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

DEFEAT 44913,800,000, and needed only 'to snatch two and a half millions from theenemy's front' —with such juggling he tried to persuade his followersthat a hard task was really easy.He changed his methods fundamentally. In the first campaign he hadattacked his enemies; in the second he spoke of himself. In the first hehad painted the misery of Germany — 'the whole people up to the earsin debt, trembling from month to month that their checks will beprotested, the municipalities ruined, whole cities facing collapse, thenation and the states without money. Small countries scoff at Germanyand large ones despise us. Since the destruction of Carthage noimportant people has been treated like the German people' — now hedescribed the brilliant, miraculous future that would be embodied inhimself. He became the great apparition descending on Germany fromHeaven — and that literally. He hired a large Junkers plane and flewfrom city to city. Three, four, sometimes five times a day Hitler spoke tocrowds of ten thousand and over; millions saw him, and whilesometimes he was so hoarse that he could scarcely emit a croak, hecontinued to depict a picture of boundless future happiness: 'In the ThirdReich, every German girl will find a husband!'In this second campaign, Hitler was able to win over the class thatreally belonged to Hindenburg. The Kaiser's eldest son, former CrownPrince Friedrich Wilhelm, who led a merry life on his estates in Silesia,in the theaters, bars and sport stadiums of the capital, had quietly votedfor Duesterberg in the first election. In the second, in order to breakpublicly with Hindenburg, he said: 'Since I regard it as absolutelynecessary for the national front to close its ranks, I shall vote for AdolfHitler.'One representative of this class, Hans Grimm, author of a widely readnovel about Germany's 'Lebensraum,' declared that he would vote ratherfor Hitler's cause than for the 'coarse and demagogic' Hitler himself,because Hitler's 'new national movement has become — and this is thegreatest thing that can happen to a man — more than he is'; therefore,and because there was no other choice, his, Grimm's, vote for Hitler wasmeant, 'not for the National Socialist Movement, not even for Hitler'sperson, but for a new Germany.'