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

THE DEATH OF MONEY 135trate everywhere. No one in the parliamentary majorities wants toaccept responsibility. . . . Nations that have lost their character andhonor deserve no good fortune, no happy life. . . . The German people isgoing the same way that the ancient peoples went: it is a people passinglittle by little into decay. . . . The expression, a great nation cannot gounder, is nothing more than an attempt to cloak cowardice. Greatnations have vanished from the surface of the earth before this, nothinghas remained but ashes. . . .'In this disorganized, drifting, doubt-torn state, Hitler tried to give theGerman people a new strength, which might be regarded as a substitutefor the vanishing national character: that system of political prayers,soliloquies of encouragement and command, which has been designatedby the inadequate word propaganda. It was the artificial building of anew national character, an ersatz character, an attitude created inaccordance with an artificial plan. The people dream and a soothsayertells them what they are dreaming. This continuous, domineering yetintimate conversation with the people could only have been carried onby a man who was people and enemy of the people in one; a tornpersonality who felt himself a trampled fragment of the people in hisown downtrodden miserable nonentity, and rebelled with the peopleagainst this destiny, but who at the same time was convinced of theabsolute necessity of trampling, coercing, and shaking the master's fist.Rebellious slave and ruthless tyrant in one — there have been plenty ofslaves who would have liked to be masters; but rare are the natureswhich are really both. With equal power of conviction Hitler couldsummon people now to rebel, now to obey. He could deal in endlesscontradictions without becoming entangled, because he was able to putpower into every contradiction. At only a few days' interval, he couldmake the two following statements:'First the Reich must be headed by heroes who carry the people along,lash them on to resistance! Because such men were lacking, we lost thewar, and we are experiencing the same thing now. The spirit ofresistance must be kindled from above!'And — or — but — however:'Salvation must come from below I From above we can expect nothing.The people must redeem themselves, when the others fail!