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

284 DER FUEHRERproach. Endless heaps of substantives are intended to cover over thejargon of the Vienna lodging-house. Hitler uses few verbs, for heseldom says what happens; he always tries to create an image with hisown luminous figure striding through columns of majestic substantives.He has enriched the German language with a dozen of the most hideousforeign words (hideous especially because they are not really at home inany language of the world). But even this terrifying style is not his owncreation; it is borrowed from Richard Wagner's prose writings; bothauthors take to elaborate bombast because they fear to betray or committhemselves by a simple word. The author speaks even when he thinksnothing at all; one of the most priceless examples of empty babbling isthe beginning of the tenth chapter of the first volume. In the whole bookhardly a single actual fact is related tangibly and credibly. HoustonStewart Chamberlain had once said: 'The frivolity with which such anartist-spirit treats facts is inspired in him by the certainty that he willpenetrate to a higher truth regardless from what premises he starts;therefore he takes the best that he can assimilate.' With Richard Wagnerin mind, Chamberlain foreshadowed a whole school which falsifiesfacts and calls the result higher truth.Mein Kampf did little to establish Hitler's intellectual authority in hisparty; in fact the party sailed along almost rudderless during nineteentwenty-fiveand twenty-six. The Fuhrer wrote his book, worked for hisnewspapers, issued leading articles, occasionally spoke at meetings; butin these years another man grew to be the real leader: Gregor Strasser.He was the ideal type of armed intellectual; a former wartime officer,though no professional soldier, but an enthusiast, almost a gourmet inmatters of civil war; at the same time an idealist. He owned a drugstorein Landshut, Bavaria, which he sold in 1924 to devote himself entirelyto the business of National Socialist leadership; his aim was to pushHitler aside and replace him. A big, heavy man; in contrast to Hitler, anunusually monolithic type, in whom everything, gestures as well asvoice, was energetic; he was ponderously loyal to his plans once theywere formed, while Hitler was devious and unstable; insensitive to lightwinds, unable to foresee storms. For a time borne high