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Chicago Tribune
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Mall of America opens
Today is Monday, Aug. 11, the 223rd day of 2025. There are 142 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 11, 1992, the Mall of America, the nation's largest shopping and entertainment center, opened in Bloomington, Minnesota. Also on this date: In 1919, Germany's Weimar Constitution was signed by President Friedrich Ebert. In 1929, Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to reach 500 career home runs with a homer at Cleveland's League Park. In 1934, the first federal prisoners arrived at Alcatraz Island, a former military prison, in San Francisco Bay; the island would be home to more than 1,500 prisoners over the next three decades, including gangsters Al Capone and James 'Whitey' Bulger, before closing in 1963. In 1949, President Harry S. Truman nominated General Omar N. Bradley to become the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1952, Hussein bin Talal was proclaimed King of Jordan, beginning a reign lasting nearly 47 years. In 1956, abstract painter Jackson Pollock died in an automobile accident on Long Island, New York at age 44. In 1965, rioting that claimed 34 lives and lasted six days broke out in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. In 1972, the last U.S. ground combat troops in South Vietnam left to return to the United States. In 1973, at a house party in the Bronx, 18-year-old DJ Kool Herc began extending the musical breaks of the records he was playing and speaking over the beat, marking the (unofficial) birth of hip-hop music. In 1997, President Bill Clinton made the first use of the historic line-item veto, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills. (The U.S. Supreme Court later struck down the veto as unconstitutional.) In 2012, more than 300 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured after earthquakes struck near Tabriz, Iran. In 2014, Academy Award-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams died in Tiburon, California at age 63. Today's Birthdays: Magazine columnist Marilyn Vos Savant is 79. Country music singer John Conlee is 79. Computer scientist and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is 75. Musician Joe Jackson is 71. Playwright David Henry Hwang is 68. Journalist/commentator David Brooks is 64. Actor Viola Davis is 60. Actor Embeth Davidtz is 60. Actor-host Joe Rogan is 58. Actor Anna Gunn is 57. Actor Sophie Okonedo is 57. Rock guitarist Charlie Sexton is 57. Hip-hop artist Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest) is 55. Actor Will Friedle is 49. Rock singer Ben Gibbard is 49. Actor Merritt Wever is 45. Actor Chris Hemsworth is 42. Rapper Asher Roth is 40. Political commentator Tomi Lahren is 33. Actor Alyson Stoner is 32.
Boston Globe
31-07-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Today in History: Phelps sets Olympic medal record
In 1715, a fleet of Spanish ships carrying gold, silver, and jewelry sank during a hurricane off the east Florida coast; of some 2,500 crew members, more than 1,000 died. In 1775, 250 years ago, General George Washington ordered Major Benjamin Tupper to take 300 men and destroy Boston Light house. The men overwhelmed the British but the tides left them stranded on the island and vulnerable to British reinforcements. Nonetheless, the soldiers defeated the British a second time on the Little Brewster Island before returning to the mainland. In 1777, the 19-year-old Marquis de Lafayette received a commission as major general in the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress. Advertisement In 1919, Germany's Weimar Constitution was adopted by the republic's National Assembly. In 1945, Pierre Laval, premier of the pro-Nazi Vichy government in France, surrendered to US authorities in Austria; he was turned over to France, which later tried and executed him. In 1957, the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations designed to detect Soviet bombers approaching North America, went into operation. In 1964, the US lunar probe Ranger 7 took the first close-up images of the moon's surface. In 1971, Apollo 15 crew members David Scott and James Irwin became the first astronauts to use a lunar rover on the surface of the moon. In 1972, vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew from the Democratic ticket with George McGovern following disclosures that Eagleton had received electroshock therapy to treat clinical depression. Also that year, Massachusetts Correction Officer Alfred Baranowski and Correction Officer James Souza were shot and killed during an escape attempt by a convicted murderer from the Norfolk Prison. The state's maximum-security facility in Lancaster was named after them. In 1973, Delta Air Lines Flight 723 undershot the runway in Logan International Airport amid low visibility and collided with a sea wall. The crash, the worst commercial aviation disaster in New England, would eventually take the lives of all 89 people on board. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in Moscow. In 2012, at the Summer Olympics in London, swimmer Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal, becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time. (He would finish his career with 28 total Olympic medals, 23 of them gold.) Advertisement In 2020, a federal appeals court overturned the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, saying the judge who oversaw the case didn't adequately screen jurors for potential biases. (The Supreme Court reimposed the sentence in 2022.)
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hitler Used a Bogus Crisis of ‘Public Order' to Make Himself Dictator
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Adolf Hitler was a master of manufacturing public-security crises to advance his authoritarian agenda. He used inflammatory tactics and rhetoric to disable constitutional protections for the Weimar Republic's 17 federated states, crushing their leadership and imposing his will on the country. 'I myself was once a federalist during my time in the opposition,' Hitler told Hans Lex, a Reichstag delegate for the Bavarian People's Party, in mid-March 1933, 'but I have now come to the conviction that the Weimar constitution is fundamentally flawed.' Federalism, Hitler said, encouraged states to pursue local interests at the expense of the nation. 'The rest of the world watched in astonishment and glee as democratic leaders of the individual states, relying on the Weimar Constitution,' Hitler continued, 'did not hesitate to attack the Reich government in the fiercest way possible at public rallies, in the press and on the radio.' Hitler vowed to end the 'eternal battle' between the states and the central government by dismantling the federated system, crushing states' rights, and forging 'a unified will' for the nation. In a statement to the press, Hitler said that the imposition of central authority should be seen not as the 'raping' of state sovereignty but rather as the 'alignment' of state policies with the central government's. [Timothy W. Ryback: What the press got wrong about Hitler] Hitler had been more circumspect when he addressed the Reichsrat, a federal body of state representatives intended to monitor the relationship between the Reich and state governments, on Thursday, February 2, 1933, three days after his appointment as chancellor. The country's federated states, Hitler had said then, were the 'historic building blocks of the German nation.' He insisted that he had no intention of intruding on state sovereignty. He would assert Reich control only 'where absolutely necessary.' Three weeks later, on February 27, the Reichstag fire provided Hitler with the 'absolutely necessary' excuse he needed. Hitler claimed that an arson attack on the Reichstag by a lone perpetrator—who was caught in the act— was the start of an attempted Bolshevik revolution, using that false claim to suspend civil liberties and suppress the voting rights of the German Communist Party, thereby enabling his supporters in the Reichstag to pass legislation granting him authoritarian power. At Hitler's urging, President Paul von Hindenburg issued an Article 48 emergency decree, 'Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.' The first paragraph suspended civil liberties, providing Hitler the means to suppress political opposition in advance of the upcoming elections on March 5. The second paragraph gave Hitler the power to trample states' rights: 'If any state fails to take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, the Reich government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.' That second paragraph sent alarm bells clanging in state capitals across the country, nowhere louder than in Bavaria, where concern over state sovereignty had run high from the outset of Hitler's chancellorship. Heinrich Held, the minister president—the equivalent of a U.S. state governor—of Bavaria, the second-largest federated state after its neighbor Prussia, was among the Weimar Republic's fiercest states'-rights advocates. He had a jurist's keen eye for legal loopholes and political subterfuge. Though the Weimar constitution was lauded by legal experts as one of the most democratic and progressive of its time, Held considered it to be disquietingly unclear and pliable when it came to states' rights. In the emergency-powers provision of Article 48, he detected the 'seeds of dictatorship.' 'The developments in public affairs in Germany fill the Bavarian state government with grave concern,' Held had written to Hindenburg five days into Hitler's chancellorship. 'Based on what has been announced, it seems the relationship of the states to the Reich could undergo a significant change.' By 'developments in public affairs,' Held was referring to what had happened in Prussia the previous year. In July 1932, a Reich governor had been installed there, ostensibly to restore public order following street violence between communists and National Socialists. Prussia claimed that the Reich government had overreached, and took the matter to the Constitutional Court. Fearing what a ruling for the Reich would forebode for other federated states, Held had Bavaria join the lawsuit. State of Prussia v. Reich Government placed the high court in a precarious position not just judicially but also politically—the Reich governor's installation in Prussia was a fait accompli. If the judges ruled in favor of Prussia, the Reich could simply ignore the court. But the greater danger, Held feared, was that Hindenburg would exercise his Article 48 powers to invoke a constitutionally permissible 'Reich Execution' that would permit the army to impose central authority on a state. If Prussia were to resist such an imposition, a constitutional crisis could quickly devolve into civil war. On October 25, 1932, the court ruled that although Hindenburg had acted within his constitutional authority in installing a Reich governor, Prussia nonetheless still retained administrative control over its territory. The tangled ruling baffled legal experts and general observers alike. Vorwärts, the Social Democratic newspaper, wrote, 'Only the gods know how this situation can realistically be resolved.' Hitler resolved the situation rather bluntly: After taking office as chancellor, he simply dissolved the Prussian state government. Having watched the Reich government do this, Held now feared a similar intrusion—or worse—in Bavaria: At Hitler's first cabinet meeting as chancellor, he had considered deploying the army to quell public unrest. Hitler's defense minister informed the new chancellor that ordering German soldiers to shoot German citizens on German soil was unthinkable—the army was trained exclusively to fight an 'external enemy.' In his letter to Hindenberg, Held had reminded the German president of his solemn oath to uphold the democratic principles and federated structures of the Weimar constitution. 'The Bavarian state government places its trust in Your Excellency as protector of constitutional rights and of justice,' Held wrote. Hindenburg wrote back offering reassurance. 'Neither the Reich government nor I personally,' he wrote, 'are pursuing plans designed to eradicate the sovereignty of the federated states and to establish a centralized state.' Hindenburg added that he also had no intention of 'inserting Reich Governors into the business of state governments.' Still, rumors of Hitler's designs on Bavaria's sovereign authority persisted. [Timothy W. Ryback: How Hitler dismantled a democracy in 53 days] Two weeks later, Fritz Schäffer, the head of the Bavarian People's Party, traveled to Berlin to meet with Hindenburg and reiterate the state's concerns about Hitler's anti-federalist designs. Schäffer did not mince words. 'If the Reich sends a Reich governor to Bavaria, he will be arrested at the state border,' Schäffer told Hindenburg. Further, if Hitler's storm troopers attempted to stage a coup in Bavaria, Schäffer said, the state government would mobilize the Bavaria Watch, a state militia of 30,000 men that was aligned with the Bavarian People's Party. The Bavarian militia, battle-hardened by the Great War, Schäffer warned, would crush Hitler's ragtag bands of brownshirt storm troopers 'with ruthless force.' Hindenburg assured Schäffer that even if the state government were not politically aligned with the Reich, he had 'no intention of installing Reich governors in states where order prevails.' Hindenburg said that he valued 'Bavaria and the Bavarian people and would avoid anything that would bring Bavaria into conflict with the Reich.' Ten days later, the Reichstag fire and ensuing emergency decree scrambled the constitutional calculus. A day after Hindenburg exercised his Article 48 authority, Heinrich Held was in Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. The Bavarian minister president informed the Reich chancellor in no uncertain terms that his federated state did not require Reich assistance in maintaining public order. After an hour and a half, Held emerged, with Hitler's assurance 'that there will be no use of paragraph two against states in which, like Bavaria, law and order are maintained by state authorities.' The March 5 Reichstag elections delivered Hitler 44 percent of the electorate and with that a claim on political power at every level of government. The next day, 200,000 National Socialist brownshirts stormed state and municipal offices across the country. Swastika banners draped town halls. Civil servants were thrown from their desks. But not in Bavaria. Held's solid block of more than 1 million voters, along with the threat of armed resistance by the Bavaria Watch, gave Hitler pause. So did Schäffer's threat to call on Bavaria's Prince Rupprecht to reestablish monarchical rule. Hitler huddled with his lieutenants to frame a strategy for Bavaria. Storm troopers would stage public disturbances, triggering a response under paragraph two of Article 48, enabling Hitler to suspend the Held government, and install a Reich governor in its place. Three days after the election, on Wednesday, March 8, Held was in his office when he heard Hitler storm troopers singing the Nazi Party anthem in a public square. Shortly before noon, three Hitler lieutenants—Ernst Röhm, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolf Wagner—all in brown uniforms and jackboots, stomped into Held's office. Noting the 'protesting' Nazi storm troopers outside Held's office—staged there per Hitler's secret decree—Röhm expressed concern about public safety, and demanded that Held agree to install a Reich governor. Wagner slapped a whip across Held's desk. Held rose to his feet. He informed the three men that, as minister president, he needed to consult his cabinet. Wagner demanded an answer by noon. Held refused. 'Noon is lunchtime,' he is reputed to have said. 'I never make decisions at lunchtime.' By the time Hitler's lieutenants reconvened with Held, at 3:40 that afternoon, this time in the company of a prospective Reich governor, Franz von Epp, Held had conferred with his cabinet. 'The Bavarian government is fully capable of maintaining peace and public order on its own,' he said, adding that he would not be coerced or intimidated. That evening, Held telegraphed Hindenburg. He requested support from Reichswehr Division VII, garrisoned in Munich, in case the National Socialists staged a coup. Hindenburg declined to help. That Friday, Franz von Epp made his first public appearance as Bavaria's Reich governor. Armed storm troopers swarmed state administrative offices. Still, Held didn't budge. A pair of Nazi storm troopers, intended to intimidate the intransigent minister president, were posted outside Held's office, rifles slung over their shoulders. [Timothy W. Ryback: The oligarchs who came to regret supporting Hitler] That weekend, Hitler flew south to try to resolve the crisis personally. He summoned Hans Lex, the Reichstag delegate who now headed the Bavaria Watch militia. Hitler told Lex he wanted to discuss, in confidence, a potential coalition. Lex cautioned Hitler that the degree to which the Bavarian People's Party would be willing to cooperate with the National Socialists was limited. For instance, Lex said, he could in good conscience imagine placing '1,000 Social Democratic functionaries' in protective custody—but only so long as they were detained within the parameters of the law and were 'treated humanely.' However, 'one could not,' Lex continued, 'align with Christian values, for example, a terrorist action that saw political opponents randomly snatched and thrown up against a wall.' Lex assured Hitler that Minister President Held had matters in Bavaria well in hand, and he explained that, having won more than 1 million votes in the latest election, Held represented 'a solid and unshakable' political force, supported by the martial force of the 30,000 armed men of the Bavaria Watch. Unable to close a deal, Hitler returned to Berlin. But Hitler didn't need a deal. Instead, he unleashed his own storm troopers—both the SA and the SS—on Bavaria. The Bavaria Watch did not mobilize. Prince Rupprecht did not intervene. Fritz Schäffer was accosted and beaten on the street, then hustled to the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich for interrogation. Held was forced from his official residence, and his family was threatened; eventually, he was forced to flee to Switzerland. With Held gone, the Reich governor assumed full authority over Bavaria. 'With the führer at midday when we receive the latest news from Munich,' Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary on March 15. 'There can no longer be talk of resistance anywhere.' The New York Times reported that Hitler's efforts to 'steamroller' the country on his path to unchecked power were proving successful. The ironies of history can be multilayered. Heinrich Held understood the threat that Hitler posed to democracy long before most people had ever heard of National Socialism or its leader. And a decade earlier, at a moment when Hitler was effectively a stateless immigrant in Germany, Held had been unable to deport him from the country. In September 1924, the warden of Landsberg Prison, where Hitler was serving a five-year sentence for his failed Beer Hall Putsch, reported that incarceration had done nothing to temper the Nazi leader's authoritarian impulses. If anything, he wrote, Hitler had grown 'more mature, calmer, more calculating in his convictions.' 'There is no doubt that Hitler, after his release from the detention facility will return to political life,' the warden cautioned. 'He will seek to revive the nationalist movement according to his vision.' Held, then newly installed as minister president of Bavaria, moved to action. He prepared for Hitler's immediate deportation to his Austrian homeland upon release from prison. A Bavarian delegation was dispatched to Vienna to discuss the handover, only to be told that the Austrians would under no circumstances allow the return of their native son. Vienna argued that Hitler had forfeited his Austrian citizenship as a result of his service in a Bavarian regiment. 'Hitler is considered as stateless, and as a result of the refusal by Austria to receive him, his deportation is no longer possible,' Held lamented in an internal memorandum. 'The government fears nonetheless that incarceration has in no way sobered or calmed Hitler, rather compelled him to continue to pursue his goals with undiminished energy.' Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Hitler's Bogus Crisis of ‘Public Order'
Adolf Hitler was a master of manufacturing public-security crises to advance his authoritarian agenda. He used inflammatory tactics and rhetoric to disable constitutional protections for the Weimar Republic's 17 federated states, crushing their leadership and imposing his will on the country. 'I myself was once a federalist during my time in the opposition,' Hitler told Hans Lex, a Reichstag delegate for the Bavarian People's Party, in mid-March 1933, 'but I have now come to the conviction that the Weimar constitution is fundamentally flawed.' Federalism, Hitler said, encouraged states to pursue local interests at the expense of the nation. 'The rest of the world watched in astonishment and glee as democratic leaders of the individual states, relying on the Weimar Constitution,' Hitler continued, 'did not hesitate to attack the Reich government in the fiercest way possible at public rallies, in the press and on the radio.' Hitler vowed to end the 'eternal battle' between the states and the central government by dismantling the federated system, crushing states' rights, and forging 'a unified will' for the nation. In a statement to the press, Hitler said that the imposition of central authority should be seen not as the 'raping' of state sovereignty but rather as the 'alignment' of state policies with the central government's. Timothy W. Ryback: What the press got wrong about Hitler Hitler had been more circumspect when he addressed the Reichsrat, a federal body of state representatives intended to monitor the relationship between the Reich and state governments, on Thursday, February 2, 1933, three days after his appointment as chancellor. The country's federated states, Hitler had said then, were the 'historic building blocks of the German nation.' He insisted that he had no intention of intruding on state sovereignty. He would assert Reich control only 'where absolutely necessary.' Three weeks later, on February 27, the Reichstag fire provided Hitler with the 'absolutely necessary' excuse he needed. Hitler claimed that an arson attack on the Reichstag by a lone perpetrator—who was caught in the act— was the start of an attempted Bolshevik revolution, using that false claim to suspend civil liberties and suppress the voting rights of the German Communist Party, thereby enabling his supporters in the Reichstag to pass legislation granting him authoritarian power. At Hitler's urging, President Paul von Hindenburg issued an Article 48 emergency decree, 'Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.' The first paragraph suspended civil liberties, providing Hitler the means to suppress political opposition in advance of the upcoming elections on March 5. The second paragraph gave Hitler the power to trample states' rights: 'If any state fails to take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, the Reich government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.' That second paragraph sent alarm bells clanging in state capitals across the country, nowhere louder than in Bavaria, where concern over state sovereignty had run high from the outset of Hitler's chancellorship. Heinrich Held, the minister president—the equivalent of a U.S. state governor—of Bavaria, the second-largest federated state after its neighbor Prussia, was among the Weimar Republic's fiercest states'-rights advocates. He had a jurist's keen eye for legal loopholes and political subterfuge. Though the Weimar constitution was lauded by legal experts as one of the most democratic and progressive of its time, Held considered it to be disquietingly unclear and pliable when it came to states' rights. In the emergency-powers provision of Article 48, he detected the 'seeds of dictatorship.' 'The developments in public affairs in Germany fill the Bavarian state government with grave concern,' Held had written to Hindenburg five days into Hitler's chancellorship. 'Based on what has been announced, it seems the relationship of the states to the Reich could undergo a significant change.' By 'developments in public affairs,' Held was referring to what had happened in Prussia the previous year. In July 1932, a Reich governor had been installed there, ostensibly to restore public order following street violence between communists and National Socialists. Prussia claimed that the Reich government had overreached, and took the matter to the Constitutional Court. Fearing what a ruling for the Reich would forebode for other federated states, Held had Bavaria join the lawsuit. State of Prussia v. Reich Government placed the high court in a precarious position not just judicially but also politically—the Reich governor's installation in Prussia was a fait accompli. If the judges ruled in favor of Prussia, the Reich could simply ignore the court. But the greater danger, Held feared, was that Hindenburg would exercise his Article 48 powers to invoke a constitutionally permissible 'Reich Execution' that would permit the army to impose central authority on a state. If Prussia were to resist such an imposition, a constitutional crisis could quickly devolve into civil war. On October 25, 1932, the court ruled that although Hindenburg had acted within his constitutional authority in installing a Reich governor, Prussia nonetheless still retained administrative control over its territory. The tangled ruling baffled legal experts and general observers alike. Vorwärts, the Social Democratic newspaper, wrote, 'Only the gods know how this situation can realistically be resolved.' Hitler resolved the situation rather bluntly: After taking office as chancellor, he simply dissolved the Prussian state government. Having watched the Reich government do this, Held now feared a similar intrusion—or worse—in Bavaria: At Hitler's first cabinet meeting as chancellor, he had considered deploying the army to quell public unrest. Hitler's defense minister informed the new chancellor that ordering German soldiers to shoot German citizens on German soil was unthinkable—the army was trained exclusively to fight an 'external enemy.' In his letter to Hindenberg, Held had reminded the German president of his solemn oath to uphold the democratic principles and federated structures of the Weimar constitution. 'The Bavarian state government places its trust in Your Excellency as protector of constitutional rights and of justice,' Held wrote. Hindenburg wrote back offering reassurance. 'Neither the Reich government nor I personally,' he wrote, 'are pursuing plans designed to eradicate the sovereignty of the federated states and to establish a centralized state.' Hindenburg added that he also had no intention of 'inserting Reich Governors into the business of state governments.' Still, rumors of Hitler's designs on Bavaria's sovereign authority persisted. Timothy W. Ryback: How Hitler dismantled a democracy in 53 days Two weeks later, Fritz Schäffer, the head of the Bavarian People's Party, traveled to Berlin to meet with Hindenburg and reiterate the state's concerns about Hitler's anti-federalist designs. Schäffer did not mince words. 'If the Reich sends a Reich governor to Bavaria, he will be arrested at the state border,' Schäffer told Hindenburg. Further, if Hitler's storm troopers attempted to stage a coup in Bavaria, Schäffer said, the state government would mobilize the Bavaria Watch, a state militia of 30,000 men that was aligned with the Bavarian People's Party. The Bavarian militia, battle-hardened by the Great War, Schäffer warned, would crush Hitler's ragtag bands of brownshirt storm troopers 'with ruthless force.' Hindenburg assured Schäffer that even if the state government were not politically aligned with the Reich, he had 'no intention of installing Reich governors in states where order prevails.' Hindenburg said that he valued 'Bavaria and the Bavarian people and would avoid anything that would bring Bavaria into conflict with the Reich.' Ten days later, the Reichstag fire and ensuing emergency decree scrambled the constitutional calculus. A day after Hindenburg exercised his Article 48 authority, Heinrich Held was in Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. The Bavarian minister president informed the Reich chancellor in no uncertain terms that his federated state did not require Reich assistance in maintaining public order. After an hour and a half, Held emerged, with Hitler's assurance 'that there will be no use of paragraph two against states in which, like Bavaria, law and order are maintained by state authorities.' The March 5 Reichstag elections delivered Hitler 44 percent of the electorate and with that a claim on political power at every level of government. The next day, 200,000 National Socialist brownshirts stormed state and municipal offices across the country. Swastika banners draped town halls. Civil servants were thrown from their desks. But not in Bavaria. Held's solid block of more than 1 million voters, along with the threat of armed resistance by the Bavaria Watch, gave Hitler pause. So did Schäffer's threat to call on Bavaria's Prince Rupprecht to reestablish monarchical rule. Hitler huddled with his lieutenants to frame a strategy for Bavaria. Storm troopers would stage public disturbances, triggering a response under paragraph two of Article 48, enabling Hitler to suspend the Held government, and install a Reich governor in its place. Three days after the election, on Wednesday, March 8, Held was in his office when he heard Hitler storm troopers singing the Nazi Party anthem in a public square. Shortly before noon, three Hitler lieutenants—Ernst Röhm, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolf Wagner—all in brown uniforms and jackboots, stomped into Held's office. Noting the 'protesting' Nazi storm troopers outside Held's office—staged there per Hitler's secret decree—Röhm expressed concern about public safety, and demanded that Held agree to install a Reich governor. Wagner slapped a whip across Held's desk. Held rose to his feet. He informed the three men that, as minister president, he needed to consult his cabinet. Wagner demanded an answer by noon. Held refused. 'Noon is lunchtime,' he is reputed to have said. 'I never make decisions at lunchtime.' By the time Hitler's lieutenants reconvened with Held, at 3:40 that afternoon, this time in the company of a prospective Reich governor, Franz von Epp, Held had conferred with his cabinet. 'The Bavarian government is fully capable of maintaining peace and public order on its own,' he said, adding that he would not be coerced or intimidated. That evening, Held telegraphed Hindenburg. He requested support from Reichswehr Division VII, garrisoned in Munich, in case the National Socialists staged a coup. Hindenburg declined to help. That Friday, Franz von Epp made his first public appearance as Bavaria's Reich governor. Armed storm troopers swarmed state administrative offices. Still, Held didn't budge. A pair of Nazi storm troopers, intended to intimidate the intransigent minister president, were posted outside Held's office, rifles slung over their shoulders. Timothy W. Ryback: The oligarchs who came to regret supporting Hitler That weekend, Hitler flew south to try to resolve the crisis personally. He summoned Hans Lex, the Reichstag delegate who now headed the Bavaria Watch militia. Hitler told Lex he wanted to discuss, in confidence, a potential coalition. Lex cautioned Hitler that the degree to which the Bavarian People's Party would be willing to cooperate with the National Socialists was limited. For instance, Lex said, he could in good conscience imagine placing '1,000 Social Democratic functionaries' in protective custody—but only so long as they were detained within the parameters of the law and were 'treated humanely.' However, 'one could not,' Lex continued, 'align with Christian values, for example, a terrorist action that saw political opponents randomly snatched and thrown up against a wall.' Lex assured Hitler that Minister President Held had matters in Bavaria well in hand, and he explained that, having won more than 1 million votes in the latest election, Held represented 'a solid and unshakable' political force, supported by the martial force of the 30,000 armed men of the Bavaria Watch. Unable to close a deal, Hitler returned to Berlin. But Hitler didn't need a deal. Instead, he unleashed his own storm troopers—both the SA and the SS—on Bavaria. The Bavaria Watch did not mobilize. Prince Rupprecht did not intervene. Fritz Schäffer was accosted and beaten on the street, then hustled to the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich for interrogation. Held was forced from his official residence, and his family was threatened; eventually, he was forced to flee to Switzerland. With Held gone, the Reich governor assumed full authority over Bavaria. 'With the führer at midday when we receive the latest news from Munich,' Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary on March 15. 'There can no longer be talk of resistance anywhere.' The New York Times reported that Hitler's efforts to 'steamroller' the country on his path to unchecked power were proving successful. The ironies of history can be multilayered. Heinrich Held understood the threat that Hitler posed to democracy long before most people had ever heard of National Socialism or its leader. And a decade earlier, at a moment when Hitler was effectively a stateless immigrant in Germany, Held had been unable to deport him from the country. In September 1924, the warden of Landsberg Prison, where Hitler was serving a five-year sentence for his failed Beer Hall Putsch, reported that incarceration had done nothing to temper the Nazi leader's authoritarian impulses. If anything, he wrote, Hitler had grown 'more mature, calmer, more calculating in his convictions.' 'There is no doubt that Hitler, after his release from the detention facility will return to political life,' the warden cautioned. 'He will seek to revive the nationalist movement according to his vision.' Held, then newly installed as minister president of Bavaria, moved to action. He prepared for Hitler's immediate deportation to his Austrian homeland upon release from prison. A Bavarian delegation was dispatched to Vienna to discuss the handover, only to be told that the Austrians would under no circumstances allow the return of their native son. Vienna argued that Hitler had forfeited his Austrian citizenship as a result of his service in a Bavarian regiment. 'Hitler is considered as stateless, and as a result of the refusal by Austria to receive him, his deportation is no longer possible,' Held lamented in an internal memorandum. 'The government fears nonetheless that incarceration has in no way sobered or calmed Hitler, rather compelled him to continue to pursue his goals with undiminished energy.'
