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

740 DER FUEHRERThis campaign against the alarmists was an enterprise of exceptionalshortsightedness on Hitler's part. The masses of the people grew soembittered that in the middle of June even Goring, in an address to hisPrussian Council of State, admitted that 'the mood was deteriorating anddissatisfaction had broken out here and there.' Nor were the S.A.chieftains happier now that they were once again being called on tostand by and help while the 'philistines' were admonished, just as theyhad done for years. Everyone felt that the final decision concerning theleadership and the form of the new state was still pending.If Hitler really had been the conscious framer of political plans that heseemed in his own and the world's eyes — 'the great strategist of therevolution,' as Hess once called him, who 'acts after ice-cold reflection'— he would have begun his preparations for the inevitable struggle forpower at that very moment. It lies in the nature of things human thatunused power passes imperceptibly from idle hands into more activeones; it was in the nature of this state that various ambitious absolutepowers should struggle over its only half-used power; it wascharacteristic of Hitler to watch the ebb and flow of power and thestruggle for it until a sudden danger cleared the situation like a flash oflightning and precipitated a decision. Thus groups arose in the NationalSocialist Party which prepared themselves for the bloody break-throughto full, unrestricted domination, and all of them counted on carryingHitler with them. Outwardly, the greatest force among these plannersand makers of preparations was Rohm; he gathered around him a staffof people who were particularly devoted to him, not all of them amongthe oldest party members, but certainly all old Free Corps fighters,especially from the Rossbach unit. This group had personal points ofsupport scattered throughout Germany: There was Count Wolf Helldorf,the leader of the Berlin-Brandenburg Obergruppe (that is, anorganization of about a hundred thousand men) and, at that time, chiefof police of Potsdam; there was Karl Ernst, Helldorf's friend andimmediate subordinate, the Group Leader of Berlin, who came from thedregs of the lower classes just as Helldorf came from the dregs of theupper classes; there was the murderer, Edmund Heines, in Breslau; therewas