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

DEFEAT 451to be doomed, and consequently they were obsolete. This might beequally true of the National Socialist Party organization, to which Hitlerhad firmly welded the S.A. Now the party had again been defeated in anelection, and perhaps Hitler's course would turn out to be wrong. Then itwould be the hour of the S.A. Civil war was hanging over the country.If Rohm had known Nietzsche better, he might have recognized his owndreams in the philosopher's prophecy of rising European nihilism.The unusual step which Rohm now took was probably taken with theknowledge, even the wish, of Schleicher. Rohm opened negotiationswith the 'Iron Front.' Among its leaders there was a man who had onceworked closely with Rohm, and who, like Rohm, might have calledhimself one of the inventors of Adolf Hitler. This was Karl Mayr, aformer major in the Reichswehr. He had been a captain in thatinformation section of the Munich Reichswehr which had sent out Hitleras its civilian employee, first to spy on the inner enemy, then to speak tothe people in the streets and squares. Mayr, a true genius in thedepartment that military men euphemistically call 'information service,'had a few years later broken with the Reichswehr and all his politicalfriends. He had gone over to Social Democracy, had helped to build upthe Reichs-banner, perhaps in the conviction that this was the right wayto create a people's army. When a new leadership transformed theReichsbanner into the 'Iron Front,' Mayr vanished from the centralleadership, but continued in his own way to work in the ranks. Rohmnow turned to this old comrade. Was there no way, he asked, ofbringing the S.A. and the Iron Front together, of getting rid of theuseless political windbags and 'making the soldier master of Germany'?Rohm was shrewd enough not to keep the conversation secret fromHitler. The interview took place in Mayr's apartment, and with all thetrappings of a spy movie; behind a curtain sat a lady taking shorthandnotes. Mayr asked Rohm what grounds he had for thinking that he coulddetach the S.A. from the party. Rohm replied that he knew he hadpowerful and dangerous enemies in the party; Mayr's comment on thiswas: Would you like me to tell you the name of your future murderers?At that time Rohm's wild homo-