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

PrefaceIT IS TWENTY-THREE YEARS now since I first attended a NationalSocialist meeting, saw (without particular enjoyment) Herr Hitler atclose range, and listened to the flood of nonsense — or so it thenseemed to me — that he was spouting. It was only gradually that theeffects of these speeches made me realize that behind all the nonsensethere was unrivaled political cunning.In 1923, as the leader of a small democratic organization in theUniversity of Munich, I tried, with all the earnestness of youth, and withcomplete lack of success, to annihilate Hitler by means of protestparades, mass meetings, and giant posters. And so I am entided to callmyself the oldest — or one of the oldest — anti-Nazis now in theUnited States, for there cannot be many in this country who came intoconflict with Adolf Hitler and his handful of followers at so early a date.Those who experience history and have a share in its making rarelysee the enduring threads but only the whirl of exciting and quicklyforgotten details. In 1920, and the years following, my friends and Icertainly did not view our modest fist-fights and other encounters withthe National Socialists as an attempt to put a premature end to the careerof the modern Genghis Khan, and I would have jeered at anyone whohad prophesied that this was the beginning of a new epoch in worldhistory.The narrative that follows is based partly on my own observations andexperiences then and in later years. However, even the most intimateepisodes and reports of private conversations are grounded ondocumentary evidence or on statements of individuals who seemed tome thoroughly reliable.This book owes much to that unique collection, the Hoover Library atStanford University, California. I want to thank Professor Ralph H. Lutzfor his permission to use this treasure of documents about recentEuropean history, and Miss Nina Almond, Librarian, and