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

COUP D'ETAT BY INSTALLMENTS 583surely convinced of the Jewish world conspiracy; and if he annihilatedthe Jews in Germany, he would, in his opinion, not be harming innocentpersons. By a mass mobilization of S.A. cor-dons, the party was in aposition to stop the business of all Jewish shops, in this way destroyingtheir owners economically without the use of extreme violence. It was asenseless plan, and it was from Schacht that Hitler had to learn that theeconomic destruction of the Jews would create an economic vacuumwhich would inevitably suck in large numbers of Germans; Schachteven threatened to resign. If Goebbels is to be believed, the fear waseven expressed in the cabinet that the Jewish question might bring war.Unquestionably Hitler, in his mountain solitude, had thought out an impracticablescheme; for the first time since he had been Chancellor, hehad gone out of his way to invite difficulties, to lose sympathies, tomake unnecessary enemies.What Hitler might have been if he had not alienated the Jews! Thiswas more than the half-humorous sigh of lukewarm reactionaries, whowould have liked to join him. Mussolini threatened Goring, who hadcome for a visit, that the anti-Jewish agitation might cost Germany thefriendship of Italy, for Italy could not expose herself to a struggle eitherwith the spook of world Jewry or with the reality of Jewish influence ininternational economic life. And, subsequently, Goring, more than anyother National Socialist leader, soft-pedaled the Jewish question. Themost vociferous anti-Semite was Julius Streicher of Nuremberg,gauleiter of Franconia, whose pornographic lunacy had strengthenedmany in the belief that the anti-Semitism of the Nazis could not beserious. To the consternation even of many National Socialists, it wasnow announced that Streicher would direct the boycott. There were fewwho still remembered Hitler's early speeches, in which he set forth howthe Jew, consciously and for political motives, poisoned the Aryanpeoples sexually, degraded their sense of honor and emotional life, andsubjugated them morally by desecrating their women. But it was knownthat for Streicher the 'racial question' was nothing other than a strugglebetween Aryan and Jewish men for domination of the feminine sex; thathe seldom spoke of anything else in his agitation; that his illustratednewspaper, Der Sturmer, was the