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

NOW I HAVE THEM IN MY POCKET! 415Half a year before this discussion with the Frenchman, Hitler haddeclared to the judge at a trial in Munich: 'In political life there are noprinciples of foreign policy. The programmatical principle of our partyis its position on the racial problem, on pacifism and internationalism.Foreign policy is only a means to an end. In matters of foreign policy Ishall not permit myself to be bound' - meaning, by programs, oaths, ortreaties.Herve's somewhat irritated reply was to the effect that there must beboth a French army and a German army, and an alliance between them,because they had to defend Europe against Bolshevism— how couldjust Hitler forget that? This reminded Hitler that he was not debatingwith a Frenchman only, but with a kind of French National Socialist. Hewas speaking to the 'Aryans and anti-Semites' of France; and so he toldthem that National Socialism was not only a German movement, but aworld movement as well; he lured them with a world plan: 'In myopinion the European cabinets in their present make-up cannot thinkseriously even of a purely defensive war with Soviet Russia. Thepresent-day states have equipped their armies and their soldiers for warwith every conceivable weapon — grenades, machine guns, flamethrowers,tanks, airplanes, gas — and they are also familiar with all theweapons of defense against these arms. But only a single state hasarmed and immunized its people spiritually against Bolshevism: Italy.The other European states possess neither political offensive arms norpolitical gas-masks against Soviet propaganda! The question ofovercoming Bolshevism is a question of fascizing the European states.The present European states contaminated with Marxism cannot opposeany enduring resistance to the disruptive work of this world plague.'Fascization of the European states! That was just what his new friendRothermere was aiming at when, in September, 1930, he prophesiedthat Germany 'would draw not only the three million Germans inCzechoslovakia along with the three million Hungarians inCzechoslovakia and Rumania, but perhaps also the Hungarian peopleinto its sphere of influence. As a result of such a development,Czechoslovakia, which has so gravely offended against the peace treaty(by the repression of national minorities as