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

354 DER FUEHRERGermany. Hitler was creating the catastrophe which he had so oftenprophesied.In Rome, however, the organ of the Fascist Party wrote that Germanywas experiencing 'a stormy national rebirth'; Hitler was 'a herald andorganizer who shook men's souls.' The young people of today, the paperdeclared, 'had no further use for the principles of the past century,calling themselves liberalism, democracy, and socialism.' Mussolini'spaper, Il Popolo d'ltalia, was not entirely enthusiastic; it accused theFrench of responsibility for Hitler: their brutal insistence on the peacetreaties, the reinforcement of the gigantic French military machine, thehopeless defeat of the Left parties in France — all this had weakenedthe position of the Left in Germany.The loudest cry of joy over Hitler's victory came from England. LordRothermere, publisher of England's biggest newspaper, the Daily Mail,went to Munich and spoke with Hitler, who was exceedingly gracious tothe brother of the late 'Jew Northcliffe.' The Englishman was convincedthat he had found Europe's man of destiny. He wrote an article whichappeared simultaneously in the Daily Mail and the VolkischerBeobachter. It runs in part (retranslated from the German):If we examine more closely the shift of political power to the NationalSocialists, we find that it has all sorts of political advantages. For onething, it erects a reinforced wall against Bolshevism. It eliminates thegrave danger that the Soviet campaign against European civilizationwould advance to Germany and thus achieve an impregnable position inthe strategic center of Europe. ... If the young Germany of the NationalSocialists had not worked with so much energy, there was a greatlikelihood that the cause of communism would make important progressand that this party would even have become the strongest party. . . .Enlightened opinion in England and France should therefore give theNational Socialists full recognition for the services which they have performedin Western Europe. Under Hitler's supervision, German youth isactually organized against the corruption of Communism. I pursued thesame purpose in founding the United Empire Party in England. ... Itwould be the best thing for the welfare of Western civilization ifGermany were to have a government, im-