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

THE REICHSTAG FIRE 571signed by Hindenburg but written by Hitler, 'combine the glorious pastof the German Reich and the mighty rebirth of the German nation.'Hindenburg had consented to the use of the swastika flag throughoutGermany — with one exception. On military buildings and naval ships,the Reich battle-flag was retained without the swastika.At this time men, who had hitherto regarded themselves as powerful,began to fear the new masters. Doctor Hans Luther, president of theReichsbank, had boasted only a few days before that he would notrelinquish his post; but on the sixteenth Hitler sent for him. Lutherresigned on. the spot and permitted himself to be sent as ambassador toWashington, where he served the new regime with enthusiasm. TheReichsbank was the key position and commanding post of the Germaneconomic system; to this highest post of the dying economic age, Hitlerappointed Doctor Hjalmar Schacht, who had resigned from it only threeyears before and since then had been Hitler's prophet among thefinanciers and industrialists.Hugenberg was still in charge of economics and agriculture; vonNeurath of foreign affairs, Blomberg of the Reichswehr; Papenremained Vice-Chancellor. Since January 30, nothing had changed inthe cabinet personnel; Hitler's 'thirty per cent of voting power' had notbeen increased by a single per cent; and yet the relations of power hadbeen completely revolutionized. This was possible because Hitler andhis henchmen understood the secret of the modern state, whichHugenberg or Blomberg did not even suspect: the secret that the powerof this state does not rest on administration and dead machinery, but onthe persuasion and education of people. Again and again, variousmoments in history have produced this 'educational state,' which,because it conceives man as a living unit and not merely as a bundle ofindependent interests, has also been called the total state. The new statemachine, which in the first months of 1933 was built up in Germanyunder the cloak of the old constitutional state, arose, with all its crueltytoward individuals, far more through suggestion than violence; the S.A.did not defeat its adversaries, but took them prisoner without a struggle;and Hitler's great personal achievement was to persuade the masses