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

442 DER FUEHRERlonger my fatherland.' And half a century later, Alfred Rosenberg saidwith admiration: 'Those are the words of a Herr.'How many of them were there actually? German statistics, usually sothorough, and well able to compute the amount of potatoes, beets, andneedles produced in a year, never counted the German junkers; that is,the number of East German landowners and the extent of their propertywas never officially revealed. But in private researches JohannesConrad, an economist writing in the eighteen-eighties, counted 11,015large landowners; together they owned 16,433 estates; 113 of themowned from 12,000 to 25,000 acres; 46 over 25,000 acres; the largestlandowner was doubtless the Hohenzollern family, with 415,000 acres.Now this class entered Hitler's life, and his struggle for power inGermany was in no small measure a struggle with them and a victoryover them. At first the junkers were full of distrust. National Socialistmasses in the eastern plains often struggled bitterly with the landowningaristocracy; for it was the Uprooted and Disinherited, the day laborersand hired hands, who began to fill the ranks of the S.A. in the country.The National Socialists inspired them with a self-confidence they hadnever before known. Hitler solemnly promised the large landowners toprotect property; but when R. W. Darre or Gregor Strasser spoke to themasses, they said pretty much the opposite. Gottfried Feder, the breakerof interest slavery, who still regarded himself as the spiritual founder ofNational Socialism, proclaimed that after its victory his party wouldcreate a belt of small peasants in the East, 'with farm beside farm'; inother words, that he would smash many of the large, heavily indebtedand unprofitable estates.Since 1929, the Reich had thrown large sums of money into thedistressed agriculture of East Germany. Taxes had been remitted, therehad been cash gifts; but above all, the state intervened when alandowner had overburdened his property with debt and could no longerpay the interest — in other words, when he went bankrupt. Then afinancing establishment set up by the state assumed the debt, paid thecreditors, and frequently became the creditor — which in practice oftenmeant that the money was lost for good. In 1930-31, over two hundredand eighty million marks were given