lp4guld

State share in profits of all large industries.Confiscation of lands for all purposes without compensation.Relentless measures against usurers and profiteers.Bigger and better old-age pensions.In the political section of this program there was nothing inviolent collision with the widely held views of many powerfulgroups—particularly the nationalists and conservatives—and theseviews the National Socialist party continued to hold to the end,save the right of all citizens to equal rights and the institution ofparliament as the agency of central control. Hitler substituted theidea of the elite and the idea of the hierarchial leader for the principlesof equality and parliamentary government. The ideal of aGerman national army again also had deep roots in Germany andrepresented no departure from traditional thought. The economicsection of the platform, however, was predominantly socialist and,despite the character of the new constitution and the semi-socialistregime then in power, could not have been adopted without a tremendousstruggle against the opinions of several powerful minorities—too powerful to be overthrown.At this period Hitler was a mere amateur in revolutionary techniqueas compared with Mussolini when he began. While he adoptedthe platform, his interest was not in its doctrines so much as in theinstrument that had come into his hands as a means to power, whichdistinguished him from his colleagues who were wrapped up in theirdoctrines. But he did not yet understand how he should or wouldshape his course in that pursuit. He denounced German parties forcooking up platforms to suit all sorts of people and announcedboastfully that he was always ready to make a front against publicopinion and that the National Socialist party "would never becomea bailiff of public opinion but its ruler." This, however, is preciselywhat the National Socialist party did.New and more capable converts to the party began to arrive andto shoulder out of the way the smaller persons like Feder and Drexler—menlike Roehm, Gregor Strasser, Hess, Julius Streicher, Rosenberg,Goering and Goebbels. Strasser, Roehm, and Streicher weresocialists. Goebbels had a pet peeve—the war profiteers. GoeringI } 1