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Extracted from 1933: The World Changes
The election of Ludwig Sternberg, leader of the Große Deutsch Nationalist Partei (GDNP), as Chancellor in 1933 proved to be one of the seminal events in world history. But before we discuss those elections, we must first discuss Mr. Sternberg's own character. He was tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed. He was a great orator, intensely patriotic and nationalistic but not easily given to racial hatreds. The only thing he cared about was patriotism and willingness 'to make Germany...a greater and better country'. He liked to present himself as Germany's saviour, and indeed, many saw him as a hope against the scourge of Communism, ironic given that he would later ally himself with the Soviet Union.

He was from Prussian stock and had fought as a Colonel in the Great War - he liked to present this 'war hero' aspect as a publicity technique. Indeed, he was a master of what later people would call 'spin'. He had written a manifesto of his general aims in 1920, just a year after the Treaty of Versailles, entitled
Deutschland den Krieg - Germany's War.

He was, in general, a skilled politician.

We must also discuss the historical background. With the brief existence of the Bavarian
Räterepublik and the Nazi Munich Coup (the Nazis disintegrated into a number of warring fringe far-right factions (which were eventually banned) after their leader died in the attempted Coup), Germany was in a precarious position. Ludwig was exactly what the Germans needed, a strong leader.

The elections showed a landslide victory for Hindenburg and Sternberg, as the records of the Greater German Republic show. With Hindenburg's death in late 1933, and with no suitable replacement, Sternberg decided, somewhat unwillingly (as his diaries attest), to take the President's power into his own hands and become both ranks in one
(Präsident und Reichskanzler) of Weimar Germany. A plebiscite was held, and this was accepted by the population. Elections for the new Präsident und Reichskanzler were to be held in 1940, but owing to the state of war at that time they were not held till the war's end in 1947, during which time Sternberg was essentially a supreme dictator.

He was to lead Germany's people to grand new heights.

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