Chapter 13: 1930 election, the Wall Street crisis and the end of the Weimar Republic.
The May 1930 election would see the decimation of the SPD to 103 seats and they were surpassed by the NSDAP winning 143 seats and becoming the largest party in the Reichstag. While there was no majority behind Hitler, no other coalition was possible without Hitler’s backing. Hitler would have grave hesitation but decided to support a center-right coalition. His famous quote would be: “Democracy has left us with no backing to any kind of government. National Socialism is not about compromise. It is about wealth through strength and it is paramount to make Germany Great again. The socialists betrayed this course and will give you wealth by paying you to do nothing and impoverish the state, the center will save government wealth by not paying for anything. We will now support the center so there is a government and they will pay the price for making Germany great again. Next election, I trust the German people will vote for National Socialism”.
The center minority government of 1930 could not maintain any illusion of keeping NSDAP at arms length. Now, Hitler had unofficial, but well-known shadow ministers such as Göring for the interior, Blomberg recruited for the Wehrmacht and being praised for resisting the French occupation. With these ruthless people in charge behind the scenes Germany started rearmament and prepared the foundations for war in earnest.
These preparations had public and secret components. Public ones as the light cruisers, airports, and acknowledged increases in coastal defenses as allowed under Versailles and clandestine elements as the order of tanks, aircraft and submarines, design of a new class of heavy cruisers designed to cheat the Versailles provisions, orders for massive new gun pits and scaling up of hardened steel production. Most importantly was the increase in funding for training and the admission of more officers within the Wehrmacht.
The strategy chosen was along the lines of the 1929 mobilization plan in which each division would be split in three, each forming the nucleus of a new division and thus expanding the army to 21 divisions. The major question was how to recruit 200000 men in secret and how to maintain a 21 division force and make it look like 7. The solution to this problem sealed the fate of Germany and was decided shortly after the elections of May 1930 in a secret meeting between Hitler, Blomberg and the general staff. Hitler’s SA had now swelled to 150000 loyal men and it was decided to use this force as the manpower donor on which to build the new cadres of German divisions. With the plan set in motion to have Hitler in direct control over 2/3 of the German military Hitler could feel power getting inevitably closer and closer. With Schacht now president of both the Reichsbank and the Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft, additional funding for rearmament now came in several hundreds of millions rather than 10’s of millions, while in the meantime and in public, the NSDAP directly took credit for large scale public works to improve autobahns, railroads and waterways throughout Germany. Under the auspices of the Sicherheitsdienst foreign branch, research also started into the more clandestine parts of the military hardware such as submersible inspection vessels, chemical and biological weapons, electronic warfare etc.
One of Hitler’s most pronounced foreign policy issues was to enforce the center government to stand their ground and not offer further concession beyond the Young pan to the reparations committee at the Second Conference of The Hague (January 1930). This was a success and France nevertheless agreed to withdrawal from the Rhineland*.
The government investments and the ongoing reform of the agricultural sector was to an extent able to keep the worst of the depression from Germanys doorstep, but hundreds of thousands of hands were simultaneously freed from farm work and at the time of the 1932 presidential elections unemployment had reached 5 million and communists were again fighting with NSDAP for control over the streets. Hitler ran against Hindenburg and secured 42% as compared to 44% for Hindenburg in the first round. Between the first and second round the Wehrmacht put pressure on Hindenburg to abstain and finally, a parade of 10000 SA/Wehrmacht troops drove home the point in Hindenburgs brain that by winning, he would be condemning Germany to civil war. Hindenburg resigned and recommended full support for Adolf Hitler. In the second round on April 10th, Hitler was elected president with an overwhelming 80% majority with 20% abstaining to name a candidate (many people didnt vote). Hitler called for general elections and on May 20, 1932 NSDAP became the absolute majority in the Reichstag with 46% of the votes (10% wasted on smaller parties). The communist party was quickly outlawed and with the help from the remains of the German national people’s party and the center party, emergency powers were installed in the chancellor and president titles, both of which were Held by Hitler. While no-one declared that there would be no further free elections, in reality, The Weimar democracy had seized to exist.**
[*IOTL Schacht resigned as president of the Reichsbank over adaptations to the Young plan. The earlier and more profound embarresments of the French ITTL made the hardliner course impossible. Rearmament on the scale proposed here had just been initiated under Schleicher when Hitler assumed power IOTL. Here it starts 2½ years early from a stronger starting point with an already recruited army (SA).
** ITTL Hitler build up his reputation and achieves a fully legal takeover as supreme leader of Germany 9 months ahead of time. Compared to OTL it is a Hitler who as the only one stood up against international provocation (the Deutschland class cruisers), he is far more a player within the rules (the bank robberies go back 10 years and was never pinned fully on the NSDAP and not at all on Hitler personally). If a successful conclusion can be found to the perceived Versailles injustices, Hitler is seen by the British as a potentially stabilizing force in Europe. Notably, the military already has or are close to having 27 divisions (part timers is not the same as full-timers, but they are organized and will be full-timers soon), of which the SA is a disciplined pseudoarmy working within the real army.]