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

482 DER FUEHRERunwilling to waste this hour in bargaining for fragments of power; but inthe end the risk brought him his great triumph.On the morning of August 13, Hitler, Rohm, and Frick went to seeSchleicher. A wild argument broke out, and was continued in thepresence of Papen; insulted and enraged, scarcely letting the others saya word or listening when they did speak, Hitler loudly explained why heinsisted on full power and a free hand. He had given the same reasons,almost with the same words, to the Munich court in 1924: The greatthing for him was not to become minister — so he said — but to breakMarxism. In his long, deafening outburst he made ample use of suchwords as 'mow down,' 'Saint Bartholomew's Night'; for three days 'theS.A. must have freedom of the streets.' He is reported to have declaredthat he counted on five thousand dead.Hitler's outburst seems to have made a terrible impression on Papenand Schleicher; Schleicher said later that he doubted Hitler's sanity.Perhaps Hitler expected to set the minds of Papen and Schleicher at restwhen he said that what he was proposing was far from a NationalSocialist dictatorship. He desired neither the Reichswehr nor the foreignministry; he desired 'only as much power as Mussolini took in his coupd'etat of 1922.' Mussolini had had non-Fascists in his cabinet; but Papenand Schleicher, who had not studied the history of coups d'etat asthoroughly as had Hitler, misunderstood; they believed that he wantedto govern alone and without them — and basically they were right.It was the will of Hindenburg, and even more of Schleicher, to createa government which would at least be tolerated by the Reichstag. SinceHitler had made no attempt to 'bring' them the Reichstag, they couldoffer him no more than the post of Vice-Chancellor in the Papencabinet, the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and similar posts; nothingwas asked in return except that he keep his promise and help to give thePapen government a majority which would have to be completed withhelp from other sides.Bursting with rage and disappointment, Hitler drove to Goebbels'sBerlin home with Rohm and Frick, and there he gave his nerves freeplay. His failure to obtain power had not been a complete sur-