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

750 DER FUEHRERtradictory on essential points, is based on thoroughly implausibleassertions, and even the plausible ones remain unproved.If a net of dangers was really being woven around Hitler, heobviously failed to discover it until the end of June. On June 14, he feltsecure enough to leave Germany and visit Mussolini; this trip to Italyhad been prepared by Ribbentrop, who had gone to Rome toward theend of May. For the first time the 'great man of the south' and hisnorthern admirer met: the herald of Europa Fascista beheld the prophetwho called upon Aryans of all nations to unite. The ostensible purposeof the meeting was to settle the question of Austria, over which NationalSocialist Germany and Fascist Italy had been wrangling. The realpurpose, at least as far as Hitler was concerned, was to explore thepossibilities of a close understanding between the two countries. Hitlerlanded from his plane in Venice, dressed as a civilian in anunpretentious raincoat; Mussolini received him in his gold-braideduniform, with a dagger at his side. As Hitler walked toward him, theItalian dictator is alleged to have said: 'Non mi piace! The visit lastedtwo days. Important matters were discussed in tete-a-tete conversations,and Mussolini politely made use of his fairly fluent German.Despite Hitler's zealous wooing of the Italian dictator, his visit failedto create a cordial personal relationship between the two men. However,they had an extremely frank exchange of views; the premises of theirideas were so similar that they could not conceal much from each other.No concrete results were achieved, nor had Hitler expected any;Mussolini, who wanted to receive reassuring promises about Austria,got what he wanted. It would have been surprising if Hitler had refusedto give a promise so earnestly desired by his respected host, especiallyas he knew at bottom that a statesman can always find an adequateexcuse for breaking his word under compelling circumstances.Mussolini frankly told his guest that the persecution of the Jews madeit difficult even for him to be completely friendly toward Germany andtried to prove to Hitler that his anti-Jewish paranoia was unjustified. Aleading Jewish-Italian rabbi, Mussolini said, had asked him not to rebuffHitler, but on the contrary to cultivate the best possible relations withhim, because Italy might thus have an