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

214 DER FUEHRERorganization to apiculture re-formed his nation; who chose as a symbolof his imperial power the totalitarian bee, dedicated to work and war;who, on the ruins of conquered Moscow, decreed the foundation of aFrench national theater. From him Germany learned the new methods ofraising popular armies; she learned how to arm, train, feed them, movethem across country in flexible, widely distributed bands, and then hurltheir assembled power at a single point. From France, Germany learnedthe secret of the new patriotism: organized freedom.'His aim,' said Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the romantic Germanphilosopher, 'is not to be ruler of France, but ruler of the world; and ifhe cannot be that, he would prefer not to be at all. He has enthusiasmand an absolute will; only a stronger enthusiasm can defeat him —enthusiasm for liberty!'Another contemporary of Napoleon, the patriotic Prussian poet,Heinrich von Kleist, asserted that this was the custom in the army of theFrench enemy, especially in the artillery: the captain of a battery at thebeginning of a battle, 'with his left fist grasps an artilleryman by thechest, and with the tip of his sword pointing at a spot on the ground, hesays, "You die here!" looking at him all the while; then to the next,"You, here!" and to a third, and fourth, and all the rest, "Here, here, andhere!" and to the last, "Here!"' Kleist thought 'that this command to thesoldiers to die without any argument had an extraordinary effect,' andthe whole business, Kleist, the Prussian, called a 'French experimentthat ought to be imitated.'The Germans learned by plan. In the German masses a democraticlonging stirred which actually sprang to the surface decades later; but inthe period of Napoleon's domination, Prussian ministers and generalsundertook to organize this longing from above. Officially, at least, theyreleased the Prussian peasants from their semi-enslavement to thejunkers; they gave their subjects the novel privilege of choosing theirown trade; they went so far as to promise a parliament and freedom ofthe press. In the end, they confronted the French emperor with an armythat was almost revolutionary. It was based on general conscription andin a way democratic. Commoners, believe it or not, could rise to beofficers. A