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

300 DER FUEHRERwere plenty of people who would have agreed to dictatorship, to a sharppolicy against France, even to a little war against Poland; but when thedictatorship of Hitler, the 'Bohemian corporal' as Hinden-burg latercalled him, was suggested, the answer was laughter at best. No, noleadership of the nation by the disinherited, uprooted — andunsuccessful! There were other formations, organized and armed alongthe same lines as the National Socialist S.A.; above all the Stahlhelm, anorganization of several hundred thousand members, with a nucleus ofsome hundred thousand former soldiers; well-disciplined, prepared forcivil war, and, in case of a small frontier war, serviceable as a reservearmy. It was on the 'green' Stahlhelm and not on the brown S.A. that theleading classes pinned their hopes when things again began to look likecivil war in Germany.While Goring was seeking approval for his party in his circles,Goebbels was noisily making the party known, and himself even more.He thought up tricks that would have occurred to no one else. He madehis S.A. men wear white bandages colored with a red liquid round theirheads; thus they appeared as 'heroes' who had bled for their party; theirclub-footed doctor, looking like a wounded World War lieutenant,marched at their head. To the Volkischer Beobachter Goebbels sentarticles, apparently written by others, in reality by himself, reportingDoctor Goebbels's amazing deeds of heroism, always in the thirdperson. One article related that Doctor Goebbels, riding in a motor-carwith comrades, suddenly sensed with vibrant nerves that an unknowndanger was threatening: 'Suddenly Goebbels stood up from his seat.Halt, Comrade Chauffeur, halt! The car stops. What's the matter, doctor?— I don't know, but we're in danger. We reach for our guns andjump out. Nothing to be seen or heard. All four tires are hard and firm.But holla, what is that! On the left hind wheel four nuts are missing.Four nuts out of five. Diabolical treachery. Traces of clumsy violencetell the rest. That is how the Jews and their servants fight.' The loudestnoise came from a nature essentially timid. For Goebbels has admittedthat, alone among strangers, he preferred not to be recognized as aNationalist Socialist: 'I travel without party insignia; I seldom feel theexpediency or necessity of