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

348 DER FUEHRERnames each year, but with all their baptism they have remained inreality circumcised.' When the laughter had died down, he continued,'Parties cannot save Germany, but only a man — the unknown soldier ofthe World War.'The great day had dawned for the uprooted, unbalanced men who hadno other occupation than addressing the masses in smoky beer halls;who had lost their normal livelihood, sold their businesses, given uptheir jobs; who bore no responsibility in public life and felt responsiblefor nothing. They had become more than a type; they were a marching,blackjack-swinging machine. 'If today in Germany a question arises,'said Hitler, 'I never have to speak with my editor-in-chief, mycollaborators or my gauleiters, for tomorrow this question will beanswered in the same way by dozens of party speakers. Philosophy asthe granite foundation of thought forces them to the same conclusions'— the inevitable conclusion that the Jews are to blame for everything.How profoundly the state of mind of the German people had changedby 1930 can be seen in the sharp curve described by the barometer ofNational Socialist propaganda. All the sage plans for coming to poweras a minority were forgotten. Resistance to parliament suddenly ceased.The contemptuous speeches about the broad mass of zeros died down.Instead, the party's election proclamation ran: 'We shall overthrow thepresent parliamentary regime of the destroyers of our people in a legalway with legal means, through the soundness of our idea. . . .'In 1930, the great political vision of the Wise Men of Zion wasfulfilled in Germany. 'We know,' said Hitler on July 27, 1930, to theparty leaders assembled in Munich, 'that no election can finally decidethe fate of the nation. It is not parliamentary majorities that decide thefate of nations — they can destroy nations. But we know that in theseelections democracy must be destroyed with the weapons ofdemocracy.'Formerly he had hoped to subdue the German people with the help ofthe Reichswehr; the fact was that the Reichswehr, led by WilhelmGroener, did not accept National Socialists in its ranks. But Hitler nowsaw his great democratic star rising in the political sky, and he began tospeculate on the idea that his Brown Shirts