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

556 DER FUEHRERpapers they had found in the Karl Liebknecht House on February 24 —or so they said later.In the first three days after February 24, the German public learnednothing of these terrors. But the Reich government and the NationalSocialist leaders must have been waiting with feverish anxiety for thebloody revolution, the fire and the looting. It therefore seems strangethat Goebbels's diary says nothing about all the tension. On the eveningof February 24, when the horrible discoveries were made in the KarlLiebknecht House, he notes: 'Glorious weather, snow and sun. Leavethe night train after a good sleep and return refreshed to work. In theevening I deliver my attack on the Social Democrats in the Sportpalast. .. .' Not a word about the Communists!February 25: 'Everyone is concentrating on the election campaign' —not on defense against the Communist threats. 'If we win it, everythingelse will take care of itself.' That night there had been the fire in theBerlin Castle. Goebbels passes over this event as though no attemptedBolshevist revolution had been imminent.February 26: 'Sunday. Vacation from my Ego. Reading, writing, andmusic at home. At night we hear Gotterdamerung in the MunicipalOpera and are overcome by the eternal genius of Wagner. Now we havestrength again for a whole week's work.' All this when he must haveknown from the evidence found in the Karl Liebknecht House that theCommunists were about to launch their orgy of arson and murder.Count Helldorf, leader of the Berlin-Brandenburg group of the S.A.,was similarly unconcerned. Helldorf wielded the greatest NationalSocialist power in Berlin. He must have been thoroughly familiar withthe disclosures about the imminent Communist revolution. That did notprevent him from making the rounds of the Berlin taverns on the nightof February 27 with his friend and associate, Sixt von Arnim. In awineroom near the Nollendorf-platz, they heard that the Reichstag wasburning. Now this must be the expected 'signal' for a Bolshevistrevolution.Strange to say, Helldorf did not rush post-haste to the Reichstag. Onthe contrary, he, who was responsible for the safety of the Leader andthe Nazi Movement in Berlin, told his deputy, Sixt von