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

278 DER FUEHRERHe wanted to live in orderly, legal circumstances. With Fran: Gurtner,the Minister of Justice, his eternal protector, he devised a trick to obtainpermission to speak again in public. Hitler solemnly declared to theBavarian government that he would never again make a putsch. Howmany times had he promised this? But this time he was serious andhonest. Gurtner put his permission to speak through the Bavariancabinet in 1926, while in Prussia the Social Democratic government didnot allow him to appear in public until 1929, with the result that — onPrussian territory — he could speak only under the not very iron fist ofthe French occupation authorities in the Rhineland, who probablythought that an opponent of the Berlin government in any case had to betreated nicely.Furthermore, Hitler wanted to become a German citizen and not haveto tremble forever at the thought of deportation. Although he hadpublicly sworn that he would never beg for a citizenship that shouldhave been his for his deeds on the battlefield, he let his friend, WilhelmFrick, the former deputy of the police president, make secret inquirieswith the Bavarian government in 1929. But this was too much even forGurtner's influence. The Bavarian government coldly refused.Hitler now established a kind of family. It was not he himself whorented the mountain villa of 'Wachenfeld' on the Obersalzberg, but hishalf-sister, Angela Raubal. The half-buried, strange family historybegan to revive. For twelve years his people had heard nothing of him.In 1922, on a visit to Austria he had seen his sisters again. Angela waswidowed. Now in 1925, she came to Berchtesgaden, rented the villa,and kept house for her brother. With her came her seventeen-year-olddaughter, also named Angela; a pretty, almost too blooming creature,with an immense crown of blond hair, a beauty inclining even then tothe stately side, cheerful and apparently unneurotic.And so he dwelt in his border hide-out, still half a fugitive from thepolice; always in fear of the unknown murderer in the big cities. Whenhe appeared in Munich, he moved through the streets armed with aheavy dog whip, always prepared to strike. But what tormented himmost was fear of material poverty. The question of his personalexistence occupied him far more than before. Though