Von Hindenburg Carries On
Stanch Old Field Marshal, in His First Four Months as President, Has Imparted Some of His Calmness to Germany's People and Politicians – His Official and Domestic Life
A September 1925 New York Times Magazine profile article about German President Paul von Hindenburg reads quite differently to modern eyes, with zero references to Hitler, whose rise to power was only a few years away.
The journalist Herman George Scheffauer described von Hindenburg, 78 at the time, as a “national hero” in Germany and a “half-legendary figure.”
[His] name has acquired a huge significance, associated with all the dark grandeur of the war [World War I], of faith in victory, of successes in the field.
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Those who enter his presence often prepare elaborate addresses. These usually shatter themselves against that imperturbable front, that snow-capped peak of a man. The deep bass voice comes sure and unhesitatingly and makes an immediate frontal attack upon the point at issue.
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His imperturbable iron assurance, his stony unshakable nerves are the result not only of Spartan training and of ancient traditions of caste and supremacy, but of a deeply rooted piety also; of a view of life and all human affairs based upon a belief in an ordered universe and in one sane, stern, and just Overseer of that universe.
So what was Hitler up to in September 1925?
He was already head of the Nazi Party, though it was far from the dominant party in Germany, only holding 3% of seats in the Reichstag at the time. (They wouldn’t earn a plurality of Reichstag seats until 1933, enabling Hitler to become chancellor.) Hitler’s failed coup of 1923 earned him about a year in prison, during which time he dictated his infamous manifesto Mein Kampf. In 1925, the book was published. Plus Germany’s ban on the Nazi Party was lifted that February.
As for Von Hinderburg? He would die nine years after this article’s publication, in 1934, during his second stint as president. Immediately afterwards, Hitler as chancellor abolished the position of president entirely, essentially making himself dictator.
Von Hindenburg Carries On: Stanch Old Field Marshal, in His First Four Months as President, Has Imparted Some of His Calmness to Germany's People and Politicians – His Official and Domestic Life
Published: Sunday, September 6, 1925