Page 118 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The French Diplomats 105

proved to be unable to take the necessary measures to prevent his appoint-
ment as chancellor. leaders of other parties had underestimated Hitler, a
“hypnotist [who] mesmerized the crowds [at meetings]”; he never doubted
that he was leading a crusade and that he could persuade the masses that in
following him they were engaged in advancing not simply a political pro-
gram but a sacred cause.
to the entranced masses it was irrelevant that Hitler’s doctrines were full
of contradictions or simply false: “the masses who have suffered from war,
inflation, and who today are going through a[n economic] crisis are hun-
gry for programs [that promise action] rather than indictments [of those
responsible for the state of affairs].” Hitler seemed to offer such a program,
which helped him achieve electoral successes, but François-Poncet pre-
dicted that as head of the government he would be judged by his actions,
not his agitation and promises. Uppermost in the ambassador’s mind was
the foreign policy Hitler would pursue. Here, too, the doctrines and pro-
nouncements of the Führer were not sufficiently reliable as guides to his
future actions. Yet on several issues he had maintained a consistent stance
for several years, and on these his rhetoric should be taken seriously; from
1927 to 1931, his “propaganda was founded above all on hatred for France,
on the elimination of reparations, [and] on [the necessity of] revising the
[Versailles] treaties.” in addition, Hitler espoused as a major foreign policy
goal the annihilation of Communism, which he saw as a fatal threat to Ger-
many and to europe. He also had not wavered on one domestic matter, his
determination to “purify” the country’s administration, denoting the Nazis’
intention to dismiss Jews and political opponents from the civil service.
the picture that François-Poncet drew of Hitler and his movement was
essentially accurate and also frightening, which made the conclusion to his
lengthy dispatch perplexing: it seemed to dilute his negative depiction of
the new government. the Nazi Party, he declared, faced “numerous and
complex problems”; hence, it was impossible to predict how the politi-
cal situation in Germany would evolve over the “next few months.” some
knowledgeable people in Berlin had told the ambassador that Hitler had
entered into a “secret agreement”—with whom it was not clear—to restore
the monarchy, although perhaps not in the near future. François-Poncet
did not rule out this possibility, for it was hard to rule out anything when
it came to a man “so nervous, [and] also subject to depressions and even
to crises of hysteria.” despite this divergent conclusion, François-Poncet’s
22
description of Hitler and Nazism included many warning signs that should
have alarmed its readers in Paris.