Standing Reception – 1936

On 28th March 1936 the four Rhenish Gauleiters organised a standing reception for Hitler in the Cologne borough of Gürzenich, to thank him for the remilitarization of the Rhineland. The Rhine Province was then no longer the demilitarized zone which the victorious powers had decreed, after Germany had lost the First World War, in the treaties of Versailles (1919) and Locarno (1925). The self-proclaimed „Führer"(leader) ordered German troops to march into the Rhineland in 1936. This was a provocation to which the Great Powers reacted with disgruntlement, but they did nothing about it. In this action, Hitler saw a great foreign policy success. In the Rhineland the population responded to the arrival of the troops with joyful agreement. Therefore Hitler was received with enthusiasm on arrival in Cologne. That night a howling mob called him back onto the balcony of the Dom Hotel again and again.

"In front of the gigantic building of Cologne Cathedral, hundreds of thousands of people are pushing towards the square, head to head, shouting unceasingly in unison for the Führer, until he shows himself for a few minutes on the balcony of the hotel, surrounded by loud cries of joy. … Thereafter it was quiet for about a quarter of an hour. … (then) the chorus started up again … and as often as the Führer appeared, the chorus roared out of a hundred thousand throats … proudly cried as an oath of allegiance, the chant of the old German Rhine song: die Wacht am Rhein (guarding the Rhine)."
(Hadamovsky, Eugen: Hitler kämpft um den Frieden Europas. Ein Tagebuch von Adolf Hitlers Deutschlandfahrt, München 1936, S. 251f.)

Back to Exhibition Plan