Old parties rallied behind Hindenburg, abandoning the party system itself

Evidence

That this candidate happened to be old Hindenburg who enjoyed the matchless popularity which, since the time of MacMahon, awaits the defeated general at home, was not just a joke; it showed how much the old parties wanted merely to identify themselves with the old-time state, the state above the parties whose most potent symbol had been the national army, to what an extent, in other words, they had already given up the party system itself. For in the face of the movements, the differences between the parties had indeed become quite meaningless; the existence of all of them was at stake and consequently they banded together and hoped to maintain a status quo that guaranteed their existence. Hindenburg became the symbol of the nation-state and the party system, while Hitler and Thalmann competed with each other to become the true symbol of the people. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 660

Categorization

• XREF: The nation-state vs. the people distinction foreshadows the constructed ‘imagined community’ theme in the scaffolding toolkit.