862.00/3282
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 29.]
Sir:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Evidences of dissatisfaction continue to reach me from various quarters. A resident of the province of Münister not so long since told me that this Roman Catholic region was much incensed against the Government on religious grounds. Recurring reports reach me of the widespread dissatisfaction and alarm felt in the big port towns of Hamburg and Bremen at the economic policies of the Government and the black prospects for German foreign trade.
A statement was recently published that 10,000 candidates for the S.A. troops had been rejected by the Nazi leaders of the district of Thuringia, on the plea that they were politically unsound.
The students in various university towns, such as Bonn, Heidelberg, Tubingen, and Marburg have been manifesting their discontent either by parading with banners stating that they were there to work and not to drill, by abandoning Hitler Youth meetings at which their student corps were denounced, or by refusing to expel non-Aryans from such corps (von Neurath’s old corps it is rumored has been closed by the authorities for this reason). (See despatch No. 935 of June 18, 1934.15) Vice Chancellor von Papen recently made a very frank and sensible address to students in the University of Marburg which so disturbed the Propaganda Ministry that they proceeded to issue expurgated versions, only the third of which was considered viable—the edition of a paper that printed the second being confiscated. It is alleged that Hess16 had approved von Papen’s speech before it was delivered, if not Hitler himself. So the episode is said to have produced considerable ill-feeling in the Cabinet, where I gather relations are already sufficiently strained without the injection of such irritants.
Another report is circulating to the effect that the Reichswehr, which has already increased its force with new recruits, will, in conjunction with the S. S. troops, of which the S. A. are jealous and which are supposed to be composed of conservative elements and also perhaps with the Prussian police, compel the Chancellor to dismiss his radical advisers and also the S. A. troops, and to govern conservatively. Some seem confident that this consummation will be reached [Page 225] fairly soon. Others, who should be no less well informed, consider that the country’s mood is radical, that the conservatives are powerless, and that the Nazi movement, loaded with the dead weight of its economic theories, will follow a course approaching ever more closely to the Russian experiment from which it seems to have borrowed so much of its technique.
As to the first of these alternatives, i.e., a revolution to the right, from what is known of Hitler’s unwillingness to sever connections with his old followers, and of his predilection for governing with divided counsels, he would not lend himself to any such movement. It would therefore be anti-Hitler in character. But the personal prestige and popularity of the Führer are probably still strong enough to make a putsch of this sort an undesirable risk. On the other hand, the movement to the left would presumably be a trend rather than a revolution, for, though Communist activity is said to be increasing among the workmen, there are too many well-armed people opposed to Moscow to give ground for serious fears that Germany will go Bolshevik.
Should President Hindenburg’s indisposition terminate fatally, a great factor for stability would be removed and a crisis, it is thought, might well be precipitated.
Respectfully yours,