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

DEFEAT 447article of the constitution which provides for free elections.' It was hardto uphold the strategic line that this was no fight against the venerablefield marshal, but against Bruning and his group. 'Old man,' said Hitler,embarrassed and not quite tactfully, 'we honor you too much to sufferthat those whom we want to destroy should use you as a front. We aresorry, but you must step aside, for they want to fight, and so do we. . . .'Most of the upper class were at a loss in this election fight, and manydecided for Duesterberg; but Fritz Thyssen, the heavy industrialist,declared: 'I am voting for Adolf Hitler, because I know him well and amfirmly convinced that he is the only man who can and will rescueGermany from ruin and disintegration.'And all blows were permitted! Rohm put his S.A. and S.S. inreadiness; he ordered them to gather in their private barracks; flyingcommandoes stood ready to seize the arsenals of the Reichswehr. A ringof National Socialist troops was thrown around Berlin; the families ofthe leading National Socialists left the capital. Then Rohm called onSchleicher like a good boy and informed him that he had taken a fewprecautionary measures; nothing of importance. But Reichswehr agentsbrought in different reports, and Groener began to quarrel withSchleicher, saying that this was beginning to look dangerous. Theminister no longer followed his adviser without question as before.When Schleicher refused to recognize the danger of an insurrection ofthe S.A., Groener wrote a letter to Carl Severing, Prussia's SocialDemocratic Minister of the Interior, calling on him to act; he wroteanother open letter to Hitler, demanding that he publish his 'positiveaims,' and 'thus destroy the grave anxiety of millions of Germans .. .over the dangers of a Bolshevist development.' Severing's police raidedNational Socialist headquarters, and obtained a copy of Rohm's order.Severing also found strategic maps and complete revolutionary battleplans. And near the Polish border a very strange thing was found: ordersof local S.A. leaders, stating that in case of a sudden Polish attack onGermany the S.A. should not take part in the defense. This was whatHitler had several times threatened in his speeches and afterwardrepresented as harmless. It was high treason.