In Europe

the most reasonable among the Nazis into his cabinet, and on the left the most modern social democrats. He was also hoping in this way to cause a rift within the Nazi party itself. Following the electoral setback in November, Hitler was encountering major problems within his party, his support was dwindling quickly and the Nazis were faced with huge debts. Schleicher, on the other hand, was in complete control, and enjoyed the full support of the military.
    In retrospect, it was this temporary setback that finally brought Hitler to power: by early 1933, a number of the country's conservative leaders considered him weak enough to cooperate with safely. On 4 January, the banker Kurt von Schröder arranged a dinner at his villa in Cologne for Franz von Papen and Adolf Hitler. Later that month they met again, at the home of the champagne dealer Joachim von Ribbentrop in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem. Within the political elite, a milieu from which he had always been carefully excluded, Hitler had become
salonfähig
.
    And so it was that Papen betrayed his successor and old friend Schleicher. He told Schleicher about the meeting, and claimed that he had tried to win Hitler's support for Schleicher's government. In fact, however, Papenand Hitler had decided to form a new coalition and bring about Schleicher's downfall at the first opportunity. Hitler was to be made chancellor, and Papen would ‘neutralise’ this with cabinet ministers of his own persuasion. ‘He is going to work for us,’ is what he literally said about Hitler.
    The chief remaining obstacle was the president. Papen had something of a father-son relationship with Hindenburg. For that reason, he was the perfect person to undermine the president's resistance to Hitler's chancellorship. How he did so is a mystery, even today. Papen probably convinced the old gentleman that this was the only way to prevent a putsch. In addition, the presidential family was caught up at that moment in a tax-evasion scandal, and pressure was perhaps exerted on Hindenburg's son Oskar as well.
    Whatever the case, the old general became party to the conspiracy against Schleicher. When the chancellor reported to Hindenburg in January that his plans for a national coalition had failed, everyone expected the president to disband parliament and call for new elections. Instead, however, he commissioned Papen to form a new government. That was all the opportunity Hitler needed to slip into the chancellery.
    The very next day, Göring was able to hang the swastika banner in front of the ministry of internal affairs. Now the Reichstag could be burned to the ground, a wild, solo attack by the Dutch Soviet-style communist Marinus van der Lubbe that was immediately put to good use by the Nazis. Now a host of decrees and emergency measures could be put into effect. Now all the critical journalists, communists, social democrats, artists, Jews and other troublemakers could be arrested and ground to a pulp.
    Was Berlin, in 1933, a pro-Nazi or an anti-Nazi town? Only five days before the change of power, on 25 January, the communists organised a mass demonstration against ‘the rise of fascism’. Hundreds of thousands of people took part, and even
Vorwärts
was impressed: ‘In the bitter cold and lashed by the wind they walked for hours, in threadbare coats, thin jackets and worn-out shoes. Tens of thousands of pale faces which spoke of a crisis, and which spoke of the sacrifices they were willing to make for the cause they consider just.’
    Five days later, on the evening of 30 January, tens of thousands ofBrownshirts bearing torches filed past the chancellery, where Hitler – in evening attire – looked on from an open window. Out on the street, Kessler noted ‘a complete carnival mood’. The Nazis were ecstatic about this ‘day of national exaltation’ with its ‘roiling, red and brightly burning sea of torches’. The other part of the city's population was stunned. ‘Thinking’ Berlin had never thought that Hitler could come to power. For a little while, everyone hoped against hope that it would all turn out well. And then the great exodus began. Bertolt Brecht was among the first to pack his bags, immediately after the fire at the Reichstag. Kessler went to Paris in early March and never returned: he died four years later, forgotten and penniless, in a French village inn. At Kessler's funeral, old André Gide saw none of the artists whom he ‘during his life had so generously