Abstract
Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen (second from right) was under the
illusion that he could tame and control Hitler (seventh from left).
Papen believed that a cabinet consisting chiefly of
national-conservative politicians would be able to restrict Hitler’s
room for maneuver. Aside from Hitler, only two National Socialists
belonged to the new government: Wilhelm Frick (seventh from right,
wearing a swastika) as Reich Minister of the Interior, and Hermann
Göring (eighth from left) as minister without portfolio and as acting
Prussian Minister of the Interior. The photo also shows Joseph Goebbels
(fifth from left), whom Hitler would name Minister
for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on March 13, 1933. Papen was so
confident about the political dominance of the cabinet’s conservative
majority that he was heard saying, “Within two months we’ll have pushed
Hitler so far into the corner that he’ll squeak.”