GERMANY: Only One Man ….

The famed “Iron Man” of German finance, blunt Dr. Hjalmar Schacht. who fought the Fatherland’s battles over the Young Plan (TIME, Jan. 27, 1930), came out for the first time last week in support of Adolf Hitler.

By this abrupt move Dr. Schacht brought a sizeable section of Berlin finance into the Biggest Business phalanx lined up behind Handsome Adolf by Steel Tycoon Fritz Thyssen (TIME. Nov. 28). Also in Berlin, actively supporting the Hitler cause last week, was a close kinsman of British King-Emperor George V, none other than Duke Karl Eduard von Saxe-Coburg-und-Gotha who recently married his daughter Princess Sibylle to the eldest son of Sweden’s Crown Prince (TIME. Oct. 10). Backed by the banker, the tycoon, the duke and by a large plurality of German voters, Leader Hitler was nevertheless unable last week to persuade President von Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor of the Reich.

The Hindenburg-Hitler negotiations which began with their “extraordinarily cordial meeting” fortnight ago continued last week through an exchange of formal letters which Berlin wits dubbed “the game of questions & answers.” With each exchange it became clearer that the President, though he had commissioned Fascist Hitler to try to form a Cabinet with a parliamentary majority, was not anxious that he should succeed. Herr Hitler drew from Old Paul what amounted to a stipulation that the President would not appoint him Chancellor unless he could obtain a “safe majority” in the Reichstag for a Cabinet pledged to continue all the policies of the hated von Papen “Cabinet of Monocles.”

Since 90% of the German electorate decisively rejected von Papenism at the polls last month, the President’s stipulation could not have been fulfilled by any German last week. Plainly it was a trap to embarrass Leader Hitler and stamp him with the stigma of having “failed” to form a Cabinet. Realizing this, ex-Corporal Hitler decided to drop his negotiations with ex-Fieldmarshal von Hindenburg, told his aides to draft a final letter to the President and hied himself to Berlin’s State Opera, enjoyed a rollicking performance of Die Meistersinger.

Next evening the letter (seven and one-half typed pages) was carried 200 yards from the Kaiserhof Hotel to the Presidential Palace. It proposed—having regard to the fact that all German Cabinets for the past two years have been based not on Reichstag support but on presidential decrees—that the President consent to formation of a Hitler Cabinet on the existing basis of “presidial” (presidential ) authority. Banker Schacht, knowing full well that Old Paul would reject this proposal (as the President proceeded to do), came out first with a fighting statement: “There is only one man who can be Chancellor at this period and he is Adolf Hitler! If Hitler does not become Chancellor now, he will within four months. He can afford to wait!”

Two months is the approximate period necessary to dissolve a Reichstag and re-elect another. This year President von Hindenburg has already dissolved two Reichstags. Dare he dissolve a third? To do so would be equivalent to breaking once & for all with the German Republic, setting up a pure dictatorship.

Before proceeding to such a step President von Hindenburg went through the formality of asking Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, chairman of the Catholic Centre (fifth largest party) whether he could form a Cabinet with a “safe majority.” The bespectacled Monsignor’s answer was of course “nein.” The President ignored the Socialists (second largest) and the Communists (third largest). In his quiet study he called a fateful conference of four men whom he trusts: his son and aide Major Oskar von Hindenburg, his State Secretary Dr. Otto Meissner. his Acting Chancellor von Papen and Defense Minister-Kurt von Schleicher, the intriguing Machiavelli whose sleek, strong hand has been steadily “taming Hitler” for the past year.

No final decision was taken. A President aged 85 thinks and acts slowly. Impatient with Old Paul, Berlin’s busy inside-dopesters started rumors that the President will turn Germany’s Government into “a military dictatorship with General von Schleicher as Chancellor and Lieut.-Colonel von Papen as Vice Chancellor.”