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

Chapter IXTHE BEER HALL PUTSCHHITLER HAD HESITATED UNTIL HIS HESITATION nearly brokethe movement. But then he pulled himself together. From one momentto the next he took an extraordinary decision. The task was to drive thegovernment to revolution. But how? This time it looked as though theorders had come directly from the Wise Men of Zion.Two refugees from Russia devised the plan, Alfred Rosenberg and hisfriend, Max Richter. Richter was a German from East Prussia, but hehad spent a large part of his life in Russia, in the German Balticprovinces, from which Rosenberg originated. During the Russianrevolution of 1905, he had belonged to one of the little private armiesset up by landowners and industrialists for defense against therevolution — something on the style of the Black Hundreds. He hadmarried the daughter of a manufacturer whose factory he had guarded.Later he had served in Turkey as a German 'diplomat,' or rather agent,and after the war, still as a German agent, he had been involved in theRussian counter-revolution. Fleeing from Russia, he had found his wayto the German counterrevolution. Lossow knew him from the old daysand characterized him as a man of dubious honor; Ludendorff esteemedhim and vouched for his good character. Of bourgeois origin, heennobled himself with his wife's family name, calling himself MaxErwin von Scheubner-Richter.This political schemer of the Russian school, a craftier, more Worldlyman than his young friend Rosenberg, knew exactly how