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

CHANCELLOR AT LAST 539seem a miracle, and many believed that only another miracle, and a veryunsavory one, could account for it. One story was that Hitler hadpromised Hindenburg to restore the monarchy; if ever he made such apromise, he needed only seven weeks to retract it in an officialstatement. It was further maintained that Meissner and Oskar vonHindenburg had been blackmailed with threats to expose some shadystock speculations with a Jewish banker in which they had madeimproper use of their inside political information. It seems to be truethat Oskar and Meissner, as the result of losses they had suffered in sucha speculation, were indebted to the banker for about a million marks; itis said that the banker kept the account of this business, called 'subaccountB,' not in his office, but in a safe in his house. The safe onenight was broken into by unknown burglars, and 'sub-account B'disappeared; some days later, the banker got the 'friendly advice' toleave Germany as soon as possible. So far the story seems true, butpeople who knew Schleicher well would rather believe that he himselfengineered the burglary in order to get a hold on his unreliable friends,Oskar and Meissner; then, too, he was probably much better informedabout their shady deals than a National Socialist outsider.But even if Hitler got 'sub-account B,' Oskar and Meissner couldhardly be in danger, for they knew at least as many unsavory storiesabout Hitler, Goring, Goebbels, Rohm. It was also known to Hitler thatwhen Neudeck was given to Hindenburg, the state had been cheated outof the inheritance tax; it was known to him that the chief of state hadreceived another four hundred and fifty thousand marks through privatecollections in order that he would require no Eastern Aid. Unpleasant asthese facts were, they could not be used for blackmail, for they wereknown, not only to the National Socialists, but to the public as well;General Erich Luden-dorff, for years a bitter enemy of Hindenburg, hadtold the whole story, including the tax swindle, in a widely read weekly.Later, when Hitler was in power, he did not hesitate to use one oranother of these scandals to intimidate Oskar von Hindenburg; but anunderstanding of the National Socialist seizure of power is not advancedby these mystery stories. Hitler came to power because he seemed theonly man who could restore to Germany a parliamentary