Letter: Hitler's victory
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: The letter from David Glew (20 August) adds very helpful points to those made in Richard Bazillion's lecture (Podium, 17 August) but it is still necessary to indicate why those around President von Hindenburg conceded power to Hitler in 1933.
The Nazi electoral campaigns had consistently denounced the "Criminals of Versailles" as incapable of serving the interests of the German people. By 1932 the circle of leading figures around the President started to weaken and believe that there was some truth in the Nazi claims.
Von Papen was perceived as having returned from the conference at Lausanne in 1932 with nothing gained: in this the role of the Prime Ministers of Britain and France, Ramsey MacDonald and Edouard Herriot, had been crucial, but they were not yet able to grasp the Nazi threat as described to them by Von Papen.
The weakening of the "Von Hindenburg Circle" was made the more likely by the combination of their growing tired under the pressures of office and constantly failing to gain concessions from the Western allies, plus the fact that the harvest of 1932 had been a failure and the winter of 1932-3 was particularly severe.
JOHN W S PRESTON
South Croydon, Surrey
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments