This Day in World History

January 30, 1933 – Ending months of a political standoff and governmental paralysis, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. To many Germans, the move by the 76-year-old former Field Marshal seemed to signal the passing of leadership to a vigorous new leader. In fact, it presaged national catastrophe.

The prior March, Hindenburg had won the Presidential election, but had been unable to secure a majority over National Socialist (Nazi) leader Hitler or the Communist party. Through the following summer and fall, with Germany plunged into economic depression, the 14-year-old Weimar Republic became mired in successive elections with no majority winner and Hitler declaring that he would hold out for “all or nothing.”

By January, pressed by major business leaders such as the Krupps to accept the former WWI corporal as an alternative to Communist rule, and confident that only three Nazis among the 11 ministers would keep the shouting upstart in line, Hindenburg offered the Chancellor post to Hitler.

The 43-year-old leader, who had made no secret of his hatred for Jews and Communists in Mein Kampf, the fevered autobiography he had written while jailed for a failed coup attempt a decade before, took the oath of office at noon.

U.S. opinion varied widely on the events occurring in its former WWI foe.

Several newspapers, including the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, warned correctly that Hindenburg might find it harder than he expected to surround Hitler with sufficient conservatives to prevent his brown-shirted thugs from assuming total power.

On the other hand, the word from the American capital was that these fears were likely overblown. “Many authorities here believed his acquisition of power might be better for Germany and for Europe that the alleged menace of his shadow constantly hovering near power as it has for two years,” reported The Cleveland Press. “Experts based this belief on past events showing that so-called ‘radical’ groups usually moderated, once in power.”

Ah, yes…Those “experts.”