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

630 DER FUEHRERcouncilors (Staatsrate), and the provincial presidents were required bylaw, before taking important decisions, to obtain the consent of the statecouncilors, especially in filling offices. In the smaller states, thegauleiters had everywhere become Reich statthalters; so that now,though the system was not entirely unified, a net of National Socialistprovincial tyrants covered the whole Reich.But the Staatsrat was also intended to be something else; anassemblage of the famous, calculated to enhance Goring's fame. Itincluded church dignitaries, leading men of science and art; among itsmembers were Wilhelm Furtwangler, the conductor, and Fritz Thyssen,the steel magnate. In addition, Goring used his Staatsrat as a means offeeding a number of hungry ravens in his political family. The membersreceived a monthly fee of a thousand marks for doing next to nothing.Thus, National Socialism made its way into every corner andpigeonhole of the administrative apparatus. Pleased with his new power,Goring cried triumphantly that Prussia would continue, as in the pastcentury, 'to constitute the fundament of the German Reich,' that shewould never surrender so much as the smallest strip of territory to otherGerman states; that anyone who made any such proposal would be sentto a concentration camp. Hitler replied morosely that the task ofNational Socialism was 'not to preserve the provinces, but to liquidatethem.' Although Goring loyally maintained that he ruled 'above all andprimarily as the true paladin of my Leader,' from whom he had learnedfor over a decade, it was plain that he had not fully learned the lesson ofobedience. When Goring solemnly opened his Staatsrat in the BerlinCastle, Hitler remained absent; the faithful paladin had taken an importantdecision of state in open defiance of his Leader's will. But hehad the force of necessity in his favor, for the task was the conquest, notthe destruction, of power.The dividing line between conquest and destruction was often hard tofind; at times it seemed impossible to snatch a valuable institution fromhostile hands without damaging it. If it was not always easy for thesupreme Leader to make the proper distinction, much less was it easyfor his egotistic and disunited followers, with their eternal thirst forbooty. This egotism was an indispensable