862.00/3017

The Chargé in Germany (Gordon) to the Acting Secretary of State

[Extracts]
No. 2498

Sir: I have the honor to refer to my telegram 107 of this date and, in amplification thereof, to report as follows.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dr. Brüning and Treviranus were able to keep their postponed engagement to dine alone with me last night. The former was profoundly disturbed by the recent events and especially by the apathetic attitude evinced by President von Hindenburg and his immediate entourage. Brüning and Treviranus stated that two nights ago S.A. bands had taken aggressive action against various Junker neighbors of the President, who is at his summer estate of Neudeck in East Prussia, of such a nature that it could only be interpreted as being in the nature of a veritable challenge and of wanting to see how far they could go. The President had done nothing whatever about it, and Brüning felt that this was a clear indication that he had lost his grip and that it could now no longer be expected that he might rouse himself to make an appeal [Page 235] to the people or to call upon the Reichswehr to repress Nazi acts of lawlessness. In fact, Brüning made it clear that he had been forced to the conclusion that an abdication in the comparatively near future was a possibility that had definitely to be faced—a conclusion with which, I regret to say, I agree.

Brüning had hitherto always had the hope that if the worst came to the worst the day could be saved by means of Presidential action but he now feels that this hope is no longer justified and that in a very brief while the possibility of such action, even if the will were there to call it forth, will have vanished.

I should here observe that at different times in the past weeks and months other opponents of the Nazi régime, of various shades of political allegiance, have expressed similar views to me. I could not therefore help being impressed with the fact that while they all were proving themselves incapable of achieving any sort of unity to defend themselves against the common enemy and oppressor—and instead were all fatalistically, in the face of freshly accumulating adverse facts, clinging to what in their inmost hearts they must have considered at best a faint hope—the Nazis, resolute and ruthless, and knowing just what they wanted, had every day been coming nearer to the point of rendering the materialization of that hope impossible.

Aside from the information thus given me by Dr. Brüning, I have had corroborative information in this connection: for instance, the Stahlhelm Guard (you are of course aware that President von Hindenburg is the Honorary President of that organization) at Neudeck has just recently been disbanded and replaced by an S.A. detachment, without asking the President’s leave or consent and without, according to my informant, his doing anything about it.

It is quite apparent, in spite of recent press speculations to the contrary, that under present conditions there is no possibility of Dr. Brüning being included in the Hitler Cabinet. In fact, Dr. Brüning indicated clearly that his own arrest and imprisonment in the comparatively near future would come as no surprise to him. By the same token, he could not be other than anxious about the immediate future of the Center Party, though—being the man of splendid moral courage which you are well aware he is—he of course would not consider resigning his newly accepted leadership of the Party or seeking to leave the country.

I gathered from Dr. Brüning that in his view the aggressive leaders in the Nazi Party, representing the S.A. as well as the other nonmilitarized lawless and communistic elements in the Party, would always by their determined persistence prevail over Hitler in the long run; that is to say that even if on various occasions he should succeed in resisting [Page 236] their revolutionary incitations on one ground or another, they would unremittingly return to the charge until at last he would capitulate and agree to such illegal action as they might have in mind at the moment.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Respectfully yours,

George A. Gordon