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

WAR IN THE RUHR 181he quite naively expounded to Lossow the crafty means by which hemeant to disorganize the Reichswehr: he had enlisted GeneralLudendorff to be the military head of his uprising, and no soldier orofficer would fire on Ludendorff. 'The generals, yes,' he saiddisparagingly to General von Lossow, 'they might want to shoot, forthey cling to their swill pail, their pay-checks; but from major down, noone will fire on Ludendorff.' When Lossow very cautiously and coollysuggested that perhaps Ludendorff was politically not very intelligent,Hitler apparently quite flattered, explained that he needed Ludendorffonly for the army; politically he would have nothing to say, forpolitically, as Lossow couldn't fail to realize, Hitler was for Germanywhat, in similar situations, Napoleon I and Gambetta had been forFrance, and of course he was the German Mussolini too.At that very hour, unknown to Hitler, Captain Goring, supreme leaderof the storm troops, was telling a member of Lossow's staff that ofcourse the government must be led by Ludendorff, and 'something orother' would be found for Herr Hitler. At the same time Goring gavebloodthirsty commands to his lieutenants: the revolution will soon breakout; you must make yourselves respected by unprecedented terror; inevery locality, 'at least one man must immediately be shot dead, tofrighten the people.'Germany was returning to order, but the Uprooted and Disinheritedstill wanted their putsch. They could not yet see the beginning ofstability and were still living in absolute despair. 'If someone couldn'tget rid of his Jewish roomer, or didn't want to pay his taxes, he wouldsay: "I can't stand it, I'm joining the National Socialists."' Five yearslater, Hitler used these contemptuous terms to describe the men whosupported him in Germany's darkest hour. And these were not the mostdesperate. Ludendorff sent for Lossow and appealed to his conscience:better strike soon; the ranks of the National Socialist S.A. and the otherdefense leagues were starving. Soon it would be impossible to restrainthem from action.One of the lesser leaders of the S.A. was a former lieutenant, WilhelmBruckner, who subsequently became Hitler's personal adjutant.Bruckner later gave a classic picture of the army of the Uprooted andDisinherited in court. Officers, he related, had come