Game of Thrones
Rudiger Barth and Hauke Friederichs have turned
history into a real political thriller. Their version of the fall of Weimar and
the rise of Hitler should be made into a television series on the order of
Babylon Berlin. The book opens with the resignation of Chancellor Franz von
Papen on November 17, 1932, after the November 6th elections left no
clear majority in the Reichstag with the anti-democratic parties of the Left
and the Right squeezing out the Center. It ends on January 30, 1933, with
Hitler being named Chancellor. Although Papen has been called the gravedigger
of the Republic, he had many accomplices and Hitler’s rise to power was by no
means certain.
The cast of characters include:
· Adolf Hitler – Fuhrer of the National Socialist German
Workers Party. (NDSAP)
· Kurt von Schleicher – Defense Minister and Chancellor
who was caught between a crossfire of the Right and Left. Earlier he was in up
to his eyeballs in the secret Russo-German arms agreement.
· Paul von Hindenburg – German president, World War I
general and monarchist.
· Alfred Hugenberg – Media baron and leader of the
rightist German National Peoples Party. (DNVP)
· Gregor Strasser – A leader in the NDSAP who breaks
with Hitler.
· Kurt Schumaker- Leader of the Socialist Party of
Germany. (SPD)
· Ernst Thalmann – Leader of the Communist Party of
Germany. (KPD)
After Papen resigned Hindenburg faced great pressure
to appoint Hitler as Chancellor because he represented the largest party in
Reichstag although the NSDAP lost seats in the November election. However, Hindenburg wanted Hitler to form a coalition
government, which he refused. With that Strasser broke with Hitler in that he
supported a coalition government. There is much maneuvering to get Strasser
into a coalition government, but that fails.
Into the vacuum comes Kurt von Schleicher who forms a
minority government which is constantly under attack by both the NSDAP and the
KPD. While Schleicher is in office the army runs a simulation that concludes
that it could not maintain order should a civil war breakout. This increases
the pressure on Hindenburg to seek a stable governing coalition. However,
Schleicher is ultimately not up to the task.
The knives come out with Papen scheming to bring
Hitler into power with him as Vice Chancellor. To make it work Papen makes a
deal with Hugenberg which brings the NSDAP close to a majority; good enough for
Hindenburg and Hitler is named chancellor. Hitler, with his will to power,
played a bad hand very well because his party was hemorrhaging members and cash.
However, there wasn’t much on the other side to stop him.
Why? The socialists and the communists were at each
other’s throats. Instead of allying against Hitler they fight among themselves.
Of course, Thalmann’s KPD is following the strict orders of Moscow. Had the two
parties of left united, history would have been different. Further once Hitler
was appointed, the KPD went underground and the SPD quietly acquiesced.
Thirteen years earlier the SPD responded to the Kapp Putsch with a general
strike that broke the back of a fascist coup. Simply put they were exhausted.
One of the real beauties of the book is that the
authors rely on the diaries of Bella Fromm and Abraham Plotkin. Fromm was a
society columnist who was very close to Schleicher, and we get a sense of what
high society was thinking that winter. Plotkin was an American labor organizer
temporarily in Berlin where he is close to the SPD. From him we get a sense of
what was like to be a member of a politicized member of the German working
class.
If you are into history, intrigue and political
thrillers, this book is right up your alley. I do hope the authors make a
television series of it. There is much to learn. After reading this book I have
become even more convinced that had Gustav Stresemann, Germany leading 1920’s
politician, lived he just could have stopped Hitler.
For the full Amazon URL see: Game of Thrones (amazon.com)
