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

HITLER VERSUS NATIONAL SOCIALISM 651throwing everything' — and stolen and blackmailed in the process, hemight have added. This must stop; and such methods were no longerneeded because the party had already won uncontested power: 'Theparty has now become the state.' And so 'we can enforce our willeverywhere.' But not — this was what he meant — in the asinine waywe have been doing. For 'history will not judge us by whether we havearrested as large a number of business leaders as possible, but bywhether we have created work.' Nothing was gained by destroyingintellects and talents that resisted; the important thing was to make themstop resisting. The stream of the revolution, said Hitler, must be broughtinto the safe channel of evolution, and 'the main point in this respect isthe education of the individual'; 'the people who embody the presentstate of affairs must be educated in the National Socialist stateconception.' It is characteristic that this brand of education, seeminglyso self-reliant but actually so supple and ready to compromise, beganwith a retreat.This halt in the revolution was exacdy what Machiavelli demanded ofthe state reformer who did not want to be a tyrant. The interruption of'co-ordination' was soon expressed in action. Hess issued an order tocease molesting the department stores; Ley gave up the idea of forcingthe employer's associations into the Labor Front. Wagener and hiswhole following were removed overnight from the party leadership, andWilhelm Keppler, who was primarily responsible for the halt in coordination,officially entered the Brown House as well as theChancellery as Hitler's personal 'deputy for economic questions' (July13). Robert Ley, availing himself of his powers as organizational leaderof the party, summarily dissolved the Combat League of Middle-ClassTradespeople early in August. Schmitt, the Minister of Economics,made it known on August 13 that the corporate development must beabandoned; Hess ordered an end to all talk of corporations, which hebranded as high treason. This was bitter earnest. Wagener and several ofhis following were sent to concentration camps. This was not onlybecause they had been too idealistic; it was also a case of the successfulbandits locking up those who had been less successful.After stormy weeks that shook its very foundations, the Third