Hitler versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic

by Larry Eugene Jones

Overview

Hitler versus Hindenburg provides the first in-depth study of the titanic struggle between the two most dominant figures on the German Right in the last year before the establishment of the Third Reich. Although Hindenburg was reelected as Reich president by a comfortable margin, his authority was severely weakened by the fact that the vast majority of those who had supported his candidacy seven years earlier had switched their support to Hitler in 1932. What the two candidates shared in common, however, was that they both relied upon charisma to legitimate their claim to the leadership of the German nation. The increasing reliance upon charisma in the 1932 presidential elections greatly accelerated the delegitimation of the Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler's appointment as chancellor nine months later.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107022614
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/05/2016
Pages:	425
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Larry Eugene Jones is Professor of History at Canisius College, New York. After receiving his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1970, he held a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Bonn and a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Foundation at the University of the Ruhr in Bochum. His book, German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System, 1919–1933 (1988), received a prize from the German Studies Association as the best book in history and political science over the preceding two years. He has since received major grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the German Marshall Fund, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Philosophical Society, and the German Academic Exchange Service. He has edited and coedited a number of books, most recently The German Right in the Weimar Republic (2014).

Table of Contents

Prologue. Setting the stage; 1. Introducing the protagonists; 2. Hindenburg and the Brüning Gambit; 3. The road to Harzburg; 4. Parliamentary prelude; 5. Agonies of the national opposition; 6. The demise of Harzburg; 7. The Hindenburg offensive; 8. Disarray on the radical right; 9. Not one, but two elections; 10. End of the Brüning era; Epilogue. From Papen to Hitler.

Editorial Reviews

'Patient archival research, even-handedness, and attention to detail have characterized Larry Jones’s scholarship, and this book is no exception.' Shelly Baranowski, The Journal of Modern History

From the Publisher