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Weimar Republic

“In January 1932, Groener told fellow army leaders that Hitler was a ‘modest, decent individual, with best intentions. In appearance the keen, self-taught type. … Intentions and aims of Hitler are good, but he is an enthusiast, ardent, diffuse. … The Nazis have to be justly treated, only excesses to be fought not the movement as such.’”

“In the army, von Schleicher was weighing up the possibilities of broadening the government by bringing in the Nazis, in an effort to ‘tame them’, and effecting a transition to a permanent authoritarian regime based on a strong President and backed by the army However, the first meeting in October 1931 between Hindenburg and Hitler, who was accompanied by Goering, did not go well. The 84-year-old Field Marshall took an instant dislike to Hitler, regarding him as an uneducated social upstart and referring to him afterwards with contempt as the ‘Bohemian corporal’.”

 


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