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

288 DER FUEHRERThe noble lady had been divorced from the former ruling duke; but shestill received from the large ducal estate a comparatively smallallowance of two thousand marks monthly. Hitler had been able topersuade the none too intelligent woman to send him regularly threequarters of this income; he had convinced her that when he came topower he would make her a duchess again. She was not his only noblepatron; the former Duke of Sachsen-Koburg-Gotha, a half Englishman,was another. Hitler was also fighting for his own money when he foughtfor the money of the princes. As always when nothing better occurred tohim, he said: the movement against the princes was a Jewish swindle.The entire propertied classes took the part of the princes, foremostamong them the propertied Jews; rabbis publicly came out for thenobles, and the majority of the German Jews doubtless proved Goebbelsright in saying that'... the Jewish question is more complicated thanpeople think.' The plebiscite became for many a struggle for or againstprivate property. Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, considered by many the restorerof the German currency, who owed his position as president of theReichsbank to his membership in the Democratic Party, now made useof the excellent opportunity to resign with much noise from this party,because it had not come out energetically enough for the sanctity of theprinces' property. Meanwhile, in Bamberg Hitler declared that theplebiscite was an attack of the 'subhuman' against the elite and this mustbe true even if — as Hitler did not hesitate to admit — quite a few ofthe princes were not very much 'elite.'Suddenly Goebbels stood up and stammered with emotion: yes, hesaw that he had been wrong. The Fuhrer in his address had disclosedfundamentally new paths. He must be followed; this was no Damascus.Strasser did not follow, but his best supporter had left him; he wasclearly beaten. When the session was ended, the former captain, FranzFelix Pfeffer von Salomon, at that time supreme leader of the stormtroops, came up to Goebbels and said: 'Listen, I am no Socialist, butwhat you did today was an unspeakable betrayal of your friends!'Goebbels had gone over to the princes' money. To the two Strassers hedeclared, publicly and in writing, that they were 'revolutionaries of thebig mouth.' He