Word: von
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That account dated back not just to the murderous offensives on the Somme in 1916, but to 1870, when Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck provoked Emperor Napoleon III into declaring war, then smashed him at Sedan, annexed the iron- rich provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and imposed on France a heavy financial indemnity. But the Germans had their own view of this account, in which they had repeatedly been attacked and despoiled by the French, by Napoleon, by Louis XIV. Indeed, this conflict went back beyond the birth of either nation, to the time when the Romans subdued the Gauls...
...German conflicts with France ran back for centuries, so did those with the Poles, conflicts tinged with contempt. Long before Hitler, General Hans von Seeckt, the haughty army commander during the Weimar Republic, had said of the frontiers established by Versailles, "Poland's existence is intolerable, incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany's life. Poland must go and will go." That was the mission that Hitler now vowed to carry...
Split between Nazis and Communists as well as several traditional parties, the Reichstag became ungovernable. That gave crucial political power to a man who was supposed to be a figurehead, President Paul von Hindenburg, commander of Germany's armies during the war. Hindenburg was 83, vain, righteous and inclined to long naps. Since the Reichstag could not agree on a policy, he appointed some of his favorites as Chancellors, letting them rule by presidential decree...
...summer of 1932, the Nazis doubled their Reichstag seats, to 230 out of 608; Hitler's blustering, barrel- shaped lieutenant, Hermann Goring, became president of the legislature. Hindenburg despised Hitler, "that Austrian corporal," but he asked him to serve as Vice Chancellor under Hindenburg's protege, Franz von Papen. Hitler rejected any compromises...
...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...