Hindenburg dies in early 1932--Eckener for Reich President?

"It was symptomatic of the agony in which the republican system found itself that no effort was made on the part of the more moderate political parties to nominate a candidate with a clearly identifiable party profile. For a while the SPD's Carl Severing considered nominating Hugo Eckener, who was widely known as captain of the airship Graf Zeppelin and was known to be a moderate liberal, but he changed his mind when the Hindenburg solution presented itself. The idea that the Reich president must not be a party politician was tacitly accepted by a majority of Germany's political parties This, in turn, reflected the pervasive antiparliamentary sentiments that now embraced even the parties of the bourgeois Left..." Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, p. 405. https://books.google.com/books?id=My6VNpvQlYIC&pg=PA405

POD: Hindenburg dies in early 1932. Eckener-Hitler presidential race? Eckener might get less conservative support than Hindenburg (though even Hindenburg had lost much of his right-wing support from 1925 and was now in 1932 dependent on the Weimar parties that had opposed him in 1925) but Hindenburg's majority over Hitler was large enough (over sixteen percentage points) that Eckener could lose a fair number of Hindenburg voters and still win. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_presidential_election,_1932

If Eckener wins, he is not likely to appoint Hitler Chancellor. "Eckener did not make any secret of his dislike of the Nazis..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Eckener
 
Haha, that PoD is EXACTLY what I used for my old Airship President Timeline. Granted, my motivation for that was to "save" the Zeppelins.

You're right, Eckener did not like the Nazis. Honestly, his survival during their rule is due in no small part to his international fame and his lack of more concrete anti-Nazi action. He was just outspoken in his dislike, as opposed to actively resisting. He was sidelined by the Nazis and largely lost control of the Zeppelins by like 1935 (I think, or it may have been in 1936...I'm a little fuzzy on some of those details now).

Now, I'm honestly not sure Eckener would have run, even if he were approached by the SPD or Zentrum. He was really devoted to the Zeppelin program. If he did, I find it highly unlikely that he would have appointed Hitler as Chancellor, unless there was a lot of pressure from those already in government to do so.

I think that if Eckener wins the election (which would be closer than the Hindenburg - Hitler race was OTL, but I think he would win), things might get chaotic for a bit with the Nazis. The SA might get more radical and we might see some sort of attempt at a coup. But I don't know that I would bet money on it being successful. For one thing, in the March 1933 election, after Hitler was already chancellor, the Nazis only won 33% of the vote in the Reichstag. There are plenty of conservatives who wouldn't support a coup, and I don't think the Army would either.

I do think things would be more unstable in Germany for a while. It's possibly that the Reichswehr might step in and have a coup and maybe restore the Monarchy if things get too crazy. In my TL I have things stabilize by like 1934 or 1935.
 
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