris Clark
He does it very reluctantly or he says he does it reluctantly again. You know, it's slightly difficult to separate his sort of personal feelings from what he says in public. And initially he says he doesn't want to stand again. He'll only remain in post if a parliamentary vote will extend his term. And so there are all sorts of negotiations to put off the election or to make him president for life or things like that. But the Chancellor of the time, Heinrich Bruning, in a period of political economic crisis, can't secure the necessary two thirds majority in parliament that that would require. Not least because the conservative right, Hindenburg's old constituency, have abandoned him by that point because they see him as too republican, as sullied by his association with Catholics and socialists and things like that. But also he's key to the plans of the group of sort of right wing officers, aristocrats, who are really to some extent running the show by this point. This so called camarilla in the President's office, and in particular the sort of eminence Greece of late Weimar politics, General Kurt von Schleicher. And their plan is to sort of use Hindenburg partly as a cover and partly using the exercise of his constitutional powers for a rightward reorientation of German politics.
- [28:58]
Melvyn Bragg
Can I come to you for a moment? There's A lot of strains on Germany in all of our masks. Do we know what Hindenburg actually stood for? And did he stand for what he stood for consistently?
- [29:09]
Anna von der Goltz
No, I think that's one of the most interesting things about him, that he meant many different things to different people. At least when we look at his public image, people on the right obviously saw him as a symbol of, in some ways the Kaiserreich glorious past, a victory of Tannenberg, of strong authoritarian type leadership. But the democratic left, as I alluded to earlier, did highlight this stabilizing impact during the revolution and its aftermath. And you know, re elected him in 32 as a defender of the Republic. He was seen as a lifesaver of Weimar democracy, which of course is decision less than a year later made a.
- [29:54]
Melvyn Bragg
Total mockery of let's turn to this appointment of Hitler, which was the massive thing that he did. Why?
- [30:02]
Colin Storer
Well, for a long time he had expressed contempt for Hitler and there are various reasons for that. I mean, one was that Hitler was Austrian. He didn't like, care for Austrians. He remembered their contribution to the First World War and thought that they had completely failed on every front. He didn't like, he, he was very much a man aware of rank. So from a military perspective, the relationship between the Austrian corporal, as he sometimes called him, and the field marshal was, you know, enormously, vertiginously large distance. And he disliked the Nazi party because he disliked its radical wing. It was a National Socialist party, it had a socialist wing. And the Socialists claimed that they were going, once in power to split up the great big latifundial estates of the Prussian nobility, to which of course, the family of the von Hindenburgs belonged. And so he disliked them for those and other reasons and famously said, you know, I can't imagine this man at any, any more senior position than a minister for postal services. And, and he can enjoy himself licking stamps with my face on them. So, you know, there was all of that. But gradually he began to change his mind, partly because, as Colin and Anna pointed out, he was really keen on this idea of integrating the right. The right was very difficult to integrate in, in Germany because it was very splintered. It was broken up into lots of rather selfish and egotistical interest groups who found it very difficult to collaborate with each other. And the Nazis were doing better and better, especially in the elections of 1930 when they, well, they surged to 16%. That's the impact of the Depression, largely. I mean, we haven't mentioned that yet. But the, the Weimar system comes under titanic Stress because of the depression, which affects Germany almost worse really, than anywhere else apart from the United States. The United States foreclosed their loans. Germany is deeply dependent on American lending and American debt. And the result is a very rapid contraction of the German economy. Making consensus happen within the parliament becomes virtually impossible. And a lot of very angry, initially angry peasants in the north of Germany surge towards the National Socialist in local and regional elections. And then in the March elections of 1930, the Nazis go from being a tiny splinter group to 16% of the vote. So by 1932, when the Nazis in the summer of 1932 elections get 37% of the vote and then 33% in the following autumn elections of 1932, by that time, it's clear that you cannot integrate the right in the way that people like Hindenburg and other, many people on the right wing want, without the Nazis. Do you give Hitler what he wants, which is the Chancellorship, or do you force him to take some other office? Hitler made it clear he would not accept anything other than the Chancellorship. And this is where Papen comes in, because Papen, supported by Hitler himself, but Papen proposes a plan. It's a bit like Baldrick, you know, a very clever plan which is going to make it possible to give Hitler, Hitler, the Chancellorship, but control and tame the Nazis, keep them under control.
- [32:58]
Melvyn Bragg
Arne, do you have a say on this?
- [33:01]
Anna von der Goltz
Even though we have these quotations about, you know, Hindenburg dismissing Hitler as the Bohemian corporal, he sort of got a few things wrong geographically there, but that's what he referred to. Chris alluded to this. In the end, it was much closer to him politically than social democracy. Right.
- [33:20]
Chris Clark
You could argue that sort of the big project of first Schleicher and then Papen is to co opt the Nazis. Chris was saying about this idea of taming them. Papin talks about pushing them so far into a corner they'll squeak. But it's this idea of giving a sheen of legitimacy to what has essentially become an illegitimate government by that point. It is a government run by the presidency. And I think for me, this is something that's very interesting about this, that even these guys who have no love of democracy, who will be quite happy with a dictatorship of some sort, feel at this point that they need to give it some sort of popular legitimacy. And the Nazis are the key to that, because they seem to be doing so well electorally.
- [34:02]
Colin Storer
I think it's important to remember what a clever plan it was on paper. I mean, the plan was, we'll let Hitler be Chancellor. Okay, that's not ideal because there are lots of things about him and his movement that we don't particularly like. But on the other hand, Papen will be Vice Chancellor. That means he has to co sign on any order from the Chancellor that gives him a kind of executive veto. The new government of national concentration, which is the term they used for it under Hitler, will immediately seek an Enabling act which will place the power to govern in the hands of the cabinet for four years time. And during that time the votes will be made by the members of cabinet. And so if you ensure that the Cabinet contains only three Nazis and everybody else is a sort of nice cuddly far right conservative like Alfred Hugenberg or the DNVP people and so on, then you should be able to control the Nazis. That's the theory. It's not a stupid plan, it's just one that has no hope of actually working in reality.
- [34:57]
Chris Clark
It's. I mean, it's even more extreme than Papen as Vice Chancellor because ultimately he's nominated as Hindenburg's official proxy, isn't he? So he's, he's going to countersign things on behalf of the President.
- [35:09]
Colin Storer
Absolutely.
- [35:10]
Anna von der Goltz
And there's really a concerted effort at play on the part of the Nazi movement with Goebbels, you know, increasingly in charge of Nazi propaganda to portray Hitler almost as sort of the son of the mythical Hindenburg. And so this kind of idea that, you know, the two of them are working in tandem but Hitler sort of unthreatening, is one that's pushed very deliberately, even after his appointment as Chancellor.
- [35:36]
Colin Storer
And then on the 21st of March 1933, there's this massive public, almost liturgical ceremony at which creates the image of a sort of mystical fusion between the old Prussia and the new Germany. And there Hindenburg suddenly, weirdly, represents the old Prussia, even though in a sense he was nothing to do with the old Prussia. I mean, except that he came from a Prussian family. But his job was to embody the idea that this was a legitimate. Colin made this important at this point about how important it was that this all appears legitimate. It was a legitimate transition in which a new German vision was being planted on to Prussian tradition. And Hindenburg's job was to be that tradition in the form of a very tall and very imposing, though by now rather elderly man.
- [36:21]
Melvyn Bragg
Yes. Colin, back to you. How would you sum up then Hindenburg's career?
- [36:27]
Chris Clark
Two words. Unlikely is the first word. There's nothing in his background to suggest that certainly until 1914 there's nothing to suggest that he will end up being the most powerful man in Germany twice. Also, for someone who ends up trading on this new form of charismatic politics, in some ways he's singularly uncharismatic. One thing all contemporaries agreed upon. These are terrible public speeches. You know, he can stand there and look majestic and magnificent, but other people talk about how he moves slowly, he looks wooden in public. And John Wheeler Bennett recalls meeting him in 1931. Says he's like a wind up toy. His staff sort of points him in the right direction and lets him go. The other word I would use to describe it is disastrous. He's absolutely unsuited for the roles he's called on to play after 1916. In my opinion, in some ways he might have made a fine ceremonial head of state. But in the circumstances of Germany after 1930, what democracy needs is an adroit and energetic and a charismatic champion. And what it gets is a tired old man who is at best ambivalent towards the idea of democracy and at worst connives to bring the Nazis into power.
- [37:45]
Anna von der Goltz
Can I just come in on this? So I absolutely agree with Colin that Hindenburg was really not the politician that Weimar democracy needed. I would maybe disagree a little bit on charisma because we've got to remember that this is just a very different media environment and in the Weimar Republic the press was so much more important. He was actually very good, as Chris Express explained earlier about recognizing the power of images of both photographs but also portrait paintings, you know, sat for those deliberately. There were all these films produced about him. He meddled in the scripts and so forth. And so even though he wasn't blessed with performative qualities necessarily as we think about them in the present, I think at the time he made sense as a charismatic figure actually. It's just difficult to see it from our vantage point now.
- [38:43]
Colin Storer
I agree with all of that too, and I think that, you know, they're really striking. I think first of all that Hindenburg is. It's hard to think of anyone else who does more to enable this German disaster. Another individual who does more to enable. I think he's absolutely crucial to the success of Hitler. In inserting himself, would you summarize why? Why? Well, because the role he plays in getting Hitler into the Chancellorship, but more important, the role he plays in legitimating Hitler's rule once it's in place. It's a kind of charisma transfer. He allows Hitler to feed off his charisma. That's really important. I think you know what's already been said about Hitler seeming almost to be the son of the, of this field marshal. You know, in some ways highly improbable thought, but nevertheless, that's how it works in terms of the transfer of charisma. I think the thing that's most striking about Hindenburg is the crass tension between appearance and reality. Right. The reputation was one of someone who was apolitical, but this was a man who knew again and again to turn his positions, whether they were political ones or not. When he was a commander in the First World War, he wasn't a political figure, he didn't have a political office. But he did use his charisma to blackmail the executive. Over and over again he was seen as, and projected himself as the man of loyalty. And yet he betrayed his compact to all kinds of individual people. I mean, the Kaiser, for example, he betrayed the Kaiser. Of course, we don't really care about that, but he betrayed Otto Braun, the Social Democrat minister, president of Prussia, who was a personal friend. He just dumped him when the Nazis came in. Brown had to flee the country for New York. I mean, he behaved in the most despicable way when this system was destroyed by the. Assaulted and destroyed by the Nazis. And he was always seen as the man of honor, but he, he lied again and again both about his own role and, and failed to really, to rise to all sorts of situations, such as, for example, the moment when he should have said we failed fair and square on the Western Front. He was anything but humble. He was one of the vainest masculine political figures of the 20th century. And that's really saying something.
- [40:47]
Melvyn Bragg
We're coming to the end now. Anna, how far has Hindenburg been judged by posterity?
- [40:53]
Anna von der Goltz
I think after 1945 the Nazi version of Hindenburg actually survived, but it was now seen in a negative light. The focus was very much on his association with Hitler, on, you know, Hindenburg as a sort of undertaker of Weimar democracy. At the same time, though, some veneration remained among some parts of certainly the West German population. So the ex refugees from the former German territories in the east were actually still often supporters of Hindenburg. They identified with him later on because his coffin had also been moved from East Prussia to West German territory. So they kind of saw him as a symbol of the expulsion from the homeland. There's also still some veneration amongst members of the German army. Some barracks are still named after Hindenburg after 45 in West Germany. But I do think, you know, as correct as this sort of Negative assessment undoubtedly was. There is sort of an apologetic tendency there as well because it does sort of personalize responsibility for the failure of Weimar democracy. It attributes the blame to one man, to conservative elites, and it sort of writes out the popular support that the Nazi movement also had.
- [42:22]
Melvyn Bragg
Well, thank you very much. Thanks to Anna von der Goltz, to Chris Clark and Colin Storer. Next week, the history and science of hypnosis. Thank you for listening.
- [42:33]
Colin Storer
And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few.
- [42:36]
Anna von der Goltz
Minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.
- [42:40]
Melvyn Bragg
Well, we got a lot there, didn't we?
- [42:42]
Colin Storer
That was fun.
- [42:44]
Melvyn Bragg
We do more now for the podcast, which you might know about. The question that I kick off with, and I'll kick off with you, Chris, is what didn't you get time to say you wish you had said?
- [42:55]
Colin Storer
I, I felt I, I got to say most of the things. I mean one, one thing, thing that really struck me when I was looking into Hindenburg's life was what happened after his death because he had said when he had forgotten now who he vouchsafed this to. But there is some document which he says, I want to be buried under a slab of unbroken East Prussian stone, which is a rather unusual request. Anyway, they took it very seriously and after he died they, they, they located this, this thing that you call in German a fintling, a sort of monolith somewhere in the East Prussian plane and dug this thing up and put it into a special, special purpose designed bogie and rolled it across a special wide gauge rail which they built for the purpose all the way to the Tannenberg location where his body was going to be laid. And then his, what, his already some, for some time dead wife was also slotted under this gigantic monolith. So I thought that was an interesting thing. Of course the whole thing was later destroyed by the Red army when they arrived, arrived. But you know, it's another example of this man's enormous vanity. I mean it's, of course it's very unusual for male politicians to be vain, but he certainly had, you know, truly supernatural share of vanity.
- [44:06]
Melvyn Bragg
Colin, would you like to add.
- [44:07]
Chris Clark
Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Hindenburg's wife there. And something we didn't talk about was his family life. And in particular, someone we didn't mention who's quite key to this is Oscar, his son, who has got the ear of the President later on and really to some extent some people would argue is the person to blame for persuading Hindenburg to appoint Hitler. I think that's Putting it too simply, but certainly I'm struck by the fact that Hindenburg's family life is sort of. There are two sides to it. On the one hand, if you look at his family life, it's one of the few elements about him that's quite endearing, that he does seem to be a dedicated family man who genuinely loves his wife, and he's is really destroyed when she dies early in 1921. And he's very close with his children and takes a role in bringing his children up. And I think after his wife's death, he lives with Oscar and Oscar's wife, the eldest son. But then there is that the more negative side of this. And if Hindenburg at the time doesn't have a good reputation of being an intellectual giant, Oscar von Hindenburg is even seen as even more stupid in some ways by contemporaries. But he is very much part of this group who are whispering in the President's ear, who are trying to steer politics in ways that they find congenial. There's also sort of a slightly seedy element with that, about the stuff about the state of Neudeck and death duties and trying to avoid tax and things like that, with the relationship between father and son. So that's one thing that we didn't talk about, that we maybe should have mentioned.
- [45:43]
Melvyn Bragg
Treacherous territory. Anna, would you like to add anything?
- [45:48]
Anna von der Goltz
Yeah, I think also on the theme of family, we talked a little bit, or actually quite a bit, about Hindenburg's work as someone who guarded his own image and in some ways made his own image via media control. And I think the family really continued that after his death because they guarded his personal papers, you know, like hawks, and actually only ever authorized two historians to work in the papers, constantly checked that they would write the kind of history that they approved of. And still to this day, the descendants are actually the gatekeepers, in some ways, of Hindu Hindenburg's personal papers. His grandson passed away a few years ago, and I think he was still very much a sword as his life worked to protect or try and safeguard what was, you know, left of the reputation. And I'm curious to see what's going to happen now that his two sons. So Hindenburg's two great grandsons are actually now in charge of the family papers. And it'll be interesting to see if, you know, they decide to release any of it to archives. I have it on good authority that that helmet we talked about at the very beginning with the bullet hole from Koeniggretz is actually still in a basement Somewhere in the family house. And so I think the next few years will show whether the family is finally willing to open up to actual historical scholarship and to revise the image further in a way.
- [47:20]
Melvyn Bragg
Chris?
- [47:21]
Colin Storer
Yeah, I just two things that's fascinating about the, about the, the family control of the archives. There's a lot of that in Germany actually. You know, family controlled archives which are difficult to get into. And not just in Germany, but two things that strike me that we didn't touch on, which I think are interesting. One is that there were alternative routes available. I mean it was possible in 1932 you could simply. And this is something the part.
- [47:45]
Melvyn Bragg
1932, did you.
- [47:46]
Colin Storer
1932, before Hitler was brought in, it was possible to imagine one might simply break the constitution. Papen's cabinet considered that and the idea was, you know, we, we just dissolve the parliament, which is one of the powers of the, of, of the president and then we don't recall it and we simply govern without parliament. And of course the SA will come out on the streets, the, the Nazi stormtroopers will come up the streets and so on. We'll send out the, the Reichswehr, the German army. And it's probably the case that the German army could have put down a Nazi insurrection. They probably would have done so with Hindenburg backing them and saying, you know, we will not tolerate a one party dictatorship by this movement, National Socialist or whatever. We will not tolerate it. That might have worked, but Hindenburg interdicted that option. So there is another sort of negative way in which Hindenburg helped to bring this disastrous consequence about of a Hitler government. And the final thing was just thinking about the bundle of powers that made the presidency what it was. One was, I mean there are many of them, but one of them was the power to appoint the Chancellor, which he used again and again and again and very actively in the last couple of years. 1931, 32. The another one was the power to issue Emergency Decrees, Article 48. And the third one was Article 25 which is the power to dissolve parliament. And of the three powers, I think the one that was used most disastrously was Article 25. Again and again parliaments were dissolved when they were still quite young. They still had life in them. The 1930 parliament was dissolved when the Nazis were a splinter party of a few percent. And the result was they surged to 16%. The 1932 parliament they surged to 37%. It wasn't necessary. You could have managed to do that without dissolving the parliament. There had been deadlocks of all kinds before that and a dissolution hadn't occurred. So it's interesting to think about why it is that the dissolution of a parliament should be so much more harmful than the use of emergency powers.
- [49:45]
Chris Clark
Yes, I mean, I agree completely with that. And something maybe we could have expanded on is the powers of the presidency. And why in some ways both sides, if you like, pro Republican and anti Republicans Republican, come to see the presidency as so important in the second half of the Balmain period. Certainly. And I think to some extent that's the legacy of Friedrich Ebert's period in in office where he had used emergency powers and some of these powers Chris is talking about, but constructively to defend democracy, to preserve republican rule, whereas sort of Hindenburg's reputation is for doing the opposite, basically. I think the other thing we didn't talk about, or we didn't talk about enough perhaps, was the relationship with Parpen, which is very odd if you ask me. You know, Hindenburg seems to be the only person who develops this deep and enduring attachment to Parpen. And really, I think that that is quite destructive in this story leading up to the appointment of Hitler, because Papen has that access to Hindenburg and is able to see spin these webs within this, and because Hindenburg, for whatever reason, is so fond of him, Hindenburg is willing to sort of believe what Parpen is telling him when maybe other voices who had been more powerful previously have not got that same kind of influence. So I think that duality of Oskar von Hindenburg, the President's son, and Parpen, who are both very close to the man, play a really big role in explaining that question we had before about why does he go from opposing Hitler, apparently, to appointing Hitler?
- [51:24]
Melvyn Bragg
Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much indeed.
- [51:27]
Colin Storer
Thank you. And it was great to talk with you.
- [51:30]
Anna von der Goltz
Yes. And you. I hope I'll see you in person at some point.
- [51:33]
Colin Storer
Yeah, I hope so.
- [51:35]
Chris Clark
Tea, please.
- [51:38]
Colin Storer
Would you like some coffee, Anna?
- [51:40]
Anna von der Goltz
I would love some.
- [51:41]
Colin Storer
In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson and it's a BBC Studios audio production from BBC Radio.
- [51:49]
Chris Clark
4 and the history podcast.
- [51:52]
Melvyn Bragg
We're lots of funny people in our family.
- [51:54]
Chris Clark
I'm Joe Dunthorne, funny people. And this is Half Life.
- [52:00]
Anna von der Goltz
She finished her job.
- [52:02]
Colin Storer
She dropped dead.
- [52:03]
Anna von der Goltz
My father finished his job. He was dead within a week.
- [52:06]
Melvyn Bragg
I mean, that's all quite a weird kind of story, Bruno.
- [52:10]
Anna von der Goltz
And so we call it like the.
- [52:11]
Chris Clark
Curse of this memoir, an eight part podcast about how the past lives on inside us.
- [52:17]
Anna von der Goltz
I wonder how you feel after all of this.
- [52:20]
Chris Clark
Even when we try to ignore it.
- [52:22]
Colin Storer
All of the bombs will detonate sooner or later.
- [52:28]
Chris Clark
Listen to Half Life on BBC Sounds.