We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Nicht alternativlos. Wie ein Reichskanzler Hitler hätte verhindert werden können.
- Authors
Pyta, Wolfram; Orth, Rainer
- Abstract
The article sheds new light on our understanding of a crucial event in the history of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler's installation as chancellor on January 30 1933. In doing so, it examines in close detail the decision-making process that ended with Hitler's appointment as the head of the German government. It focuses in particular on time as a critical factor in determining how and why one of various possible alternatives emerges as the ultimate course of action. As a result, January 30, 1933, is to be seen not as an historical inevitability but as the result of decisions taken by individual historical actors under constraints of time that profoundly affect the decision-making process of which they are part. One of the central arguments of the article is that Reich President Hindenburg was presented with an alternative that made it possible for him to reject a Hitler chancellorship. This involved enhancing the political status of Gregor Straßer, Hitler's principal rival in the NSDAP, and enjoyed the support of no a less figure in German political life than Kurt von Schleicher, the last chancellor of the Weimar Republic. The article is based not only upon a solid foundation in sources that have been widely used by previous scholars but also utilizes hitherto unknown material in public and private archives that enable its authors to link the actions of the two key individuals in the struggle to keep Hitler from achieving power, Straßer and Schleicher. What they sought, the article argues, was to calm the highly charged political environment in the twilight years of the Weimar Republic by presenting Straßer as a governmental alternative to Hitler that would result in the emergence of a Straßer party as a rival to Hitler's NSDAP in any forthcoming election, a development that would severely impair Hitler's claim to political leadership and effectively remove him from the political landscape. Hindenburg, however, eventually discarded this option in large part because he sought a far more radical and ground-shaking transformation of the political process than the Straßer-Schleicher option allowed. Only Hitler, Hindenburg believed, could fulfill this mission. His alliance with Hitler rather than Straßer meant accepting what he saw as a permanent rather than an interim solution to the deep crisis in which the German nation found itself.
- Subjects
HITLER, Adolf, 1889-1945; DECISION making; ARCHIVES; POLITICAL leadership; PRIME ministers
- Publication
Historische Zeitschrift, 2021, Vol 312, Issue 2, p400
- ISSN
0018-2613
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/hzhz-2021-0010