Representatives of the Old Order

In 1932, the last year of the Weimar Republic, political jokes began to circulate at an ever-increasing rate. Many centred on the President. In office since 1925, he stood for re-election in March 1932 and on that occasion just failed to get the absolute majority required by the constitution; a month later a second election resulted in an absolute majority for the old President. Hindenburg was then nearly eighty-five years old. By the majority of German moderates he was remembered from the war as a venerable father-figure, ¹ but by some merely as a man of average ability inexplicably elevated to mythological greatness, ² or as less a man than a national monument, ³ or even, in stark contrast to both these images, as a ‘Zero paving the way for Nero.’ ⁴ 2 Hitler – a German fate https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203211601/c1138f99-3ec8-4fab-aa83-3a9fa55b8723/content/fig1_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> 3 Potsdam, 21 March 1933 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203211601/c1138f99-3ec8-4fab-aa83-3a9fa55b8723/content/fig1_2_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>