I posted about this in 2017 at
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/hohenzollern-restoration-in-1932.429723/
***
"In his posthumously published memoirs Brüning claims, without support of contemporaneous documents, that he hit upon a last-ditch solution to prevent Hitler from taking power—restoring the Hohenzollern monarchy. He planned to persuade the Reichstag to cancel the 1932 presidential election and extend Hindenburg's term. He would have then had parliament proclaim a monarchy, with Hindenburg as regent. Upon Hindenburg's death, one of Crown Prince William's sons would have been invited to assume the throne. The restored monarchy would have been a British-style constitutional monarchy in which real power would have rested with the legislature.[citation needed]
"He managed to garner support from all of the major parties except the Nationalists, Communists and Nazis, making it very likely that the plan would get the two-thirds majority required for passage. The plan foundered, however, when Hindenburg, an old-line monarchist, refused to support restoration of the monarchy unless Emperor William II was called back from exile in the Netherlands. When Brüning tried to impress upon him that neither the Social Democrats nor the international community would accept any return of the deposed emperor, Hindenburg threw him out of his office.[5]..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Brüning
Let's assume that Brüning actually did plan this--and that Hindenburg had gone along. Could the plan have gotten a two-thirds vote in the Reichstag elected in 1930? (Remember, this has to be before the March 1932 scheduled presidential election, and therefore before the July 1932 Reichstag election, where the NSDAP and KPD combined got a majority of the seats, obviously making it impossible for Brüning's alleged plan to get a majority, let alone two-thirds.) In the Reichstag elected in 1930 the NSDAP and KPD combined had 31.88% of the seats--not enough to block the measure if all other parties agreed to it. The key therefore is the attitide of the DNVP which had 7.11% of the seats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_1930 On the one hand, it might seem strange that many deputies from the DNVP--which was a monarchist party at heart--would want to oppose restoration of the monarchy. OTOH, it actually shouldn't be so surprising they objected to this plan. After all, the *immediate* effect ot the plan sould be to extend Hindenburg's stay in power, and in 1932 there had been a total reversal of German right-wing attitudes toward Hindenburg compared with 1925. According to one ecological regression estimate, about 50 percent of first-round Duesterberg voters in 1932 supported Hitler in the second round, compared to only 15 percent who supported Hindenburg (about 28 percent didn't vote at all and 7 percent voted for Thalmann). Table 9B in
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42110234.pdf
Still, if Hindenburg had pressed for the measure, probably some DNVP deputies could accept that even a constitutional monarchy headed by someone other than Wilhelm II and supported by Social Democrats would be a lesser evil than a continuation of the republic--or even the dictatorship of a plebian Führer whose wooing of conservatives was pretty clearly opportunistic. So let's say that with the support of some though not all DNVP deputies, Brüning's plan is enacted.
Would this actually prevent an NSDAP government? I doubt it. Very likely Hitler would have forced his way into the Chancellorship (after all he headed the largest party in the Reichstag after July 1932 and many non-Nazi German conservatives were willing to acquiesce in a Hitler-led government) and manipulated the young Kaiser into playing the same figurehead role for him the King of Italy played for Mussolini when the latter established his one-party dictatorship. (A standard joke of mine in replying to people who lament the end of the German monarchy in 1918: "It's a good thing that Italy and Japan remained monarchies after World War I. Otherwise, they might have gone fascist...")
***
According to one of the replies, the Wikipedia article is not quite accurate:
***
I'm afraid, the english speaking wiki-community has kinda ... "mixed up" some things or whoever "peer-viewed" the article ...
The claim about the Brüning memoirs is right. He actually stated there, that he thought of such a solution ... in the longer run, ... after a ... "natural" relief of office of Hindenburg.
Brünings idea at the change of 1931/32 - prior to the Reichspräsidenten-election - was to elongated Hindenburgs tenure of office.
Avoid any further elections AT ALL by presidential power (something every other party beside the NSDAP and -perhaps- the communists were VERY happy about).
Cause the Reichstag to "postpone" itself (almost) indefinitly, then "installing" a presidential rule by piece-by-piece change of constitution by presidential decrees.
And THEN recall one of the Hohenzollerns.
That was at least what he stated he proposed as a plan to Hindenburg and the latters surrounding (i.e. the son Oskar) during this time as well as in early 1932 after the presidential election.
He also garnered ... some support of the idea of "continuation" of Hindenburgs tenure of office by parliament without another election. Though the SPD support for this idea was IIRC never explicitly spoken out by any high-ranking SPD ember. There was only no open objection by the more important party leaders as i.e. Otto Braun.
I am pretty sure Brüning never ever mentioned the idea of a monarchy/Hohenzollern-restauration in front of a SPD-member. That was an absolute no-go. The SPD would have lost immediatly about 1/2 of its members and at least the same amount of non-party-member supporters and voters to the communists.
The creation of the republik was THE reason-d-etre of the SPD.
NSDAP and KPD had 184 seats together. To "block" a constitutional change 193 votes (of all 577 RT-members, IF all are actually present) would be needed. That's 9 to go.
At least 4-5 votes (of 19 seats) would come from the "Landvolk", the party of the east-prussian junkers, who hated Brüning more, than they would support Hindenburg ... and who were quite well connected to the NSDAP.
Then there is the other "agrarian" party, the CSVd, an offspring (mainly) of the DNVP and the "Landvolk" of the small to medium, protestantic northern germany farmers, who originated in parts from the agraioan niorthgerman uprisings in 1927-1929, which happened with A LOT of Nazi-participation.
Another 2-3 votes (of 14 seats) voting with the Nazis, against Brüning.
Then there are the "others", 10 seats, more or less independant persons without much of a connenction to Brüning. ... more the opposite, opposition for the sake of opposition.
It would be a damn close draw. And in such a situation the number of the actuall present RT-members would alos play a BIG role. Due to "party-discipline" the NSDAP and KPD would be very likely "complete".
But the others ? The "silent" supporters of the Nazis already present in the DNVP and all other mid-to-mid-right parties ?
Brüning knew, that he needed at least the Nazis within the boat to be "safe" with a prolonged Hindenburg-presidency. The IOTL "move" to gather such a 2/3 majority has to be seen completly set apart from Brüning monarchy-restoration ... thoughts.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ern-restoration-in-1932.429723/#post-15952591
