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

THE NAZIFICATION OF GERMANY: 1933-34 199as ”traitors.” And though Hitler repeated the charges in his Reichstag speechand spoke sarcastically of ”a foreign diplomat [who could have been no otherthan François-Poncet, the French ambassador] explaining that the meeting withSchleicher and Roehm was of an entirely harmless character,” he was unableto substantiate his accusations. It was crime enough, he said lamely, for anyresponsible German in the Third Reich even to see foreign diplomats withouthis knowledge.When three traitors in Germany arrange . . . a meeting with a foreignstatesman . . . and give orders that no word of this meeting shallreach me, then I shall have such men shot dead even when it shouldprove true that at such a consultation which was thus kept secretfrom me they talked of nothing more than the weather, old coinsand like topics.When François-Poncet protested vigorously against the insinuation that hehad participated in the Roehm ”plot” the German Foreign Office officially informedthe French government that the accusations were wholly without foundationand that the Reich government hoped the ambassador would remain inhis post. Indeed, as this writer can testify, François-Poncet continued to remainon better personal terms with Hitler than any other envoy from a democraticstate.In the first communiques, especially in a blood-curdling eyewitness accountgiven the public by Otto Dietrich, the Fuehrer’s press chief, and even in Hitler’sReichstag speech, much was made of the depraved morals of Roehm and theother S.A. leaders who were shot. Dietrich asserted that the scene of the arrestof Heines, who was caught in bed at Wiessee with a young man, ”defied description,”and Hitler in addressing the surviving storm troop leaders in Munich atnoon on June 30, just after the first executions, declared that for their corruptmorals alone these men deserved to die.And yet Hitler had known all along, from the earliest days of the party, thata large number of his closest and most important followers were sexual pervertsand convicted murderers. It was common talk, for instance, that Heines usedto send S.A. men scouring all over Germany to find him suitable male lovers.These things Hitler had not only tolerated but defended; more than once hehad warned his party comrades against being too squeamish about a man’spersonal morals if he were a fanatical fighter for the movement. Now, on June30, 1934, he professed to be shocked by the moral degeneration of some of hisoldest lieutenants.Most of the killing was over by Sunday afternoon, July 1, when Hitler, whohad flown back to Berlin from Munich the night before, was host at a tea partyin the gardens of the Chancellery. On Monday President Hindenburg thankedHitler for his ”determined action and gallant personal intervention which havenipped treason in the bud and rescued the German people from great danger.”He also congratulated Goering for his ”energetic and successful action” in suppressing”high treason.” On Tuesday General von Blomberg expressed to theChancellor the congratulations of the cabinet, which proceeded to ”legalize”the slaughter as a necessary measure ”for the defense of the State.” Blombergalso issued an order of the day to the Army expressing the High Command’ssatisfaction with the turn of events and promising to establish ”cordial relationswith the new S.A.”