The government tried to present the case less dramatically: the day after the documents were published, Chief Reich Prosecutor Karl Werner declared that the violent measures contained in the plan were in no way directed at the current government, but at the possibility of a
communist uprising, and stressed that he himself had not ordered the searches. Brüning states in his memoirs that he had encouraged Werner to downplay the affair. The
Reich Ministry of Justice also took the view that the offence of high treason was not established on the basis of the documents, since it presupposes the intention to overthrow the government by violence, and that did not apply in the case of a communist putsch. The NSDAP party press initially reported that the documents were forgeries.
Hermann Göring, commissioned by Hitler, hastened on November 27 to reassure Groener, indicating that Best's plans had no connection with the party leadership, which "remains as before, and as he has expressed and sworn quite often, in the strictest course of legality." Hitler, who in private spoke friendly with Best and jokingly called him "bird of ill omen", however, clearly distanced himself from him in an interview with the foreign press on December 4. In particular, he declared, in view of the 1932 presidential election, "a party which can count on 15 million voters really has no need to undertake illegal action." The party members who had taken part in the Boxheim discussions were all provisionally suspended, and an internal investigation was conducted by
Hans Frank without any results. On December 9, however, Hitler deemed it necessary to prohibit any discussion of the forms and modalities of a Nazi seizure of power, an offence punishable by expulsion from the party. election poster for the
1932 Prussian state election using quotes from the Boxheim Documents to attack the NSDAP The publication of the documents provoked widespread protest in Germany, from the Communist press to the conservative one. Demands were made for the author of these plans to be brought before the
Reichsgericht for high treason. The social-democratic newspaper
Vorwärts commented on 26 November 1931 in an article entitled "Hesse's bloody plans" how it showed the fundamentally brutal nature of the Nazi Party.
Carl von Ossietzky, editor of
Weltbühne, called the documents "the executioner's fantasies of a Hessian judge", with which "the street would be handed over to the hooligans and the SA's army of cutthroats, which would bloodily suppress any opposition, immediately labelled a
Commune." The lead editorial of
Germania, a
Zentrum newspaper, concluded that "the crucial question goes beyond that of legality or illegality, the crucial question is whether the national leadership of the Nazi Party tolerates or even approves the discussion and preparation of such insane methods of government by important party leaders" and asked that Best shall be expelled from the NSDAP. The Hessian Center Party publicly rejected most of the Nazis' conditions for a coalition on December 11, asking them to renounce armed force. On the other hand, the German National
Breisgauer Zeitung downplayed the incident, writing that "a racket about high treason was artificially staged against the Right" and that the NSDAP was simply oblivious to the events in Hesse, commenting "Something as immature as this playing around with dictatorship is absolutely inconceivable." British ''
chargé d'affaires'' in Berlin
Sir Basil Newton informed the
Foreign Office that the Nazi movement was planning a dangerous revolutionary takeover. French ambassador
André François-Poncet hoped that the scandal resulting from the revelation of these documents would put an end to the dangerous policy of taming the NSDAP, but he doubted that it would be the case. He summed up the situation on December 3 to
Foreign Minister Aristide Briand: "The Boxheim affair has complicated, worsened and strained the state of affairs in Germany. It is an additional element that contributes to the impotence and widespread fear." == Historiography ==