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

OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY 661ing the ocean by the firm of Dornier (the so-called DoX), had failed as aresult of weakness in motor construction; and in the end Dornier hadrecourse to American motors.Production of internal combustion engines, primarily in fulfillment ofstate orders, was from the start a central point in Hitler's economicprogram. There are no statistics covering airplane construction, but therelated field of automobiles shows an increase far above that of generalproduction: in 1932 approximately 43,000 private automobiles werebuilt; in 1933 more than twice as many, approximately 93,000, or nearlyas many as in 1929; in 1934 the figure had risen to 147,000 — still nonetoo impressive compared to the 4,500,000 in the United States in 1929,the 2,100,000 in 1934, or even the modest 256,000 in England in 1934.The acceleration of machine construction points to an early andsystematic motorization of the army. It could not be denied that Germanindustry was working for this army; but it was only a fraction of itswork, and the main problem remained unemployment. Konstantin Hierl,the National Socialist proponent of the mass army, was consoled withthe leadership of the 'Labor Service'— seemingly a mass army for putting men back to work. Under Papenand Schleicher it had still been voluntary in form, but now— at the beginning of 1934 — it became formally compulsory, thoughin practice compulsory only for a section of the gradually diminishingunemployed. Formally, every young German of nineteen was to enterthe Labor Service for half a year; since every year 540,000 young menbecame eligible, the service should have embraced 270,000 men. Theyled a military life, lived in camps, were commanded by officers, learnedto stand, march, run, jump, climb, crawl, like soldiers. Their chiefimplement was the shovel, and in addition to its normal functions, theylearned to handle it like a rifle; above all, they learned obedience andthe fear of their superiors.But the High Command kept insisting that all this was useless from amilitary standpoint: when the time came for the army itself to take overthe young people, they would have to be taught everything from thebeginning. For what few weapons were produced went almost entirelyto the Reichswehr. With his stern belief in specialization, Hitler insistedthat professional officers under-