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

190 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICHHindenburg to support them. The whole tradition of the military caste wouldbe destroyed if the roughneck Roehm and his brawling Brownshirts should getcontrol of the Army. Moreover, the generals were shocked by the tales, nowbeginning to receive wide circulation, of the corruption and debauchery of thehomosexual clique around the S.A. chief. As General von Brauchitsch wouldlater testify, ”rearmament was too serious and difficult a business to permit theparticipation of peculators, drunkards and homosexuals.”For the moment Hitler could not afford to offend the Army, and he gave nosupport to Roehm’s proposal. Indeed, on February 21 he secretly told AnthonyEden, who had come to Berlin to discuss the disarmament impasse, that he wasprepared to reduce the S.A. by two thirds and to agree to a system of inspectionto make sure that the remainder received neither military training nor arms –an offer which, when it leaked out, further inflamed the bitterness of Roehmand the S.A. As the summer of 1934 approached, the relations between the S.A.chief of staff and the Army High Command continued to deteriorate. There werestormy scenes in the cabinet between Roehm and General von Blomberg, andin March the Minister of Defense protested to Hitler that the S.A. was secretlyarming a large force of special staff guards with heavy machine guns – which wasnot only a threat against the Army but, General von Blomberg added, an actdone so publicly that it threatened Germany’s clandestine rearmament underthe auspices of the Reichswehr.It is plain that at this juncture Hitler, unlike the headstrong Roehm andhis cronies, was thinking ahead to the day when the ailing Hindenburg wouldbreathe his last. He knew that the aged President as well as the Army andother conservative forces in Germany were in favor of a restoration of the Hohenzollemmonarchy as soon as the Field Marshal had passed away. He himselfhad other plans, and when early in April the news was secretly but authoritativelyconveyed to him and Blomberg from Neudeck that the President’s dayswere numbered, he realized that a bold stroke must soon be made. To ensure itssuccess he would need the backing of the officer corps; to obtain that supporthe was prepared to go to almost any length.The occasion for confidential parleys with the Army soon presented itself.On April 11 the Chancellor, accompanied by General von Blomberg and thecommanders in chief of the Army and the Navy, General Freiherr von Fritschand Admiral Raeder, set out on the cruiser Deutschland from Kiel for Koenigsbergto attend the spring maneuvers in East Prussia. The Army and Navycommanders were told of Hindenburg’s worsening condition and Hitler, backedby the compliant Blomberg, bluntly proposed that he himself, with the Reichswehr’sblessing, be the President’s successor. In return for the support of themilitary, Hitler offered to suppress Roehm’s ambitions, drastically reduce theS.A. and guarantee the Army and Navy that they would continue to be thesole bearers of arms in the Third Reich. It is believed that Hitler also held outto Fritsch and Raeder the prospect of an immense expansion of the Army andNavy, if they were prepared to go along with him. With the fawning Raederthere was no question but that he would, but Fritsch, a tougher man, had firstto consult his senior generals.This consultation took place at Bad Nauheim on May 16, and after the”Pact of the Deutschland” had been explained to them, the highest officers ofthe German Army unanimously endorsed Hitler as the successor to PresidentHindenburg. 194 For the Army this political decision was to prove of historic