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

FRANCE IS TO BLAME 707The attack was repelled, but the political crisis was not liquidated. Afew days later, big demonstrations of the trade-unions and workingclassparties, sharpened by a short general strike, tried to quell theFascist upsurge. The Fascist thrust ended with a half-success: Daladierwas forced to resign and was branded as a murderer by the Rightists;Frot, a lawyer by profession, barely ventured to appear in the Palais deJustice; his colleagues publicly burned the gown of the man whosecourage had perhaps saved the Republic. Both sides agreed thatovernight the country had fallen into a severe crisis and thatextraordinary measures were necessary. Former President GastonDoumergue was made Premier. The General Staff and probably de laRocque supported him, and his cabinet included prominent statesmenboth of the Left and the Right, from Tardieu to Herriot; his Minister ofWar was Marshal Petain. It was a cabinet before which Parliamentwould tremble — at least, such was the idea behind it. Now began thepopular period of French fascism — although it never reached the sizeand influence of German National Socialism. The following of theCroix de Feu and the number of their public demonstrations grewrapidly in spite of Leon Daudet's envious jeering ('a herd of lions led byan ass'). The most popular weekly in France, read particularly amongthe well-to-do classes, incited hatred of the Jews, Freemasons, foreigners,British and Americans, and, of course, Parliament; this wasdone with more wit, but with almost the same unscrupulousness as byStreicher's Sturmer in Germany. The atmosphere prevailing in Franceduring those days recalled that of Munich in 1923: it was a time offeverish preparation for a brutal decision.In little Austria this period of preparation was over, and the brutaldecision fell a few days after the bloody riots in Paris.On February 12, the police and the Heimwehr stormed the headquartersof the Social-Democratic party. In a fierce struggle, theinadequately armed Social-Democratic organizations resisted at variousplaces throughout the country, particularly in the large apartment houseserected in the suburbs of Vienna, which sheltered several thousandpeople (Goethe Hof, Karl Marx Hof). The attack of the Heimwehrfailed. The regular army had to come to the rescue and fire upon theapartment houses with cannon. The