Because it was not possible to form a stable ruling coalition given the Reichstag's growing anti-democratic and increasingly fragmented parties, Brüning governed through decrees issued by President Hindenburg.

Brüning nevertheless subordinated reviving the economy to attempting to free Germany from the reparations payments imposed on it by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I.

Various people in the background of Berlin's political world, among them General Kurt von Schleicher, had been pushing for significantly more conservative policies than Brüning was proposing.

Brüning did not succeed in getting a leading representative of heavy industry to participate; instead Hermann Warmbold, who had previously sat on the board of the chemical concern BASF, took over as minister of Economic Affairs.

The Ministry of the Interior, previously headed by Joseph Wirth from the left wing of the Centre Party, was provisionally taken over by Reichswehr Minister Wilhelm Groener.

Gottfried Treviranus of the Conservative People's Party (KVP) replaced Theodor von Guérard (Centre) as minister of Transport.

On 7 November, Hans Schlange-Schöningen of the Christian-National Peasants' and Farmers' Party (CNBL) was appointed commissioner for Eastern Aid and minister without portfolio.

It expressed its distrust in it and turned to the right, although it did not participate in the Harzburg Front, a short-lived anti-Brüning alliance between the DNVP, NSDAP and 3 right-wing organizations.

[4] On the same day, the Fourth Emergency Ordinance to Secure the Economy and Finances and to Protect Domestic Peace was issued following difficult negotiations in the cabinet.

At its request, the special advisory committee at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland deliberated on the question of whether Germany could still meet its obligations in accordance with the recently adopted Young Plan.

[8] In April, at the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments in Geneva, Brüning called for the lifting of the disarmament provisions of the Versailles Treaty affecting Germany.

[11] On the basis of an emergency decree by the President, the Brüning cabinet issued a ban on the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) on 13 April 1932.

Hindenburg had been reluctant to give his consent for the step and was angry that the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, a pro-democracy paramilitary organization supported primarily by the SPD, had not also been banned.

The government planned to buy overly indebted estates in the eastern parts of Germany, divide them up and give the land to settlers.