Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

96 DER FUEHRERshall create a hierarchical constitution, which will mechanically governall movements of individuals.'Three weeks after the party's first public meeting the goal seemedreached, the struggle won, the new party already obsolete. The militaryputsch of March, 1920, which failed in the greater part of the Reich,succeeded in Bavaria; the Reichswehr overthrew the government, put ina new cabinet enjoying their confidence, under Premier Gustav vonKahr, installed their own men as ministers and police presidents. Duringthe putsch, Hitler flew to Berlin in a small plane to entreat the Prussiangenerals to hold out, as Bavarian assistance would soon be forthcoming.For Berlin it was too late; but in Munich events seemed to have gonealmost ahead of Hitler. The Reichswehr, a short time before a rebelliousfaction, now had become the state; Hitler, still a rebel, had to give up hisdesk in the District Army Command (April 1, 1920).Nevertheless, the Reichswehr went on supporting its child and, ifpossible, guiding its steps. There was a little weekly in Munich,originally nothing but a rather suspect, scandal-mongering enterprise,called The Munich Observer (Munchner Beobachter); a gossip sheet,not more. After the war it slowly turned anti-Semitic, changed its nameinto Racial Observer (Volkischer Beobachter), on account of irternaland personal quarrels the paper was rather cool toward Hitler and hisfriends. Now Major-General Franz von Epp, commander of theBavarian infantry troops, and the body to which Rohm was the righthand, bought the Volkischer Beobachter for the National Socialists;rather he raised a fund among wealthy persons and gave it to DietrichEckart to buy a paper. To be sure, the rich men were little inclined tosupport a party calling itself Socialist. But Hitler publicly set themstraight:'For National Socialists it goes without saying that industrial capital,since it creates values, will remain untouched. We combat only Jewishinternational loan capital. . . .'As a matter of fact, it was, above all, the material and financialorganization of the new party that kept Hitler busy in these first months,when the Reich was shaken by tremendous uprisings. All his life he hashad a possessive sense, as far as his party was concerned; far more thanfor his own person. This is how he tells the story: