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

THE BEER HALL PUTSCH 201tions: armed bohemia. When this type makes a revolution, it is by natureand plan a sham, an armed noise to drown out the whispered betrayal;the seemingly military conclusion of a business deal concluded inadvance; a painless indulgence of vanity and a hoax on the audience.This time the act had been a failure, and the actors fled at once.Two hours later, Rohm capitulated behind his barbed wire. He gave into the persuasion of Epp, who came as intermediary and angel of peace;apparently a friend, perhaps a traitor; at all events, a faint heart and agravedigger of the common cause. Of Rohm's men, two had fallen.Meanwhile, a car with the two hostages was still driving about themountain roads. Shortly after noon, the news of the collapse in Munichreached the countryside. The lonely motorists heard it while pausing forrest. Schweyer suddenly noticed that the guards had vanished. Hegathered new energy and commanded the driver, who suddenly showedhimself astonishingly solicitous toward the ministers, to drive them backto Munich in all haste. Rudolf Hess slipped across the border intoAustria over a mountain trail.A few days later, Hitler was under arrest. As he sat there, the Germanchaos came to an end, and in a pacified world, returned to normalcy, aband of aimless rebels remained behind prison gates. Six days after theshooting at the Feldherrn Halle, the German mark was stabilized; fromthen on, it stopped sinking and has outwardly remained one of thefirmest currencies in the world. In London a committee of internationalfinanciers met and decided to help sustain the German economy. Underthe guidance of the American financier, Owen D. Young, and theEnglish banker, Sir Josiah Stamp, a plan was worked out which becameknown as the Dawes Plan after the chairman of the committee. Germanyreceived an international loan of eight hundred million gold marks,secured by the German state railways. At the same time the Alliedgovernments set an approximate limit to the German 'reparations'payments, which had been purposely left vague. The payments were tobegin with half a billion marks per annum, rising, within five years, totwo and a half billions. An American financier, Parker