This alternate history scenario explores what could have happened if Hitler wasn't named chancellor of the Weimar Republic.
 
Mackensen placed in Power
July, 1932: Reichstag election results come in. Zentrum, DNVP, and SDP form a coalition against the NSDAP who take 29.5% of the popular vote and their archerivals the KPD who take 16% of the vote. Many scholars believe that the Nazi party would have won greater votes if not for the slight economic recovery a month prior reducing the fear in German weakness and the weakness of democracy. (SDP wins 28.3% of the vote.) Violence erupts in Munich, Berlin, Stuttgart, Cuxhaven, and Frankfurt between NSDAP members, KPD members, and authorities. The slight economic recovery falls through and the reichsmark plummets even further. President Hindenburg wants stability to avoid total anarchy so appoints General August Makensen, thinking that a former general would boost the populaces morale.
December, 1932: on December 14 Hindenburg is assassinated by a Nazi official and Mackensen is placed in power. Mackensen temporarily disbands the Reichstag and calls Zentrum, DNVP, SDP, and BVP party leaders as well as foreign diplomats from the United Kingdom, United States, and France to help draft a new German constitution. Mackensen denies the League of Nations officials from supervising. The NSDAP and KPD protest their lack of inclusion fervently and many of them are jailed including most radicals and party officials. (Many less radical members of these parties stay quiet and some even support Mackensen. Many of those who do later form the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP) (German Workers Party) and the Deutsche Nationalistische Partei (DNP) (German Nationalist Party.)) Those working on the the new constitution (known as the Brandenburg committee) worked night and day for two and a half weeks.
January, 1933: The New Constitution comes into effect. The Reichstag is rebuilt but decreased to 150 members and where the President can break ties. Kaiser Wilhelm II is allowed back into Germany and is recrowned Kaiser although he has no power and is nothing more than a figurehead and national symbol. German State Governors are given more power and General elections for both the Reichstag and president commence on the 31st of March and will happen every four years.
February, 1933: The second coronation of Wilhelm II happens and three makor candidates take the lead in early polling. The KPD and NSDAP are disbanded officially due to sowing dissent and condoning violence against government officials around the 1932 Weimar election. The three main presidential candidates are incumbent August Mackensen representing no party, Otto Wells representing SDP, and Frederick Weber representing DAP.
March, 1933: The results come in for the Reichstag elections; SDP and Zentrum win the most seats, 54 for SDP and 49 for Zentrum. The DAP follow close behind though with 24 seats. Frederick Weber loses the election for president with only 22% of the votes. Otto Wells wins 35% of the votes and Mackensen wins with 40% of the votes. The remainder of the votes go to minor candidates and one of the reasons Mackensen wins is the huge turnout of Zentrum voters for him. This splits the Zentrum, SDP, DNVP coalition due to spite between the two main parties.
April, 1933: Mackensen is resworn into office and appoints Ludwig Kaas, leader of Zentrum, to be his Chancellor. Mackensen opens talks with France and Britain to loosen reperations set onto Germany by the Treaty of Versailles and to suggest a possible joining into an alliance by Germany.
 
Soviet Ambitions in the Baltics
May, 1933: Talks continue between the Entente Powers and Germany. On the fourteenth an agreement is made lowering war reparations and loosening military restrictions on Germany but keeping the Rhineland demilitarized do to the wills of French President Albert Lebrun, many today see this to be the beginning of the rivalry between Lebrun and Mackensen.
June, 1933: Joseph Stalin calls in his old colleague, General Alexander Yegorov and gives him a document titled Army Plan IX. This plan detailed the planned invasion of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It placed Yegorov in charge of the theatre and specified him at the head of the Lithuanian front due to his experience serving in Belarus, Semyon Budyonny in charge of the Latvian front, and Semyon Timoshenko at the head of the Estonian front. The plan detailed the placement of 19 divisions (190,000 Men) on the border and to launch the declaration of war at the immediate time Yegorov deemed his soldiers ready.
July, 1933: Konstantin Pats, State Elder of Estonia, Alberts Kviesis of Latvia, and Antanas Smetona of Lithuania meet in Riga to discuss the Soviet threat and the Baltic Nations' inability to receive support from Britain or France. They unanimously decide the creation of the Riga Pact, a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union. The Baltic Nation's militaries start recruiting and entrenching in a series of trenchlines on the Soviet border.
September 9th 1933: Yegorov recieves a telegraph from his Field Commanders stating the Lithuanian Trenches are not as heavily manned as before seen. Perceiving this for the Lithuanians and therefore other Baltic Nations doubting a war's possibility he makes the decision to strike fast and decisively sends a telegraph to Moscow stating, "The time has come to launch an invasion of the Baltic States as they have pulled much of their military presence off our border and our forces have reached full preparedness."
September 10th 1933: War is declared by the Soviet Union onto Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Soviet bombers fly over Baltic trenchlines and bombard them. They had flown in without much fighter support so many were lost in the beginning of the Baltic Air War. Soviet infantry and tanks surge over the borders. The Baltic Trenches are defended more than predicted especially the Lithuanians. The message that their lines had deplenished was a mistake of a young officer who was later court martialed.
September 11th-17th 1933: On the eleventh the Estonian forces are pushed back to their secondary trenchline and by the 16th they had been pushed to the Poltsamaa River. On the 14th Latvian forces are forced to withdraw to their secondary defenses on the Malta and Pededze Rivers. The Lithuanian Army suffers minimal losses far smaller then their enemies casualties and are only pushed back an average of ten miles of the border where they entrench. The combined Baltic Airforces continue their struggle with the vastly superior Red Airforce. The Soviet Baltic Fleet meets the Estonian Navy in the Gulf on Finland and defeats them on the 15th.
September 18th 1933: A movement in the British Parliament led by former Secretary of the Navy Winston Churchill for intervention is easily defeated. Riga is heavily bombed and Alberts Kviesis is killed. Mackensen warns the Soviet Union that any war with Poland would be met with German intervention.
 
Thank you so much BenDaCoolGuy for making this! (Map of Baltic’s as of 9/18/33)
 

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nope not the 2nd, French wouldn't go for that
If you are referring to the loosening of german army restrictions, it was only by a small margin (like by 30,000 men.) The French were reluctant to agree to these terms but did due to British Pressure.
 
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