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

644 DER FUEHRERschauung gave the movement its religious streak, and in Hitler was atrue religious passion. In his eyes, political activity was tantamount toeducating people in a new faith; he did not seek to change theinstitutions of society, but its state of mind, following Machia-velli'scounsel to leave outward conditions essentially in their old form, but towork on people from within. Although he claimed that he would protectand restore the institution of the family that had been damaged by thegeneral social disintegration, he aimed really to uproot the youth andtear them away from their families; ' . . . and so we shall take thechildren away from you and educate them to be what is necessary forthe German people,' he cried on June 17, to the 'isolated persons whothink that they can no longer adapt themselves to circumstances.' Yes,perhaps they could no longer adapt themselves, but 'you will pass away,and after you will come the youth which knows nothing else.'This attempt to dissolve the family found and molded the suitablehuman implements. On June 18, Hitler conferred on the leader of his'Hitler Youth,' his friend, Baldur von Schirach, the title 'Youth Leader ofthe German Reich.' Schirach, like many others in the movement, was arenegade from Germany's former ruling class, in this respectcomparable to Prince August Wilhelm. He was the son of a theaterdirector in Weimar; his mother, the American-born Emma MiddletonLynah Tillon, claimed two signers of the Declaration of Independenceamong her ancestry. As a student, he had been obliged to resign, underunpleasant circumstances, from an exclusive fraternity, and from thattime on he had hated the upper crust of his own generation. Althoughstrikingly handsome, his face had the banal and inexpressive quality thatcharacterized his verses; for he wrote verses in which he called Hitler'Germany's greatest son,' and expressed amazement that this 'geniusgrazing the stars' had remained a man like you and me. He was violentlyopposed to the old Christian God and carried his devotion to Hitler sofar as to marry his Leader's extremely youthful protegee, HennyHoffmann, the daughter of the truncated and jocose photographer.Schirach, like most of the National Socialist 'co-ordinators,' had thegood fortune to find a people which had already been thor-