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

650 DER FUEHRERered his statthalters in the Chancellery. He roared at them that in futurehe desired no so-called economic revolutions; that the eternal 'coordinating'must cease; that there would be no corporate development,although he himself had promised it; and above all, that the job-hunterswho had not yet obtained their piece of pie should not get the idea oftaking it by force — if for no other reason, because many of them wereknow-nothings. It was a startling turn, comparable to the 'NewEconomic Policy' of the Bolsheviki in 1921. 'A businessman,' criedHitler, 'must not be deposed if he is a good businessman but not yet aNational Socialist; and especially not if the National Socialist who is putin his place understands nothing of economic affairs. By theoretical coordinationswe don't get bread for one worker. We shall not eliminateunemployment by economic commissions, organizations, constructions,and theories. . . .' One would not have believed him to be the sameHitler who had cried out that economic affairs were 'somethingsecondary' and must 'serve the nation.' 'We must not reject practicalexperience,' he cried, 'because it is opposed to some preconceived idea'— and it would have been hard to find any more annihilating criticismof the National Socialist idea. 'If we come before the nation with reforms,we must also prove that we understand things and can masterthem' — a reflection which would not have been irrelevant even beforeJanuary 30, 1933. The prophet who had promised fourteen years beforeto the for his immutable program now abjured it with the banaljustification: 'The important thing is not programs and ideas, but dailybread for seventy million people/ Two weeks earlier he had proclaimedthe permanent revolution; now he said: 'The revolution is no permanentcondition'; and the art was to halt a revolution 'at the proper moment.''People should not look around to see if there is something left torevolutionize'; they should conquer and secure the positions and'gradually occupy them with the best talents.' This was an admissionthat his elite was anything but the best; in reality, the whole NationalSocialist method of forming an elite consisted, not in seeking out thebest, but in the training of average — and often less than average —men to a certain political usefulness. Up till then the National Socialistshad 'behaved like fools, over-