Göring orders the Prussian police to shoot and promises to cover them

Politics and power

Government, terror and persecution

1. Terror Berlin, Prussian Ministry of the Interior

   The “shooting decree” goes to every police authority in Prussia

   In his circular to all Prussian police authorities Göring wrote that the police must avoid even the appearance of hostility towards the “national associations” (SA, SS and Stahlhelm) and the “national parties”, seek the best understanding with them and support all “national” propaganda with every means. Against “organisations hostile to the state” they were to use the harshest means and, if necessary, their firearms without regard; failing to act, he warned, weighed more heavily than mistakes made in acting. He named as offences to be pursued most strictly banned demonstrations, unauthorised meetings, looting, incitement to treason, mass strikes, riot and offences by the press.¹

2. The states Berlin, Office of the Reich President

   Schäffer warns Hindenburg against Reich commissioners in Bavaria

   Hindenburg received Fritz Schäffer, leader of the Bavarian People’s Party, with Papen present. Schäffer complained that the Centre and his party had been kept out of the government, called the action against Prussia contrary to the constitution and warned against rumoured plans to send Reich commissioners to the states: a commissioner sent to Bavaria, he said, would be arrested at the border, even by the Bavarian Stahlhelm. He also reported rumours that the SA meant to seize power by force on election day. Papen dismissed the rumours as wild; Hindenburg defended Hitler warmly and said he had no intention of installing commissioners in states with orderly conditions merely because their governments differed politically from Berlin’s. The meeting lasted 45 minutes.²

3. Terror 17:00, Berlin-Schöneberg, Grunewaldstraße

   Uniformed students storm the State Art School

   At about 17:00 some eighteen young men in SA uniform forced their way into the State Art School (Staatliche Kunstschule) in Schöneberg during a state examination. They interrupted the examination and drove four professors out of the room, among them Philipp Franck, chairman of the art examination board, and Professors Georg Tappert and Curt Lahs; the intruders then left unrecognised and the examination resumed. The professors complained to Rust, who promised a strict inquiry.^3,4,5

   Sources disagree. The press named the school’s director as Kamps and Franck as chairman of the examination board; the history published by the Universität der Künste calls Franck the director and says the intruders hoisted the swastika flag.

4. Economy Berlin

   Hitler courts the craftsmen; industry asks for calm

   Hitler received the presidium of the Reich Association of German Crafts and promised it a post of its own in the government. The presidium and board of the Reich Association of German Industry, meeting on 16 and 17 February under Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, declared that industry’s attitude to the new government would depend on its economic measures, and that any disturbance of internal calm and social peace would endanger recovery.^6,3

5. Propaganda Berlin

   A daily diet of government speakers on the radio

   The Berlin Funkstunde began a series of talks on contemporary history in which speakers from the governing parties, among them Eduard Stadtler, Alfred Rosenberg and Martin Spahn, were to be heard almost daily until shortly before the election, followed by portraits of the new ministers, Goebbels speaking on Hitler.⁷