Not many imps of spleen and spite have ever gotten under the armored skin of President von Hindenburg. But once a little clubfoot in his Nazi newsorgan taunted Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg with age, attacked him under the headline IS VON HINDENBURG STILL ALIVE?, charged without a scrap of evidence that "his advisers are Jews and Marxists." That was in 1930. The President, stung to rage as never before, brought suit and was awarded 800 marks ($185) for defamation from the imp who is now Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels. Last week by a supreme irony, it was Dr. Goebbels who, speaking over a nationwide hookup one morning, broke to the German people the news they least wanted to hear. Shouted Dr. Goebbels: "Deutches Volk! Reichsprdzident von Hindenburg ist um 9 Uhr vormittags in die Ewigkeit fortgegangen! German people! President von Hindenburg at 9 a. m. passed into eternity."
The irony was heightened when bustling Dr. Goebbels seized charge of preparations for Old Paul's funeral, shushed his son Col. Oscar von Hindenburg who wished the burial to take place in the family plot at Neudeck in East Prussia, and announced the von Hindenburg bones will lie in the Field Marshal's Tower of the huge, ugly, fortress-like memorial at Tannenberg. "Men only will be permitted to attend the funeral service," announced Dr. Goebbels. Correspondents were given privately to understand that it would be inappropriate for a German hero's obsequies to be marred by wailing women.
One Reich, One Leader. In every crisis high-strung, intuitive Adolf Hitler endeavors to act with lightning speed to outsmart his enemies and rivals. Day & night last week a special telephone wire was constantly kept open between the Chancellor's headquarters and the home of the dying President. In the afternoon, when death by dawn seemed certain, Chancellor Hitler left Berlin by plane and arrived at Neudeck with his personal photographer. Only strenuous remonstrance by Col. Oscar von Hindenburg prevented the taking of deathbed flashlight pictures of Nazi Hitler by the side of Hero Hindenburg. Sinking fast, Old Paul barely recognized Herr Hitler to whom his last words were "Ach, Herr Reichskanzler!"
Zipping back to Berlin, the forehanded Chancellor summoned his Cabinet and in the night before President von Hindenburg died a decree law was drafted and signed by the harried Ministers, ready for proclamation to block the Constitutional procedure under which owl-eyed Supreme Court Chief Justice Dr. Erwin Bumke would normally have become Acting President on the death of Paul von Hindenburg.
With this decree prepared, Chancellor Hitler dismissed even his closest advisers and in the wee hours paced up and down his office alone. He knew his enemies were saying that the Army has tolerated his Nazi State only under orders from its beloved Feldmarschall. What were the Reichswehr generals doing? They knew well enough, while Adolf Hitler paced his office, that Death hovered over Neudeck. The German people did not. Dr. Goebbels had ruthlessly banished a leading editor for daring to print that the President's condition was "very grave."