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

ADOLPHE LEGALITE 409Rohm made a splendid impression on this powerful man, and won hisconfidence; to ingratiate himself, he even told Schleicher all sorts ofamusing stories about Hitler's life and career; their general import wasthat Hitler, with all his eccentricities, was not really so bad. Schleicher,instructed by Rohm, was able to convince his chief Groener that Hitlerwas actually a rock amid the German chaos, a bulwark against theradical masses; even if, personally, he was perhaps unstable and nonetoo strong, politically he was an anchor to the party of the Uprooted andDisinherited. The result of these conversations was a gentleman'sagreement: on January, 1931, Rohm announced his inauguration aschief of the S.A. staff, and on January 2, Schleicher decreed that, sinceit was still by no means certain the National Socialists were reallyenemies of the constitution, National Socialist workers until furthernotice should no longer be dismissed from the arsenals and powderfactories of the Reichswehr. In February, Hitler in turn issued aproclamation to the S.A. ordering them to refrain from street fights — 'Iunderstand your distress and your rage,' he said, 'but you must not beararms.'Mass discontent seethed among the extremists of Right and Left in theS.A. These men were by no means all noble warriors yearning to risktheir necks; no, for them legality or revolution was a question ofexistence. Without street fights they would one day be superfluous, andthey would probably be superfluous if their Fuhrer was serious in usingdemocracy as his chief weapon. They knew that Rohm had promised theReichswehr Ministry to dismiss the most dangerous among them. It ispossible that someone in the Reichswehr Ministry had passed this on tothem in order to create unrest among the Brown bands; anyhow theyknew that Rohm was selling them out. Hitler threw out these elements,after accusing them of planning an uprising. This was the Stennes crisis.'I am your Fuhrer, and not elected or hired by you, not sought out byyou and appointed by majority vote,' cried Hitler to the discontentedstorm troopers. 'No, I am your Fuhrer on the strength of my work! . . .And if all of you were to leave me, I should go on alone!'Even before the court had sentenced Wilhelm Scheringer to im-