Word: papen
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This cabal is crashed by the narrator, Richard Papen, a penniless transfer student who had taken some Greek. He is as close as the book comes to an objective center, but the device gets shaky because Richard is a facile, silly liar, boasting about an imaginary family oil well. He will do anything to be accepted by these sophisticates. Anything...
...have a majority in 1932, and the constitution permitted President Hindenburg to name any Chancellor he wished, authorizing him to rule by a series of presidential decrees. The first time Hindenburg summoned Hitler and asked him to support a conservative regime headed by a dapper courtier named Franz von Papen, Hitler demanded full power for himself; Hindenburg not only refused but dressed Hitler down for lacking "chivalry." In the last pre-Hitler elections in November of 1932, the Nazis lost strength, from 230 seats to 196. The party was an estimated $5 million in debt, unable to pay the storm...
Then in the first week of January, chances and hopes almost miraculously returned. Hindenburg was persuaded to try the idea of a new conservative coalition: Hitler as Chancellor, Papen as Vice Chancellor, with only two other Nazis in the Cabinet. "In this way," said the non-Nazi Minister of Economic Affairs, "we will box Hitler in." A fatal misjudgment. A month later, the Reichstag was in flames, Hitler was persuading Hindenburg to suspend civil liberties, and the most terrible chapter in 20th century history was about to open...
...first week in January, everything suddenly changed. Papen, bent on revenge for having been replaced as Chancellor by General Kurt von Schleicher, decided to make a deal with Hitler. At a secret meeting, several prominent financiers promised credit to the financially pressed Nazis. Once again, Hindenburg proposed a Papen-Hitler coalition, only with Hitler as Chancellor. & This time Hitler agreed. And so, on Jan. 30, 1933, this half-educated ex- Austrian with a genius for manipulation and deceit became, quite legally, the leader of Germany...
...only unopposed but warmly welcomed by thousands of Austrians who genuinely wanted union with Germany. Next day, Seyss-Inquart issued a decree that announced, "Austria is a province of the German Reich." Hitler returned in triumph to the Vienna where he had once lived as a virtual derelict. Papen described him as being "in a state of ecstasy...