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

590 DER FUEHRERyou were a little more conscious of your aims than the weary andunenterprising trade-union leaders. In many localities the S.A. hadalready forced their way into trade-union headquarters; beatings hadoccurred. No trade-union leader called for determined resistance, andthere is every reason to suppose that the leaders knew what could andwhat could not be expected of their followers. The education of theworking masses in the ideals of the economic age was now makingitself felt. The worker, taught for decades that the only thing he had tofight for was his material interests, was bound to ask himself whetherthese interests would be better served by resistance to the new order orby participation in it.Just as the German generals discovered in 1918 that under certaincircumstances democracy was the stronger state form for militarypurposes and hence could be a means of future victories, the Germanproletariat, trained to regard democracy as a means of achievingmaterial aims, did not regard it as an ideal in itself; it was now willing toexchange the worn-out implement for a new one, as Ferdinand Lassallehad predicted. The founder of the National Socialist Shop CellOrganization (N.S.B.O.), a certain Reinhold Muchow, proclaimed thatthe workers would be the leading estate in the new Reich. JohannesEngel, another leader of the N.S.B.O., speaking in April at the BerlinSportpalast, cried out to the employers: 'You are only servants. We donot recognize the employer as an employer. Without the people, you area heap of dung [uproarious applause].' Goring was present at themeeting; he stepped forward and added: '. . . not only has GermanNational Socialism been victorious, but German socialism as well.' Ofcourse, it was well known that the National Socialists held words cheap,and Hitler's remarks about the low cultural level of the working massescould not be entirely forgotten. But this state needed the workersanyhow and would be prepared to pay for them. The cold-bloodedrealism of the masses contributed at least as much as any surge ofenthusiasm to the success of co-ordination (Gleichschaltung) in thespring of 1933. Even the Communists, who had originally conceivedthings differently, began to give out the watchword: Go into theNational Socialist organizations and bore from within; turn them intorevolutionary cells. A national law of April 5 gave em-