History Internal Assessment
Research Question: To what extent was Hindenburg just a figurehead, rather than an active supporter in Hitler’s rise to power?
Word Count: 2199
Section A: Identification and evaluation of sources
This historical investigation aims to evaluate To what extent was Hindenburg just a figurehead, rather than an active supporter in Hitler’s rise to power? Historians answer this question quite differently. The essay therefore will focus on two eminent historians’ work on this topic and explore how their different backgrounds, objectives and methodology inform the respective assessment of Hindenburg.
Source A: Hans Mommsen’s The Rise and Fall of the Weimar Democracy. (first published in German in 1989)
Hans Mommsen, grandson of the famous historian Theodor Mommsen, is a representative of a structuralist school of thought that looks holistically at history as a network of structures, institutional, social and economic processes. In The Rise and Fall of the Weimar Democracy, Mommsen explains the collapse of the Weimar Republic through fragile institutional, economic, and social structures. He aims to show that a net of systemic weaknesses, rather than individual key figures, caused the fall of German democracy. The book, clearly written for an academic target audience, shows extensive research, which is already reflected in the fact that Mommsen lets 40 pages of bibliography follow his 550 pages of text. With this focus on a very broad set of factors, the role of individual figures becomes less important to Mommsen. Of course Hindenburg, given his eminent position, is referred to often in Mommsen’s narrative, but never with any judgement or the question of guilt. He, according to Mommsen, is just a piece in an enormously complex puzzle that finally brought Hitler to power. The chosen structuralist methodology leads to a rather apologetic view of Hindenburg.
Source B: Sebastian Haffner The Meaning of Hitler (first published in German in 1978), The Ailing Empire Germany from Bismarck to Hitler (first published posthumously in German in 1987)
Sebastian Haffner’s approach to history can be seen in many ways as a counterpoint to Mommsen’s. Haffner is primarily interested in key figures, their development, their crises and their motivation. This difference can already be seen in the title of the books this essay focuses on. While Mommsen speaks about the Weimar republic, Haffner has Bismarck and Hitler already in the title. Haffner is a key figure of the German ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ phase in the 1970s and 1980s, when historians debated controversially the way the Germany post-war democracy should deal with the responsibility of the crimes committed during the Third Reich.
Haffner’s target audience is the educated general reader who shall be made to think about moral and political responsibility of leading historical figures. In both his books The Meaning of Hitler (1978) and in The Ailing Empire (posthumously published 1987), he does not cite other historians, does not offer any bibliography and does not try to make sure that the full available research is accounted for. Where Mommsen tries to double down on as many factors and as many details as possible, Haffner’s aim is to produce a clear narrative supporting several of his (often controversial) theses. The result is a rather essayistic text that does not rely on supporting facts or balancing of other possible views. With regard to Hindenburg, Sebastian Haffner sees an undeniable personal responsibility of the President in Hitler’s rise to power.
Section B: Investigation
An iconic photograph shows the new chancellor Adolf Hitler bowing to the Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg, who looks like an impressive, decorated giant. Clearly Hitler’s appointment on January 30, 1933, is a pivotal moment in history as it enabled the destabilization of Germany’s fragile democracy and opened the gateway to the Third Reich. But does the iconography represent reality? After all, Hindenburg was 85 years of age at this time and died only 18 months later. Did the old man no longer understand what he was doing when he formally bestowed power to Hitler? Or was Hindenburg, the representative of old Kaiserreich, fully aware and even approving of what destabilizing effects his act of naming Hitler chancellor would have?
This pivotal moment in history has been highly debated since, whenever the question has arisen how a democracy can be replaced by an authoritarian system, and what roles the elites play in this. The founding fathers of the Bundesrepublik’s Grundgesetz made it explicit that they wanted to prevent a direct election of the president in order to avoid ‘another Hindenburg debacle’. This essay will examine the work of the two eminent German historians Mommsen and Haffner, who develop different perspectives on Hindenburg’s role due to their different methodology. The essay will provide separate analyses of each perspective, ultimately concluding that even if Hindenburg reacted in many ways quite passively, his direct responsibility cannot be denied.
The perspective Hans Mommsen advances is of Hindenburg as a mere figurehead within a broad wave of systemic forces. Mommsen’s structural view rejects the determination of history by ‘great men’. He writes, for example, that “the Kaiser (...) lacked the necessary political overview”, and notes the “lethargy of the imperial government”. Later he claims that Reichspräsdent Ebert showed a “remarkably low profile during the critical phase of the republic”. Power representatives are typically not regarded as the key agents who determine the progress of history, but Mommsen looks at a wide network of determining factors that constitute history. He describes at length the role of the military, of heavy industry and of large scale agriculture, of monarchist circles like Deutsche Artgenossenschaft, German universities, the judiciary or the worker’s unions. In his approach, these structural forces together constitute history, and it is this structure that creates the key figures. With regards to Hitler in the early 1920s he writes:
Hitler was primarily a product of the times in which he lived and could never divorce himself from the roles that they had forced upon him and that he played with such astounding virtuosity.
Additionally, Mommsen argues that the individual person Hindenburg was more a passive figure, rather than a schemer, in a cumulative radicalization in the Weimar system. Given the quasi unmanageable task of handling immense economic challenges, growing mass poverty, a dysfunctional parliament, radicalizing left and right forces, a fast-growing SA and heavy attacks against him from the right-wing Hugenberg press, he simply could not win. There is an overall understanding, sometimes even apologetic tone when Mommsen writes for example that “Hindenburg had every reason to blame the hopeless situation in which the cabinet had found itself”. Or, regarding the issued Emergency Decree after the Reichstag fire, that “the Reich president, who had retired to his Neudeck estate, saw no reason for not approving the contents of the decree.” Also Hindenburg’s failure to veto Hitler’s appointment is explained by the backdrop of countless political intrigues by Schleicher, Brüning, Papen and many others, as well as “the general psychological situation”, in which the different structural forces of the collapsing Weimar republic were. Ultimately, Mommsen writes, an accumulation of multiple facts prepared the catastrophe. Hindenburg “had been led to believe” that Hitler would uphold the constitution, what is more that von Papen and his allies would ‘frame’ Hitler, keep him at bay and finally make him cooperate.
Mommsen’s book is so rich in references and source material that it is difficult to disagree on his account of the multiple structural forces leading to the destabilization of democracy. However, the question remains why even in such a complex system of forces, key leaders, and particularly Hindenburg, are denied the possibility to actively drive the course of events with their decisions. In Mommsen’s structural approach, leadership decisions are seen as bare automatism resulting from systematic force, which for example Martin Broszat criticized for deemphasizing personal responsibility. But it could be argued that key figures are specifically powerful forces in the overall structural web that constitutes history. Even though they are not solely responsible for the history, they still carry responsibility because they could have the power to change events with the same weight as other structural forces.
In contrast, Sebastian Haffner’s reading of Hindenburg’s role clearly positions him as an active and therefore responsible leader. While Mommsen analyzes structures, Haffner focuses on key figures and what drives their psychology. In The Meaning of Hitler, for example, Haffner follows Hitler’s way from an unsuccessful painter to a super successful leader to the initiator of a worldwide catastrophe with a focus on Hitler’s character, trying to grasp the psychology behind it.
Haffner is also quite outspoken, regarding Hindenburg. In a 1969 TV program he speaks of Hindenburg’s senile weakness and says that at the age of 85 he was simply incapable of dealing with the constant intrigues in his political environment. However, unlike Mommsen, Haffner does not use these findings to exculpate Hindenburg. On the contrary, Haffner is accusative. In The Ailing Empire he writes: “The old man was no politician and never had been. (...) But he had his own agenda, always had had, and with age he grew more stubborn.” Haffner explicitly suspects Hindenburg from the beginning of his term as Reichspräsident to have schemed “to retransform the republic into a monarchy”. Hindenburg, Haffner argues, always kept close to Papen, even giving his consent to using article 48 in order to do “a coup” to dissolve the parliament: something that Hindenburg just two months later did not allow Schleicher to do. He was fully complicit in the scheme to make Hitler chancellor with Papen as vice chancellor and assuming that the real power was still with the president.
Haffner’s reading reaches a very different interpretation of Hindenburg’s role than Mommsen’s: Hindenburg was fully responsible for the consequences of appointing Hitler, and even planned in mind of bringing the Weimar Republic down. While Mommsen provides a network of sources and secondary reading, Haffner does not support his thesis with such evidence, making it difficult to judge how solid the fundament of his thesis is. Instead he often mentions that he has lived through the Weimar and Nazi era and well remembers certain moods or events. Other historians, like Robin Garnham, have criticized Haffner for simplifying, and for turning complex political questions into moral judgements. Even though Haffner’s argument sounds convincing, it requires more sources that provide evidence.
The two historians come to a quite different view of Hindenburg’s role. While Mommsen stresses the highly complex network of drivers that ultimately led to Hitler’s rule, playing down the importance of key leaders as decision takers, Haffner focuses on the leaders’ motives, while arguably not focusing enough on the structure in which such motives are developed, and does not provide sources and references for his argument. The two selected sources form opposite poles on how to interpret Hindenburg’s role. It seems wise to seek a middle ground, considering both the complex structural factors and leadership motives. Taking this perspective, Hindenburg certainly played a role important enough to make it impossible to absolve him from responsibility. While certainly the complex structural setup prepared everything to lead to the end of democracy in the Weimar Republic and ultimately to the establishment of an autocratic rule, it still took the President’s personal decision to appoint Hitler.
Section C: Reflection
The analysis of the two historians’ interpretations of Hindenburg’s role shows that the chosen style, context and methodology heavily impact the interpretation of history. Comparing Mommsen's and Haffner’s works, I became aware how their different way of looking at history itself drives their different interpretations. Especially remarkable for me was their different approach to morality. There is the famous claim by Tacitus that an historian should write sine ira et studio, meaning with a distance of neutrality and without ‘anger’ or passion. This is exactly how Mommsen wants to work as a historian: His book is an academic account from a distance, and he can only from this perspective explain the structural network of effects that form the course of history. He does not judge, he explains.
Haffner’s narrative is less academic, personally close to the matter, and one could even say cum ira. He does judge Hindenburg, and rather relentlessly so. Haffner, born in 1907, is much older than Mommsen, born in 1930, so that he himself was part of the historical events he writes about and is personally affected. It would seem overstated, though, to say that Haffner’s view would therefore be considered as biased. The facts he describes are consistent with Mommsen’s, I would even go so far to say that if Haffner had also considered more structural forces his conclusion would remain exactly the same. Haffner sees himself as part of the history he reflects. His 1968 interview is titled with reference to Hindenburg: “Ich selbst habe für ihn gestimmt” (“I myself voted for him”). Haffner does not want to be neutral, he believes that everyone bears responsibility and therefore moral judgement cannot be neglected.
What Mommsen lacks, the engaged focus on a clear statement, Haffner has too much. He can be seen as over-simplistic and even polemic. A more balanced view between both positions would be the right one. Even more strongly than before, I am aware how the selection of sources, the methodology of writing a historical narrative and the way a moral compass is used or not, influences the way we receive a historian’s account. It is crucial to always be critically aware of this when reading a historian’s interpretation of history, for an interpretation it necessarily is.
Bibliography:
Broszat, Martin (1981), “Sozialgeschichte und politisches Handeln im Dritten Reich”, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 29:2, 1981, pp. 167-194
Garnham Robin (1973), “Selected lectures and papers on Sebastian Haffner”, Ucsb.edu, 2025, marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/133b/133bproj/09proj/essays/Haffner1973Garnham093.htm.
Haffner, Sebastian (1969), Interview/Documentary, broadcast in Panorama, Feb 3, 1969, rendered by YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPtIgyktDds
Haffner, Sebastian (1978), The Meaning of Hitler, (translated from the German by Ewald Osers), Published by Macmillan: New York, 1979
Haffner, Sebastian (posth. 1987) The Ailing Empire: Germany from Bismarck to Hitler, (translated from the German by Jean Steinberg), Published by Plunkett Lake Press, September 2012
Kershaw, Ian (1985), Der NS Staat. Geschichtsinterpretationen und Kontroversen im Überblick, Published by Rowohlt in Hamburg in 1999
Mommsen, Hans (1989), The Rise and Fall of the Weimar Democracy; translated by Elborg Forster; published by The University of North Carolina Press in March 1996
Wallner, Florian (2022), Die gefährdete Demokratie. Die Weimarer Reichsverfassung
My grading and comments for this IA:
A: 5/6
B: 12/15
C: 4/4
Section A: 5 out of 6
The question is clearly stated: To what extent was Hindenburg just a figurehead, rather than an active supporter in Hitler's rise to power?
The student has identified and selected two appropriate and relevant sources with clear explanation of relevance. The opening states the investigation will focus on two eminent historians' work and explore how their different backgrounds, objectives, and methodology inform respective assessment of Hindenburg. This explicitly explains why these sources are relevant to answering the question.
First source, Mommsen: Origin is identified through positioning as representative of structuralist school and grandson of Theodor Mommsen. Purpose is stated as showing systemic weaknesses rather than individual key figures caused fall of democracy. Target audience identified as academic. Content addressed through 40 pages of bibliography and treatment of Hindenburg as piece in complex puzzle. Value explicitly discussed: structuralist methodology provides holistic view of structures and processes. Limitation explicitly stated: this methodology leads to rather apologetic view of Hindenburg where role of individual figures becomes less important. This demonstrates detailed analysis and evaluation with explicit discussion of value and limitations referencing origin, purpose, and content.
Second source, Haffner: Origin identified as key figure of Vergangenheitsbewältigung phase in 1970s and 1980s. Purpose stated as making educated general readers think about moral and political responsibility of leading historical figures. Target audience identified. Content addressed through noting titles reference key figures, lack of citations and bibliography, essayistic approach not relying on supporting facts or balancing views. Value is somewhat implicit but discernible: focus on key figures and responsibility provides clear position on Hindenburg's role. Limitation explicitly stated: does not cite historians, offers no bibliography, does not account for full research, essayistic text not relying on supporting facts or balancing other views. This demonstrates detailed analysis and evaluation with explicit discussion of value and limitations referencing origin, purpose, and content.
However, there are weaknesses preventing this reaching 6. The claim that Haffner's text does not rely on supporting facts is overstated. Lack of scholarly apparatus doesn't mean no factual basis. The characterisation should be more precise: Haffner doesn't provide verifiable academic referencing, which limits ability to check claims, rather than asserting he doesn't rely on facts. The claim that Mommsen's structuralist methodology leads to rather apologetic view of Hindenburg is stated but not demonstrated with specific content example in Section A itself. The reference to Mommsen being grandson of Theodor Mommsen is origin detail but its relevance to value for this investigation isn't explained.
Grade: 5 out of 6
Section B: 12 out of 15
The investigation is generally clear and well organised. It opens with contextualisation through iconic photograph and Hindenburg's appointment January 30, 1933. Thesis clearly stated: essay will examine two different perspectives, ultimately concluding that even if Hindenburg reacted passively, direct responsibility cannot be denied. Structure logically presents Mommsen's perspective, Haffner's perspective, then synthesises.
The investigation contains critical analysis, though it may lack development or clarity in places. The analysis of Mommsen's structural approach uses specific evidence: quotes about Kaiser lacking political overview, Ebert showing low profile, Hitler as product of times. The student critically engages by noting that whilst Mommsen's account of multiple structural forces is difficult to disagree with, question remains why key leaders are denied possibility to actively drive events. Broszat's criticism that purely structural approach deemphasises personal responsibility is brought in. This is critical analysis evaluating Mommsen's methodology.
The analysis of Haffner's approach presents specific evidence: 1969 TV programme reference to senile weakness, quotes from The Ailing Empire about Hindenburg having own agenda and never being politician, claim Hindenburg schemed to retransform republic into monarchy. The student critically evaluates this, noting Haffner doesn't support thesis with evidence network like Mommsen, and brings in Garnham's criticism of Haffner for simplifying complex questions into moral judgements.
Evidence from a range of sources is used to support argument. The investigation uses Mommsen 1989 with page references, Haffner 1978 and 1987 with quotes, Broszat 1981 for methodological critique, Garnham 1973 for critique of Haffner, Kershaw 1985 for historiographical context, and Wallner 2022 for Grundgesetz context.
There is awareness and some evaluation of different perspectives. The student presents Mommsen and Haffner's opposing interpretations and evaluates them. The conclusion states the two sources form opposite poles and seeks middle ground considering both complex structural factors and leadership motives. The argument that whilst complex structural setup prepared everything, it still took President's personal decision to appoint Hitler shows evaluation reaching reasoned position.
The investigation argues to reasoned conclusion consistent with evidence and arguments provided. The conclusion that Hindenburg played role important enough to make it impossible to absolve him from responsibility follows from analysis that both structural forces and individual decisions matter.
However, there are areas where this doesn't quite reach markband 13-15. The investigation is essentially a historiographical comparison rather than historical investigation using range of evidence about the actual events and decisions. The student relies overwhelmingly on what Mommsen and Haffner argue rather than independently investigating Hindenburg's actions using broader evidence base. The discussion of structural forces in Mommsen's work becomes descriptive catalogue without analysing how these specifically related to Hindenburg's decision-making constraints or options. The critique that key figures could have power to change events is asserted rather than demonstrated with specific evidence of what Hindenburg could or should have done differently at specific moments. The analysis of Haffner's claim that Hindenburg schemed to retransform republic into monarchy is presented but not independently verified or critically examined for plausibility. The conclusion rests more on general principle that it took President's decision than on closely evidenced analysis of Hindenburg's specific behaviour, constraints, and choices. The critical analysis, whilst present, lacks the full development and consistent focus on the historical question rather than historiographical debate that would characterise markband 13-15.
