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

528 DER FUEHRERAmong Hitler's fanatical adherents was Ludwig Muller, the Protestantchaplain of the East Prussian Reichswehr, assigned to the FirstMilitary Command in Konigsberg. In 1930, Muller per-suaded hiscommander to attend a mass meeting at which Hitler was to speak. Itwas the time of hysterical frontier tension with the Poles, when Hitlerwas hailed as a 'German margrave' and prayers were addressed to him.This faith seems to have touched General Werner von Blomberg. Hewas a gifted, cultivated officer, very soldierly in appearance, thoughnicknamed the 'rubber lion' because of his gentle manner. Blomberg wasbowled over by Hitler at their first meeting, and frankly admitted it; hesoon virtually became an instrument of the thundering voice. Shortlyafter this fateful meeting, he was sent abroad to study military progressin the United States. The public seems to have taken little notice of hisvisit; some day perhaps it will be known how much of his Americanobservation Blomberg worked into the German military machine. In1932, at any rate, he was one of the directors of German army policy,the third after Schleicher and Hammerstein; and he was Germany'smilitary expert at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. Germanbourgeois ministers were surprised when this Reichswehr leader advisedthem to read Mein Kampf, and even quoted passages. A colder naturewas Blomberg's chief of staff, Colonel Walter von Reichenau; perhapsless of an admirer of Hitler, but in his thinking and manner of life a trueNational Socialist officer, who broke with the Prussian tradition bymaking personal friends of the men under him. Blomberg andReichenau were among those supporters of National Socialism who,like Ribbentrop, assured their Jewish friends that things would not be sobad; when they did get so bad, Reichenau said that Hitler had broughtGermany so much good that a patriotic German Jew must regardhimself as 'fallen on the field of honor.'This type of officer considered it the duty and right of NationalSocialism to bring the army 'spiritual domination over the people.' Itbecame the creed of Blomberg, Reichenau, and many others that theReichswehr must withdraw again from politics. Schleicher, theybelieved, had led it on a false path. Schleicher 'had ceased to be asoldier,' Reichenau later declared; he was 'a born conspirator and