Canary in the Coal Mine - Day

Friday, February 13, 2015

2:21PM

"In his posthumously published memoirs Brüning claims, without support of contemporaneous documents, that he hit upon a last-ditch solution to prevent Hitler from taking power—restoring the Hohenzollern monarchy. He planned to persuade the Reichstag to cancel the 1932 presidential election and extend Hindenburg's term. He would have then had parliament proclaim a monarchy, with Hindenburg as regent. Upon Hindenburg's death, one of Crown Prince William's sons would have been invited to assume the throne. The restored monarchy would have been a British-style constitutional monarchy in which real power would have rested with the legislature. He managed to garner support from all of the major parties except the Nationalists, Communists and Nazis, making it very likely that the plan would get the two-thirds majority required for passage. The plan foundered, however, when Hindenburg, an old-line monarchist, refused to support restoration of the monarchy unless Emperor William II was called back from exile in the Netherlands. When Brüning tried to impress upon him that neither the Social Democrats nor the international community would accept any return of the deposed emperor, Hindenburg threw him out of his office."

(1 comment | comment on this)
Previous day (Calendar) Next day