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

FIRST TRIUMPH 353ful and yet accomplished nothing except to increase unemployment, tohalve property holdings, to destroy livelihoods to no purpose — theideal state of the intellectuals was the state based, as Hitler put it 'onaccomplishment, on energy.'In the technological sphere, the war damage had been repaired andGermany's technical apparatus was actually better than before the war.But the social apparatus was deficient, the state proved unable toadminister the new technology. The intellectual generation of 1930 nolonger recognized and accepted this incapacity on the part of the state.That is the great development that was taking place in Germany. It wasnatural that unknown, new men should be active in bringing it about;that it should be the unknown man from the Viennese lodging-house,this Nothing in human form, drawing all the problems and passions ofthe day into himself by the suction of an empty personality — this was aprofound tragedy for Germany, and not only for Germany. It could beforeseen and was foreseen that the great achievements of the nineteenthcentury would some day have to be utilized more systematically anddistributed more justly; the time for this was ripe when the workingclass, through an arduous process of education, began to develop into aposition of intellectual leadership. But the fact that this process oftransformation was introduced by a World War with its consequences,that the armed human scum of five destructive years were first to takepossession of the new possibilities, blinded many people to the greataspects of our era. This was almost inevitable. Great progress beginswith abuses; robbers and swindlers have often been the pioneers ofcivilization.Men sought new faith, some sought new gods. Anyone travelingthrough Germany in August and September of 1930, with open eyes,saw the landslide coming. But to the capital and the Reich government,to Schleicher, to Bruning, to Hindenburg, it came as an unexpectedblow when, on the evening of September 14, it turned out that Hitlerhad obtained a sixth of the German vote, 6,400,000, or a hundred andseven seats in the Reichstag. Alarmists spread the rumor that a march ofthe S.A. on Berlin was to be expected at any hour. Stocks fell sharply inNew York. American and other foreign creditors began to call in shorttermloans from