Paul von Hindenburg was a patriarch.
 In a meeting aboard the Deutschland on 11 April with Blomberg, army commander Werner von Fritsch and naval commander Erich Raeder, Hitler publicly proposed that he himself succeed Hindenburg
According to Gnther von Tschirschky und Bgendorff, an interwar German diplomat and associate of Hindenburg who later defected to the UK, President Paul Von Hindenburg's last will and testament had criticised the Nazis and supported democracy

