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

WAR IN THE RUHR 177and broke into a hotel in Speyer where one of the most powerfulseparatist leaders was dining. They turned off the lights. Shots rang outin the darkness. When the lights were turned on, the intruders hadvanished and the separatist leader lay dying beside his table. In the cityof Pirmasens, a crowd gathered under the eyes of the French garrison,surrounded the district office where the separatist 'government' waslocated; a few dare-devils climbed the roof, poured gasoline on thebuilding, and set it on fire. Some sixty of those within met their death inthe flames.But there was more unrest in shaken Germany. A Communist wavearose; the Communist leadership saw a 'revolutionary situation' andbelieved it would be possible, by a clever combination of legal andillegal procedures, to seize power in at least part of Germany.Communist-influenced and, for all practical purposes, Communist-ledregimes gained power in Saxony and Thuringia, in the heart ofGermany, just halfway between Munich and Berlin.This Communist uprising was just that piece of chaos which Hitlerneeded in order to go on. He demanded a northward march of theReichswehr from Bavaria, in alliance with his storm troops and theother combat leagues. First they would put down Communism in centralGermany; then go to Berlin and, in collaboration with the North-German Reichswehr, overthrow the government which had permittedthe existence of Communist regimes in the heart of the country. Themarch on Berlin became his program for the next months. Troops of the'German Combat Union' gathered on the Thuringian frontier, ready toinvade 'the enemy's country.'Kahr, too, dreamed of seizing the Communist pretext in order to start,from Bavaria, a counter-revolution over the whole of Germany. Therewas, besides, a strong dose of Bavarian separatism and anti-Prussianismin his plans; an idea to restore the monarchy in Bavaria. His motivesnever have become quite clear, probably not even to himself. Anyhow,he induced Lossow not to obey orders from Berlin any more, but to takeorders only from him, Kahr. A national split was threatened, althoughKahr and Lossow went on assuring that they did not want to get 'awayfrom Berlin'; but 'forward to Berlin.'