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

COUP D'ETAT BY INSTALLMENTS 595passed puting an end to this lie; by this law the de facto rule of the S.A.over Germany was given legal force. So-called Reich statt-halters(governors) were appointed over the states. Hitler kept his promise topreserve the states intact, but his statthalters now appointed theministers and high officials and decreed the laws; moreover, all eighteenof them were National Socialists, mostly party gauleiters, wherever gauand provincial boundaries more or less coincided. In Prussia thegovernor was the Chancellor himself, and Hindenburg could notcomplain, for by this act the Reich and Prussia were 'indissolubly boundtogether,' as he had always demanded. Papen, Goring's 'superior,' hadsuddenly become Hitler's 'subordinate,' and even this questionable glorylasted only four days. On April 11, Hitler appointed Goring Premier ofPrussia in Papen's place, and also made over to him his prerogatives asgovernor of Prussia. Papen was now only Vice-Chancellor of the Reich,actually a figure without competency and hence without power; the onlything he could do — which seldom helped him — was to complain toHindenburg.What a metamorphosis in seventy days, from January 30 to April 11!Aside from the sudden exclusion of Gereke, no changes had occurred inthe personnel of the Reich cabinet; and yet it was no longer even truethat the cabinet contained only thirty per cent of National Socialists. Theauthors of this calculation had not realized that the magic of Hitler'spropaganda would not halt before the members of his cabinet.Increasingly impressed by the fabulous successes of his Chancellor,Franz Seldte, Stahlhelm leader and Reich Minister of Labor, became aNational Socialist at heart; and the same process occurred in thousandsand millions of people all over the country. The National Socialists werealways victorious; therefore, it seemed to many, they were always right.After the dubious success of the Jewish boycott, May 1 gave promise ofbeing an uncontested triumph; on April 19, even Leipart, after hesitationand evasions, called on all his trade-union members to 'participateeverywhere in the celebration inspired by the government.'Events had gone beyond Hitler's own prophecies of three yearsbefore. The great masses were 'joining in with shouts of Hurrah'; at thismoment, Hitler had predicted, National Socialism would be