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

490 DER FUEHRERGoring, who, at that time, was continuously shuttling between Berlin,Berchtesgaden, and Rome; no wonder that the Italian dictator publiclywarned Germany not to demand her right to rearm. Hitler took up thiscue. Had not Papen been so foolish even to demand more ships inGeneva — old-fashioned, half-obsolete battleships, good for nothing butto stir up bad feelings in England? Did Papen honestly not realize thatthe Disarmament Conference was bound to be a failure and that 'the soleconcern of German diplomacy must be to make it plain that the blamefor the failure of disarmament lay clearly and exclusively with France? .. . This would inevitably have isolated France. But under nocircumstances should we have come before the world, or even thisconference, with a rearmament program of our own.' For, after all,Germany's rearmament is inevitable; but 'it will not take place inLausanne or Geneva, but in Germany . . . and it will not lead to aninternational ratification unless it represents an accomplished fact.' Withthis sentence, published in an open letter to Papen on October 21, 1932,Hitler announced his policy of 'accomplished facts' which afterward wasgoing to shatter definitely the peace from the lake shores of Switzerland.But while Hitler reviled Papen because he gambled Germany's bestchances away, many of his own faithful accused him of doing the samewith the chances of the party. Losses were to be expected in the nextelections. Hundreds of Uprooted and Disinherited, who, for a briefperiod, had been deputies, would again have to go out in search of anuncertain living; and the twelve-million-mark bankruptcy seemedalmost inevitable.As far as is known, the majority of the National Socialist functionariesheld this view in the autumn of 1932, and doubted in thewisdom of their Fuhrer. Hitler was supported by Goebbels and Goring.Both were essentially his creatures, picked by him and elevated toleadership, not slowly risen from the ranks; consequently neither hadany large personal following among the party masses. The sentiments ofthese party masses were best known to the man who, as businessmanager and organizer, had his hands on the sensitive levers of theparty machine, who was responsible for it from its gauleiters down to itsoffice boys, who gave the