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

372 DER FUEHRERabove us all' and a 'star'; but in the Berlin squabbles of 1931 he criedout, with an irritation that was perhaps affected, that he too was sick oftaking orders from the 'vain operetta queen' in Munich.This he said to the former police captain Walter Stennes, who led thediscontented S.A. in North and East Germany. For a time, perhaps,Goebbels meant this seriously. With him one, could never be certain. Inany case, he later disclosed these conversations and particularlyStennes's answers to Hitler, and it is possible that he only attacked theFuhrer in the first place to win the confidence of the guileless S.A.captain. It is certain that Stennes, no more than Otto Strasser, wanted todepose Hitler, but Hitler's principle was that criminals must be punishedbefore they commit their crime. Again Goebbels had to carry out theexpulsion, but this time the task put him in a cold sweat. Stennes and hisfollowers did not give up as easily as Strasser. A sort of putschdeveloped, consisting of brawls between the 'politicians' and themilitary-minded rank-and-file; local headquarters were occupied by the'rebels.' Stennes later boasted of having personally beaten Goebbels to apulp. In any case the Berlin gauleiter fled to Munich and there soughtprotection. Always, when he betrayed his former friends, he attachedhimself with especial warmth to the previous common enemy; in thiscase to Rohm, with whom he now formed the closest bond. With Rohmand Heines, he helped to cement the rule of the homosexuals over theS.A. A month later, Hitler himself had to write a letter of praise andthanks to the depraved murderer Heines, because Rohm demanded it;the disciplining of the S.A., he wrote to the man whom he had formerlythrown out of the party, 'remains . . . above all, dear Heines, yourachievement and that of your staff' — read: men's harem. He praisedHeines 'for your services which have been above all praise.' And:'Today I feel a special need to thank you most heartily for this and toexpress my full appreciation.' Thus did Hitler praise one half of hisuprooted desperadoes, while, in an open statement, he covered the other,mutinous half with ignominy: 'Freebooters . . . clique of mutinousofficers . . . traitors without honor . . . rabble . . . men without character.. . . From the very beginning of his activity in the N.S.DAP. HerrStennes never moved a hand without a bill and a receipt. . . .'