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

THE BLOOD PURGE 731tire nation,' and as their reward 'the German revolution would mold theface of the future for centuries.' These were big words; but the S.A.leaders wanted big remunerations. In the beginning of October, Rohmhad complained to a Dutch newspaperman that nearly two million S.A.men were forced 'to continue in their professions'; they were barelyreimbursed for the expenses of their trip to the Party Day in Nuremberg.In his public speeches Hitler repeatedly explained that the S.A. shouldnot demand anything at all; the great privilege of these embittered menwas, on the contrary, to be a model of self-sacrifice and renunciation,for 'the people has a right to expect that its leaders will be just as heroicas they demand that the people be.' He knew that he was addressingmen who had rarely gone far in their civilian careers; men 'who in theirsocial and economic origin mostly occupied a subordinate, and frequentlylow, rank.' In compensation he tried to convince them that 'atsome future day they would represent the leadership of the nation.'But this was precisely their trouble — they represented somethingwhich they were not; what they had perhaps been for a short time, butwhat they had now ceased to be. They were completely unfit to lead thenation; and Hitler, who at the bottom of his heart was well aware of thisunfitness, only hesitatingly found euphemisms like 'ideological values'and 'future leadership of the nation' to tell them so.These veterans of the civil war, these armed men who for ten yearshad been and still were bohemians, were not even any longer theseasoned and useful soldiers they believed themselves to be. The oldermen among their leaders had left the army with the ranks of lieutenant,captain, or sometimes even major; several of them had for a time servedin the police force; one or another might have calculated that with luckhe would have been a colonel or perhaps major-general if he had beenable to remain in the service. In reality these people frequently could notbe used even as the lieutenants and captains they had been before. Intheir demonstration marches and meeting brawls, these political soldiershad lost contact with the genuine modern soldiers who were developingnew military ideas. For the most part they were simply unfit for theposts to which they aspired.