Page 168 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 155

evident very quickly, this change in government marked a critical turning
point in German, european, and world history. But at the time, most jour-
nalists writing on international affairs paid little attention to the political
changes in Berlin: they showed far more interest in Franklin d. roosevelt’s
impending assumption of office as president of the United states and in the
upcoming World economic Conference in london. 22
alfred W. Klieforth, the chargé d’affaires in Berlin in early 1933, was trou-
bled by the change of government, but his reports suggested uncertainty
about its significance. On January 31, he wrote, “[t]he new Government has
thus far made no enunciation of policy. the reactionary and monarchist in-
fluence which predominates in the new Cabinet, however, indicates clearly
what course it may be expected to pursue.” Yet at about the same time he
noted with a sense of relief that at a dinner party dr. schacht had quoted
President Hindenburg to the effect that he had “obtained assurances from
Hitler that he will observe the Constitution.” to add to the confusion, in
Washington the German ambassador, himself a staunch supporter of the
Weimar republic, assured Castle that the new government would not in
any way change Germany’s foreign policy. Within a matter of weeks, the
23
political class in Germany and the american diplomats were stunned by the
speed with which Hitler and his supporters seized control of the levers of
power and fundamentally changed the country’s domestic and foreign poli-
cies. it may have been the fastest revolution ever.
On February 13, only fourteen days after Hitler became chancellor, sack-
ett informed Washington that although the cabinet members differed over
social, economic, and financial policies, “the principal cohesive force is a
fanatic chauvinism coupled with a common hatred of democratic govern-
ment and the parliamentary system.” to root out the republic, the Nazis
placed their own people in key administrative positions. “the work of purg-
ing the administrative departments of democratic and republican influence
set in with an avidity and swiftness unprecedented in German political life.”
the reichswehr is “practically the only arm of the executive branch of the
Government which they [the Nazis] do not control,” and they were eagerly
eyeing that branch. three days later, sackett wrote that practically all police
commissioners throughout Prussia “had been replaced with reactionaries
the Nazis could trust” and that Göring planned to use the Nazi Brownshirts
(sa) as an “auxiliary police.” Moreover, the government had taken steps to
muzzle the opposition press, and by the end of February approximately 150
newspapers, most of them controlled by social democrats or Communists,
had been shut down. the violence against members of the opposition par-