Page 130 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The French Diplomats 117

country as well as in the army; and he was the only person who could have
restrained Hitler. the Führer, the ambassador believed, had lived in fear
that one day the president would abandon him, just as he had abandoned
two previous chancellors, Brüning and schleicher.
Hitler wasted no time in taking advantage of the new turn of events. as
soon as news of Hindenburg’s death reached him, he assumed the func-
tions of chief of state, as the Constitution stipulated. But the question of
whether an election would now be held for the highest post in the land,
as the Constitution also stipulated, was simply ignored by the cabinet; the
ministers raised no objection to Hitler’s plan to act as both president and
chancellor, making him the “master” of one of the great countries of eu-
rope. the political elite and the public remained passive as these events
unfolded. seventeen days after Hindenburg’s death, a plebiscite was held
on Hitler’s assumption of his new position; over 90 percent of the eligible
voters went to the polls and of these, 89.9 percent supported the “consti-
tutional” transfer to Hitler of “unlimited power as head of state, head of
government, leader of the Nazi Party, and supreme Commander of the
armed forces.” the Nazi leaders were disappointed that the margin of vic-
46
tory was not larger. in François-Poncet’s view, the elevation of Hitler to the
position of “supreme magistrate of the reich” was “[not] reassuring for the
future of Germany, europe, or for peace.” 47
the trust in Hitler’s word that the ambassador had declared only a few
months earlier had dissipated. On august 8, he told the French foreign
minister that he did not believe that the Führer could have been honest
in informing Ward Price, a reporter for the Daily Mail, that Germany ac-
cepted its present borders. even Hindenburg, Brüning, or stresemann, all
much more moderate than the Führer, would not have made so concilia-
tory a declaration, which the German people would not support. Nor did
François-Poncet credit Hitler’s renunciation of all claims to the colonies
that Germany had possessed before World War i. On the other hand, Hit-
ler was truthful in not giving up on the demand for the incorporation (An­
schluss) of austria into a Greater Germany. On this issue, François-Poncet
mocked Hitler—which he had rarely done in his previous dispatches—for
mistakenly claiming that Germany and austria had long been united in a
“Germanic community” until austria decided on a split. “Knowledge of
history is not his forte.” 48
One senior member of the embassy, the chargé d’affaires, Pierre arnal,
offered a somewhat optimistic assessment of Germany’s recent past. He be-
lieved that the bloody Night of the long Knives had brought the era of revo-