71: 8. The Final Negotiations and Hitler's Appointment. Tim Ryback discusses how on January 30, 1933, Hitler required the support of media magnate Alfred Hugenberg (40 seats) to achieve the coalition necessary for Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor. Hugenbe

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🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

8. The Final Negotiations and Hitler's Appointment. Tim Ryback discusses how on January 30, 1933, Hitler required the support of media magnate Alfred Hugenberg (40 seats) to achieve the coalition necessary for Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor. Hugenberg, who sought to be Minister of Economics, desperately opposed Hitler's primary demand: holding new Reichstag elections. Hugenberg knew elections would cost him his vital seats. After holding out until the final moment in a dramatic crisis outside Hindenburg's office, he was cornered and reluctantly agreed. Hindenburg formally appointed Hitler Chancellor at 9:40 AM. Hugenberg subsequently noted he had made "the biggest mistake of his life." Within 18 months, key antagonists Schleicher, Strasser, and Röhm were murdered.

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0:00.0	I'm John Batscher with Tim Ryback, who's done us the great favor of filling in a blank in my reading
0:08.8	after a lifetime of reading about these moments when the monsters themselves were created by
0:14.6	conditions coming from the Versailles Treaty and the failure of the markets in the 1920s.
0:20.7	We're now January 30th on Wilhelmstrasse,
0:24.3	and Hindenburg is sent for Hitler. It's 9.40 in the morning. Tim is very detailed about this.
0:30.8	When Hitler's Mercedes calls for him to take him to the meeting with Hindenburg, Hitler believes
0:36.9	that he will now be made chancellor.
0:39.3	However, he needs a majority, and he doesn't have it. So he needs a man named Hoganberg,
0:45.3	and we talked about before. And Hoganberg is aware that he has to be part of this coalition
0:50.8	and defer in some fashion to Hitler, but he's reluctant.
0:58.1	Tim, this is a scene that you want to rewrite many times.
1:00.2	What is Huggenberg's thinking that morning?
1:02.0	Can he keep this from happening?
1:05.0	Does he want more for joining the coalition?
1:06.4	What are his thoughts?
1:12.2	Well, Hugendberg has what he lived his entire career to be part of government.
1:19.8	He sees himself as the potential being minister of economics.
1:20.8	He's a businessman.
1:24.0	It's a tremendous opportunity.
1:32.5	He also knows that he is, he has, he's the one man with the power to make or break Adolf Hitler at that moment. Why? He, in the November 6th election, he ended up with a million
1:42.8	votes that Hitler had lost, which means Hugenberg had 40 seats in the Reichstag.
1:49.6	Now, it's not a large number in 600 seat, Reichstag.
	...

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