President Hindenburg

For days all Berlin had been talking of nothing else but the entry of General feldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg, President-elect, into the capital. The Monarchists prepared to give him a royal welcome, not omitting renditions of Fredericus Rev, a martial Monarchial anthem (later forbidden). Republicans boycotted the proceeding. Communists threatened to stage counterdemonstrations (later forbidden). Finally, der Tag arrived. Chancellor Hans Luther, with his 10-year-old daughter, motored from the Chancellery to the railway station. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Monarchists, lined the streets. All Berlin, or so it seemed, was draped in the old Imperial colors--red, white and black. . . . A train steamed into the station. President-elect Hindenburg, his son and daughter-in-law, alighted. The aged Field Marshal was welcomed to Berlin by the Chancellor, his Cabinet, General von Seeckt, Commander of the Reichswehr, many civic authorities. Frauelein Luther presented a bouquet. . . . A procession of automobiles speeded tip the Heerstrasse (Army Street), passed through the Imperial Arch of the Brandenburg Gate, along the Wilhelmstrasse to the German Chancellery. In the first car was the grey-haired Field Marshal and the grey-haired Chancellor. Monarchist roars broke out on all sides, Monarchist flags were waved in seeming mockery of the black, red and gold emblem of the Republic fluttering from the Presidential car. At the Chancellery, the Field Marshal was forced to step out on to the balcony to acknowledge an ear-splitting ovation. Thus did Herr von Hindenburg enter Berlin for his Presidential inauguration.