S8 Ep549: 3. Ryback explains how the Reichstag became gridlocked after Hitler refused to join a coalition. The Nazis intentionally paralyzed legislation to break the democratic system. Hermann Göring, a distinguished war hero, served as Reichstag President, while H

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This is CBS Eye in the World.

I'm John Bachelor.

Timothy Rodback is here, take over his book,

Hitler's Final Rise to Power.

It is August 30th, 1932.

Hitler has refused to join a coalition.

The Reichstag still meeting.

My name Poppin is the Chancellor,

but the Reichstag is destined to be dissolved.

Remember, Hindenburg has the power to appoint

chancellors and to dissolve the Reichstag,

and also to be a dictator, a one-man rule in between, if he wishes.

But it's important to understand that

Hindenburg has been in office a long time now.

They asked him to stay after his first term,

and he stood against Hitler in the spring of 32,

and one by five million votes.

He's extremely popular,

but he no longer goes to the office much.

He stays in his family grounds in Norbeck.

And on August 30th, he's not at the Reichstag in Berlin.

He's meeting with his lieutenants at his ancestral home.

At the Reichstag, however, there's drama underway,

not least because there is no majority.

And Tim, without a majority, the Reichstag is aware

that it can't rule the country,

that it can't pass any legislation.

You have a list of how many times Hindenburg has had to use his power

under the 48th article of the Constitution

to issue an order because the Reichstag can't dissolve anything.

What is the general opinion at this point of Germany of the Reichstag?

That it's unnecessary, that it's broken, that it can be fixed,

that democracy is ungainly?

We know Hitler hates democracy and wants to destroy it,

and has said he'll destroy it with its own weapons.

What is the general opinion in Germany of how democracy is working

after replacing the monarchy?

Actually, for all the flaws of the Reichstag,

the Reichstag basically functioned very well for the first 12 years.

I mean, they passed laws.

There's the crazy inflation in 1924.

You have the market crash in 1929.

You have all these financial strains.

You have a lot of social tension, political unrest.

But the Reichstag as a functioning structure

for the democratic process worked fairly well.

What happened was when Hindenburg refused to appoint Hitler as chancellor,

because Hitler was all or nothing, he said, okay,

well, if I can't be chancellor, I'm going to break the legislative system

and I'll play obstructionist politics.

Now, they had 37% of the votes, you know, 230 seats

out of the 600-plus seats in the Reichstag,

and without the Nazis agreeing to vote on legislation,

nothing could go through.

So they basically decided to gridlock

and paralyze the legislative process.

And the idea was to break it then.

This was active, it wasn't passive.

No, please.

I was going to say Joseph Goebbels,

who was one of Hitler's first delegates in the Reichstag,

said explicitly, the funniest thing

or the craziest thing about democracy

is that they give its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction.

And so the National Socialists saw

when they got into the Reichstag,

they did not come in, as Goebbels said,

we don't come as friends, we don't come as neutrals,

we come as your mortal enemies,

and they entered the house with the intention of burning it down.

There are competing parties present at this moment.

There's the German, let me see if I get them all right.

There's the N.S.D.A.P., the National Socialists.

There's the German Nationalists, there's the center party.

There's the German parties, my notes is scrambled here.

There's several competing forces.

And they don't...

Then the Social Democrats will emerge here for us.

And then they're the Communists.

And they're all negotiating with each other all the time

in a confrontational fashion.

It doesn't look like anybody wants to work with anybody else.

I understand that.

It's familiar in democracy.

And that's a frustration.

And so they're going through this motion of organizing

the Reichstag on August 30th.

And do they know at this time

that they're going to be dissolved

because they can't form a coalition.

They have a certain amount of time.

As they meet, do they know that they're going to have to call

another election?

Or is that a surprise to them?

They don't...

Well, I think Chipler's goal,

when he tells his delegates this,

they meet before they go into the first meeting in the Reichstag.

And they are going to make sure

that this Reichstag is dysfunctional.

They're going to gridlock it with their 37 percent.

All right.

And now, surprising to me,

is that the President of the Reichstag,

sitting in the high seat over this vast room,

is Herman Gering.

What is Herman Gering's reputation at this point?

And is he one of the Hitler rights?

Is he somewhere in between Hitler and Prussia?

How does Germany think of Herman Gering?

We know him as something of a buffoon in tailored uniforms.

We don't know him as a hero.

Yeah, Herman Gering was at that point

a war hero.

He had been a flying ace during the First World War.

We know Baron von Rischdolphin's favorite famous flying circus.

Gering had actually, after Rischdolphin had died,

Gering had taken over the flying circus.

He had won the blue max,

which is simply the highest military honor you could have.

So he was a distinguished,

had a distinguished military career.

He was well connected in the elite circles in Germany.

He did work closely with Hitler.

He was one of Hitler's closest lieutenants.

But in terms of social standing,

I mean, you have here, Herman Gering,

this eminent,

roadfully eminent figure,

working with this former Austrian,

this Austrian corporal,

and fanatic.

So Gering was played a very important role,

and you could say was a man of distinction.

He was a distinguished gentleman at that time.

And his status in Berlin was way above Hitler's.

You present Hitler moving between Munich and Berlin.

We'll mention the Brown Houses in Munich.

That was the headquarters of the Nazi party at this point.

As they went from 19 to 6 million,

whatever their number is, 13 million,

and a secret to the essay that Tim reveals is they paid them.

This is the depression,

and a little bit of money and a brown shirt went a long way

for self-esteem throughout Germany.

But the Brown House in Munich was their headquarters.

They also came back and forth to Berlin.

I think it's the Hotel Kaiserhof,

which is Hitler's headquarters

in apartment in Berlin at the end of Wilhelm's tracet.

So Gering moves easily in the Berlin circles,

but Hitler would strike me as a man

who was awkward around in the royalty.

Is that correct?

I think by then, I mean, Hitler never felt completely at ease,

but he, I think, he brought a belligerence

and a determination.

He was out to destroy these people.

So when he was in there, he never acted

as if he was intimidated by them.

There was a defiance.

There was a belligerence to it.

You mentioned the Hotel Kaiserhof,

the important thing about that,

and that was in the Wilhelm's tracet.

It was literally across the street

from the Reich's Chancellor.

So Hitler could look out his window

and see the Reich's Chancellor.

And I think that choice of location

was, you know, was a clear expression

of Hitler's intent, his ultimate intent.

The Reichstag is dissolved by order.

The new election is called for November 6,

and when we come back,

Hitler, Oberdeutschland, again,

the book is takeover,

Hitler's final rise to power,

Timothy Rodack, to see author.

Stay tuned for more of CBS,

I On The World, with John Bachelorette.

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