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

146 DER FUEHRERism and not for preaching or heroism with the mouth.' For what, then?For the urge that was within them, pressing to come out: for destruction.They were the model of the human type which had lost everything,possessions and ideals, which nothing could impress but ruthlessviolence. The vagrant from the Vienna lodging-house said: 'In the ranksof us National Socialists the disinherited of Right and Left must cometogether. All of them must learn that there is one place in Germanywhere faith in the future is far from lost. We need the uprooted asfighters to rebuild the coming Germany!' The disinherited of Right andLeft, the uprooted. . . .Perhaps Hitler had just been hearing his friend Rohm say that 'onlythe man without possessions has ideals.' Goring, the friend of princes,leading the unemployed: this was the spirit of the movement, these werethe uprooted of Right and Left. Hitler was a realist and knew that thegreat good-for-nothings are sometimes the best fighters. He himself hadbeen an outstanding soldier — a man without home, friends, family, oremployment. Years later, his friend Hess half-consciously described thetype of his leader: 'It is a known fact,' he said, 'that many men stood upbest in the field who were everything but suited for normal peacetimebourgeois life. In critical situations, the front-line companies were gladto have such men at their disposal. . . .'This type, so proficient at war, is now mustering its forces todominate the peace. The armed bohemians, grown homeless through thedownfall of war, conjure up the dead war in peacetime life and force iton the sighing peoples. Hess, consistently, says: 'In the struggle againstMarxism we cannot choose our leaders for their company manners andrespectability. ... I know that our corps of leaders contains a sprinklingof those who, according to some, should be dismissed. But I also knowthat in the hard years of struggle, these leaders stood up. And more: thatwe largely owe our success to them.'The success was owed to them — to those 'figures' who were worthso little in bourgeois life; who 'were tossed in all directions — just fortheir daily bread'; who as murderers let the clear red blood of the peopleflow, and as bohemians 'brawled and drank, roared