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

624 DER FUEHRERwith an argument combined of passionate faith and brilliant falsehood.And an extraordinary number of people were immediately convinced:'National Socialism is a principle which as a philosophy gives ageneral and fundamental obligation. Because of the boundless love andloyalty we feel for our own nationality, we respect the national rights ofother peoples, and from the bottom of our hearts we desire to live withthem in peace and friendship. Therefore, we do not have the idea of"Germanization." The mentality of the past century, which led people tothink that they could make Germans out of Poles and Frenchmen, isalien to us, and we passionately oppose any attempt at the reverse. Wesee the European nations around us as a given fact. Frenchmen, Poles,and so on are our neighbors, and we know that no event that ishistorically conceivable can change this reality.'Hitler's unexpected message of peace, shedding sweetness and lighton a world trembling in fear of war, the ingenuity with which hecloaked the incredible in a film of credibility, show Hitler as a master ofexpedient propaganda; as a political pathfinder, discovering ways out ofapparently inextricable situations; as the true armed intellectual, whounscrupulously masters the means for the solution of the task in hand.Yet, in this case, he can scarcely be accused of lying to the world. Whathe said was objectively the pure truth: that the world, and with itGermany, needed peace. This was all the more incontestable as in themoment when he said it he probably believed it himself; and for thisreason millions inside and outside of Germany believed him. Withdisarming forth-rightness he admitted that Germany would leave theDisarmament Conference and the League of Nations if she were againdenied equal rights; he also admitted that obviously Germany could notdefend herself against an occupation of the Rhineland; only it was'inconceivable and out of the question that such an act should obtainlegal validity through our own signature.' Hitler stepped forward in thefigure of an eccentric saint who apparendy was slow to give hissignature, but once he had given it, never broke his word. Germanrefugees might attempt to prove the contrary with facts out of Hitler'spast — facts were powerless against the tone of truth in Hitler'sspeeches.