862.00/2533
The Chargé in Germany (Gordon) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 4.]
Sir: With reference to my despatches Nos. 486 and 489 of September 17, 1930,1 dealing with the recent general elections held in this country, I have the honor to submit the following further report concerning the National Socialist Party—hereafter to be given its German abbreviation of Nazi—which furnished the chief element of surprise and interest of the said elections.
As indicated in my despatch first under reference, the extent of the Nazi gain was probably a surprise to that party itself. Certainly events of the past week have tended to support this presumption, and to indicate that the leaders of the party were not prepared for such a tremendous access of strength as came to them from the elections, and are considerably embarrassed as to how to use it. Although in the hours immediately following upon the ascertainment of the polling results, some talk was heard of Nazi claims that they must now be taken into the government and would demand as a condition precedent to their entrance the portfolios of the Interior and of National Defence, plus the control of Berlin police headquarters—which of course would be tantamount to delivering the country over to them—this did not last long, and the first serious reaction of those responsible for the party’s direction seems to have been a realization of the necessity for going somewhat slowly and moderating the stand taken by them during the election campaign.
As early as last Tuesday night Hitler delivered a speech to his triumphant followers in Munich, in the course of which he not only took good care to refrain from inflammatory utterances but also very explicitly toned down much of what he and his lieutenants had recently been proclaiming.
In effect he said that the success gained at the polls was by no means an end but only a means to an end; that while the party must strive on to accomplish its aims, it intended to do so through legal and constitutional [Page 84] means; the Constitution compelled them to restrict themselves to such means and they did not intend to gain their goal through a putsch or through a revolution. As he had always said, the Nazi party was a party of revolutionaries, but by that he meant “revolutionaries of the spirit”, and what it aimed at capturing was the German consciousness and soul.
This is a pretty far cry from the thesis propagated by the Nazi orators throughout the country right up to the eve of the election, that one of the chief means of remedying Germany’s ills was a revolutionary dictatorship to be brought about by a march on Berlin.
Although it is of course possible that by such language Hitler may be seeking to allay suspicion of a real purpose on his part to bring about physical and political upheaval, it seems to me that he could not hope to gain much along this line—since the authorities must have such an eventuality in mind and be prepared to forestall it—and that it is far more probable that such language indicates the hesitation and uncertainty which might well be expected to befall a leader who, having based his whole political conduct upon avowed opportunism, suddenly finds himself in possession of unexpected power. Moreover, another motive which would equally explain this attitude would be the realization that if his party were to have any chance of participating in the government it would, outwardly at least, have to renounce its repudiation of parliamentary institutions as no other groups could very well cooperate with a party openly advocating a putsch.
Last but not least, as I indicated in my despatch No. 489,2 there is no doubt that Hitler received very substantial financial support from certain large industrial interests, and very probably their influence at this juncture has been definitely a restraining one.
Indeed, the impression is gaining ground in the last few days that important financial circles—not necessarily co-extensive with those mentioned in the preceding sentence—have been and are continuing to bring pressure on the Chancellor and other members of the government to try the experiment of letting the Nazis participate in the government (this, presumably, being on the hypothesis that the Social Democrats will insist on conditions obnoxious to these financiers as a price for their cooperating actively with the government). A rumor even reached me today from a usually very well informed source, that certain American financial interests represented here were active in the same cause. However, I shall not attempt to report further in this latter respect until I have had a chance to check this information.
[Page 85]In my despatch No. 494 of September 19, 1930, also going forward in this pouch, I have adverted to the essential opportunism of the Nazis, which, extreme though it is, is somewhat less surprising when one recalls that the genesis of the party was the formation in Munich in 1919, by Hitler and a few friends, of a group “without a definite goal, without a program and only the one desire of emerging somehow or other from the muddle of the times” (the quotation being from a pamphlet issued by the party).
In the same despatch I likewise alluded to the false premise upon which the Nazi advocacy of treaty revision is predicated, to wit, that all Germany’s ills flow from enforced tributary payments. It should, however, be remembered that a similar false premise, varying only in degree, underlay all election arguments, from Hugenberg and Treviranus down, aimed at treaty revision, just as it underlies the arguments of even responsible government spokesmen, such as Dr. Wirth, who, quite regardless of governmental financial mismanagement (e. g. the amount of money directly or indirectly devoted to the Reichswehr) plead for a reconsideration of the burdens placed upon Germany on the assumption that all else in the social, financial and economic structure of the State will be well once the obligations of the treaty provisions are rescinded.
Respectfully yours,