In March 1932 Cartellieri read "Hitlers Weg" (loosely, "Hitler's Path") by the commentator and liberal politician Theodor Heuss. Heuss was no fan of National Socialism: his critical study of Hitler's politics would run to eight editions and be translated into three additional languages. But with millions unemployed, street politics polarised and parliament deadlocked by the mutual hatreds of extremism, a few weeks later Alexander Cartellieri used the 1932 presidential election to vote for Adolf Hitler. It is apparent from his diary entries of the time that despite having voting for the "least bad" presidential option, he retained severe misgivings about Hitler. Visceral backing for revision of the Treaty of Versailles, widely seen in Germany as punitive, his robust rejection of the messy party based politics of democratic government in action and the hunger which he shared for came together to persuade Cartellieri to back Hitler's promises with his vote. Cartellieri also shared the National Socialists' strong anti-communism. On 28 March 1938 he would write in his diary, "'Without [the Battle of] Jena, no [Battle of] Sedan, as Bismarck said [after his retirement in 1892, while on a visit to] Jena' ... in the future people will have to say 'without Versailles, no National Socialism'". characterises Cartellieri's attitude to National Socialism as that of "the approving sceptic". After reading the leader's autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf in May 1933, Cartellieri shared his doubts with his diary: "What does he actually want in the east? He doesn't say. Launch an attack on Russia and settle Germans there? Is there really a space for us?"