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

WAR tN THE RUHR 167tion for his word of honor: I will make no putsch. The putsch will makeitself; assuming, of course — and again there was fear in his words —that the batde of the Ruhr should be lost and Germany collapse. 'Thefight in the Ruhr must and will collapse!' he cried. Half a dozen times,in different terms, he declared to his storm troops that Germany wasgoing under. 'Our job is to insure the success of our movement!'But despite this seeming success, Hitler's relation to the Reichs-wehrhad reached a strange turning point. The Reichswehr had experiencedand learned to understand the problem of the proletariat in its own flesh— almost succumbing in the process. That was why the Rohms andEpps had founded their Workers' Party. Hitler was expected to bring theworkers to the army — and in the spring of 1923, his employers wereforced to admit that this hope had been frustrated. In its place a newhope arose. When the unions in the Ruhr, with machine-like precision,stopped the wheels of industry for the fatherland, a new road to theproletariat seemed to open. It was not Hitler's road.General von Seeckt in Berlin made an agreement with Carl Severing,the most popular of the Social Democratic leaders, who, as PrussianMinister of the Interior, was in command of the Prussian police, anarmed force second only to the Reichswehr. The two men arrived at anagreement: despite Versailles, a secret army must be set up. Severing, tobe sure, did not venture to contemplate open warfare against France.The purpose of the new army should be merely to protect the easternborder against any sudden attack by Polish volunteers or similar groups.Shortly after the French invasion of the Ruhr, little Lithuania seized theGerman border city of Memel by force. This was done, not only againstthe will of the population, but also against the will of France andEngland; but there was no help, and Germany was unable to protect herterritory against the weakest of her neighbors.Since there was no legal remedy in the framework of the peacetreaties, it would have been surprising, indeed, if no illegal remedy hadbeen found. The 'black' — i.e., secret — Reichswehr came to life. Thesoldiers were ostensibly 'short-term volunteers.' Most of them were theold, familiar faces from the murderers' army, the