ABSTRACT
Hitler had come to power legally, though not democratically, as the chancellor of a government ruling by presidential decree under Article 48 of the Weimar constitution. To many observers at the time, in fact, Hitler's "Cabinet of National Concentration" seemed like just another of the stop-gap conservative governments that had ruled Germany since 1930, albeit one with greater popular support. Many of its supporters saw the new government not as a radical regime - to them Weimar was "radical" - but as a middle way between democracy and the kind of oldfashioned authoritarian regime to which Papen and Briining had wanted to return. Communist and SPD leaders, on the other hand, regarded the Nationalists as the true victors of 30 January. French and Polish officials, too, were less disturbed by Hitler's appointment than by Hugenberg's, whose economic imperialism seemed to present the greatest threat to the status quo at that time. 1
The National Socialists, however, had no intention of relinquishing power again. Like Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s, Hitler used the powers of his office to establish a one-party dictatorship. The task he faced was to consolidate absolute power while retaining the goodwill and cooperation of the professional, business, civil service, and military elites whose support he would continue to need to achieve his goal of national expansion. Hence he had to proceed with some circumspection lest he alienate his coalition partners, the Nationalists, and other conservative allies.
