Raise the Hindenburg!

I had intended to post this last week, but if we have any motto at Graphical History Tours Ltd., it's "Better Late Than Never."

So here are the late election reports from Weimar Germany.

"Im Katastrophenjahr" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, May 4, 1925

He wasn't a candidate in the first round of Germany's presidential election in March, and he only reluctantly accepted the German People's Party nomination a week later, but when the votes were counted, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg had been elected President of the Weimar Republic.

Heine was probably being facetious captioning his cartoon "A united Germany has its President"; Hindenburg received less than half (48.3%) of the votes cast. 

"Goose Stepping Again" by Bill Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, April 28, 1925

Hindenburg was familiar to Americans (and no less to the French and the English) as the leader of the Imperial German Army during World War I. The 77-year-old Generalfeldmarschall’s military career dated from the Austrian-Prussian War in 1866; he tried retiring in 1911 only to be called back to active duty by Kaiser Wilhelmina. 

His electoral victory speech warned the extreme right and left against "rash adventures," and promised that he would govern as an independent.

"Let no one by any chance imagine that henceforth I shall take orders from any political party. The battle is over, and I honestly and unreservedly declare that I am ready to offer my hand to every German for the common task, and I include my former opponents." (Translation per O.D. Tolischus, Washington Herald, April 28, 1925)

"Der Lotse Besteigt das Schiff" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, May 10, 1925

Arthur Johnson's cartoon updates a famous cartoon by Sir John Tenniel in Punch, "Dropping the Pilot," depicting Otto von Bismarck, dismissed as Chancellor by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1890, heading down those stairs. 

"Dropping the Pilot" by John Tenniel in Punch, or the London Chiavari, March 29, 1890

The Tenniel cartoon is well-known in both Britain and Germany, and has been parodied many times when some powerful politician resigned or fell out of favor. It used to be an occasional reference in American editorial cartoons, too; but nowadays it would be an inside joke understood mainly by fellow editorial cartoonists. Your average editor today is more likely to understand a cartoon of Homer Simpson retreating into foliage.

"That Morning After Feeling" by James Fitzmaurice in Vancouver Daily Province, April 28, 1925

Speaking of cartoons that today's editors might have liked, Fitzmaurice's ambivalent regard of Hindenburg's election was very much an outlier among cartoonists in the nations of World War I's Entente. From what I've seen he doesn't seem to have been one for forceful opinions.

"Willie Has Hopes" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, Apr. 29, 1925

Hindenburg was a declared royalist, and ex-Kaiser Wilhelm Hohenzollern applauded his election, but a return by the Kaiser to the throne six years after the armistice was a far fetched scenario.

"Peek-a-Boo" by Edmund Duffy in The Independent, Boston, May 16, 1925

Alfred von Tirpitz, Admiral of the German Imperial Navy during the war, was responsible for convincing Hindenburg to enter the presidential race.

We left Erich Ludendorff singing forlornly on a mountain in a previous GHT. Coming in dead last in the first heat of the 1925 presidential election, Ludendorff, a vocal proponent of the Dolchstosslegende, the idea that Germany lost the war because of traitorous Germans "stabbing it in the back," withdrew from public affairs. He wasn’t missed. 

"The Black Eye" by A.G. Racey in Montreal Daily Star, Montreal, April 29, 1925

A.G. Racey's strong reaction against Hindenburg's election was typical of most western editorial cartoonists. But in fact, the German presidency was somewhat of a figurehead. The president had no authority to initiate policy, and the coalition behind him in the multi-party legislature did not hold a plurality of seats.

"In der Saddle Again" by Harold M. Talburt for Scripps-Howard, ca. Apr. 29, 1925

Harold Talburt proposed that the election of a monarchist president would be bad for the Germans themselves, burdened as they were with debt and reparations payments. The Kaiser, in the background, hopes to be pulled out of the mud, although nobody in the foreground appears to be equipped for a tow.

"Scaring France and Hurting Germany" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1925

Reaction to Hindenburg's election was especially hostile in France. Le Temps of Paris declared, "The election of von Hindenburg is a defiance to the allies and to America. It is not the political genius of the old man which is disquieting, it is the force of brutal revenge which is behind him." 

Poles and Czechs also responded with trepidation. The Austrian press were disappointed in Hindenburg's election as well, opining that it was a setback in hopes for a union of Austria with Germany. (I'm going to have to look up that Austro-Prussian War someday.) 

"The New Helmet Cover" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, April 28, 1925

For his part, Hindenburg sought to reassure the outside world:

"I affirm before the whole world that it has always been my holiest endeavor to prevent new horrors of war and to help to the utmost the victims of past wars. This aim can best be attained by unity, and to serve my people as leader in this sense will be my holiest task." — as reported by Associated Press

"His Hopes May Be Stronger Than His Ship" by Homer Stinson in Dayton Daily News, May 1, 1925

Perhaps alone among western cartoonists, Homer Stinson sang a note of optimism. 

Spoiler alert: Paul von Hindenburg might not have been what the rest of Europe needed to worry about.