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

FEW FLAMES BURN IN GERMANY 285by the wave, he missed the moment for the leap which might haveassured him a place in history. Like Hitler in his early years, he wasinspired by an almost boyish pleasure in political activity and workamong the masses. Lacking Hitler's oratorical gift, he possessedsomething just as rare: the power to move an audience by his verypersonality. His career provides one more example of the trifles whichsometimes determine historical destiny. As deputy in the GermanReichstag, Strasser enjoyed parliamentary immunity and free travel onthe German railways. In contrast to Hitler he could travel for nothingand insult people with impunity. It was a big thing to be able to callyour opponent a traitor to the nation and a thief in the bargain — and todo so, today here, tomorrow more than six hundred miles away, withouta penny's traveling expenses— and without fear of the courts. At thattime the radio was virtually unavailable for political speeches, since inGermany it belonged exclusively to the state. Free travel and freeslander — Strasser had a big headstart over his Fuhrer.This bon vivant, a lover of struggle and of girls, alcohol, cards andsports as well, now reached for the leadership of the party; he foundedso-called 'party gaus,' that is provincial groups, had gau-leiters electedwho, he hoped, would be personally devoted to him, and worked out aprogram which he intended to force on the party. He had a helper in avolatile young man, little suited to the clique of freebooters, but fittingin perfectly with the bohemians. It is hard to classify this young man,for he was actually nothing — not even a former lieutenant or ensign,not even a corporal. Nature had given him a crippled foot; thoughseventeen at the outbreak of the World War, he had not been taken intothe army. He had studied literature and philosophy at six universities,had lived on a scholarship from the Catholic 'Albertus Magnus Society,'and had later written film scripts which were never accepted; he hadoffered a 'culture-Bolshevistic' publishing house in Berlin a novel whichhad been rejected; according to his own story, he had secretly fought thearmy of occupation in his native Rhenish city during the Ruhr War —but most of his later comrades did not believe this. Now, despite his sixuniversities, he was nothing at all; that is, he was an editor' of a NationalSocialist weekly. His name was Paul Joseph Goebbels.