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

316 DER FUEHRERis the number which alone is worth anything. All the others only comealong when we line up in march columns. This principle of selection,which takes place through eternal struggle, is the guaranty of the futuresuccess of our movement. First we shall draw their valuable men fromall the national parties, and finally from the international [Marxist] onesas well. What then remains is the crowd; not persons but numbers thathand in a ballot. That is the great mass. . . .'In 1929, when he held the second Nuremberg Party Day, Hitler hadalready assembled a tenth of his historical minority. Sixty thousand ofthe elect marched in columns. A foreigner, bewitched by the stiff armsand thundering boots, said to Hitler: How wonderful; it seems as thoughall these sixty thousand men had the same face. This remark was moreaccurate than the foreign guest suspected, for the same column passedthe spot three or four times to indicate a greater mass. Even so there wasdeep truth in the words; the same uniform, the same cap, the same step,the same cry, the same song, the same simple thought, end by makingalmost identical men. 'That is the great thing about our movement . . .that these men have outwardly become almost a unit, that actually thesemembers are uniform not only in ideas, but that even the facialexpression is almost the same. Look at these laughing eyes, thisfanatical enthusiasm, and you will discover how in these faces the sameexpression has formed, how a hundred thousand men in a movementbecome a single type.'The type for whom the World War was not over. Staring into abloody distance, Hitler continued: 'Today when I saw these boyspassing by me, suddenly I thought: how would it be if two more yearspassed and these boys were to don our old steel helmets, if they werevolunteer regiments at Ypres again — the same face, the sameexpression, the same life in these men ? We saw heads of boys in whichwas already imprinted the proud man to be, which the people needs as aleader if it is not to be destroyed. That is what this movement wants.'(Loud applause.)The dream of a future hecatomb of Ypres was exactly what scared aman like Seeckt; but the professional soldier would not have understoodthat the real purpose of a coming mass war was the