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

THE BLOOD PURGE 737that is to say, to give the country a new constitution. This 'is perhaps themost important law for Germany's future,' said Goring, the President ofthe Reichstag; and so it was. After the National Socialist deputies hadpassed this revolutionary law in less than three minutes, there was,according to the official record, 'a movement of cheerful satisfactionwith this quick work throughout all the rows.'On the same day Hitler wrote Rohm a letter full of strikingly cordialphrases intended to honor and pacify the man he had so often disdained.Expressing his desire 'to thank you, my dear Ernst Rohm, for yourunforgettable services,' he assured the homosexual murderer that he wasextremely 'grateful to destiny for having given me the right to call a manlike you my friend and comrade-in-arms. In cordial friendship andgrateful respect, your Adolf Hitler.'And on February 2, Frick once more sent a telegram to the states, thistime ordering his officials immediately to dissolve all the organizationsworking for the monarchy. The Weimar Republic had left a few quaintprivileges of the former princes undisturbed. Thus, the birth, marriage,and death records of the Hohenzollern family were not kept in thepublic registrar's offices, but in a private office which was called the'Ministry of the Royal House'; Frick gave orders that this practice bestopped and that the Hohenzollern family records be transferred to thepublic offices, like those of any other Prussian citizen.Urged on by Rohm and Hess, the all-powerful government now sawto it that the Uprooted and Disinherited were treated by all publicagencies and particularly by the treasury on an equal footing with WorldWar veterans. In February, 1934, it adopted a law with the clear,unadorned tide: 'Concerning provisions for the fighters of the nationalmovement.' These fighters — that is, members of the National SocialistParty and the Steel Helmets — upon request, were to be granteddamages to the same amount as victims of the World War for sicknessor injuries 'which they had suffered before November 15, 1933, inconnection with the political struggle for the national movement'; thus, aNational Socialist office clerk could say that he had got stomach troubleas a result of excessive work for