Research Files---Sources on possible blackmail of von Hindenberg to support Hitler

Research Files---Sources on possible blackmail of von Hindenburg to support Hitler

January 08, 2022


From Wikipedia Oskar von Hindenberg

In a meeting with the "camarilla" around Franz von Papen and State Secretary Otto Meissner on 22 January 1933, Oskar von Hindenburg, who like his father had long been opposed to making Hitler chancellor, was persuaded to support the plan to have Hitler appointed but having von Papen control him from behind the scenes as Vice-Chancellor. At the same time, Oskar was stuck in the major Eastern Aid (Osthilfe) scandal, concerning a Weimar Republic programme for developing the agrarian economy in eastern Germany. Moreover, he was under pressure due to his manor in Neudeck, which the German government with large contributions from German industrialists on initiative of Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau gave to President Hindenburg on the occasion of his 80th birthday on 2 October 1927. The president had titled the deed in the name of his son Oskar, according to his political opponents ostensibly to avoid payment of inheritance taxes. Shortly after Hitler's appointment, Hindenburg and his descendants were officially exempt from taxes by law.

johndclare.net

The Nazi "Seizure" of Power

This is a reprint of an article by Professor Gerhard Rempel,

who was Professor of History at Western New England College, Springfield, Massachusetts.

The best and most detailed account of exactly how Hitler came to power is still the late Martin Broszat's study, reproduced in a slightly edited version below:

An excerpt...

Meanwhile Hitler had made a public appearance at an SA rally in the Berlin Sportpalast to commemorate the third anniversary of the death of Horst Wessel. After this meeting he proceeded to Ribbentrop's cottage together with Göring. Papen reached the meeting-place after he had been to a rally of the Stahlhelm ex-Servicemen's Association.

For the following hours Hitler talked to Oskar von Hindenburg on his own. His arguments were the old ones: he alone would be able to rescue Germany from the threat of Communism. No government would be able to survive without his support. Were he to become Chancellor, he would strictly ob serve the prerogatives of the Reich President under Article 49 and his supreme command of the armed forces. He would also adhere to the constitution. Supported by his own party which commanded one third of the Reichstag seats and by other "patriotic" forces on the Right and in the Center, he, through the passage of a parliamentary enabling act, would be able to achieve a constitutional prorogation of the Reichstag, etc. etc. However, it appears that Hitler blended such arguments, which were designed to win Oskar von Hindenburg over to his side, with open threats: if, he added, he were not made Chancellor, a criminal investigation might have to be reckoned with against the President concerning his role in the Osthilfe transactions.

Excerpt of an article in Executive Intelligence Review by Michael Liebig. March 5, 1999

An evil little man: Oskar von Hindenburg

Meanwhile, Papen and Hitler were hyperactive behind the scenes. The details of the Schröder-Hitler-Papen agreement were worked out in several subsequent meetings during January, between Papen and Hitler at the Berlin residence of Joachim von Ribbentrop, then a wealthy champagne salesman. Then, Papen and Hitler worked on Oskar von Hindenburg. They, as well as Schröder and Schacht, knew, that Oskar, a "little man" without intellectual and moral substance, was the central figure, on whom everything depended. Only if they managed to get Oskar to exert sufficient personal pressure on his father, was there a chance to catapult Hitler into power. Papen saw Oskar, and old Hindenburg, almost daily. Oskar lived at Hindenburg's Presidential Residence, where Papen had unrestricted access. On Jan. 22, Hitler himself met for two hours with Oskar von Hindenburg. By that time, Oskar had already become the willing instrument of evil. He told the State Secretary in the Presidential Office, Otto Meissner: "There's is no way to get around this Hitler."[20]

Jointly, Papen and Oskar worked over the 87-year-old Reich President Hindenburg. On Jan. 28, 1933, Hindenburg relieved Schleicher of his duties as Chancellor, and on Jan. 30, named Hitler Chancellor. Why did old Hindenburg do this? Had he not, on Aug. 13 and on Nov. 24, 1932, flatly rejected Hitler's demand to be named Chancellor? The following should be considered here:

1. It was no secret that Oskar von Hindenburg passionately hated von Schleicher, even before Papen and Hitler had worked him over. At the above-mentioned press briefing by von Schleicher, the Reich Commissioner for Public Works Günther Gerecke, who was also there, emphasized this to the assembled journalists.[21]

2. Nine months later, on Aug. 10, 1933, the Nazi-controlled Reich government donated a vast tract of state forest in East Prussia to Oskar von Hindenburg.[22]

3. Oskar von Hindenburg had been in dire financial straits for several years. Moreover, Oskar's financial activities had moved into the realm of corruption and criminality. At a minimum, had his ruinous financial situation become public, it would have cost him his "honor," in terms of the honor code of Prussian nobility.

In his autobiography, The Long Road Home, Wall Street banker James P. Warburg reports that in July 1931, Paul M. Warburg had offered the German government an emergency credit for the collapsing Danat Bank, provided that first, a thorough audit would be made. According to Warburg, then-Chancellor Heinrich Brüning was in tears, when he said that he had to reject the offer, but could not say why. Remember that, before becoming Reichsbank president, Schacht been an executive of Danat Bank, and it is quite unlikely that he would not continue to receive sensitive information from his "old" bank. Warburg further writes, that later audits at Danat Bank revealed that on the books of Danat Bank was a "mysterious, non-performing loan of 10 million reichsmarks to Oskar von Hindenburg"!

Had this become known, Reich President Hindenburg would have had to resign immediately, as, after all, his son was his closest aide and adviser. At the time, there was a saying that Oskar von Hindenburg was "the son of the Reich President, not foreseen by the authors of the Constitution." That is why Brüning, at a moment of the worst financial crisis in July 1931, had refused the Warburg credit for Danat Bank.

In Oskar von Hindenburg's massive debt, lies probably the real secret of what was worked out among Schröder, von Papen, and Hitler, at that fateful meeting on Jan. 4, 1933 in Cologne. And Schacht, one can safely assume, also knew about Oskar's debts. The available evidence indicates that Oskar was the "Achilles' heel," which Schröder, Schacht, Papen, and Hitler diabolically used to "turn" old Hindenburg.

Once Hitler was in power though a "legal coup," he acted swiftly. On Feb. 27, the Nazis orchestrated the arson attack against the Reichstag building, and this incident was then used as the pretext for declaring a full state of emergency in Germany, suspending all constitutional rights. This was followed by the March 23 Ermächtigungsgesetz and the various Gleichschaltungsgesetze, which, by May 1933, led to the liquidation of all parties--except the Nazi Party, of course--and the trade unions. By that time, Jewish citizens were purged from the civil service. Already, on March 17, 1933, Schacht had been named president of the Reichsbank by Hitler. The totalitarian dictatorship was in place in early summer 1933.

On Aug. 2, 1934, Hindenburg died, and Hitler made himself Reich President, and from that point, the Army had to swear allegiance to Hitler personally. Two months earlier, on the morning of June 30, 1934, five SS men in plain clothes had stormed into the house of General von Schleicher. They were armed with pistols and instantaneously opened fire, killing Schleicher and his wife. At the same time, Maj. Gen. Ferdinand von Bredow was shot dead.

Bredow had been for many years Schleicher's closest collaborator in the Defense Ministry, a man with access to the Reichswehr's intelligence files, who knew the secrets that Schleicher knew, especially those which concerned Hitler's really powerful backers, in and outside Germany, and the way that Hitler's "legal coup d'état" was orchestrated in January 1993.

[1] Bernard V. Burke, Ambassador Frederic Sackett and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).

[2] Wolfgang Michalka and Gottfried Niedhart,

Gabriele Liebig, "How the German Trade Unions Could Have Stopped Hitler," EIR, April 11, 1997.

[4] Michalka and Niedhart, op. cit.



[5] cf., Wilhelm Lautenbach, Zins, Kredit und Produktion (Tübingen, 1952).

[6] Knut Borchardt and Otto Schötz, Wirtschaftspolitik in der Krise, Die Geheimkonferenz der Friedrich-List-Gesellschaft vom September 1931, (Baden-Baden, 1991).

[7] Charles P. Kindleberger, Die Weltwirtschaftskrise (Munich, 1973).

[8] Friedrich-Karl von Plehwe, Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher (Esslingen, 1983).

[9] "Hans Schäffer, Marcus Wallenberg und die Deutsche Bankenkrise 1931," unpublished manuscript, Archiv Edmund Steinschulte, Wiesbaden.

[10] Michalka and Niedhart, op. cit.

[11] Bernard Burke, op. cit.

[12] Henry A. Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power (Reading, Mass., 1996).

[13] Heinz Pentzlin, Hjalmar Schacht (Berlin, 1980).

[14] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Wiesbaden: Böttiger Verlag, 1992).

[15] Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990).

[16] Anton Chaitkin and Webster G. Tarpley, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (Washington, D.C.: Executive Intelligence Review, 1992).

[17] Michalka and Niedhart, op. cit.

[18] Michalka and Niedhart, op. cit.

[19] Henry A. Turner, op. cit.

[20] Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, Das Ende von Weimar (Düsseldorf, 1968).

[21] Henry A. Turner, op. cit.

[22] G.R. Treviranus, op. cit.