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

66 DER FUEHRERadept at discussion. He goes on to relate how he looked into thisuncanny labor movement more closely, and to his great amazementdiscovered large numbers of Jews at its head. The great light dawned onhim; suddenly the 'Jewish question' became clear. If we subject his ownaccount to psychological analysis, the result is rather surprising: thelabor movement did not repel him because it was led by Jews; the Jewsrepelled him because they led the labor movement. For him thisinference was logical. To lead this broken, degenerate mass,dehumanized by overwork, was a thankless task. No one would do itunless impelled by a secret, immensely alluring purpose; the youngartist-prince simply did not believe in the morality of pity of whichthese Jewish leaders publicly spoke so much; there is no such thing, heknew people better — particularly he knew himself. The secret purposecould only be a selfish one — whether mere good living or worlddomination remained for the moment a mystery. But one thing iscertain: it was not Rothschild, the capitalist, but Karl Marx, theSocialist, who kindled Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitism.No justice, no equal rights for all! One of Hitler's most characteristicreproaches to the labor movement is that in Austria it had fought forequal rights for all — to the detriment of the master race chosen byGod. At the beginning of the century the Austrian parliament wasorganized on the basis of a suffrage system which for practical purposesdisenfranchised the poor. This assured the more prosperous Germanpopulation a position of dominance. By a general strike the SocialDemocrats put an end to this scandal and twenty years later Hitler stillreproached them for it: 'By the fault of the Social Democracy, theAustrian state became deathly sick. Through the Social Democracyuniversal suffrage was introduced in Austria and the German majoritywas broken in the Reichsrat' — the Austrian parliament.The power and strategy of this movement made an enormous impressionon the young Adolf Hitler, despite all his revulsion. Animpressive model for the power-hungry — for the young artist-prince inbeggar's garb will never let anyone convince him that the labormovement owed its existence to anything but the lust for power ofJewish wirepullers. A new labor party would have to be