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

FEW FLAMES BURN IN GERMANY 291rically staged meetings, intentional tardiness, rehearsed choruses ofstorm troops. But the basis of what he learned was inherent in both men:an intelligence cultivated to avenge their physical handicap against thenormal world. There stood Goebbels on the speaker's platform, wearinga gray suit resembling a worn uniform; the audience looked at the clubfoot and thought with emotion: look, a brave soldier from the WorldWar, torn by enemy bullets.In Goebbels's break with Strasser, Hitler had smashed a dangerousparty clique and gone a good way toward cementing his domination ofthe movement. Now he assembled the Munich members of his party inMay, 1926, and had them vote a by-law which was intended to breakthe Strasser Party in the North for good. According to this by-law theactual 'bearer' of the movement was henceforth only the 'NationalSocialist German Workers' Association' in Munich. Only this smallMunich group had any say in the party. It chose its own leadershipwhich was at the same time the leadership of the whole party. TheGerman association laws made it necessary to have the chairmanformally elected by the members; but this was a pure formality as Hitlerstated amid general merriment. The first chairman appointed ordismissed all the other important party leaders at his pleasure; above all,he henceforth had the right to appoint or dismiss the gauleiters. Fromnow on 'nothing is done in the movement without my knowledge andapproval. Nay, more: nothing is done without my desire.'To prevent any schoolmaster or editor in the North from againcreating disorder on pretext that the party program was not goodenough, it was decided in Munich that the program of twenty-five points— about which Hitler had long ceased to concern himself — wasimmutable.Thus, step by step, the party became Hitler's property. This tenaciousbut ultimately successful struggle is reflected in the genesis of MeinKampf. In 1926, Hitler completed the second volume. The manuscriptof this second volume and the printed edition of the first were againcarefully read by Josef Czerny, the man who three years previous hadaccompanied Hitler to Bayreuth. He studied the text for grammaticalmistakes, smoothed out the worst of them, corrected the spelling,introduced page-headings. A basic