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

148 DER FUEHRERa useless struggle against each other. But all the same, he is ready toresume this useless struggle as soon as possible, for 'German* will notbe free until the first German grenadiers are back on the Ruhr and theRhine.' (At that time French soldiers were standing guard on the Ruhrand Rhine.) It is the task of the Uprooted and Disinherited to drive themfrom German soil. And would he stop then? No. To him Bismarck inVersailles, crowning the German emperor over the corpse of thedefeated foe, remains one of the highest goals of German history:'Compare the coronation in Versailles to that scene of disgrace in theForest of Compiegne. In those days Bismarck was Germany. Then cameErzberger, the fat paunch. Marshal Foch was amazed: "Is this theGermany before which a thousand times we almost went down indefeat?" he asked. No, that was not Germany! It wasn't Germany thatyou French overran. You didn't defeat Germany; treason put her in yourhands, a defenseless victim.'Wars are lost by treason; but this means also that wars can be won bytreason. War, in the last analysis, is won or lost at home; the battlefieldis the test ground for the forces that build up the inner life of a nation.On this test ground you will learn soon that problems and quarrels,which today still loom great, actually have vanished already in the abyssof history. For the fate of Germany has slipped from the hands of theirformer ruling classes into the hands of the Uprooted and Disinherited:'Today the German no longer dies for state forms, not for republic ormonarchy — and anyone who tries to make him is a scoundrel; todaythe German — if he is prepared to die for anything at all — dies onlyfor the freedom of the working German people, only for the freedom ofhis native soil. The question of state forms will be decided by the peoplewho have faith in the fatherland, who are ready to go back to thebattlefield; who in victorious battle will return to the place where the oldGerman Reich was founded and where it was smashed by the slimybandits and criminals who set their signatures to the peace treaty; theonly place where a new, more beautiful and greater Reich can proclaimits state form: that place is Versailles.'This Hitler said in October, 1923, to a meeting of his armed men, andthe newspaper reports 'stormy applause.' In Versailles.