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

THE AGE OF GOLD 265power was swept away for five years by a Conservative landslide(1924). It was exactly at the same time when in Germany the SocialDemocrats in two elections suffered a remarkable defeat; when for fouryears the moderate non-socialist parties governed unmolested, andbusiness launched the slogan: 'An end to politics, on withreconstruction!'Peace positively forced itself on the world, irresistibly taking formdespite obstacles and difficulties. The style of the peace councils remainsmemorable. They were great social events, political dramafestivals with the most famous performers, on the most beautiful stagesin the world, before the eyes of a glittering, elegant, good-humoredpublic, representing the power and the wealth of the earth — and neverperhaps have international festivals been so impressivelypropagandized. These diplomatic festivals usually took place on somelake in southern Switzerland; in a land where man by centuries of toilhad stamped his civilization, like a fine gold plate, on a raw, terrifyingnature. At the foot of the high mountains, tamed with hundreds of roads,railroad lines, passes, tunnels, electrical works, and grand hotels, thestatesmen of the epoch tried to master the yet unmastered problem ofhuman society, just as Nature was here mastered, channelized, andwalled about. They went strolling in fresh green parks, looked out upona flawless fragment of blue lake, set like a jewel amid the green; theysaw gardens, paths, bathing establishments, stone steps, all designed tofacilitate the passage from friendly land to friendly water; across thelake, gleaming in the sun, they saw a paradise full of little castles,forests, hills, gently piled one upon the other. In the presence of all thisnatural and man-made beauty and abundance, it was hard not to beoptimistic, not to believe in peace.Here Aristide Briand, the French Foreign Minister, tragicallysearching for peace, cried from the platform of the League of Nations:'En arriere les canons, en arriere les fusils!' — in front of a public ofhard-boiled politicians and newspapermen, some of whom had tears intheir eyes. Here his German colleague, Gus-tav Stresemann, formerly arather run-of-the-mill German patriot, praised the 'great world architect'according to whose plan the peoples should live in peace; he himself sopermeated and trans-