political violence in Germany but threatened to destroy Schleicher's policy of reaching out to the Nazis, and as a result Schleicher decided that both Brüning and Groener had to go. On 16 April, Groener received an angry letter from Hindenburg demanding to know why the Reichsbanner, the paramilitary wing of the Social Democrats had not also been banned. This was especially the case as Hindenburg said he had solid evidence that the Reichsbanner was planning a coup. The same letter from the president was leaked and appeared that day in all the right-wing German newspapers. Groener discovered that Eugen Ott, a close protégé of Schleicher, had made the Social Democratic putsch allegations to Hindenburg and leaked the President's letter. British historian John Wheeler-Bennett wrote that the evidence for an intended SPD putsch was "flimsy" at best, and this was just Schleicher's way of discrediting Groener in Hindenburg's eyes. Groener's friends told him that it was impossible that Ott would fabricate allegations of that sort or leak the President's letter on his own, and that he should sack Schleicher at once. Groener refused to believe that his old friend had turned on him and refused to fire Schleicher. At the same time, Schleicher started rumors that General Groener was a secret Social Democrat, and argued that because Groener's daughter was born less than nine months after his marriage, Groener was unfit to hold office. On 8 May 1932, in exchange for promising to dissolve the Reichstag and lift the ban on the SA and the SS, Schleicher received a promise from Hitler to support a new government. After Groener had been savaged in a Reichstag debate with the Nazis over the alleged Social Democratic putsch and Groener's lack of belief in it, Schleicher told his mentor that "he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the Army" and must resign at once. When Groener appealed to Hindenburg, the president sided with Schleicher and told Groener to resign. With that, Groener resigned as Defense and Interior Minister. The Papen government On 30 May 1932, Schleicher's intrigues bore fruit when Hindenburg dismissed Brüning as Chancellor and appointed Franz von Papen as his successor. Feuchtwanger called Schleicher the "principal wire-puller" behind Brüning's fall. Schleicher had chosen Papen, who was unknown to the German public, as new Chancellor because he believed he could control Papen from behind the scenes. Kolb wrote of Schleicher's "key role" in