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

462 DER FUEHRERhe said, understood the need for sacrifices; but it was not possible to'teach him this understanding if from the very start it is associated withconceptions and slogans which must inevitably drive the Germanworking class into a united front.' Bruning had warned capital not to gotoo far; the Communists understood: not to establish open fascism, for,in Stalin's words, 'fascism is a fighting organization of the bourgeoisie.'The following day the Communist speaker, Remmele, stood up in theReichstag and put the following interpretation on Bruning's remark:'Herr Bruning has spoken very clearly: if once the Fascists are in power,the united front of anti-fascism will come into being and will sweepeverything before it [stormy applause from the Communist benches], . .. Who will strike whom? This question is already decided [applausefrom the Communists]. The only remaining question is: At what timeshall we overthrow the bourgeoisie? . . . The Fascists do not frighten us.They will be finished even quicker than any other government [cries of'Right!' from the Communists].' So thought the party which led theUprooted and Disinherited of the Left. Their leaders and many of theirfollowers were convinced (as Trotzky reproachfully said) '... that thetask of struggle against fascism is a task of the second order; that it canwait; that it will solve itself; that fascism is essentially already in power;that Hitler will bring nothing new; that Hitler does not have to befeared; that Hitler will only break a path for the Communists.'It did not disturb the Communists that this path was strewn withCommunist corpses. When, in the Prussian diet, they entered the motionthat was to overthrow the Prussian government, their deputy, WilhelmPieck, made a violent speech against the National Socialists, whom hecalled a party of murderers. The National Socialists jumped up, flungthemselves on the numerically inferior Communists, thrashed them outof the hall, and sang the Horst Wessel song on the scene of their victory.There were pools of blood on the floor, and Hitler danced with joy whenGoebbels told him the story on the telephone. Der Fuhrer could not heardetails enough of the smashed skulls and knocked-out teeth. When thetwo met three days later, 'I had to tell him the whole story in epic length,and he rubbed his hands with pleasure.' But incapable of