B. AS EX-REICH CHANCELLOR AND PROMINENT POLITICAL LEADER, VON PAPEN USED HIS PERSONAL INFLUENCE TO PROMOTE THE ACCESSION OF THE NAZIS TO POWER.
(1) When von Papen began these efforts he was well aware of the Nazi program and Nazi methods. The official NSDAP program was open and notorious. For many years it had been published and republished in the Yearbook of the NSDAP and elsewhere. The Nazis made no secret of their intention to make it the fundamental law of the State. The first three points of this program forecast a foreign policy predicated upon the absorption of “Germanic” populations outside the boundaries of the Reich, the abrogation of Versailles treaty limitations, and the acquisition of “Lebensraum.” Points 4 to 8 foretold the ruthless elimination of the Jews, and the 25th point demanded “unlimited authority” of the central regime over the entire Reich as a means “for the execution of all this” (1708-PS).
Hitler and the other leaders of the Party repeatedly reiterated these views before 1933. Hitler himself subsequently pointed out that there was no excuse for misinterpreting Nazi intentions:
“When I came to power in 1933, our path lay unmistakably before us. Our internal policy had been, exactly defined by our fifteen-year-old struggle. Our program, repeated a thousand times, obligated us to the German people. I should be a man without honor, worthy of being stoned, had I retracted a single step of the program I then enunciated * * *”
* * * * * *
“My foreign policy had identical aims. My program was to abolish the Treaty of Versailles. It is futile nonsense for the rest of the world to pretend today that I did not reveal this program until 1933 or 1935 or 1937. Instead of listening to the foolish chatter of emigres, these gentlemen would have been wiser to read what I have written thousands of times.” (2541-PS)
Hitler and other Nazi leaders repeatedly made clear their willingness to use force if necessary to achieve their purposes. They glorified war. Mein Kampf is replete with early evidence of such intentions, which subsequently were reaffirmed from time to time in the years preceding 1933 (D-660; 2771-PS; 2512-PS).
The Nazi leaders prior to 1933 had openly declared their intentions to subvert democratic processes as a means to achieve their purposes, and to this end to harass and embarrass democratic forces at every turn. Thus Hitler himself had declared that,
“We shall become members of all constitutional bodies, and in this manner make the Party the decisive factor. Of course, when we possess all constitutional rights we shall then mould the State into the form we consider to be the right one.” (2512-PS)
Frick, writing in the National Socialist Yearbook, declared: