APRIL BROUGHT STRANGELY LITTLE RAIN but a bumper crop of fresh secrets. Early in the month, Hitler and Defense Minister Blomberg learned that President Hindenburg had become ill, gravely so, and was unlikely to survive the summer. They kept the news to themselves. Hitler coveted the presidential authority still possessed by Hindenburg and planned upon his death to combine in himself the roles of chancellor and president and thereby at last acquire absolute power. But two potential barriers remained: the Reichswehr and Röhm’s Storm Troopers.
