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

592 DER FUEHRERFor years no Social Democratic trade-unionist had said, 'We no longerrecognize the employers as employers'; on the contrary, the recognitionof the classes as classes, each in its place and struggling for this place,had become the philosophy of the trade-union movement. No suchsharp words had been spoken at the May Day celebration which Hitler,exactly ten years before, had wanted to break up by force. It was astartling example of propaganda as an art of adaptation, when Goebbels,immediately after the acceptance of the enabling law by the Reichstag,put forward a motion in the cabinet that May First should be declared anational holiday. In the Weimar Republic, which they themselves hadestablished, the German workers had not been able to put through sucha measure; now Hitler gave them their holiday, at which ten yearsbefore he had wanted to shoot them down 'like mad dogs.'In these ten years the National Socialists had grown and learned. The'anti-capitalist' intellectuals, appointed by Gregor Strasser, still led theshop cells. A group of them, with a certain Brucker at their head, metwith Leipart and Grassman at the beginning of April, and summonedthem to resign immediately from their posts of leadership of the tradeunions and thus avert the collapse of the unions; for — according to theminutes of the conference — 'we as National Socialists have no interestin that. On the contrary, we want to create a unified trade union.' Leipartinsisted that he was speaking to them as a German, and as a German hemust demand an end to the maltreatment of labor leaders andwithdrawal of the S.A. from the trade-union headquarters: 'For you havethe intention of smashing the trade unions!' All National Socialists inone voice: 'No, we do not. It is Hugenberg who wants that!' Leipartwent on to say that if the National Socialists, especially Goring, had notcommitted so many acts of violence, 'the attitude of the trade unionstoward this government would be the same as toward any previousgovernment.' But he could not, said he, be a traitor.Brucker repeated that the National Socialists had no desire to harmthe trade unions themselves: 'Adolf Hitler himself has demanded thatthe trade unions must not be destroyed. . . Every worker must beorganized.' When Leipart asked Brucker if he had been commissionedby Hitler to negotiate, the National Socialist