GERMANY: End of Three Lives

Not many imps of spleen and spite have ever gotten under the armored skin of President von Hindenburg. But once a little clubfoot in his Nazi newsorgan taunted Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg with age, attacked him under the headline IS VON HINDENBURG STILL ALIVE?, charged without a scrap of evidence that “his advisers are Jews and Marxists.” That was in 1930. The President, stung to rage as never before, brought suit and was awarded 800 marks ($185) for defamation from the imp who is now Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels. Last week by a supreme irony, it was Dr. Goebbels who, speaking over a nationwide hookup one morning, broke to the German people the news they least wanted to hear. Shouted Dr. Goebbels: “Deutches Volk! Reichsprdzident von Hindenburg ist um 9 Uhr vormittags in die Ewigkeit fortgegangen! German people! President von Hindenburg at 9 a. m. passed into eternity.”

The irony was heightened when bustling Dr. Goebbels seized charge of preparations for Old Paul’s funeral, shushed his son Col. Oscar von Hindenburg who wished the burial to take place in the family plot at Neudeck in East Prussia, and announced the von Hindenburg bones will lie in the Field Marshal’s Tower of the huge, ugly, fortress-like memorial at Tannenberg. “Men only will be permitted to attend the funeral service,” announced Dr. Goebbels. Correspondents were given privately to understand that it would be inappropriate for a German hero’s obsequies to be marred by wailing women.

One Reich, One Leader. In every crisis high-strung, intuitive Adolf Hitler endeavors to act with lightning speed to outsmart his enemies and rivals. Day & night last week a special telephone wire was constantly kept open between the Chancellor’s headquarters and the home of the dying President. In the afternoon, when death by dawn seemed certain, Chancellor Hitler left Berlin by plane and arrived at Neudeck with his personal photographer. Only strenuous remonstrance by Col. Oscar von Hindenburg prevented the taking of deathbed flashlight pictures of Nazi Hitler by the side of Hero Hindenburg. Sinking fast, Old Paul barely recognized Herr Hitler to whom his last words were “Ach, Herr Reichskanzler!”

Zipping back to Berlin, the forehanded Chancellor summoned his Cabinet and in the night before President von Hindenburg died a decree law was drafted and signed by the harried Ministers, ready for proclamation to block the Constitutional procedure under which owl-eyed Supreme Court Chief Justice Dr. Erwin Bumke would normally have become Acting President on the death of Paul von Hindenburg.

With this decree prepared, Chancellor Hitler dismissed even his closest advisers and in the wee hours paced up and down his office alone. He knew his enemies were saying that the Army has tolerated his Nazi State only under orders from its beloved Feldmarschall. What were the Reichswehr generals doing? They knew well enough, while Adolf Hitler paced his office, that Death hovered over Neudeck. The German people did not. Dr. Goebbels had ruthlessly banished a leading editor for daring to print that the President’s condition was “very grave.”

Germans, after hearing Dr. Goebbels’ Death announcement, were warned to stand by: “There will be another announcement shortly.” They waited a whole half hour. Then Dr. Goebbels shouted with Nazi exultation in his voice:

“In consequence of a law passed by the Cabinet last night the Leader takes all the powers of the President.”

This was followed by a skillful printed press handout from the Chancellery in which Herr Hitler, purporting to make public a letter from himself to Minister of Interior Dr. Wilhelm Frick, sought to disarm criticism of his coup by a blend of adulation for the dead, professed self-modesty and popular appeal. Full text:

“The necessity for regulating the question of the chief of State, caused by the national misfortune that has overtaken our people, leads me to issue the following order:

“First—the greatness of the deceased has given to the title of Reich President unique and non-recurring significance according to the feeling of all of us, and, in what it meant to us. this title is indissolubly bound up with the name of the great deceased. I therefore request care be taken in official and unofficial communications to address me just as heretofore, as Führer [Leader] and Reichskanzler only. This stipulation is to be observed in the future also.

“Second—I desire that the vesting in my person, and thereby in the Reich Chancellor’s office as such, of the functions of the former Reich Presidency, decided upon by the Cabinet and constitutionally valid, shall receive the expressed sanction of the German people.

“Steeped in the conviction that all authority of the State must proceed from the people and by them be ratified in free, secret election, I request you immediately to lay the decision of the Cabinet, with possible necessary additions before the German people for a free plebiscite.”

Personal Oath. What would the Army do? When President von Hindenburg, full of misgivings, called Adolf Hitler to the chancellorship (TIME, Feb. 6, 1933), he insisted that as a “safeguard” Lieut. General Werner von Blomberg, an aristocratic brother officer in whom he had utmost confidence, be made Defense Minister. Last week the Army’s attitude depended on General von Blomberg, custodian of the military heritage of Feldmarschall von Hindenburg. Would he stand for the coup?

Without an instant’s hesitation Defense Minister von Blomberg issued orders to all German Army and Navy commanders that their men at once take to Adolf Hitler something never considered necessary for them to take to Paul von Hindenburg—a personal oath. Within 24 hours the whole of the Defense Ministry’s armed forces, except a few score men on leave, had vowed officially as follows:

I swear by God this holy oath: that I will give unqualified obedience to the Leader of the German Government and the German people, Adolf Hitler, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army [or Navy] and that as a courageous soldier [or sailor] I am ready at any time to place my life at stake for this oath.

Meanwhile the Nazi brownshirt Sturm Abteilung (“Storm Troops”) who were sent on vacation at the time of the Roehm Mutiny and “blood purge” (TIME, July 9) were called back to active duty in uniform last week by S. A. Chief Viktor Lutze. The S. A., it apeared, were not required to repeat their oath to Leader Hitler last week but amid excessive secrecy the black-jacketed Schntz Staffel (“Guard Relay”), whose special duty is to guard the Leader, were assembled and made to swear an oath apparently so high-powered that it could not be given out.

To his own satisfaction Pulitzer Prize Correspondent Hubert R. Knickerbocker established in Berlin for the first time last week that the late Mutineer Roehm had intended to start his coup by a general massacre of Reichswehr generals by Nazi assassins who were to storm the Defense Ministry in Berlin. “It becomes clear that the General Staff was frightened,” cabled Correspondent Knickerbocker. “Now it is easy to see why the Army accepted Hitler yesterday. The Army depends entirely on what its General Staff decides. And the General Staff yesterday was full of gratitude to Hitler.”

King George; All Highest. In old-fashioned Neudeck it was considered good for Paul von Hindenburg’s ten grandchildren to see him die. They trooped solemnly out of the Death chamber as the President’s flag went to half mast. Whether or not the younger ones were romping merrily next day in the back yard became matter of dispute.

Until the President was actually dead, Chancellor Hitler had kept the Neudeck estate isolated by plug-ugly guards with pistols on hips who roughly drove back the bolder correspondents. It was said that Franz von Papen, protege of Hindenburg who called him his “best comrade,” had tried vainly for weeks to get permission to pass the deadline of guards.

Death made all the difference. The plug-uglies were replaced by apple-cheeked young soldiers from a nearby garrison. With a worn and haggard air von Papen went to the plain brass bed on which von Hindenburg, still in his nightshirt, lay with hands folded on his breast. “He died peacefully asleep just as you see him,” said Col. Oscar von Hindenburg as von Papen piled a great armful of roses on the bed. Since the Austrian Government had not yet accepted Chancellor Hitler’s appointment of von Papen as Minister at Vienna he was like a fish out of water last week. Nervously he told reporters: “Nobody has appreciated Hindenburg more than Hitler. The Leader of the New Germany will continue the work to which the dead Feld-marschall dedicated himself.”

Meanwhile King George had snubbed Leader Hitler by sending his condolences direct to Col. von Hindenburg. A telegram from Wilhelm II at Doorn sent the onetime Crown Prince speeding to Neudeck, dressed in his Wartime uniform as an officer of the Imperial Death’s Head Hussars.

Flaneur and man-about-town though he is, Friedrich Wilhelm went down on his knees and sobbed for ten minutes after depositing the ex-Kaiser’s wreath, adorned with a large “W.” Correspondents were told that a telegram from Wilhelm II, read to Old Paul in his last conscious hours, caused him to exclaim:

“I am happy that my Supreme Commander thinks of me. Now I can die in peace.”

The attendant surgeons glossed over the fact that he died of kidney trouble and that nemesis of most men past middle age, an atrophied prostate gland. They said that when they told him he must submit to certain treatments in order to get better, Old Paul growled, “Humph! Don’t want to get any better.”

When mourning Neudeck villagers were admitted they saw lying on the coverlet just below Old Paul’s hands a piece of shrapnel which stunned him at the Battle of Koniggratz in 1866 when he was a dashing young lieutenant. In the rug on his study floor was a bullet hole made in 1922 by a burglar whose trigger finger contracted with terror as the householder he was robbing calmly switched on the light and announced “I am Hindenburg.” Last week the Hindenburg family, prodded and hurried by Undertaker Goebbels, had to cut short the informal reception of Neu deck mourners to permit a mortician to prepare the remains of Old Paul for the dramatic funeral.

Tsar Schacht. In Berlin tense Adolf Hitler toiled to consolidate the supreme power he had seized. Asked if his new Caesarship is to last for life, he replied : “It will last until the basis of this Gov ernment is removed by a national vote.” To get the plebiscite under way he ordered 40,000,000 ballots reading: “Do you German man, and do you German woman approve this law?” with a space to be marked ja or nein. These Germans will cast on Sunday, Aug. 19. In an effort to soothe world opinion Der Fuhrer an nounced: “We ask only that our present frontiers shall be maintained. . . . We shall not attack Austria. … I would not sacrifice the life of one German to get any colony in the world. . . . Germany is ready to cooperate with other nations.” Even amid such hectic politics, however, the Chancellor could not ignore last week the economic crisis which threatens to strangle Germany this winter.

Abruptly the Chancellor who had just seized all political power decided to concentrate all financial and economic power in one man. He already had a “Financial Tsar” in Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, and an “Economic Tsar” in Dr. Kurt Schmitt, Minister of Economics. Dr. Schmitt who fell ill recently has been fighting a gallant battle to save German trade in bed with a telephone at his elbow. Not repudiating Tsar Schmitt, Der Führer transferred his Economics Ministry for six months to Tsar Schacht who thus entered the Cabinet for the first time.

Promptly Dr. Schacht launched a doubly vigorous offensive to reduce imports and hang onto the last dollar, pound and franc of Germany’s dwindling supply of foreign exchange. All raw materials, except iron and precious metals, were put under a drastic rationing system, every import shipment to be passed or rejected by experts of the Ministry of Economics. German municipalities which order clothing for their employes and Storm Troop commissariats were barred from purchasing pure woolen materials, ordered to insist on a mixture of wool and substitute fibres. Though Dr. Schacht’s ruthless resourcefulness is well known, the immediate effect of making him a Double Tsar last week was to start such a run by private citizens to buy up and hoard anything likely to be of value that savings bank deposits dropped throughout the Reich.

“Precious Dead.” The Goebbels-managed Government farewell to Hindenburg began with an oration by Chancellor Hitler to the Reichstag in the fir-decorated Kroll Opera House: “The precious dead . . . now wanders above us … as the Eternal Protector.” That night soldiers and Storm Troopers with flaming torches lined the country road from Neudeck to Tannenberg over which Old Paul’s remains were sped by horse-drawn gun carriage, then motor gun carriage, then horses again for the stately arrival. One hundred special trains brought distinguished German males to Tannenberg. With no wailing of women but a final oration by Adolf Hitler the mighty dead was carried into the Field Marshal’s Tower and sealed in a vault not far from the common grave of Tannenberg’s Twenty Unknown Soldiers.

To keep the German people’s minds as much as possible off the Hitler coup, every newspaper was crammed with biographies and anecdotes of Hindenburg. German editors well said that he gave three lives for the Fatherland:

Life No. 1. The von Beneckendorffs have been German soldier-aristocrats for more than 600 years. Old Paul’s great-grandfather received from, his great-uncle (a von Hindenburg) certain landed estates only on condition that he add the then comparatively undistinguished name “von Hindenburg” to his own illustrious patronym. Thus it came about that the future President, born in 1847 at Posen in what is now the Polish corridor, bore the name Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg.

His nursemaid, fiercely imbued with the family spirit of Prussian militarism, used to make Little Paul stop crying by bellowing at him, SILENCE IN THE RANKS! To enter the Imperial cadet corps was not for him the choice of a career but eine Selbstuerstandlichkeit (“the only thing to do”). In the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, when he received the bullet that lay on his death sheet last week. Lieut, von Hindenburg fought with such distinction that old King Wilhelm I of Prussia awarded him a decoration usually reserved for officers of much higher rank, the Red Eagle With Swords. Four years later he fought in the Franco-Prussian war and was chosen to represent his regiment in the Palace of Versailles when Prince Bismarck proclaimed the creation of the German Empire.

Promotion in the long spell of peace which followed was slow. He married a staff officer’s daughter and was 46 before he became a colonel. In 1903 he had plodded up to the summit of a German officer’s hopes in peace time, command of an army corps. Seven years later his first life “ended.” According to legend he had committed the indiscretion of too great frankness in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The All Highest had been commanding an army against Hindenburg at maneuvers. As usual he had “won” and was boasting of his prowess. General von Hindenburg said nothing until commanded by the Emperor to give his opinion. “In a real war, Sire,” he said, “I would have captured your army and marched to Berlin.” Snapped the infuriated Kaiser: “Your 64 years and gallstones will be received as acceptable reasons if you make application for retirement!”

Life No. 2. On the morning of Aug. 22, 1914 General Paul von Hindenburg, retired, awoke in his house at Hanover in a sad mood. The War had come too late for him. “I wondered whether my Emperor and King would require my services,” he wrote in his memoirs. “No hint whatever of the kind had reached me during the last twelve months.” Suddenly came a dispatch informing him that His Majesty had given him command of the Eastern Army. He had only time to get together the most necessary articles of clothing and have his old uniform put in condition for service.

At 3 o’clock next morning, a special train roared into Hanover, equipped as a General Staff Headquarters and from it alighted a grim, middle-aged officer who stepped briskly across the platform to Old Paul.

“You are General von Hindenburg?”

“Yes.”

“I have been appointed your Chief of Staff. My name is Ludendorff. . . . Erich Ludendorff.”

The train roared away to the East Prussia in which Hindenburg was born and in which last week he died. It was being ravaged and invaded by the Tsarist armies of Generals Samsonov and Rennekampf. The Russians outnumbered the German defenders under General von Prittwitz nearly two to one. They had scared him so badly that he had telephoned to the German Supreme Command a panicky proposal for withdrawal which cost him his post.

On General von Prittwitz’ staff was a brilliant Lieut.-Colonel named Max Hoffman. When the new commander arrived from Hanover, Col. Hoffman explained to Hindenburg and Ludendorff a supremely bold plan of counterattack which they proceeded to make their own. In Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War Col. Hoffman had seen the appalling lengths to which Tsarist inefficiency could go. He was able to believe and convince Ludendorff that the Russian wireless which kept flashing to St. Petersburg the intended moves of Generals Samsonov and Rennekampf “in clear” was not attempting to deceive the enemy, as other German generals thought, but was blunderingly giving away the whole Russian show.

In the entire World War there was never another battle like Tannenberg. The Germans, trusting to their information that Rennekampf would not move, flung practically their whole force against Samsonov, trapping this rash Russian hopelessly in East Prussia’s swamps and forests. Within a week after Hindenburg had left his placid home, 20,000 Russians had been slain or wounded, 92,000 captured, and Samsonov had committed suicide amid the remnants of his beaten host while the Germans turned on Rennekampf. “Your old man,” wrote Hindenburg to his wife, “is going to be famous.”

From the colossal triumph of Tannenberg grew the legend that soon made Hindenburg the greatest name in Germany. “When I drive through the Brandenburg Gate,” stormed the Kaiser, “am I to be greeted with shouts of ‘HINDENBURG’?”

Most emphatically he was. The fact that Hindenburg in pre-War days had explored and studied the Masurian Lakes district until he became known as “General Mud” was cited to explain the debacle of the Russians. By his uncanny wisdom of East Prussian geography Old Paul had lured them to their doom, the German in the street believed. Inevitably, when the German steamroller in the Western Front slowed down, it was HINDENBURG with Ludendorff who was rushed thither to win. “Our purpose is not to hold on,” he said, “but to conquer.” In that purpose he failed, but after holding the Hindenburg Line until it too became a legend he went home amid the welter of defeat, still calm, majestic, head and shoulders above the fleeing Kaiser.

Last week a handsome portrait of General Ludendorff still hung prominently in the Feldmarschalls study when he died. But in Munich General Ludendorff boiled with spleen at the fact that Old Paul will always receive most of the credit for what his Chief of Staff likes to call “My victories.” Erich Ludendorff hung out no flag after the President’s death, snapped, “I have no comment to make. You can understand why.”

Life No. 3. With his aging wife who was soon to die and his spry young dachshund, Feldmarschall von Hindenburg settled down after the War, positive that he had fulfilled his duty to the Fatherland. No irony is greater than that in 1925 he, who always remained an avowed Monarchist, should have been persuaded that it was his duty to run for President of the Republic.

The years of his first Presidency brought the Warrior-President into piquant juxtaposition with Peaceman Gustav Stresemann. In 1927 he cautiously asked Dr. Stresemann if there would be any objection to his denouncing “the German War guilt lie” at a Tannenberg celebration.

“I am an old man now, Dr. Stresemann,” said the President, “and may soon be called before the throne of God. I don’t want the Almighty God to point a finger at me and say, ‘What have you done to absolve Germany from the terrible charge of responsibility for the World War’?”

With Dr. Stresemann’s consent, the speech, then considered daring, was pronounced by President von Hindenburg at Tannenberg on Sept. 18, 1927. “With clean hearts we started out in defense of our Fatherland,” he cried, “and with clean hands the German Army wielded the sword.”

When his first term ended in 1932, duty called weary Old Paul to “Save Germany From Naziism.” Adolf Hitler would certainly have been elected President then over anyone other than Paul von Hindenburg. Old Paul did not win on the first ballot but won comfortably on the second and Germans breathed easier. The rest of Old Paul’s “Third Life” is the descending German spiral of the past two years.