What if Schleicher formed a stable government?

[Хahar 🤔]

Kurt von Schleicher was appointed Chancellor of Germany on December 3, 1932 by President Paul von Hindenburg. The reason for the action was that Schleicher's predecessor, Franz von Papen, had not been able to form a stable majority in the Reichstag. Schliecher's idea was to form a coalition of the Strasser wing of the Nazis (that is, the National Socialists in the party), the Center, and the Social Democrats. What if he had been able to form a stable government and split the NSDAP?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He would have made himself dictator as soon as possible.

[Michael Z]

Al's got a point, in the sense that the Weimar Republic was basically doomed the moment Brüning's government collapsed.

Sad as it is, I think it's inevitable that the NSDAP would have somehow wrested power at some point between 1932 and 1934. Hitler did say that he wanted a "peaceful", "democratic" revolution, but chances are, had there been a Chanchellor who took a genuinely firm stance against the Nazis, he would have been met with a lot of resistance, bearing in mind that the SA was still firmly under Röhm's command and were far more ready to start an armed struggle than Hitler was (which was part of the reason there was so much tension between Hitler and the SA to start with). It may even have sparked a civil war, something not entirely unlikely when considering the tense political atmosphere at the time.

Of course, had it come to that, it would have been very interesting to see what such a scenario would have done to the internal power balance in the NSDAP. Had the SA proven instrumental in a Nazi power grab, Hitler's position would have been considerably weakened, Röhm's strengthened, and we may not have seen the Knight of the Long Knives.... but that's neither here nor there, I suppose.