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

THE DEATH OF MONEY 131dollars one could buy a minor revolution. It was a decisive turn inHitler's career when his friend and admirer, Ernst Hanfstaengl, scion ofan old-established, wealthy printer's family, himself half-American bydescent, borrowed for him the fabulous sum of one thousand dollars.This money enabled Hitler to set up, in February, 1923, the VolkischerBeobachter as a daily paper.He said: 'The government calmly goes on printing these scraps,because, if it stopped, that would mean the end of the government.Because once the printing presses stopped — and that is the prerequisitefor the stabilization of the mark — the swindle would at once bebrought to light. For then the worker would realize that he is onlymaking a third of what he made in peacetime, because two thirds of hislabor go for tribute to the enemy.'And just that made inflation a 'necessity of Fate.' It shattered publicfaith in property, and nothing was more necessary for Hitler than theshattering of this faith. And so he prophesied and described thedestruction which was to pave his road to power: 'Believe me, ourmisery will increase. The scoundrel will get by. But the decent, solidbusinessman who doesn't speculate will be utterly crushed; first the littlefellow on the bottom, but in the end the big fellow on top too. But thescoundrel and the swindler will remain, top and bottom. The reason:because the state itself has become the biggest swindler and crook. Arobbers' state! . . .'The whole demagogical debate was actually a fight between twothieves over the corpse of the national economy. Stinnes flung away thenational wealth to banish poverty and with it Bolshevism; but Hitlerscreamed: 'And what if even greater misery descended on us! Let ushave misery! . . . The greatest misfortune would be so-called prosperity.We would forget all our disgrace. If we were getting along, we wouldstop hating France!' He meant it; for he went on to explain: 'In presentdayGermany, sad to say, people do not lament over the loss of ourworld position and world respect, not over the loss of Alsace-Lorraineand Upper Silesia, Schleswig-Holstein and the other ravished territories— all they complain about is the exorbitant prices. If today there were aFrench dictator in Berlin and the physical needs of the German peoplewere secured by him and his officials, we may be convinced that amajority