Hitler's Table Talk

ARREST OF MINISTERS 293
that one should in no circumstances put one's trust in
lawyers. They certainly won't defend our régime any better
then they defended its predecessor.
Little by little, there was a revulsion in our favour. Now and
then a policeman would come and whisper into our ears that
he was at heart on our side. More and more we could count on
genuine supporters amongst them, who did not hesitate to compromise
themselves for the Party, and through whom we learnt
whatever was afoot.
A particularly repulsive individual was Hermann in 1923.
He was one of the chiefs of the criminal police. Believing in our
success, he put himself at our disposal as soon as we'd proceeded
to the arrest of members of the Government, offering us his help
in laying our hands on those who'd escaped our net. When the
affair had turned out badly, we knew that he'd be one of the
chief witnesses for the prosecution, and we were very curious to
see how he'd behave. We were ready, according to what he said,
to shut his mouth by saying to him: "Wasn't it you, Hermann,
who handed Wutzelhofer over to us?" But he was as dumb as a
carp.
It was Weber who opened up for us, unknown to the proprietor,
the Villa Lehmann, in which we locked up the members
of the Government. We'd threatened them that if a single one
of them attempted to flee, we'd shoot them all. Their panic
was so great that they remained shut up for two days, though
the revolution had come to an end long before. When Lehmann
returned to his house, he was quite surprised to discover this
brilliant assemblage.
A few days later, Lehmann even had the surprise of receiving
a visit from a daughter of one of the Ministers. She'd come to
fetch a signet-ring that her father claimed to have forgotten
between the pages of a book he had taken from the library.
Instead of a signet-ring, what she was looking for was a pile of
foreign bank-notes that the father had slipped into a book by the
poet Storm!