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

402 DER FUEHRERunable to gain power over the factories and those workers who were stillemployed, the Brown Storm battalions were able to gather in thathuman type which was most usable, most supple, a type ready for allextremes: the bohemian of the proletariat, the unemployed. In normaltimes these would have been chaff, living at the edge of society; butnow, if they were not the strongest, they were the most determined tenthof the nation. This tenth really had nothing to lose, often not even ideals.A part of these men believed neither in God nor in human rights nor inthe classless society, and almost with pride Hitler declared: 'If thisprocess of moral disintegration lasts much longer, the nation will fallapart and only egoism will be left. . . . That is why we have in our rankshundreds of thousands whose life would have no sense and purpose ifNational Socialism had not given them a sense and purpose [severalminutes of applause]. . . . You are nothing, your nation is everything!'The sense and purpose of life for tens if not hundreds of thousandswas to sit day after day in the 'storm centers' which the NationalSocialists had strewn all over the country. The storm centers were theirheadquarters, for the most part back rooms of beer halls. Both proprietorand customers had sworn loyalty to Adolf Hitler, for beer-hallproprietors have at all times been the faithful voice of the people. Theresat the unemployed in their coarse brown breeches and discoloredyellow shirts for many hours of the day over their half-empty beermugs; at mealtimes they were fed for a few pfennigs from a great ironkettle that simmered in the laundry room; their uniform, often the onlysuit they possessed, had been sold to them by the 'field ordnancedepartment' of the S.A. on credit. Every day — later twice a week —they spent several hours at their 'employment office' and with the moneyreceived from the state they paid the ordnance department for theiruniforms and meals. Thus, Hitler's private army maintained itself as asum of innumerable little groups defending themselves in commonagainst cold and hunger, financed by the state they were planning tooverthrow.But when the whistle blew in the back room of the beer hall; when thesquad leader cried, 'Attention!' then these men rotting in inactivitysprang up, formed ranks, and stood at attention while a