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

468 DER FUEHRERRohm thanked 'Der Fuhrer for his explanation and assured him of theloyalty that was a matter of course in view of the military training of theS.A.'The Brown People's Army had long ceased to be the elite of whichHitler had once dreamed and had become a loosely knit mass. Moresolid, more military, but numerically inferior, the Stahlhelm marchedout on Sunday to secret maneuvers. With these reserves in the rear,Germany now began to demand a stronger army at the GenevaDisarmament Conference which, since February, had been sitting inGeneva. Germany still concealed its demand beneath the ambiguouswords 'equal rights,' and cited the Versailles Treaty with its brokenpromise of general disarmament. In Papen's earlier plans this projectedGerman army had appeared as a western army against Bolshevism, inalliance with the French army. Papen had in mind a great conciliationwith France, a total solution of all controversial questions; but onceagain home politics had spoken and destroyed these hopes — if theyhad ever been founded. In France, the elections to the Chamber in May,1932, returned the Left to the helm, and again Edouard Herriot, thedemocrat and freemason, was premier. Herriot, who for years had beencultivating a rapprochement between France and the Soviet government,offered determined resistance to Germany's 'equal rights,' and alsorefused to draw a line beneath the chapter of German reparations.It was clear, to be sure, that Germany would pay no more reparations,and thus, on July 8, 1932, the peace beside the Swiss lakes was enrichedby one more treaty. In the city of Lausanne, the victor powers ofVersailles concluded an agreement with Germany which for practicalpurposes put an end to reparations. But Papen in private complained thatHerriot, the man of the Left, had not wished to give the 'cabinet ofbarons' a full success; in this attitude, according to Papen, he had beenreinforced by one of his advisers, the Socialist Grumbach; internationalMarxism had showed its hand. And that was why Herriot had notconsented to revoke Article 231 of the Peace Treaty which placed thewar guilt on Germany; that was why the reparations had not beencanceled in principle. Meanwhile, however, they were reduced to threebillion marks, a sum which, considerable as it was. seemed insignificantbeside the pre-