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

THE UPROOTED AND DISINHERITED 317opportunity it gave for selecting a minority of rulers or leaders. As amatter of fact only from this minority itself could an understanding beexpected. The really important thing was that this minority was not tobe found in Germany alone; the whole war philosophy was based onthis.The idea of a German-Italian front against France appeared in bothcountries immediately after the World War; the same political forcesappeared too: in Germany the secret murderers' army of the Free Corps,in Italy the much opener murderers' army of the Arditi under Gabrieled'Annunzio and the Fascisti under Benito Mussolini. In 1919, HoustonStewart Chamberlain wrote to his Italian brother-in-law, Count ManfredGravina: 'It is my opinion that Italy and Germany, in consequence oftheir geographical position as well as the nature of their population, aredestined to be friends, and I believe that Germany has greater interest inseeing Italy great and strong than in the contrary. France, on the otherhand, will never be your true friend, and never has been in the past: shehates you as a neighbor and rival and has always deceived you; hence itis in no way to your interest to see Germany weakened, let alonedestroyed.'True, between Germany and Italy lay independent Austria, andMussolini declared in 1925 that Italy could never tolerate the Anschluss,since it would destroy all Italy's World War gains. Then there were thetwo hundred and thirty thousand Germans in the South Tyrol annexedby Italy; but Hitler stated: 'If today Satan came and offered himself tome as an ally against France, I would give him my hand. ... It was ahappy day for me when I heard that Mussolini meant to renew the oldRoman Empire. For that meant that some day Italy will have to marchagainst France.' The struggle for a Roman Empire (for practicalpurposes North Africa) was in Hitler's eyes a struggle of races. 'Italyneeds Africa in order to settle her surplus population; France needsAfrica in order to supplement her own population from there.'To this vanishing French national force, maintaining a shaky securityby a net of artificial and unreliable alliances, the overflowing Germannational forces must be counterposed in all Europe by bloodshed ifnecessary. Hitler demands 'different slogans for the