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

BURNING HEAVENS REFLECTED IN MUD PUDDLE 99nothing in common with the mass, like every great man he is allpersonality. . . . When necessity commands, he does not shrink beforebloodshed. Great questions are always decided by blood and iron. Andthe question at stake is: Shall we rise or be destroyed?Parliament may go babbling, or not — the man acts. It transpires thatdespite his many speeches, he knows how to keep silent. Perhaps hisown supporters are the most keenly disappointed. ... In order to reachhis goal, he is prepared to trample on his closest friends. . . . For thesake of the great ultimate goal, he must even be willing temporarily toappear a traitor against the nation in the eyes of the majority. Thelawgiver proceeds with terrible hardness. ... He knows the peoples andtheir influential individuals. As the need arises, he can trample themwith the boots of a grenadier, or with cautious and sensitive fingers spinthreads reaching as far as the Pacific Ocean. ... In either case, thetreaties of enslavement will fall. One day we shall have our new,Greater Germany, embracing all those who are of German blood.The portrait culminates in an unexpected perspective:The work must not be cut to the towering dimensions of its builder, orthe whole will totter at his decease like the state of Frederick andBismarck. New independent personalities, to guide the steed ofGermania remounted in the future, do not thrive under the dictator.Therefore, he performs his last great deed: instead of drinking his powerto the dregs, he sets it down and stands aside as a loyal adviser.This is Hitler, drawn by himself, for Hess is his alter ego; a flatteringself-portrait, painting more his wishes than his features, but for that veryreason authentic, though not entirely true. He exposes his most secretaspiration: a carefree private life as the goal of a magnificent career, asthe reward for joyous struggles and disgraceful acts excused bypatriotism. Just in this weakness it is the true program of that particularvariation of the armed intellectual: the armed bohemian.Dietrich Eckart had introduced Alfred Rosenberg, the young fugitivefrom Russia, to the party. But for the time being the recognized spiritualleader of this small group was Eckart, the