862.00/2791
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
The German Ambassador told me what he had already said to the Secretary about the political situation in Germany.
I then asked him what he thought about the constantly repeated stories that the new German Government was a transition to a restoration of some form of a monarchy. He said with great vigor that there was nothing whatever in this story. I told him that a mere denial was not particularly satisfactory and asked him his reasons for thinking this. He said there were several good and sufficient reasons: one was the flat denial which had been instantly made in Germany [Page 299] officially when these stories began to be circulated; the second was that the Crown Prince is not particularly popular and that there was, in any case, exceedingly strong opposition to the Hohenzollerns as such; in the third place, as soon as this suggestion was made Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria had immediately reminded Germany that he was there and would make a good Emperor. This would immediately lead to disputes among the Monarchists; in the fourth place, the Ambassador said that if the Hitlerites should come out for a return of the monarchy, they would promptly lose two-thirds of their adherents; even without this he said that there was no danger of Hitler making any such move for the reason that the one strong and probably the one really good aspect of the Nazi policy was the unifying completely of the German Reich; the Hitlerites knew that if a Hohenzollern should be made Kaiser all the little princelings in the smaller States of Germany would want to be restored and that this would bring up all over again the various influences throughout the country which lead to lack of unity.
I told the Ambassador that his arguments seemed good and I hoped they were correct, since whether or not a monarchical form of government would be good for Germany, it would obviously create almost endless troubles in the neighboring States; I reminded the Ambassador that a few days ago he had told me that he thought the present Cabinet would be a very temporary affair, to be entirely rebuilt after the election, but that Mr. Sackett had told us that many people in the German Government believed that the Cabinet, with certain exceptions of course, would be likely to remain in power for a long time. The Ambassador said that this was, of course, possible, primarily for the reason that Hitler is not at all anxious to take over all the authority along with the responsibility of the Government and that it may well be that, even if he makes very large gains in the next election, he will prefer to carry on with a Nationalist Cabinet rather than a purely Nazi Cabinet. He thinks that Schleicher is probably the strongest man in the present Cabinet, but points out that Schleicher is a military man and, with the exception of Napoleon, history shows that military men have never been successful as politicians. He says that Neurath, whom he knows intimately, has, of course, always been politically associated with the parties of the Eight, but that he himself is a man of courage and liberal ideas who will not buckle down to any narrowly nationalistic party. He said that, if Hitler should secure an absolute majority in the next election, his Party might be forced to take over, but that he would do this the Ambassador very much doubted; he says he thinks that now at last there is a very clear issue before the German people and [Page 300] that the elections may bring out a far heavier Socialist vote than any one is expecting at the present time.