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

FEW FLAMES BURN IN GERMANY 303the crime: only five years in prison. At the end of a year and a half, thecondemned man was freed by a new amnesty. But the murderers' armyhad expected more: complete acquittal with honors. They were suddenlyunited in angry protest. General Franz von Epp demonstratively joinedthe party of the man whom five years before he had accused of breakinghis word of honor. He did not withdraw the accusation, but merelystated that his old grudge 'had quickly passed off; in return, Hitleroffered him a seat in the Reichstag. Rohm appeared on the platform of aparty meeting with his closest friends, the homosexuals so oftencastigated by Hitler, and cried out that the sentence of his friend Heineswas 'an attack of formal justice on the soldier's right to self-defense.'Rohm returned to Hitler with great plans. While the party still lookedthreadbare and hopeless from without, he assured friends that Hitlerwould become Reich Chancellor and that he, Rohm, would build upHitler's army. He resumed his work in the same broad, systematic styleas in 1920 and 1923. Ostensibly quite outside the party, he formed anofficers' club, which officially had neither political nor professionalaims; but was devoted merely to the theoretical study of militaryquestions and bore the non-committal title of WehrpolitischeVereinigung (League for Combat Policy). This private military academyhad local groups in the garrison cities of Bavaria. Rohm traveled aroundthe country, found his old comrades in all the garrisons, some of them inhigh posts, and, as 'Adolf Hitler's envoy,' revealed to them the futurethat Hitler had conceived for the German army and its officers. TheWehrpolitische Vereinigung conducted itself like the general staff of afuture army. The importance of this contact cannot be overestimated;and Hitler, who felt perfectly at home again with Rohm, hoped the oldfriend would now take over the leadership of the S.A.It seems that a purely external reason unhinged this plan. Rohmsuddenly disappeared. A quarrel with his former friend, LieutenantNeunzert, seems to have been one of the main reasons. Neunzertthreatened revelations, and Rohm suddenly found it advisable to put anocean between himself and Europe. The Bolivian Army, led and trainedby a German general named Kundt, was seeking Ger-