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

386 DER FUEHRERresponsibility for the collection. The deal was concluded, Hitler andSchwarz acquired the collection for the party and employed Rehse andStempfle as curators. This was in April, 1929; the National SocialistParty was still insignificant, it was sorely in need of money, and whenhighly deserving party comrades of the old guard came to the offices ofthe Volkischer Beobachter, begging for ten marks in payment for anarticle they had contributed, Rosenberg was perfectly capable of kickingthem downstairs. While the editors of his paper were still running aboutragged and threadbare, Hitler spent good money, ostensibly for acollection of dusty old posters. He went so far as to boast that NationalSocialism had saved a valuable cultural undertaking. His most devotedfollowers shook their heads at this new whim; even the best-informeddid not suspect its true motives.Stempfle, who was wonderfully gifted for haggling and intriguing,then bought the letter from Rudolph — under exactly what conditions isnot known. The sum of money does not seem to have been small.Presumably Schwarz advanced it from the party treasury in order tosave Der Fuhrer's reputation; in any case it was he who provided themoney. The letter probably did not go through Rehse's hands, and inthis he may have been fortunate. Stempfle gave it to Schwarz and he toHitler. It is perhaps this service that later made Schwarz one of the mostpowerful, though publicly obscure, figures of the Third Reich.Relations between Hitler and his niece became troubled as time wenton; the incident of the lost and recovered letter perhaps contributed tothe final catastrophe. For a time, at least, the strange lover seems to havegrown rather repugnant to the young girl. But surely Hitler's almostpathological inconstancy had something to do with this. Hitler thoughthimself entitled to extend his affections on all sides; and all the storieswhich he assiduously spread about his unworldliness and aloofness hadtheir basis in the fact that he knew no constancy or fidelity in anyhuman relationship. Nature gave him the faculties and instincts of agreat egoist and devourer of people, but denied him the hardness whichmight have enabled him to bear such a lot without pain. His lovelesscore is covered over with a thick foam of sentimentality and self-pity;he demands