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

ADOLPHE LEGALITE 405With horror the generals and their officers saw the day approachingwhen the army's machine guns would be the last bulwark against thepeople — an army in ferment against a people in ferment! Hitlerimpressed it upon them as often as he could: 'Take away from thepresent state the machine gun, take away the cannon, the hand-grenade,the police, take away the Reichswehr, and leave the present state to thelove of its citizens — and you will see what remains of it!'Many officers would doubtless have been ashamed to fire on theirown people again — even if this people had marched under the Redbanner. They had expected the republican state to save them at leastfrom this. What Hitler wanted to say was: Not the republic, only I cansave you. Therefore he took all possible pains to persuade the generalsnot to judge his party by the mice and snakes. The verses about rifle andbarricades were removed from the 'Horst Wessel Song' — presumablyby the author himself. The text now ran: '. . . For the last time the call toarms rings out . . . Soon the Hitler banners will fly over all the streets. . ..' And Hitler would do more than that to prove that he planned no attackon the discipline of the army. In one case, for example, the Reichswehrleaders proceeded sharply against their enemies and detractors amongthe lieutenants; Hitler utilized the occasion to dissociate himself fromthese enemies and detractors. Scheringer, the lieutenant and secretNational Socialist, was arrested with two of his comrades on the drillground;from prison he wrote his memorable article. Asked if he were aNational Socialist, he admitted that he was. Hence, the prosecutioncontinued, he belonged to a treasonable party that wanted to overthrowthe government by violence. Scheringer was defended by Doctor HansFrank of Munich, a personal friend of Hitler's and almost slavishlydevoted to him; Frank was a young man of the post-war generation. Atthe trial he insisted that his party did not want to overthrow thegovernment by violence; to prove this, Hitler, who led the party as adictator, was ready to take oath in court. Frank obtained permission forHitler to appear as a witness, and Der Fuhrer delivered his oath withouthesitation: 'If we have two or three more elections, the NationalSocialist Movement will have the majority in the Reichstag and