President Paul von Hindenburg last night informed Adolph Hitler that he could not consider him a candidate for Chancellor of Germany on other than a Parliamentary basis.
President von Hindenburg in his reply to the communication from the Nazi chieftain, made it clear that he fears lest Hitler use the extraordinary powers of Article 48 of the Constitution to create a party dictatorship.
The refusal of the Nazi chieftain’s plea for the Chancellorship and a government responsible not to the Reichstag but to the president was couched in the following terms, and put a formal end to the negotiations with Hitler.
“The President thanks you for your readiness to assume the conduct of a president Cabinet.
“He is of the opinion, however, that he could not justify himself before the German people if he gave his Presidential authority to the leader of a party that has ever and again emphasized its exclusiveness and that has generally taken an attitude of opposition to him personally as well as to the political and economic measures deemed needful by him.
“Under these circumstances the President must apprehend that a presidial Cabinet headed by you would perforce develop into a party dictatorship with consequent extreme intensification of the divisions within the German nation. The President could not square bringing about such consequences with his oath and conscience.
“Since in your conversations with the President, as well as in the conversation which, with the President’s knowledge, you had with Defense Minister von Schleicher yesterday, you emphatically refused, to the President’s lively regret, every other manner of coopera-tion within or outside a newly-formed government—indifferent as to how such might be headed—the President can see no prospect of success in a further written or oral airing of this question.
“Independently thereof, the President reiterates his declaration that his door is always open to you and that he will always be ready to hear your views on pending question, for he does not want to give up hope that in this way it may yet be possible in the course of time to win you and your movement over to cooperation with all the other constructively-minded elements of the nation.”
Spokesmen for the Nazis predicted that Hitler would be Chancellor within four months and stated that the Nazis would fight any government formed without their co-operation.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
