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the hands of gutter-rats and degenerates. He talked about the French, and was careful of what
he said; he wanted no enmity between France and Germany; they could make a treaty of peace
that would last for a thousand years, if only the French would give up their imbecile idea of
encircling Germany and keeping her ringed with foes. "It is the Polish alliance and the Little
Entente which keep enmity between our peoples; for we do not intend to let those peoples go
on ruling Germans, and we have an iron determination to right the wrongs which were
committed at Versailles. You must know something about that, Mr. Budd, for you have been to
Stubendorf, and doubtless have seen with your own eyes what it means for Germans to be
governed by Poles."
Lanny answered: "I was one of many Americans at the Peace Conference who pleaded
against that mistake."
So the Führer warmed to his visitor. "The shallow-minded call my attitude imperialism; but
that is an abuse of language. It is not imperialism to recognize the plain evidence of history
that certain peoples have the capacity to build a culture while others are lacking in it entirely.
It is not imperialism to say that a vigorous and great-souled people like the Germans shall not
be surrounded and penned in by jealous and greedy rivals. It is not imperialism to say that these
little children shall not suffer all their lives the deprivations which they have suffered so far."
The speaker was running his hand over the closely cropped blond head of the little boy. "This
Bübchen was born in the year of the great shame, that wicked Versailles Diktat. You can see
that he is thin and undersized, because of the starvation blockade. But I have told him that his
children will be as sturdy as his father was, because I intend to deliver the Fatherland from the
possibility of blockades—and I shall not worry if my enemies call me an imperialist. I have written
that every man becomes an imperialist when he begets a child, for he obligates himself to see
to it that that child has the means of life provided."
Lanny, a Socialist not untainted with internationalism, could have thought of many things to
answer; but he had no desire to spoil this most amiable of interviews. So long as a tiger was
willing to purr, Lanny was pleased to study tigers. He might have been influenced by the many
gracious words which had been spoken to him, if it had not been for having read Mein Kampf.
How could the author of that book imagine that he could claim, for example, to have no
enmity against France? Or had he changed his mind in five years? Apparently not, for he had
formed a publishing-house which was selling his bible to all the loyal followers of the National
Socialist German Workingmen's Party, and at the price of twelve marks per copy somebody
was making a fortune.
IX
Lanny thought: "I am taking a lot of a busy man's time." But he knew that when you are
calling on royalty you do not leave until you are dismissed; and perhaps it would be the same
here. The children had been sent away, it being their suppertime; but still the Führer went on
talking. Heinrich Jung sat leaning forward with an aspect of strained attention, and there was
nothing for Lanny to do but follow his example.
The Führer retold the wrongs which had been done to his country; and as he went on he
became more and more aroused, his voice swelled and he became the orator. Lanny
remembered having read somewhere of Queen Victoria's complaining about her audiences
with Gladstone: "He treats me as if I were a public meeting." Lanny found it somewhat
embarrassing to be shouted at from a distance of six feet. He thought: "Good Lord, with this
much energy the man could address all Germany!" But apparently Adolf Hitler had enough
energy for all Germany and for a foreign visitor also; it was for him to decide how much to
expend, and for the visitor to sit and gaze at him like a fascinated rabbit at a hissing snake.
Lanny had seen this same thing happen at several meetings. The Führer took fire from his own
phrases; he was moved to action by his own eloquence. Now, now was the moment to
overthrow these enemies of the Fatherland, to punish them for their crimes. Heads will roll in
the sand! The orator forgot all about being sweet and reasonable for the benefit of a member
of two of these enemy nations. Perhaps he thought that Lanny, having heard the whole story
of Versailles, of reparations and starvation blockade and Ruhr invasion and Polish alliance and all
the rest, must now be completely a convert. Away with the pretense that the Führer of the Nazis
did not hate the French for their avarice, the British for their arrogance, the Americans for their
upstart pretensions, the Bolsheviks for being bloodthirsty monsters, the Jews for being the
spawn of hell. In short, he became that man of frenzy whom Lanny and Rick had first heard
in the Burgerbraukeller in Munich seven years ago. Lanny had said: "One must admit that he
is sincere," and Rick had replied: "So are most lunatics."
How long this would have continued no one could say. The housekeeper opened the door and
said: "Verzeihung, mein Führer. Herr Strasser." Behind her came, without delay, a large
man in S.A. uniform. He had large, rather coarse features, a somewhat bulbous nose, a
drooping mouth with deep lines at the sides. According to the practice with which Lanny was
familiar he should have halted in the doorway, clicked his heels, given the Nazi salute, and
said: "Heil Hitler!" Instead he came forward, remarking in a nonchalant way: "Grüß Gott,
Adolf." This meant that he was an old friend, and also that he came from Bavaria.
The visitors were greatly startled by the Führer's response, delivered with the force of a blow:
"You have not been conducting yourself as a friend, and therefore you have not been
summoned as a friend!" The speaker rose to his feet and, pointing an accusing finger at the new
arrival, went on: "Learn once for all, I have had enough of your insubordination! You
continue at your peril!" It set the big man back on his heels, and his large mouth dropped
open.
Would the Führer of the Nazis have attacked his subordinate in that abrupt and violent way if
he had not already got steamed up? Impossible to say; but the astonishment and dismay of Herr
Strasser were apparent. He opened his mouth as if to ask what was the matter, but then he
closed it again, for he got no chance. Hitler was launched upon a tirade; he rushed at the man
—not to strike him, but to thrust the accusing finger within a couple of inches of the big nose
and shriek:
"Your intrigues are known! Your insolence is resented! Your public utterances are
incitements to treason, and if you do not mend your ways you will be driven out. Go and join
your brother's Schwarze Front, and the other disguised Communists and scoundrels! I—I,
Adolf Hitler, am the Führer of the N.S.D.A.P., and it is for me to determine policies. I will not
have opposition, I will not have argument, I will have obedience. We are in the midst of a
war, and I demand loyalty, I demand discipline. "Zucht! Zucht! Zucht!" It is one of those many
German words which require a clearing of the throat, and the unfortunate Strasser flinched as
if from a rain of small particles of moisture.
"Adolf, who has been telling you stories about me?" He forced the sentence in while the
Führer caught his breath.
"I make it my business to know what is going on in my movement. Do you imagine that you
can go about expressing contempt for my policies without word of it coming to me?"
"Somebody has been lying, Adolf. I have said only what I have said to you: that now is the
time for action, and that our foes desire nothing but delay, so that they can weaken us by
their intrigues".
"They weaken us because of arrogance and self-will in my own party officials; because these
presumptuous ones dare to set themselves up as authorities and thinkers. I think for the
National Socialists, I—and I have ordered you to hold your tongue— Maul halten— and obey my
orders, follow my policies and not your own stupid notions. Your brother has turned himself
into a criminal and an outlaw because of that same arrogance"
"Leave Otto out of it, Adolf. You know that I have broken with him. I do not see him and have
no dealings with him."
"Ich geb' ' n Dreck d'rum!" cried Adolf; he spoke that kind of German. Talking to a Bavarian,
he added: "Das ist mir Sau-wurscht!"
He rushed on: "You stay in the party and carry on Otto's agitation in favor of discarded
policies. I am the captain of this ship, and it is not for the crew to tell me what to do, but to do
what I tell them. Once more, I demand unity in the face of our foes. Understand me, I
command it! I speak as your Führer!"
Lanny thought he had never seen a man so beside himself with excitement. Adolf Hitler's face
had become purple, he danced about as he talked, and every word was emphasized as with a
hammer blow of his finger. Lanny thought the two men would surely fight; but no, presently
he saw that the other was going to take it. Perhaps he had seen the same thing happen before,
and had learned to deal with it. He stopped arguing, stopped trying to protest; he simply stood
there and let his Führer rave, let the storm blow itself out— if it ever would blow itself out.
Would the ocean ever be the same after such a hurricane?
X
Lanny had learned much about the internal affairs of the Nazi party from the conversation of
Kurt and Heinrich. Also, during the summer he had been getting the German papers, and
these had been full of a furious party conflict over the question of the old program, which
Hitler had been paring down until now there was nothing left of it. Here in North Germany
many of the Nazis took the "Socialist" part of their label seriously; they insisted upon talking
about the communizing of department stores, the confiscation of landed estates, the ending of
interest slavery, common wealth before private wealth, and so on. It had caused a regular civil
war in the party earlier in the year. The two Strasser brothers, Gregor and Otto, had fought
for the old program and had been beaten.
Gregor had submitted, but Otto had quit the party and organized a revolutionary group of
his own, which the Hitlerites called the "Black Front" and which they were fighting with
bludgeons and revolvers, just as they fought the Communists. Later on, immediately before the
elections, there had been another attempt at internal revolution; the rebels had seized the offices of
the Berlin party paper, Der Angriff, holding it by force of arms and publishing the paper for
three days. A tremendous scandal, and one which the enemies of the movement had not failed
to exploit.
So here was Gregor Strasser, Reich Organization Leader Number 1. A lieutenant in the World
War, he had become an apothecary, but had given up his business in order to oppose the Reds
and then to help Adi prepare for the Beerhall Putsch. He was perhaps the most competent
organizer the party had, and had come to Berlin and built the Sturmabteilung by his efforts.
Hitler, distrusting him as too far to the left, had formed a new personal guard, the Schutz-
staffel, or S.S. So there were two rival armies inside the Nazi party of all Germany; which was
going to prevail?
Lanny wondered, had Hitler really lost his temper or was this merely a policy? Was this the
way Germans enforced obedience— the drill-sergeant technique? Apparently it was working,
for the big man's bull voice dropped low; he stood meekly and took his licking like a schoolboy
ordered to let down his pants. Lanny wondered also: why did the Führer permit a foreigner to
witness such a demonstration? Did he think it would impress an American? Did he love power
so much that it pleased him to exhibit it in the presence of strangers? Or did he feel so secure
in his mastery that he didn't care what anybody thought of him? This last appeared to be in
character with his procedure of putting his whole defiant program into a book and selling it to
anybody in the world who had twelve marks.
Lanny listened again to the whole story of Mein Kampf. He learned that Adolf Hitler meant
to outwit the world, but in his own good time and in his own way. He meant to suppress his land
program to please the Junkers and his industrial program to please the steel kings, and so get
their money and use it to buy arms for his S.A. and his S.S. He meant to promise everything
to everybody and so get their votes—everybody except the abscheulichen Bolschewisten and the
verfluchten Juden. He meant to get power and take office, and nobody was going to block him
from his goal. If any Dummkopf tried it he would crush him like a louse, and he told him so.
When Strasser ventured to point out that Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Führer's favorite
propagandist, had said that he was developing a "legality complex," the Führer replied that he
would deal with "Juppchen" at his own convenience; he was dealing now with Gregor
Strasser, and telling him that he was not to utter another word of criticism of his Führer's
policies, but to devote his energies to putting down the Reds and teaching discipline to his
organization, which lacked it so shamefully. Adolf Hitler would do his own dickering with the
politicians, playing them one against another, worming his way closer and closer to the
chancellorship which was his goal—and in due course he would show them all, and his own
friends would be ashamed of their blindness and presumption in having doubted their
inspired leader.
So Lanny received a demonstration of what it meant to be a master of men. Perhaps that
was what the Führer intended; for not until he had received the submission of his Reich
Organization Leader Number 1 and had dismissed him did he turn again to his guest. "Well,
