rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

THE ROAD TO POWER: 1925-31 107German State, which he was trying to overthrow.But Hitler was intent on something more important than making an impression.Three years after he came to power, in a speech to the ”old fighters” atthe Buergerbraii on the anniversary evening of November 9, 1936, he explainedone of the objectives he had had in building the party up into such a formidableand all-embracing organization. ”We recognized,” he said, in recalling the dayswhen the party was being reformed after the putsch, ”that it is not enoughto overthrow the old State, but that the new State must previously have beenbuilt up and be practically ready to one’s hand. . . . In 1933 it was no longera question of overthrowing a state by an act of violence; meanwhile the newState had been built up and all that there remained to do was to destroy thelast remnants of the old State – and that took but a few hours.” 132An organization, however streamlined and efficient, is made up of erringhuman beings, and in those years when Hitler was shaping his party to takeover Germany’s destiny he had his fill of troubles with his chief lieutenants,who constantly quarreled not only among themselves but with him. He, whowas so monumentally intolerant by his very nature, was strangely tolerant ofone human condition – a man’s morals. No other party in Germany came nearto attracting so many shady characters. As we have seen, a conglomeration ofpimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the partyas if to a natural haven. Hitler did not care, as long as they were useful to him.When he emerged from prison he found not only that they were at each other’sthroats but that there was a demand from the more prim and respectable leaderssuch as Rosenberg and Ludendorff that the criminals and especially the pervertsbe expelled from the movement. This Hitler frankly refused to do. ”I do notconsider it to be the task of a political leader,” he wrote in his editorial, ”A NewBeginning,” in the Voelkischer Beobachter of February 26,1925, ”to attempt toimprove upon, or even to fuse together, the human material lying ready to hishand.”By 1926, however, the charges and countercharges hurled by the Nazi chieftainsat one another became so embarrassing that Hitler set up a party courtto settle them and to prevent his comrades from washing their dirty linen inpublic. This was known as the USCHLA, from Untersuchung-und-Schlichtungs-Ausschuss-Committee for Investigation and Settlement. Its first head was aformer general, Heinemann, but he was unable to grasp the real purpose of thecourt, which was not to pronounce judgment on those accused of common crimesbut to hush them up and see that they did not disturb party discipline or theauthority of the Leader. So the General was replaced by a more understandingex-officer, Major Walther Buch, who was given two assistants. One was UlrichGraf, the former butcher who had been Hitler’s bodyguard; the other was HansFrank, a young Nazi lawyer, of whom more will be heard later when it comestime to recount his bloodthirstiness as Governor General of occupied Poland,for which he paid on the gallows at Nuremberg. This fine judicial triumvirateperformed to the complete satisfaction of the Fuehrer. A party leader mightbe accused of the most nefarious crime. Buch’s answer invariably was, ”Well,what of it?” What he wanted to know was whether it hurt party discipline oroffended the Fuehrer.It took more than this party court, effective though it was in thousands ofinstances, to keep the ambitious, throat-cutting, big Nazi fry in line. OftenHitler had to intervene personally not only to keep a semblance of harmony but