The rising tension was palpably communicated to the public mind. For a year Hitler had continued to keep the population breathless by fireworks, speeches, appeals, coups, and histrionics. Now both the public and the producer seemed equally exhausted. The pause for reflection offered the nation a first opportunity to take account of its real condition. Not yet completely overwhelmed and corrupted by propaganda, it noted coercion, pressure and regimentation, persecution of defenseless minorities, concentration camps, difficulties with the churches, the specter of inflation caused by reckless spending, terrorism and threats from the SA, and growing distrust on the part of the rest of the world. The result was a reversal of sentiment that even a noisy “campaign against gripers and criticasters,” launched by Goebbels, was unable to stem. What emerged in the spring of 1934 was not a massive mood of dissatisfaction that found vent in any broadly based oppositional spirit; but unmistakably a sense of skepticism, of uneasiness, of suspicion, was spreading, and along with it an intimation that something was rotten in the state of Germany.
The spreading disenchantment suggests that we glance once more at the conservative stage managers of the events of January, 1933. And, in fact, although they now had forfeited all power to act, they seemed to feel that something should be done. In June, 1934, when Hindenburg was about to leave for his summer vacation at Neudeck, his parting words to his Vice-Chancellor were: “Things are going badly, Papen. Try to straighten them out.” Since, however, there was no question of the President’s intervening himself—the old man was visibly failing—the conservatives took up the idea of a monarchist restoration. Hitler had rejected this idea in no uncertain terms, the last time in his Reichstag speech of January 30, 1934. But Hindenburg now, on Papen’s urging, promised to add a passage to his testament recommending a return to the monarchy. After all, the monarchist faction reasoned, under pressure of events Hitler would sooner or later have to accept a good many things he did not like.
In view of the reports of Hindenburg’s condition, a rapid decision on Hitler’s part was all the more urgent. His own plans assumed he would take over the office of President. This would assure him supreme command of the army and would thus form the concluding act in the seizure of power. On June 4, therefore, he once more met Röhm in order—as he explained in his later self-justifying speech—“to spare the Movement and my SA the shame of such a disagreement, and… to solve the problem without severe conflicts.” In a discussion lasting for some five hours he pleaded with Röhm “of his own accord to oppose this madness” of a second revolution. But Röhm was far from ready to capitulate and gave him only the customary empty assurances.
The propaganda campaign against the gripers was screwed to a higher pitch of intensity. In addition to the SA, the conservative positions of the old bourgeoisie, of the nobility, of the churches, and above all of the monarchy came under the fire of Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry. But Röhm, evidently unsuspecting, went on vacation. In an order of the day he informed his followers that he was suffering from a rheumatic complaint and had to go to Bad Wiessee for a cure. To ease the tension somewhat, he sent the majority of the SA formations on leave for the month of July. His order warned “the enemies of the SA” against harboring any false hopes that the storm troopers would not return from their leaves, and in grimly ambiguous terms he threatened those enemies with an “appropriate answer.” Interestingly enough, the order of the day did not mention Hitler’s name.
Contrary to all his subsequent asseverations, it appears that Hitler could not have believed that Röhm, however recalcitrant, had plans for occupying the capital, seizing control of the government, and, in the course of a “conflict of the bloodiest kind, lasting several days,” removing him personally.
Nine days later, Hitler went to Venice for his first trip abroad. He looked nervous, distracted and ill-humored as, wearing a light-colored raincoat, he walked forward to meet the Italian dictator. According to a political joke that went the rounds in Germany, Mussolini allegedly murmured, “Ave, Imitator!” Certainly there could not have been a less auspicious beginning for this curious relationship, filled with mutual admiration and no doubt blindness, soon to be dominated by Hitler with his conception of “brutal friendship.”42 At least during this period Hitler’s mind was on other things than the threat of Röhm.
There were other threats, however. Concerned that the obviously impending death of Hindenburg would destroy the last chance to steer the regime onto a more moderate course, conservative backers of Franz von Papen urged him to take some sort of stand. On Sunday, June 17, while Hitler was meeting with his assembled party leaders in Gera, the Vice-Chancellor delivered a speech at Marburg University. It had been ghosted for him by the conservative writer Edgar Jung and had far more bite than anything Papen himself might have produced. In a sensational fashion he came out strongly against the National Socialist revolution for its violence and unbridled radicalism. He condemned the roughshod methods of Gleichschaltung. He protested against the “unnatural claim to totality” and against the plebeian contempt for intellectual work. Then he continued:
No nation can afford an eternal revolt from below if that nation wishes to continue to exist as a historical entity. At some time the movement must come to an end; at some time a firm social structure must arise, and must be maintained by an incorruptible judiciary and an uncontested State authority. Permanent dynamism cannot shape anything lasting. We must not let Germany become a train tearing along to nowhere in particular….
The government is well informed concerning the elements of selfishness, lack of character, mendacity, beastliness and arrogance that are spreading under the guise of the German Revolution. Nor is the government unaware that the treasure of confidence that the German people bestowed upon it is in jeopardy. Those who want closeness and intimate contact with the people must not underestimate the people’s intelligence, must have confidence in them in return, not forever try to keep them in leading strings…. Not by whipping people up, especially whipping up the youth, and not by threats against helpless parts of the nation, but only by an honest dialogue with the people, can confidence and eager commitment be intensified…. Every word of criticism must not instantly be dubbed ill will, and despairing patriots must not be labeled enemies of the State.
The speech created a tremendous stir, even though it was heard by very few. Goebbels abruptly canceled the projected evening radio broadcast and kept the speech from appearing in the press. Hitler himself evidently took Papen’s re-emergence as a personal challenge and went into a rage before his party leaders. He furiously denounced “all the little pygmies” and threatened that they would be “swept away by the force of our common ideal…. A while ago they had the power to prevent the rising of National Socialism; but never again will they be able to put the awakened people to sleep…. So long as they do nothing but gripe, we do not have to be concerned about them. But if they should ever try to move even in the slightest degree from criticism to a new act of treachery, they had better realize that what faces them today is not the cowardly and corrupt bourgeoisie of 1918, but the fist of the entire people.” When Papen thereupon said that he would resign, Hitler backed off by proposing that they go together to call on Hindenburg in Neudeck.