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

342 DER FUEHRERAnyone who was privileged to attend this session will, even thoughhe may doubt or decisively reject particular points in your partyprogram, nevertheless recognize the importance of your movement forthe rehabilitation of our German fatherland and wish it success. Withthis wish, which we utter from a full heart there rises in me even a smallhope that it may be realized. Even if my doubts in the future of theGerman people cannot be entirely dispelled, since my observation,extending years back into the Bismarckian golden age of Germany andfurther, has shown that the German bourgeoisie are nationally speakingat a low level such as can be found in no other country, yet I have takenwith me from the Nuremberg Congress the consoling certainty thatnumerous circles will sacrifice themselves to prevent the doom ofGermanism from being accomplished in the dishonorable, undignifiedway I previously feared. With true German greetings from my wife andself; in friendship, Your Kirdorf.But even with Kirdorf's admiration and Thyssen's help alone Hitlerwould not have gone very far; between the lines of Kirdorfs letter it canbe read that he himself saw in Hitler more a rallying point for the forcesof German youth, a source of enthusiasm, but not the man whom hewould trust with running Germany. The man on whom the reactionarysection of German industry at this time relied was Doctor AlfredHugenberg, a self-made man, who had amassed a fortune by combiningpolitics and business. Exploiting his financial power, he had madehimself leader of the German National Party, up to 1930 numerically thestrongest party of the German counter-revolution. Hugenberg and hiscircle sought to force German rejection of the Young Plan by one ofthese democratic weapons the Weimar constitution had handed over toits own enemies: a plebiscite.A gold-driven propaganda wave now rolled over the land, and on itscrest rode the most capable propagandist of the time, on whosecollaboration the financial backers of the campaign had insisted: AdolfHitler. But despite Hitler, the plebiscite was a failure, bringing only5,800,000 votes; it was less than a half of the number which, four yearsprevious, had voted against the princes. Hinden-burg, after somehesitation, signed the law accepting the Young Plan.For Hitler it was, nevertheless, a splendid piece of business. He