In evaluating this episode we must not overlook the power-hungry blindness of the German nationalist conservatives. By parasitically seizing on the force and vitality of the Nazi movement, by uniting with the secretly despised but also admired upstart Hitler, they were trying to forestall German nationalist conservatism’s departure from the stage of history, when that departure had been long since decided. Still, Hitler’s success remains remarkable. For four and a half years he had waited, preparing himself and, in keeping with the unforgotten doctrine of Karl Lueger, working toward alliance with the “powerful institutions,” the holders of political and social influence. When the offer was finally made to him, he had coolly and firmly named his terms. For years Adolf Hitler had stood at the head of an inconspicuous extremist party, ignored or an object of mockery. Only in the light of that fact can we grasp what is meant to him to team up with Hugenberg. It freed him from the noisome odor of being a crackpot revolutionary and putschist. He could appear in public within a circle of respectable, influential patrons and make their good reputation his own. Once before he had had that chance and thrown it away; now he indicated that he meant to behave much more circumspectly.
After concluding the alliance, the Nazi party for the first time had funds enough to crank up its excellent propaganda apparatus. It at once began showing the public a style of propaganda of unprecedented radicality and impact. Nothing of the kind had ever existed in Germany, Hitler declared in a letter of that period. “We have thoroughly worked over our people as no other party has done.” None of the other partners in the nationalist alliance could approach the Nazi party in stridency, sharpness, and psychological cunning. From the start the Nazis made it plain that the Young Plan was only the pretext for the campaign. They broadened their attack to include the whole “system,” which they claimed was collapsing from incompetence, treason, and corruption. “The time will come,” Hitler cried out in a speech at Hersbruck, near Nuremberg, toward the end of November, “when those responsible for Germany’s collapse will laugh out of the other side of their faces. Fear will grip them. Let them know that their judgment is on the way.” Fascinated by the demogogic wildness of the Nazis, Hugenberg and the rest of the conservatives in the coalition stared at the tremendous wave they had set in motion. They encouraged it, repeatedly lent impetus to it, and in their smug faith in their natural leadership thought they were riding it when they had long since been swamped by it.
In these circumstances it did not very much matter to Hitler that the campaign was less than a smashing success. The referendum was held; the draft proposal for a “law against the enslavement of the German people” barely received the 10 per cent of the votes required if it were to be submitted to the Reichstag. But in the Reichstag the proposal was accepted by only eighty-two representatives, with 318 votes against it. The third stage in the process, the holding of a plebiscite on December 22, 1929, likewise ended in defeat. The proponents of the draft law won barely 14 per cent of the votes, about a quarter of the number needed—some 5 per cent less than the votes the Nazi party and the Nationalist party had won in the Reichstag elections the previous year.
Nevertheless, this campaign meant for Hitler the final breakthrough into national politics. Thanks to the support provided by the many and variegated publications of the Hugenberg empire, he had made a name for himself nationally and had proved himself the most energetic and purposeful force on the divided and directionless Right. He himself spoke of the “extremely great reversal” in public opinion and marveled at “the way arrogant, snobbish or stupid rejection of the party, which was the rule only a few years ago, has been transformed into expectant hope.” On August 3 and 4, 1929, after the opening of the campaign, he convoked a party rally in Nuremberg, probably to show his conservative partners something of the mettle of his movement. By now he knew a great deal about staging such demonstrations. More than thirty special trains brought some 200,000 followers (if the figures are correct) from all over Germany. For several days their uniforms, banners, and bands dominated the scene in the medieval walled city. The majority of the twenty-four new standards, which were consecrated in a highly emotional ceremony, came from Bavaria, Austria, and Schleswig-Holstein. At the grand final muster, some 60,000 SA men, by this time all in uniform and provided with active-service field equipment, paraded past Hitler for three and a half hours. In the euphoria of the day some units threatened to take immediate violent action. A similar mood underlay a motion by the party’s radical wing proposing that any participation in government by the NSDAP should be “forbidden now and for ever.” With the terse and characteristic remark that any step was justified that might “lead the movement into the possession of political power,” Hitler rejected the motion. Nevertheless, his adherence to legality was now threatened anew by the self-assurance of the rapidly growing party army. By the end of the year the SA was the equal of the Reichswehr in manpower.
The alliance with Hugenberg also provided Hitler with many connections among industrialists who by and large had over the years supported Stresemann’s foreign policy but who now vigorously opposed the Young Plan. Hitherto, Hitler had received material support only from small factory owners—aside from such notable exceptions as the industrialist Fritz Thyssen. His antisocialist, proproperty attitude on the question of the expropriation of the sovereigns had made him no new friends. Now, suddenly, he could draw on more opulent sources. While still banned from public speaking, he had used his time in systematically traveling through the industrial regions of Germany, primarily the Ruhr, talking at closed meetings often to several hundred largely skeptical businessmen and endeavoring to remove their fears of his form of nationalistic socialism by presenting himself as a staunch defender of private property. True to his belief that success was an index of aristocracy, he hailed the large-scale entrepreneur as the type of a superior race, “destined for leadership.” On the whole he tried to convey that what he was “demanding was nothing employers need object to.”
Hitler’s connections with the Munich salons, in which he continued to be something of a lion, also proved their value once again. Elsa Bruckmann had by now made it her “life task to bring Hitler into contact with the leading men in heavy industry,” as she herself put it. In 1927 she arranged for him to meet old Emil Kirdorf, who became extremely important to Hitler—not only as an influential industrialist but also as administrator of a political fund known as the “Ruhr Treasury.” Hitler was deeply impressed by this rough old man who had spent his life plotting against those above him and despising those below him. And Kirdorf in turn was fascinated by Hitler; he soon became one of his most valuable supporters, possibly the most valuable. Kirdorf participated as a guest of honor in the party rally in Nuremberg, and subsequently wrote to Hitler that those days had been an overwhelming experience he would never forget.
All this new assistance and new money would be translated into significant successes in the regional elections of 1929. In Saxony and Mecklenburg-Schwerin the Nazis had won nearly 5 per cent of the vote the previous spring. But their progress in the Prussian community elections was more impressive. In Coburg they elected the mayor, and in Thuringia they succeeded in voting into office the first Nazi provincial government minister, Wilhelm Frick. Frick soon made a stir by introducing Nazi prayers into the schools and came into conflict with the national government—although on the whole he tried to demonstrate that his party was quite capable of cooperating in coalitions.