Page 162 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 149

and 95 seats in two years. it was a sign, Gordon asserted, of the “disgust
and recklessness” pervasive in German society. People were now prepared
to give their support to a “party whose leaders and promises are irrespon-
sible.” two days later, Gordon wrote to his superiors in Washington that
he had examined the party’s program and its campaign materials, and de-
spite his best efforts, he could not find “any constructive element” in them:
“when seeking to win votes from the Communists the National socialist
orators declared that as their social theories were similar, they appealed to
them to vote for a Communist form of government directed by Germans
rather than the same thing under the guidance of Moscow; when invad-
ing Nationalist territory, the party spokesman emphasized their adherence
to the principle of private ownership of property.” a recurring theme of
the Nazi campaign was that all “the country’s evils flowed from semitism,
international banks, the Young Plan, the treaty of Versailles and all other
international treaties with any provisions which might be considered ob-
jectionable from a chauvinistic point of view.” Gordon was convinced that
Hitler intended to establish “a reactionary dictatorship with, however, not
even a suggestion as to the alternative measures contemplated for remedy-
ing the conditions complained of.”
elaborating on these statements, Gordon attributed the large vote for
the Nazis to two factors: the “reckless frame of mind” of many Germans
and the ignorance of the younger generation of the “horrors and hardships
of war”; their only concern was the huge debt that had resulted from the
war and that threatened to burden them for the rest of their lives. still, Gor-
don did not think that the situation was hopeless; the republic, as he put
it, had been dealt a “body-blow,” but not necessarily a “knock-out blow.”
He argued—and most historians would now agree with him—that if “all
sincere supporters of the republic” joined forces, if “strong leaders with a
strong program could be evolved from the present welter,” many “reckless”
supporters of the Nazi Party would return to the traditional parties, and the
Weimar republic could still be saved. But he warned that if they failed “to
sink their personal and doctrinal differences, then indeed a serious situation
will present itself.” Gordon returned to this theme a week later, when he
8
observed to the secretary of state that the most disturbing fact about the
current political situation was that the “parliamentary parties lying between

For more details on the election, see above, pp. 17–18.
the Young Plan, adopted in 1930, reduced the annual reparation payments that Germany
would be required to hand over to the allies for the cost of World War i. But the cost was still
substantial and the payments would have to be made for fifty-nine years.