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

614 DER FUEHRER'Marxist,' 'Bolshevist,' or otherwise 'disruptive' authors, and publiclyburned them; they spared neither the living nor the dead, neither classicsnor unknown moderns, and the finest writing was mingled with realfilth. In Berlin works of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Walter Rathenau,Erich Maria Remarque, and Heinrich Heine were burned in front of theState Opera House. Goebbels made a short speech and it could be notedthat he was not entirely at his ease; if students, he said, took uponthemselves the right to burn trash, they must also be conscious of theduty to create something better. But then he added, with a glance at theburning books: 'Never as today have young men had the right to cry out,Studies are thriving, spirits awakening, oh, century, it is a joy to live!'While incomprehensible and hideous things kept happening inGermany, which foreboded nothing good for the future of the rest of theworld, Hitler's policy toward foreign countries was of a suppleness,indeed a compliancy, which should have aroused amazement, except forthe fact that most people see only what they expect and perceive thenew only after it has become customary. On all sides, Hitler stretchedforth friendly hands, as he had predicted in his letters to Herve andexplained in his correspondence with Papen. Sometimes he met handsthat were stretched out with the same doubtful sincerity. This was thecase with Pilsudski's Poland.The most resolute and ruthless among his enemies — whom he nevermet personally — exerted a secret spell over Hitler which the latteralways felt in the face of genuine authority. In the spring of 1933, Hitlerliked to quote Machiavelli's phrase that one must either destroy orconciliate an enemy; and this same clear, cold wisdom — perhaps evenconsciously — determined the steps of the Polish dictator. When Franceentered on negotiations about Mussolini's Four Power Pact, Pilsudskibelieved that the time had come for Poland to force a decision. For thispact was tacitly but indubitably directed against Soviet Russia, butPoland, which would be the chief sufferer in a conflict of all Europeagainst Bolshevism, had not been included. France, her alleged friendand protector, had nevertheless declared herself ready to confer on aplan which barred Poland from the council of European powers.