Hitler And I

HITLER AND I

by

OTTO STRASSER

With an Introduction by

DOUGLAS REED

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Translated from the French by

GWENDA DAVID
and

ERIC MOSBACHER

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JONATHAN CAPE
THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE
LONDON

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ?

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION 10

I MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER 13

H THE GERMAN CAULDRON 26

HI THE CONSPIRATORS OF THE BURGERBRAU 40

IV HITLER WRITES MEW KAMPF 59

V THE MAN HITLER )3

VI HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM 90

VH OPEN COMBAT IO5

VIH THROUGH TREASON TO POWER 128

E THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS 156

X THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH 185

XI HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE' 24

XU THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER. 228

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of 1940 I wrote a book, Nemesis?, which
told the story of a man then little known outside Germany,
Otto Strasser. It described his upbringing and his distin¬
guished service in the war we once called Great; his political
peregrinations in the crazy and turbulent post-war German
years; his eventual enlistment under Hitler’s flag, his
disillusionment with, and breakaway from, Hitler; and his
unremitting struggle, now ten years old, in Germany and
in exile, against this Hitler whom he thinks guilty of be¬
traying the German cause. Nemesis? also described Otto
Strasser’s most stimulating political philosophy and his plans
for the re-making of Germany on a juster social basis.

I felt that both Otto Strasser’s fight against Hitler and his
political ideas needed to be far better known in Britain, and
also the importance of the part he yet might play if fate were
kind — kind to him and to the other enemies of Hitler.

This book contains Strasser’s own narrative of his work
for, his encounters with, and his long and lonely fight
against, Hitler. Some of it covers ground already broken in
Nemesis?, but this is the man’s own story, in his own style,
and fascinating it is. Much of it is of permanent historical
value. No other man could have saved for posterity such
immortal anecdotes as that of the conspiracy among Hitler’s
fellow-prisoners at Landsberg in 1923-24, led by Otto’s
brother Gregor, to get Hitler to write his memoirs, because
his wordiness was a bore, and that of the convivial party of
National Socialist leaders, far back in the days before the
attainment of power, at which the first-comers agreed that
each newcomer should be asked if he had read Mein Kampf,
the first to answer ‘Yes’ having to pay the bill — with the
result that each paid his own bill!

7

INTRODUCTION

In another book, Germany Tomorrow , which is to appear
simultaneously with this, Otto Strasscr expounds at greater
length and more clearly than I could in a couple of chapters
of Nemesis?, his remarkable conception of a ‘German
Socialism' and his proposals for a new Germany in a new
Europe.

Much has changed since I wrote Nemesis? Then, at the
dawn of 1940, I saw with jubilation that we had been given
an unexpected, perhaps unmerited, but at all events in¬
valuable respite of many months and — making an over-
optimistic assumption for the first time in three books
in favour of my own country — I calculated that we should
so use that heaven-sent time that we should in the spring
be far beyond the reach of defeat, though not within sight
of victory.

The eight months were not fully used and their history,
when it comes to be written, wall be more astounding and
more difficult to believe than the seven years of ostrichism
and wishful thinking which led to this war. The result is
that, as 1 write this introduction, we arc faced with the
bitterest struggle in our history, and the odds against us have
lengthened ominously to our disadvantage.

As Otto Strasscr writes in his forword, Hitler is staking
everything tut victory before the autumn, and by our own
faults oi'dilatoriness anti dawdling, prolonged from tire seven
pre-war years into the first eight months of the very war
itself, we have gambled away the certainty of his defeat
which those eight months should have given us. If we can
holt} out for three or four months, we should, once more, be
safe; Hitler's downfall would, once more, be certain.

In these circumstances, the part that Otto Strasser may
play is, like all else, in the lap of fate. If Hitler’s gigantic
venture fails, Otto Strasser will once more loom large in the
picture. We have heard much of the Fifth Column in this
and other countries. That the biggest Fifth Column,

8

INTRODUCTION

potentially, in the world is in Germany has seemingly been
overlooked.

Whatever impends, these two books belong to history.

Douglas Reed

y

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

In the early morning of November 9 th,1939, the world was
startled by the report of an attempt on Hitler’s life, the
occasion being the traditional reunion in the Burger-
braukeller of Munich. Responsibility was laid by the Nazi
propagandists at my door, as Leader of the Black Front,
and at that of the British Secret Service. Such accusations
are not worth answering. The incident had quite another
significance: it was the signal for the opening of the second
phase of Hitler’s war.

The first phase was the Polish campaign, which Hitler
and his General Staff regarded as a mere police action, to
be accompanied by a peace offensive against the Western
powers. It was the unexpected failure of this offensive that
determined Hitler to end the war in the West by a lightning
victory.

In this war he has one objective: to destroy the power
of Britain. France is a secondary consideration, like Belgium
important only as a jumping-off ground. But to bring
Britain to her knees there must be an effective blockade, to
be followed by the landing of troops and crowned by a
peace dictated from Buckingham Palace. Peace with France
would follow as a natural consequence, and Hitler, as
Emperor of Europe, would have reached the first stage
towards world domination.

To secure the submarine and air bases essential for this
twofold military and economic attack upon Britain, Hitler
decided upon the invasion of Holland. He reckoned on no
great military outlay, and was confident that Belgium would
remain neutral, thus preventing effective Allied assistance.
The invasion was planned for November 12th, 1939, and
the Munich explosion was arranged a day or two earlier for

10

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

the purpose of arousing public opinion against perfidious
Albion. It was thanks to the diplomacy of the Western
powers, and to an even greater extent to her own enlightened
self-interest, that on November nth and 12th Belgium
announced that in the event of an invasion she would fight
at the side of Holland, thus opening the way for Allied
assistance to the Low Countries.

The plan for a minor war therefore had to be abandoned.
Instead a major war had to be undertaken, and this neces¬
sarily demanded several months’ preparation. The first
step was the invasion of Denmark and Norway, to secure
the eastern seaboard of the North Sea and to protect
northern Germany from a British counter-offensive. The
incidental acquisition of Danish food supplies and Nor¬
wegian minerals was of secondary importance, for Germany’s
internal situation, grave economic and financial difficulties,
and above all the prospect of America’s entry on the side
of the Allies, made it imperative for Hitler to end the war,
'one way or the other’, by the beginning of October 1940.

The success of Hitler’s Scandinavian venture was a serious
setback for Britain, and enabled him exactly one month later
to deliver his next blow, the invasion of Holland and
Belgium. Fourteen days after the opening of this gigantic
offensive German tanks had reached Boulogne, driving a
wedge between the Allied armies and bringing the south
coast of England within the range of German guns. From
the bases thus gained in April and May, Hitler unquestion¬
ably plans to launch a direct and indirect attack upon
Britain.

In this situation the attitude of the German people is a
crucial factor. Since 1933 no fewer than two million men
and women have been cast into prisons and concentration
camps, and thousands more murdered in cold blood. For
nearly seven years the German opposition has been left alone
to carry on its struggle against Hitler, while the statesmen

11

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

of the whole world shook his bloodstained hand or accepted
invitations to the hunting parties of the mass-murderer
Goering, an attitude which made possible an unbroken
succession of triumphs in the field of foreign politics. No
nation, and certainly no army, would revolt against a system
which produced the Concordat with the Vatican, the Non-
Aggression Pact with Poland, the Anglo-German Naval
Treaty, the recovery of the Saar territory, the reconstitution
of the army, the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Ansch¬
luss with Austria, and even the conquest of Bohemia, Moravia
and Slovakia ‘without spilling a single drop of blood’.

Each of these triumphs struck a blow at the German
opposition. But the latent revolutionary situation in the
Reich is still maintained. It is the chief reason why Hitler
must end the war ‘one way or the other’ by October ist,
1940, and it is the chief hope of all friends of freedom. If it
is to pass from a latent into an acute revolutionary phase, a
military defeat is essential. The outbreak of internal unrest
is possible only after Hitler’s ‘Battle of the Mame’; possible,
and certain!

Otto Strasser

May 1940

12

CHAPTER I

\ '0
\ fON)

MY FIRST MEETING WITH
HITLER

‘Come and have lunch with us to-morrow and meet
General Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler ... I insist on
your coming, it’s very important.’

These words, spoken by my brother Gregor, came
to me over the telephone at Deggendorf in Bavaria,
where I was spending my holidays with my parents in
October, 1920. Gregor sensed my hesitation, and he
was aware of my mistrust of Hitler and his pro¬
paganda, but he insisted. My acceptance of his
invitation was a turning-point in my life, affecting my
whole future.

What young German officer would not have leapt
at the chance of meeting General Ludendorff? In the
chaotic state that Germany was in then, what young
German could have had so little curiosity as not to
want to see for himself what Adolf Hitler was like?
For the youth of Germany, eager to create a new
future, was then starting to rally round him.

My brother’s invitation came to me at a crucial
moment. Not long before I had left the Socialist
Party, and I was still searching for my way.

Six months earlier the celebrated Kapp putsch had
taken place in Berlin, on which occasion I had fought

13

HITLER AND I

valiantly for the Weimar Republic. I had led three
squads of Berlin working-men against Colonel
Erhardt’s Brigade and General Luttwitz’s Regiment.
Erhardt and Luttwitz had wished to seize power and
set up a reactionary government. Militarily our forces
(we were known as the ‘Reds’ to distinguish us from
the reactionary ‘Whites’) had been defeated. Erhardt
had marched triumphantly into Berlin by the Bran¬
denburg Gate, and, with the capital at his feet, had
said to Kapp, former governor of East Prussia and
the civil leader of the insurrection, ‘I have put your
foot in the stirrup, and now it is up to you to govern’.

The legal Government had fled to Stuttgart, and
for three days the putschists were able to enjoy their
ephemeral victory. A general strike was immediately
declared and was followed by rioting in the streets.

Bloody fighting took place in the neighbourhood of
Wesel in the Ruhr. General Luttwitz, Colonel
Erhardt and Governor Kapp fled to Sweden. The
Socialists, of whom I was one, declared themselves
ready to lay down their arms, subject to terms, which
included the purging of the Army and the socialization
of heavy industry, and they signed the Bielefeld
Agreement with the Minister, Herr Severing. The
Communists, however, did not lay down their arms,
and carried on a bloodthirsty struggle. In order to
suppress them the Weimar Government did not
hesitate to use the decapitated and defeated troops of
Luttwitz and Erhardt. As soon as the Communists
were crushed the perjurous Government repudiated

MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER

its promises to the Socialists and announced that
Severing had had no authority to sign any agreement
with us.

It was as a consequence of this shocking state of
affairs that I left the Socialist Party. I was dis¬
heartened by the outcome of events in Germany, and
felt like a ship without a rudder. I was a young
student of law and economics, a Left Wing student
leader, and a leader of ex-soldier students.

At home with my parents day followed day in
monotonous succession, as in the days of my childhood.
My father was still an official of the town court, he
still went to Mass on Sundays and still talked politics
on the way home from church regularly every week.
He had once written an anonymous pamphlet,
entitled The New Way, an Essay in Social Christianity ,
and this was still his main preoccupation. My mother
had aged, and the house had gradually emptied.

My eldest brother Paul had become a Benedictine,
my younger brother Anton was at boarding-school,
and Gregor, my senior by five years, and my sister
were both married.

Next day’s outing therefore promised to be a wel¬
come change, and I looked forward to breathing a
little fresh air.

It is about sixty miles from Deggendorf to Landshut,
in Lower Bavaria, where Gregor was living with his
young wife. I took an early train, and walked from
the station under a clear autumn sky. Gregor kept a
chemist’s shop in the high street, and it was a meeting

15

HITLER AND I

place for all the notables of the town. I expected t
be early, but I noticed that the iron shutters wer
down, and a beautiful car was standing in front of th
house. General Ludendorff and Hitler must hav
come from Munich by road, and they had arrive
before me.

Gregor quickly introduced us. I was first impresse
with Ludendorff. He had heavy features and a firr
double chin. There was something compelling abou
the way he gazed at you from under his bushy browj
and in spite of his civilian clothes he looked every incl
a general. One sensed his will-power immediately
His companion, who wore a blue suit, seemed to b
trying to occupy as small a place upon his chair a
possible. He appeared to be trying to shelter unde
the redoubtable general’s wing. What shall I say c
Adolf Hitler’s personal appearance? It was thei
entirely unfamiliar. He was a man of thirty-one, wit!
regular features and a stubbly moustache. His fac
was not yet lined with thought. The pouches tha
were later to appear under his eyes were scarce!'
visible. That face that has since become familiar ti
the whole world had not yet assumed its true signi
ficance. Hitler was a young man like other young men
His pallor indicated lack of fresh air and physica
exercise.

We went in to lunch. Ludendorff kept his inquisi
torial eye upon me.

Your brother has spoken to me about you,’ h
said. ‘How many years’ service have you done?’

16

MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER

‘Four-and-a-half years, sir, 5 I replied. ‘I was the
youngest Bavarian volunteer. I served for three years
in the ranks, and for a year and a half as second-
lieutenant and lieutenant. I was in the army from
August 2, 1914, until June 30, 1919, and was twice
wounded. 5

‘Bravo, 5 said Ludendorff. Raising his clear green
glass, which rested on a massive stem, he offered to
drink with each of us. We all naturally responded to
his gesture, but to my astonishment I noticed that
Hitler’s glass contained nothing but water.

‘Herr Hitler is a teetotaler, 5 Gregor explained, with
a host’s smile. ‘He is also a vegetarian, 5 he added, with
a glance almost of apprehension at his wife.

The roast had just been brought in.

‘Herr Hitler will not offend me by refusing my
cooking, 5 my little sister-in-law said calmly, but at the
same time challengingly.

An instinctive dislike of the guest who had been thrust
on her was perceptible in her eyes and her whole attitude.

Else never approved of her husband’s intimacy with
Adolf Hitler. She tolerated him during the years that
followed without ever daring to express her revulsion
aloud. But her hostility to Hitler never changed.

That day Adolf Hitler ate meat. I do not think he
has done so since.

Ludendorff pursued his inquiries about my military
career.

‘And how did you come to be recommended for the
Order of Max-Joseph? 5

B

17

HITLER AND I

The decoration to which the general referred was
an extremely rare one, of which I was deprived by the
ending of the war. I had been recommended for it as
a consequence of a deed of arms recorded in the
Golden Book of the First Regiment of Bavarian Light
Artillery, a crack regiment in which I was proud of
having served. Bubbling over with youthful pride and
enthusiasm, I described the incident to General
Ludendorff, while Adolf Hitler, suddenly embarrassed
at having been no more than a corporal and having
no military exploits of his own to boast about,
enclosed himself in a hostile silence.

On several occasions when Ludendorff spoke to him
he answered with a ‘Yes, your Excellency’, or ‘Exactly,
your Excellency’. His manner was both obsequious
and sullen.

Gregor, who had been an officer too, but was
already on very close terms with Hitler, felt uncom¬
fortable. The harmony of his lunch party seemed to
be imperilled, and the plans that he had built on it
appeared to be vanishing into thin air. Gregor, as
leader of the Nationalist ex-service men of Bavaria,
had incorporated his followers in the National-
Socialist movement that spring. He had founded the
first provincial branch of the Party, and was thus
Hitler’s first Gauleiter. Thus, both as host and as
politician, the turn the luncheon was taking was
naturally displeasing to him. With his innate organiz¬
ing gifts and the authority that the chemist shares with
the doctor and the priest in the provinces, he had

18

MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER

succeeded in converting the distrustful and uncouth
Bavarians to Hitler’s cause. Was he to fail with his
own brother?

We went into the sitting-room, a dark room with
heavy oak furniture.

The general, reclining in a leather arm-chair,
pondered, a cigar between his lips. Hitler could not
keep still, but kept pacing up and down with lowered
head, no doubt meditating his revenge.

He suddenly turned and made a frontal attack
upon me.

‘Herr Strasser,’ he said, ‘I do not understand how
it is possible for a loyal ex-officer like you to have been
a Red leader during the Kapp putsch in March.’

He must have heard the story from my brother. At
last he was upon his own ground.

‘My “Reds”, Herr Hitler,’ I replied, ‘acted in
support of the legal Government of the country. They
were not rebels, as you seem to imply, but patriots,
who were trying to check the rebellious followers of a
few reactionary generals.’

Hitler gradually 'worked up to a high state of
excitement.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘one must not be satisfied with the
letter, one must try to penetrate to the spirit. The
Kapp putsch was necessary, though it was ineffectively
carried out. The “Versailles Government” must be
overthrown.’

Never did I hear Hitler talk of the ‘Weimar Re¬
public’. He always spoke of the ‘Versailles Govem-

19

HITLER AND I

ment’, and always used the phrase with profound
contempt.

I found myself in a somewhat difficult position.
Had I been alone with Hitler, I should have replied
with my usual vehemence. But LudendorfF was
present, and Ludendorff’s role during the famous
putsch had not been at all clear. He had been in the
Unter den Linden in Berlin at the very hour of
Erhardt’s victorious entry. Was he a chance spectator
or a secret accomplice? I have never found out.

‘The reactionaries,’ I said, ‘exploited the political
ignorance of a lot of patriotic officers. During the
War Kapp was hand-in-glove with Tirpitz, the
Prussian reactionaries, the Junkers, heavy industry,
Thyssen and Krupp. The Kapp putsch was no more
or less than an attempted coup d’itaV

LudendorfF, whose thoughts had seemed to be else¬
where, then intervened and took my part.

‘He is right,’ he said. ‘The Kapp putsch was sense¬
less. One must start by gaining the people, in order
to be able to dispense with force.’

Hitler immediately became outwardly docile and
obsequious.

‘Yes, your Excellency,’ he said sonorously.

Then he continued in a monotonous voice:

‘That is the object of my movement. I wish to
inflame the people to the idea of revenge. Only the
people and its total fanaticism can make us win the
next war.’

I was shocked by this idea and opposed it vigorously.

30

MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER

‘There is no question of revenge and there is no
question of war/ I replied. ‘Our Socialism must be
“national” in order to establish a new order in Ger¬
many and not to set out on a new policy of conquests.’

‘Yes/ said Gregor, who had been listening very
seriously, ‘from the Right we shall take nationalism,
which has so disastrously allied itself with capitalism,
and from the Left we shall take socialism, which has
made such an unhappy union with internationalism.
Thus we shall form the National-Socialism which will
be the motive force of a new Germany and a new
Europe.’

‘And/ I continued, ‘the emphasis in this amalgama¬
tion must be on the socialism. Don’t you call your
movement Nationalsozialist in a single word, Herr
Hitler? German grammar tells us that in compound
words of this kind the first part serves to qualify the
second, which is the essential part.’

I then proceeded to quote some quite undeniable
examples to illustrate this feature of the German
language, which is very rich in compounds of this
kind. I saw Hitler flush, and a vertical line appeared
on his forehead, intersecting a horizontal line.

‘But perhaps your Baltic adviser, Herr Rosenberg,
is too ignorant of the German language to appreciate
the nuance / I added somewhat maliciously.

Hitler suddenly lost patience and struck the table
furiously with his fist.

‘Enough of this hair-splitting/ he exclaimed. He
then made an effort to regain his self-control, and with

21

HITLER AND I

a half-serious, half-mocking smile, turned to my
brother Gregor and said:

‘I am afraid I shall never get on well with this
intellectual brother of yours. 5

I then witnessed one of those exhibitions of rhetori¬
cal acrobatics for which Hitler was to become famous.
Side-stepping an argument on a level at which his
elementary-standard intelligence could not follow me,
he launched out into a violent anti-Semitic tirade,
completely evading the issue.

‘Playing about with ideas like that is quite useless, 5
he said, once more addressing himself to me. ‘What
I am talking about is reality, and reality is Jewry.
Look at the Communist Jew who was Marx and the
capitalist Jew who is Rathenau. All evil comes from
the Jews, who pollute the world. Ever since I have
got to know them, ever since I have come to under¬
stand them, I have been unable to meet a man in the
street without wondering whether he was a Jew or
not. Jews control the Social-Democratic Press. They
conceal their fiendish devices behind a mask of
reformist ideals. Their aim is the destruction of the
nation and the obliteration of the differences between
races. Jews lead the workers and talk of improving
their lot; in reality they aim at enslaving them, and
killing their patriotism and their honour in order to
establish the international dictatorship of Jewry.
What they cannot achieve by persuasion they will
try to achieve by force. Their organization is flawless,
they have their fingers in every pie. They have their

22

MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER

agents in all the Ministries, and they even pull strings
in the highest places in the land; and they have the
support of their co-religionists all over the world; they
are an ulcer leading to the downfall of nations and
individuals. 5

The more persuasive Hitler tried to be, the more
critical did I become. He paused for breath and saw
me smile.

‘You do not know the Jews, Herr Hitler, and permit
me to tell you that you over-estimate them, 5 1 replied.
‘The Jew, you see, is above all adaptable. He exploits
existing possibilities, but creates nothing. He makes
use of socialism, he utilizes capitalism, he would even
exploit National-Socialism if you gave him the chance.
He adapts himself to circumstances with a suppleness
of which, apart from him, only the Chinese is capable.
Marx invented nothing. Socialism has always had
three sides. Marx, in collaboration with the good
German Engels, studied its economic side, the
Italian Mazzini examined its national and religious
implications, and Bakunin, a Russian, developed
its Nihilist side, from which Bolshevism was bom.
Thus you see that socialism was not of Jewish origin
at all. 5

‘Certainly not, 5 Ludendorff agreed. ‘The old
economic principles are out-of-date. No regeneration
is possible apart from National-Socialism properly
understood. That alone can cause prosperity to return
to our country. 5

‘I wish to give the German people a touch of the

«3

HITLER AND I

whip to pull them together and make them capable of
crushing France.’

‘You still stress the nationalist side. Once more
you misunderstand the principle of the thing. I
certainly don’t approve of the Treaty of Versailles,
but the idea of fighting France seems stupid to me.
The day will come when the two countries will have
to unite to fight Russian Bolshevism.’

Hitler made an impatient gesture.

I suddenly thought of the Red Terror in Munich,
when I, an ex-officer just come out of hospital, joined
the force of General von Epp to fight the Bolsheviks in
Bavaria. Where was Hitler that day? In what corner
of Munich was the soldier skulking who should have
been fighting in our ranks?

As though divining my thoughts, he came over to
me, tapped me familiarly on the shoulder and sum¬
moned up all his charm.

‘After all,’ he said, ‘I would still rather be hanged
on a Communist gibbet than become a German Minis¬
ter by the grace of France.’

Ludendorff rose to say good-bye, and Hitler fol¬
lowed him.

‘Well?’ said my brother when he returned after
accompanying the two men to the door.

‘I liked Ludendorff,’ I said. ‘He’s not brilliant, like
Conrad von Hotzendorf, the unrecognized genius who
was generalissimo of the Austro-Hungarian armies,
but he is a man. As for Hitler, I thought him too
servile towards the general, too quick in argument and

24

MY FIRST MEETING WITH HITLER

in the art of isolating his opponent. He has no
political convictions, he has the eloquence of a loud¬
speaker.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Gregor, ‘his corporal’s stripes are
pinned to his body. All the same there’s something
about him. He has a magnetic quality which it is
difficult to resist. What fine things we could do if we
could use him to express your ideas, employing
Ludendorff’s energy and my own organizing ability
to carry them out.’

25

CHAPTER II

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

I am not setting out to write a political book. But it
is impossible to understand Hitler and the tumultuous
upheavals that carried him to the top of the German
cauldron without knowing something of the pestilen¬
tial atmosphere that prevailed in the conquered and
ruined Reich, and the obscure forces and the blood¬
shed that ravaged it.

The past was in ruins, the present shattered, the
future without hope. Such, at least, was our convic¬
tion when we finally became aware of the tragic
impotence of the men put into power by the so-called
revolution of 1918.

The Kaiser had fled. The victorious Allies believed
that they had replaced the hated regime of Wilhelm

II with a model government more democratic than
their own. But in reality nothing had changed behind
the illusory fagade, except that suffering and want
had turned men into wild beasts.

I think of my old comrade Moller van den Bruck, the
Rousseau of the German Revolution (he committed
suicide on the day he realized that Hitler had betrayed
his ideas), with whom, immediately after the Treaty of
Versailles, I founded the June Club for the purpose of
the resurrection of Germany. ‘We have lost the War, 5
he said to me, ‘but we shall win the Revolution.’

26

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

Was it a wretched illusion, this hope of regenerating
a nation governed by aged bureaucrats and cowardly
petty bourgeois?

A malicious caricaturist, desiring to show Germany
in the meanest and most contemptible light, could
have done no better than to depict those moral and
physical bureaucrats Scheidemann, Severing and
Ebert, and those commonplace, methodical bour¬
geois, Erzberger, Fehrenbach and Wirth.

A government of weak mediocrity, utterly lacking in
ideas, in faith and in political knowledge, was installed
over a heap of ruins. It was more like a bankruptcy
court than a civil government.

Ebert, the man of the ‘golden mean’, had become
President of the German Republic in an entirely
illegal fashion. Those who worked out the new con¬
stitution had mistrusted their own work as much as
they mistrusted the German people.

They dared not even risk an election. Not that that
mattered, because there was nothing Republican
about the German state except in name, and there
were no Republicans.

A saying of Ebert’s, which was a revelation to me
of what the future had in store, is worth repeating in
this context. ‘I hate the revolution,’ he said one day,
‘as much as I hate sin.’ I was still young and enthu¬
siastic, and I did not admit of compromise. ‘In the
first place,’ I said to Moller van den Brack, who was
as profoundly disillusioned as I, ‘he hates the revolution
because he hates sin. Would Danton have hated sin?’

2*7

HITLER AND I

Danton indeed! I smile to-day at having compared the
t im orous Ebert to the hero of the French Revolution.

Finally, to return to bankrupt Germany, where the
word ‘Royal’ on the facades of all the public buildings
had been erased, or simply covered up, civil disorders
went on side by side with the stereotyped and unalter¬
able routine of the various Ministries. In vain had the
Allies ordained the suppression of German militarism
and the influence of the generals, for the old func¬
tionaries remained, the Weimar Republic had recog¬
nized their ‘well-founded rights’, and they were
irremovable.

Privy Councillors tyrannized over the ephemeral
Ministers, and orders were only carried out in so far
as they served the interests of the bureaucracy.

After securing my law degree, I entered the Ministry
of Agriculture and Food Supply.

Not long afterwards a new Minister, Herr Hermes,
was appointed. Desiring to retain the services of his
private secretary in his new office, he informed the

secret counsellor of the Ministry of the fact. The latter,
however, declared that there was no vacancy for Herr
Hermes’ secretary. If Herr Hermes insisted, a special
Parliamentary vote would be necessary to sanction the
expense. He left to Herr Hermes the task of justifying
the proposed appointment before Parliament.

Poor Hermes obviously never got his secretary, and
all his most confidential letters, typed in triplicate,
were submitted to the censorship of the secret and
irremovable counsellor.

38

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

In the meantime what was happening to the
country? Germany was seething. Foreigners, little
desirous of penetrating beneath the surface, reported
that foul vapours were rising from the German
cauldon, but they did not feel seriously alarmed. They
did not realize that the shock of passions and the
excess of suffering were breeding a monstrous reaction
that bore within it the seed of an exasperated Prussian-
ism and another war.

Hitler and the obscure acolytes who led him into
power are the products of that seething cauldron.

Germany had lost the War, but that was not all.
The people were famished. Agricultural productivity
had declined throughout Europe. The Empires of
Central Europe had been bled white by the
blockade. A hundred and twenty million German
marks had been invested in war loans. The middle
class was proletarianized, the small rentiers expro¬
priated. I do not believe that in 1922 more than three
per cent of the German population possessed a fortune
of five thousand gold marks. Insurance companies had
ceased all payments. Men and women who had spent
their lives scratching and saving to provide themselves
with a modicum of security for their old age were dying
in complete destitution. Disabled war pensioners drew
no pensions. And this state of affairs was not, as one
might suppose, the result of the onerous Treaty of
Versailles but the immediate consequence of the War
itself, which had ruined the country’s economic life.

The immediate problem was that of demobilization.

29

HITLER AND I

Unemployed ex-soldiers frequently rose in insurrection
in order to prevent the complete annihilation of then-
world, and still more to escape from hunger, the
spectre of unemployment, and a hopeless future.

The soldiers returned from the front. One-and-a-
half million men were withdrawn from occupied
Poland, and three hundred thousand officers and
seven or eight hundred thousand non-commissioned
officers led aimless and hopeless lives in Berlin and the
other big cities of Germany. The heroes of the fighting
in the Baltic, where Germany defended Finland
against the Russians, returned under the leadership
of von der Goltz, Captain Stenes and Lieutenant Ross-
bach. If there is anyone to-day still naive enough to
believe in Adolf Hitler’s good faith, at least in so far
as the ideals of the German people are concerned, let
him think of the sacrifices of the German soldiers in
that struggle, and then let him consider the Fiihrer’s
attitude in the Russo-Finnish conflict. Moreover,
Hitler failed to participate in the spontaneous battles
that the Germans fought after the War, for their lives
and for their honour. He was not a member of the
armed force led by General von Epp which overthrew
the Red dictatorship of Kurt Eisner in 1919, nor was
he among the men of von der Goltz. When blood¬
thirsty fighting broke out in Upper Silesia, where
German Freikorps defended the frontiers of Germany
against the Poles, Hitler, addressing a band of Austrian
volunteers, tried his hardest to dissuade them from
fighting. His eloquence failed to convince them or to

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

restrain them, and he stayed at home, meditating the
diabolical plan which, despite all his treachery and
double-dealing, was to lead him to power.

Those who retained their sanity in this maelstrom
tried to combat the ossification of the regime, and to
reveal the truth behind the hypocritical fagade of this
bureaucrats’ democracy. At the first Congress of
Soviets of Workers and Soldiers, attended by the
Social-Democrats, the Independent German Social-
Democrats (the U.S.D.P., from which the German
Communist Party was bom) and the Soldiers’ Frac¬
tion, Helferding, a so-called Left Democrat, who later
became a Minister, made a fantastic speech which
caused all important decisions to be postponed for ever.

We were then demanding, as we did later, in the
course of the Kapp putsch, the socialization of the mines
and of heavy industry.

‘This demand,’ Helferding declared, ‘does honour
to your revolutionary feelings, but political questions
cannot be settled by feelings.’

For four hours the learned orator explained to his
astonished audience that the present state of science
made pure socialism absolutely impossible, and he
concluded by proposing the setting up of a special
commission to examine the problem. Trustfully the
workers, soldiers and ex-officers agreed. The commis¬
sion sat for months and years, but I never saw the
slightest sign of a report or of any concrete work done
by it. The commission died as it was bom, and the
problem remained unsolved.

3 1

HITLER AND I

Jewish profiteers then made their appearance, in¬
tensifying the anti-Semitism always latent in the
German people.

Traders, profiting from the famine and the pro¬
gressive devaluation of the mark, bought goods abroad
and sold them in Germany at exorbitant prices. They
exploited the Reichsbank, skilfully insinuated them¬
selves into the Government machine, established
invaluable contacts with high officials, and even pulled
strings in Ministers’ private offices, thus compromising
those who should have represented authority and
defended the poor against their exploiters. The
scandals that surrounded the names of Galician Jews
such as Kutisker, Barmatt and Sklareck caused the
precarious edifice of German finance to totter and
roused a storm of indignation. The exploits of the
Barmatt brothers, who were expelled from Germany,
were continued in shameless fashion in Holland, where
another scandal broke out a year ago as a result of
their criminal operations. The three Sklareck brothers
continued their unsavoury activities in Czecho¬
slovakia.

Big German industry finished the work begun by
speculators. Stinnes, the industrial magnate, who
started in the coal transport trade, made a colossal
fortune and bought out all his competitors, ruining
smaller concerns. Inflation set in. Every month, every
week, every day and every hour the value of the mark
declined.

Our salaries were paid daily, and it was difficult to

3a

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

adjust them to the inflationary landslide. A thing you
wanted in the morning you bought at once, because by
the afternoon the price might have doubled, trebled
or quintupled. Foreigners arrived in numbers and with
dollars, pounds or francs bought objects of art or of
prime necessity that natives could no longer afford. In
the face of this immoral spectacle xenophobia grew.
Soon the dollar was worth 4,200,000,000,000 marks.
An ordinary postage stamp cost twelve thousand
million marks.

Anger mounted among the people, and the streets
echoed with noisy demonstrations. Desperation was
reflected on every face, desperation of the kind that can
lead to outbursts of irreparable violence. The impo¬
tent Government declared it necessary to avert the
danger of revolution. But, embedded as it was in the
old prejudices of the Wilhelm era, it scented danger on
the Left only, and failed to foresee the possibility of
insurrection from the Right.

It should have taken warning, however, from the
assassination of Erzberger in 1920, carried out by two
naval officers, Lieutenant Schult and Sub-Lieutenant
Tillessen, belonging to Erhardt’s Brigade. The dis¬
organization of the German Navy was even more
complete than that of the Army. The latter had been
demobilized gradually, and numbers of ex-officers
found posts as agents, in insurance companies, banks,
or in industry. But the officers of the former Imperial
Navy were all unemployed, and their outlook was
hopeless. The German fleet had been destroyed, and

c 33

HITLER AND I

the merchant navy was reduced to ten per cent of its
pre-War strength.

Erhardt, who fled to Sweden after the failure of the
Kapp putsch, was the leader of a secret anti-Govern-
ment society, the O.G. (the Consul Organization).
Erzberger was murdered by his instructions. Although
the blow came from the Right, it did not open the eyes
of the Weimar Government.

Henceforward assassinations and acts of violence
came alternately from Right and Left.

In 1921 an attempt was made upon Scheidemann,
the Social-Democratic leader and ex-Chancellor of the
Reich. This too was organized by Erhardt’s accom¬
plices.

An infamous campaign of slander was directed
againstEbert,the man ofthe‘golden mean 5 , who, inspite
of all his efforts, never succeeded in pleasing anybody.

In 1922 the reactionaries of the Right murdered
Walther Rathenau, the big Jewish industrialist who
as Minister of Foreign Affairs was responsible
for the Treaty of Rapallo, which was signed with the
Russians.

The first popular rising took place in 1919, organized
by the Communists. During the same year von Epp
drove the Communists out of Munich. The Kapp
putsch , organized by the military party of the Right,
occurred in 1920, and ended with bloody fighting in
the Ruhr.

In 1921 there were risings in Central Germany at
Halle, Merzberg and Magdeburg.

34

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

During the same year the Communists rose at Ham¬
burg, and in 1922 Hoelz, a friend of the Soviets, also
attempted a coup. He was forced to flee to Russia,
where, like others among the Red Tsar’s servants, he
was subsequently executed by Stalin.

From the clash of interests and the subterranean
convulsions of a Germany ignored by the German
leaders and the European Powers, two political move¬
ments arose, that of the extreme Right and of the ex¬
treme Left. At first the more moderate elements pre¬
vailed in both. But, while Western Europe rested on
its laurels, Russia was perpetually alert, and never lost
sight of the ups and downs of German politics. Zino¬
viev, the leader of the Russian Comintern, who has
also since been executed by Stalin, succeeded in play¬
ing a leading r 61 e at the Halle Congress of the Socialist
Party. I was still a student then, and, being obliged to
earn a living, attended the Congress in the capacity
of correspondent of a Dutch newspaper and a Swiss
periodical. I have rarely heard such a gifted and
eloquent person as Zinoviev. In a seven-hour speech
he succeeded in splitting the Socialist Party and con¬
verting half its adherents to Communism. The
majority of the U.S.P.D. subsequently formed the
K.P.D., the Communist Party of Germany, and the
latter soon became the spearhead of the extreme Left
movement.

The Right consisted of the Stahlhelm ('steel-
helmets’), led by Seldte and Diisterberg, and the
National-Socialist German Workers’ Party (the

35

HITLER AND I

N.S.D.A.P. or Nazi Party), led by Hitler. Right
radicalism did not make much headway until later,
under the growing influence of my brother Gregor and
myself.

Never did the proverb about extremes meeting
prove truer than of post-War Germany. The best
elements of Right and Left would have made an ex¬
cellent combination. Moves towards reconciliation
were not lacking, but they were vain and illusory. The
last, under the aegis of Adolf Hitler, failed like the rest.
I remember this abortive rapprochement between Hitler
and the Third International very well. It took place
very shortly after the execution of Schlageter in the
Ruhr. The Nationalist deputy Count von Reventlow,
who subsequently became a loyal follower of Hitler’s,
then edited a Right Wing newspaper, the Reichswacht;
Radek, of the Third International, edited the Rote
Fahne ; and the two, brought together by the mediation
of the Nazi Party, agreed to exchange contributions.
The result was that the astonished readers of the Reichs¬
wacht were presented with a signed article by Radek
in praise of Schlageter, ‘the pilgrim towards the void’.

Much ink has been spilled over Schlageter. Nazi
Germany has made him one of her national heroes.
For objective people who knew the young man, who
was consumed with a passion for liberty and a feverish
desire for action, the case of Schlageter is more com¬
plicated. What would have become of the young
visionary and rebel, the fierce enemy of collectivism
and discipline, under the Hitler regime?

36

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

Would not he too have risen against tyranny? Would
not the ‘pilgrim towards the void’, who walked to his
death as in a dream, have risen again to defend his
beloved country against the most infamous of viola¬
tions? The June 30 purge would scarcely have spared
him.

German culture, manners, literature, the theatre
and the cinema necessarily reflected these dangerous
and troubled times, when morality foundered in the
need for forgetfulness, intoxication, sensationalism and
eccentric pleasures.

Night-clubs sprang up like mushrooms. Naked
dancers exhibited themselves to the applause of
audiences drunk with liquor and lubricity. It was the
era of sadism and masochism, of perversion, eccen¬
tricity and crankiness of every kind. Homosexuality
and astrology flourished.

Nobody can have forgotten the trials of the monster
Kiirten and of Haarmann, the Vampire of Diisseldorf.

One of the most curious phenomena of the post-War
period was undoubtedly Hanussen, the supreme clair¬
voyant, who acted as medium to that other clairvoyant
named AdoIF Hitler. Hitler is generally believed to
have got rid of Hanussen, as he got rid of so many of
his other friends, as soon as they became inconvenient.
In reality this was not the case. Hanussen was a Jew,
and believed that Hitler’s racial principles might one
day be applied to his disadvantage. He therefore tried
to conciliate Count Helldorf, a pervert who was per¬
petually short of money, by lending him large sums, in

37

HITLER AND I

exchange for which he was given receipts which he
carried in his wallet. But Helldorf had no intention of
repaying this inconvenient creditor. As soon as he
became police chief after Hitler’s accession to power,
he had him murdered. Hanussen had foreseen every¬
thing but this. The receipts signed by Helldorf were
never found.

These chaotic times led to a morbid, realist school
of drama. The romanticism of the period was that of
prostitution. On the screen we saw Greta Garbo’s
first film, Joyless Street, the scenario of which was based
on a novel by Bettauer, an Austrian who was murdered
by his irritated readers one night in the streets of
Vienna. At the theatre we applauded Bronnen’s
Parricide, Toiler’s Such is Life, and The Castrate, a play
which, as the title implies, symbolized the life of the
whole Reich. We listened to the Dreigroschenoper,
Makagonni and the music of Kurt Weill. And while
Left Wing drama established itself on the stage, in the
literary field there were published the political and
philosophical works of the men of the Right who were
Hitler’s unconscious pioneers. No future historian
will be able to understand and explain the present
Third Reich without having read Spengler’s Decline of
the West and Prussianism and Socialism, Grimms’ A
People rnthout Space, The Heritage of the Disinherited, and
other works of the same species. Among the most
interesting I hasten to quote The Right Revolution and
The Third Reick by my friend Moller van den Bruck,
who was the purest of the pure among them.

38

THE GERMAN CAULDRON

Spengler, who deified Prussianism, had a memor¬
able discussion with Moller van den Bruck on one
occasion at the June Club, where we arranged a meet¬
ing between these two great spirits of the age. Speng-
ler’s great aim was to put socialism in the service of
Prussianism. This is what Hitler did. Moller van den
Bruck summarized his views in the following phrase:
‘We were Teutons, we are Germans, we shall be Euro¬
peans.’ But Hitler never understood him.

In 1920 Adolf Hitler, referring to my friend’s Third
Reich , used to say: ‘The First Reich was that of Bis¬
marck, the second that of the Versailles Republic, and
the third is myself.’

‘No,’ I replied, whenever I heard him repeat this
monstrosity, ‘Moller van den Bruck said the First
Reich was Charlemagne’s Christian and federal Holy
Roman Empire, the second was that of Wilhelm and
Bismarck, and the third must again be federal, Chris¬
tian and European.’

39

CHAPTER III

THE CONSPIRATORS OF
THE BURGERBRAU

‘Orders have come from Munich. It’s for to-night! 5

Heinrich Himmler, my brother’s adjutant, stood to
attention in Gregor’s office, breathless with excitement.

‘Orders from Hider?’

‘Yes.’

For weeks past, and more particularly during the
last few days of April, 1923, Hider had been declaring
at numerous meetings that rather than allow the Red
demonstrations to take place on May 1 the Reds
would have to trample over his dead body. The time
for action seemed to have come. The various forma¬
tions of the Right were about to make a forcible reply
to recent Communist risings.

Orders came from headquarters to the villages of
Lower Bavaria, and throughout April 30 rapid and
mysterious preparations were made in the little town
of Landshut. Gregor’s patriotic ex-soldiers — for the
past three years they had been Nazi stormtroopers —
joyfully equipped themselves for the conquest of a new
Germany. Scarcely a house but contained hidden
arms, lovingly caressed by impatient hands, waiting
for the great day of the Revolution.

A number of old lorries had been put at the disposal
of the insurgents.

40

CONSPIRATORS OF THE Bt]RGERBRAU

At nightfall the men of Landshut marched off,
wearing the famous field-grey which had been worn
by millions during the Great War. The lorries, lit only
by lanterns, set out along the flat road that crosses the
plain from Dachau to the neighbourhood of Munich.
My brother Gregor commanded this little army of
three thousand men. There was something eerie about
the strange convoy as it made its way through the
moonless night.

Suddenly the silence was shattered by the violent
blowing of motor horns. The landscape was lit up by
the headlights of a number of fast police-cars, which
rapidly overtook Gregor’s slow-moving convoy.

e Schuppos / Police!’ murmured Gregor’s men.

The police lieutenant ordered Gregor’s lorry to stop.
The two leaders stood face to face.

‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Gregor. ‘Where did you
spring from?’

‘From Landshut, like you,’ replied Lieutenant
Georg Holler, his brother-in-law.

On leaving the army Georg Hofler had joined the
police department, and he was now chief of police at
Landshut.

‘But where are you going?’ said Gregor.

‘To Munich, like you.’

‘Are you with us or against us?’

‘I don’t know. We shall be given our orders at
Munich.’

For a moment Gregor and Georg Hofler stared at
each other, undecided. One was a blond giant with

41

HITLER AND I

muscles of steel, the other thinner and more delicate,
but with a bronzed face stamped with courage and
resolution.

‘Well, we shall see to-morrow, 5 Gregor philosophi¬
cally remarked.

‘Good luck! 5 replied Hofler, shaking hands with
him.

The police cars started off again in a trail of dust,
and the lorries full of stormtroopers pursued their way
more sedately behind them.

This nocturnal encounter was the first comic scene
in a farce which has often been described to me by
Gregor and my brother-in-law.

‘It was a dress rehearsal, 5 Gregor assured me in his
description of the events of May i, and when I told
him that in my opinion the principal actor, Hitler,
ought to have been hissed from the stage, he shrugged
his shoulders, as though to say ‘You’ll never under¬
stand him’.

Gregor continued his way through the night, tor¬
mented by the thought that either Hitler was in league
with the Government, and the schuppos had been sent to
Munich to support the putsch, in which case the revolu¬
tion would be more stultified than ever, or the secret
was out, in which case the insurgents, deprived of the
trump card of surprise, would all be under lock and key
that same night.

However, the convoy reached Munich without fur¬
ther incident. At the big Munich parade ground of
Oberwiesenfeld the junction of the three paramilitary

42

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BtlRGERBRAU

formations duly took place. The stormtroopers, com¬
manded by Goering, were there in force, and they were
joined by Dr. Weber’s Oberland Freikorps and the
Reichsbanner led by Captain Heiss. The coup was to
be attempted under the auspices of General Luden-
dorff, the political leadership was Adolf Hitler’s and
the military command was in the hands of Lieutenant-
Colonel Kriebel.

The junction was effected at eight o’clock in the
morning. A hot sun, worthy of July, played upon
twenty thousand steel helmets and twenty thousand
threadbare uniforms, dating from the War. The only
detachment that yet wore brown shirts was that of the
Munich stormtroopers, led by Lieutenant Rossbach.
Brown shirts weire much disliked by Adolf Hitler, but
Lieutenant Rossbach, who was also the Reich youth
organizer, had caused his recruits to adopt them.

All Adolf Hitler’s men were there, including Her¬
mann Goering in a uniform which had grown much
too tight for him, Frick, Hess and Streicher, Gregor
Strasser and his inseparable Himmler — all the big
and little actors in the Hitlerian drama, those destined
to play leading roles, those destined to remain in ob¬
scurity, those destined to be ruthlessly obliterated.

Eight o’clock passed, and then nine o’clock and ten
o’clock. Adolf Hitler stood with puckered brows. From
time to time he raised his heavy steel helmet to wipe
the sweat from his forelock. Time passed and the
agreed signal did not come.

At eleven o’clock a Reichswehr detachment ap-

43

HITLER AND I

peared on the horizon, flanked right and left by men
in the green police uniform. The demonstrators of the
Oberwiesenfeld were rapidly surrounded. The police
were under the command of Lieutenant Georg Hofler.
Am ong the military officers was Captain Roehm.

Like a maniac, Hitler made for Captain Roehm.
His eyes were flashing, and he was almost foaming at
the mouth.

‘Have you betrayed us?’ he angrily demanded.

But Roehm was not frightened of Hitler, whom he
still regarded as a corporal belonging to the 7th
Division, commanded by his friend General von Epp.
Roehm had known Hitler since 1919, since when he
had employed him as a political spy. Roehm was on
Epp’s staff, and was also responsible to the Reichswehr
for political questions in Bavaria. He used non-com¬
missioned officers and men as agents to keep him in¬
formed of all sorts of secret political activities. He had
sent Hitler to find out all about the young Nazi Party,
which was starting to be talked about in Munich. The
corporal’s report had been enthusiastic.

‘They are small people, sir, working men, but they
are anti-Marxists!’

Roehm had a quick mind, he was a first-class organ¬
izer, and he knew men. For a long time he had beep,
impressed by Hitler’s magnetism, and he promptly
ordered him to join the new party and try to gain
influence 6ver it.

Hitler acquitted himself so well in this new r 61 e that
within a few months he had completely outshadowed

44

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BURGERBRAU

Drechsler, the founder of the Party, and it did not take
him long to get rid of another leading member, the
engineer Harrer.

With Roehm’s money Hitler had been able to
organize the Party and found the S.A., the storm-
troopers, that important paramilitary organization to
which the regular Army, forced to disarm by the
Treaty of Versailles, handed over arms which it de¬
sired to conceal from Allied supervision. Also with
Roehm’s money, Hitler had been able to buy the
Volkischer Beobachter, a local bi-weekly which was to
become the organ of National-Socialism.

Roehm still regarded Hitler as his tool. Hitler’s
giddy career in the Nazi Party had not opened his eyes.
All he had for the angry, exasperated man with blood¬
shot eyes in front of him was a friendly, • protective
gesture. Roehm was a giant, accustomed to talk as a
master. Even General von Epp was tied to his apron-
strings. He was used to treating his colleagues as his
puppets.

‘What is happening?’ Hitler repeated.

‘The time is not yet ripe. The Government and the
Reichswehr are tolerating the Red First of May
demonstrations. North Germany is not yet ready,’
Captain Roehm coldly replied.

Hitler looked into his eyes, then lowered his head.

‘The time is not yet ripe,’ he was explaining to his
followers a few moments later.

Gregor and Kriebel, however, still favoured action,
and would have liked to have fired on the Reichswehr,

45

HITLER AND I

but Hitler, taciturn and glowering, refused all day to
yield to the most intrepid counsels.

Surrounded by the forces of the law, the proud
insurgents of the early morning were unable to go
home until after dark. The Red demonstrations
passed off without incident, and the Nazis were
covered with ridicule.

The humiliating memory of the Oberwiesenfeld
defeat was never effaced from Hitler’s mind. The ran¬
cour he nourished against Roehm was born that day.

Sleeplessly, night and day, Hitler prepared the Nazi
Party’s revenge.

The setting up of a Red government in Saxo-
Thuringia helped to throw oil on the flames. This
time Roehm seemed to have made up his mind, and
General von Epp rallied to the side of the plotters.

The Government, suddenly alarmed at the progress
of Communism in the North, now tried to isolate
Southern Germany. It wished to avert a civil war,
which would have been the inevitable consequence of
a Nazi coup attempted on a nation-wide scale. On
September 26 von Kahr, a man with an iron hand,
was appointed State Commissioner for Bavaria, von
Epp was removed from the active list and replaced by
General von Lossow, and soldiers were made to take
the oath, not to the Reich but to Bavaria only. Luden-
dorff was forbidden to enter or remain in Munich.

Ludendorff and Epp were furious. Roehm, who saw

46

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BORGERBRAU

his influence at an end, was livid. Hitler could scarcely
restrain his rage, and Gregor, who always favoured the
bolder course, counselled action at the earliest oppor¬
tunity. In his opinion it was necessary to coerce the
new Bavarian authorities into rallying to the insurgents
of the Right and marching with them and their men
against Communist Prussia and the North.

The conspirators met every evening in the private
rooms of the Biirgerbrau, a Munich brasserie and
restaurant, which also had a big hall for public meet¬
ings. One of the frequenters of the Biirgerbrau was
Goering, an officer in the Air Force and an accom¬
plished soldier, who would not have chosen an
adventurer’s life if he could have remained in his
profession. A former pupil of the Cadet School,
Hermann had the restricted outlook of the professional
officer class. He was a man of barely average intelli¬
gence, and of pronounced physical brutality. He liked
food, drink, and conviviality.

Another habitue was Heinrich Himmler, an un¬
employed agriculturist, who had once vainly hoped to
become an officer. ‘You’ll remain infantile all your
life’, and ‘You’ve got the soul and sensibilities of a
butcher’, were two of the things that my brother
Gregor used to say to him. Himmler was not cruel,
but he was incapable of emotion or suffering. Later
he arrested his own brother at the Fiihrer’s orders, and
he would have killed his parents without a moment’s
hesitation if the Fiihrer had ordered him to do so.
With regard to women, Himmler always reminded me

47

HITLER AND I

of Gretchen’s phrase in Faust, ‘Heinrich, you inspire
me with horror’. He had had only one sexual adven¬
ture, which he described to me himself. This, he said,
was at the age of thirty-two. He spent a night at an
inn, where he was seduced by the landlady, who was
ten years older than he. He remained attached to the
woman who performed this miracle.

Of Rudolf Hess there is little to say. He was a hand¬
some young man, an intellectual and an artist, an
officer and a poet. He was enthusiastic and faithful.
He never faltered in his passion for Adolf Hitler. So
great, in fact, was his sentimental admiration for Adolf
that evil tongues used to call him ‘Fraulein Hess’. I
myself believe, however, that the relationship was
absolutely pure.

Nothing could be more striking than the contrast
between him and the sexually abnormal Julius
Streicher. Never have I met a man more haunted by
erotic fantasies. For Streicher the racial theories of
National-Socialism were merely an excuse for unload¬
ing into the Stunner the dangerous outpourings of his
diseased imagination. ‘A sexual crime committed by
a Jew on the front page of my paper is like a delicious
cocktail, a meal starting with caviare,’ he once said to
me. He was a man whose ugliness was repulsive to
women. During the war he was degraded for an
indecent assault upon a young French governess.

Lastly Frick must be included in the list of plotters.
Frick was less interesting in himself than for the man
on whose behalf he acted. Frick was honest, straight-

48

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BORGERBRAU

forward and without malice. As a police official, he
had the ear of Poehner, the Munich chief of police and
leader of the Bavarian Monarchists. Poehner himself
was a conspirator on a grand scale, and he shrank from
nothing. It was thanks to him that Ludendorff was
allowed to remain in Munich after the Kapp putsch and
that Erzberger’s murderers were enabled to return to
Germany, provided with false passports. While dream¬
ing of the restoration of the Wittelsbachs, he used
Frick to keep his eye on the progress of the Nazi
Party, which he intended to use for his own ends. He
was killed in a mysterious motor accident in 1925,
and it has been maintained that he met his death at
Hitler’s orders.

Frick thus completed a group of which the other
members were Goering, Roehm, Gregor Strasser,
Hess and Streicher. He was a skilful lawyer and
rendered great services to the Party, and he was the
oldest of the plotters, practically the only one of them
who had a home, a job, and a settled life.

How were they to gain von Kahr, General von
Lossow and Seisser, the chief of the Bavarian police?
If this triumvirate, who represented Bavarian
authority, could be won over, Hitler felt sure of
victory. The military as well as the political revolution
could start from Bavaria, for he had Ludendorff with
him, and Ludendorff’s authority still counted, even
with the Prussian generals.

Hitler entered into conversations with von Kahr,
von Lossow and Seisser. He has a weakness for good

49

D

HITLER AND I

education and men of old German stock, and titles
are not without their effect on him. But after hearing
Hitler’s exposition of his plans, Lossow decided he was
a megalomaniac and had grave doubts about the
success of the enterprise. Von Kahr was a Monarchist
and very ambitious, and he wanted power for himself.
He tried to temporize, and invented a thousand
pretexts in the hope of abating Adolf’s enthusiasm.
But Adolf had decided to act. When von Kahr asked
to whom he intended entrusting the political control
of Germany, he answered simply ‘Myself’.

Von Kahr was naturally hostile to such a proposal.
Von Lossow asked for guarantees, and Seisser was as
hesitant as either of them.

Hitler therefore decided to force their hand. The
date of the putsch was originally fixed for the ioth
and nth of November. But at the last moment,
learning that von Kahr was holding a meeting at the
Burgerbraukeller at which he was to make a speech on
the programme of the Bavarian Monarchists, Hitler
altered the date. November 8 was solemnly fixed as
the historic date of the German Revolution.

Hitler’s instinct ought to have told him that it would
have been better to have left these aged servants of a
decrepit regime out of it. Both Kahr, Lossow and
Seisser had served under the Kaiser. In spite of
incessant discussions, which dragged on for week after
week, no serious steps had yet been taken by Hermann
Goering. But Hitler wanted action, and with a hand¬
ful of followers proposed taking the risk of

50

com-

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BtlRGERBRAU

promising the great German national revolution
for ever.

Hitler had six hundred men. Gregor Strasser,
warned late, assembled three hundred and fifty storm-
troopers at Landshut and led them to Munich.
General Ludendorff, who had not been kept informed
of what was going on, was at Lu&vigshdhe, where a
motor-car was hurriedly sent to fetch him.

On the fatal day Adolf wore a frock-coat, on which
he pinned his Iron Cross. He proposed bursting into
the hall at the head of his men while paramilitary
detachments surrounded the building, whereupon von
Kahr, before even beginning his speech, would be
forced to surrender to the insistence of the heavily
armed putschists.

‘He cannot help joining us, 5 Hitler said to
Scheubner-Richter, whose mission it was to fetch
General Ludendorff to Munich. ‘Once Kahr is per¬
suaded the others will follow.’

Strong in this conviction, Adolf gravely got into the
car that took him to the Biirgerbrau.

At the entrance the young fanatic with the Iron
Cross kept asking to speak to Governor Kahr, but the
dense crowd refused to let him pass. He was pale and
trembling, and looked like a madman. Inside the hall
the meeting had already begun and von Kahr had
started his speech.

Hitler hesitated, but it was too late to go back. He
listened, and could hear the steps of his faithful shock-
troops.

5 1

HITLER AND I

‘Clear the vestibule!’ he ordered the policeman on
duty at the entrance. Impressed by the Iron Cross,
the policeman obeyed. A few minutes later the storm-
troopers marched in. Adolf waited for them with his
eyes closed and his hands in his pockets, where there
was a revolver. He felt the eyes of his young men upon
him, but he had not yet decided what to do if his
coup failed and the triumvirate refused to march
with him.

Like a maniac he burst into the hall, where three
thousand Bavarians, seated before their beer-mugs,
were listening to the unctuous oratory of von Kahr.
Adolf jumped on to a chair, fired his revolver at the
ceiling, and shouted, his hoarse voice half-quenched
with excitement:

‘The National Revolution has begun!’

Meanwhile the stormtroopers had followed him into
the hall, where the beer-drinkers, dumb with astonish¬
ment, found themselves face to face with Hitler’s
revolution.

What were the police doing during all this time?

Poehner, their chief, was hand-in-glove with Hitler,
and had promised him his entire support. He was
busy Cabinet-making for the new regime, while Dr.
Frick, his right-hand-man, saw to it that the forces of
law and order put no obstacle in Hitler’s way.

# The story of the Munich putsch has been told many
times, and we shall pass rapidly over the events that
followed.

Adolf ordered Kahr, Lossow and Seisser to follow

52

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BURGERBRAU

him into a neighbouring room, and there began the
famous conversation in the course of which the revo¬
lutionary, over whose corpse the Reds should by
rights have trampled on the previous May i, now
swore that if his putsch failed he would blow his brains
out.

It was a stirring moment. Adolf pressed his revolver
to his temples.

‘Gentlemen’, he declared, ‘not one of us sha ll leave
this hall alive! There are three of you, and I have four
bullets. That will be enough for all of us in case I fail.’

In reality, of course, Adolf had no more thought of
killing the three representatives of authority than he
had of killing himself. Did he not admit in the course
of his trial that ‘Kahr looked so downhearted that he
was pitiable to behold’, and did he not declare his
anguish at ‘having to use force on officers’?

He had them in his power. Why were they in¬
dispensable to him? He might have acted without
them. But their approbation was vital to him, for to
Hitler public applause is a necessity. In cowardly
fashion he grasped at the first straw that Kahr skil¬
fully held out to him.

‘All that is very fine,’ Kahr said, ‘but I am a
Monarchist. I cannot accept the regency that you
offer me except as a representative of the Monarchy.’

Fine words indeed! A real revolutionary would have
arrested an adversary thus bound to the old regime,
but Hitler was only too happy to swallow words that
gave him the illusion of being admitted to court.

53

HITLER AND I

‘Your Excellency,’ tie exclaimed, ‘understand me.
We owe reparation to the Royal Family, which has
been shamefully wronged. If Your Excellency will
permit me, on leaving here I shall immediately go and
see His Majesty and tell him that the Great German
movement will repair the wrong done to His Majesty’s
late father.’

Thus the Republican Hitler was willing to go in
person to see the Grown Prince Rupprecht and tell
him, standing to attention, that his late father would
be avenged!

Meanwhile he believed that he had won. Von
Lossow and Seisser associated themselves with what
Kahr said. A glance of mutual understanding passed
between them. Hitler still had his revolver, so it was
just as well to humour him, without prejudice to what
they might do in the future.

It is worth noting that the only shot that Hitler
fired that day was at the ceiling. Von Kahr need have
had no anxiety.

Everything seemed to have been arranged amicably,
and the Royalist Republican and the revolutionary
Monarchists went back to the meeting arm-in-arm.

But Hitler could not resist one more appeal to the
public. Without the applause of the Munich beer-
drinkers he was unable to act. So he started
haranguing, pleading, arguing his cause.

‘I propose myself to assume the political leadership
of the National Government until we have dealt with
the criminals who are leading our country to ruin, 5

54

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BtjRGERBRAU

he declared. ‘Von Kahr is Regent of Bavaria,
Poehner is Prime Minister, His Excellency General
Ludendorff will command the national army. General
von Lossow will be the Minister for the Reichswehr,
Colonel von Seisser will be Reich Minister of Police.
... The task of the Provisional Government is to march
on the New Babylon, Berlin ... I ask you if you are in
agreement? . . .’

Meanwhile Ludendorff had arrived. He was deathly
pale, and events had taken him by surprise, but he
did not lose his composure.

‘Of my own authority I declare that I put myself at
the disposal of the National Government,’ he declared.

The general acted ‘of his own authority’, but the
dictator harangued, pleaded and argued with the mob.

Nothing could have delighted the beer-drinkers
more. They were jubilant. Hitler and von Kahr
fervently shook hands.

Hitler desired to proceed with the immediate setting
up of his Cabinet, but von Kahr said he was tired, and
suggested that it would be better to discuss the matter
when they were fresh next morning.

The most pressing preoccupation of these revolu¬
tionaries and governors of the New Germany was
about going to bed. But there was nothing surprising
about that. Was it not over a beer-mug that Hitler
applied himself to the task of winning over von Kahr,
two minutes after threatening him with his revolver?

‘I implore Your Excellency ... (a good swill at the
beer mug). . . not to lose from sight.. . (another swill)

55

HITLER AND I

... the common cause ... (another swill) .. . and
the interests of Germany . . . (another swill) ... to¬
morrow the National Government will be in power,
or we shall be dead.’

Idle words! Twice that evening Hitler swore that
failure would mean his death. But he managed to
survive.

Von Kahr prepared his counter-stroke the same
night. The Right paramilitary formation, the Kampf-
bund, made an attempt to seize several public build¬
ings, but was repulsed. But not till morning did Hitler
begin to suspect treachery on the part of his ally.

‘At dawn we were back at the Biirgerbrau’, he
said later, ‘and Ludendorff joined us. But no sign of
life came to us, and at midday we were still without
news.’

Thus the hours passed without Hitler’s trying to see
clearly for himself. His all-consuming impulse was to
harangue the crowd, to make speech after speech, to
assure himself of the approbation of the petty bour¬
geoisie.

At midday it was decided that there should be a
‘propaganda march’ through the city. By this time
Munich was full of military and police. The procession
set out with Hitler and Ludendorff at its head, and the
armed stormtroopers marched in the rear. Hitler,
optimistically believing that he had the crowd with
him, did not believe there would be any fighting.

56

CONSPIRATORS OF THE BURGERBRAU

Actually it was immaterial whether the crowd were
with him or not. However loudly it cheered the
propagandists in the Marienplatz, however intensely
it desired the blood of the ‘criminals of 1918’, what
counted that day was the attitude of the police.

When Hitler’s men debouched upon the Feldherrn-
halle, the police opened fire.

What followed is among the most disgraceful
episodes in post-War history.

While LudendorfF, with head high, marched steadily
forward towards the police cordon that was firing upon
his men, Hitler, whom Ulrich Graf protected with his
body, flung himself flat on the ground.

All the versions that say anything else are false.
Hitler flung himself ignominiously to the ground.

In the melee that followed thirteen Nazis were killed
and many were wounded, among them Hermann
Goering. Arrests began immediately, but Hitler, the
leader of the movement, showed a clean pair of heels.
He was whisked away in a private car.

After the affray my brother Gregor, at the head of
his men, was able to gain the road to Landshut. On
the march home a Reichswehr detachment challenged
and stopped them. Colonel Erhardt came forward as
intermediary, and advised Gregor to surrender.

‘Make way or I fire,’ Gregor replied.

The Reichswehr no doubt decided that enough
blood had been spilled that day. Gregor and his men

57

HITLER AND I

were able to reach their homes without further
hindrance.

Next day, just when Gregor and Himmler, still
under the emotional stress of the abortive putsch , were
about to sit down to table, Georg Hofler appeared in
full uniform.

‘You’re just in time for lunch,’ said Gregor. ‘Sit
down.’

‘I’ve come to arrest you,’ said Hofler stiffly.

The house had been surrounded by green-uniformed
police. Gregor went to Landshut prison, escorted by
his brother-in-law.

Adolf Hitler was arrested a few days later. He had
fled to Uffing, where he was sheltered by his friend
Hanfstangel, later chief of his Press bureau. The
police found him hiding in Mile. Hanfstangel’s ward¬
robe.

58

CHAPTER IV

HITLER WRITES MEIN KAMPF

The most popular government, if it notoriously
breaks its word, risks losing the confidence of the mob.
Von Kahr’s government had never been popular, and
the fashion in which von Kahr duped the revolution¬
aries of the Biirgerbrau caused it to be hated and
despised. The people were angry. The blood shed by
the police on November 9 and the feeling of civil war
in the air had heated men’s minds. The Munich Trial,
which was no judicial proceeding but a farce, served,
in spite of the indulgence of the judges, to gain fresh
sympathy for the National-Socialist cause.

On the other hand Hitler’s indefensible attitude
caused him to lose temporarily some of his original
friends. In some cases the loss was permanent.

The trial opened at Munich at the beginning of
1924. Hitler was at this time one of the few putschists
confined in the fortress of Landsberg. His original
depression had by now given place to a revival of
optimism. The thirteen corpses of the Feldherm-
halle, the three victims of the fighting between the
police and Roehm’s detachments no longer weighed
on his conscience. The sudden death of his friend and
colleague Dietrich Eckhart, whose heart had not stood
up to the strain of the previous weeks, only drew
from him an egoistical sigh.

59

HITLER AND I

‘He was a perfect editor; no-one will ever be able
to edit the Volkischer Beobachter like him,’ he said to
Drechsler, the founder of the Party, who was with him
in prison though he was not implicated in the plot.

A new dawn seemed to be breaking for the defeated
revolutionary. The trial would give him marvellous
publicity.

Hider’s semi-accomplices, Kahr, Seisser and
Lossow, were still in power, and it was gready to their
interest not to attract too much attention to that
unlucky evening at the Burgerbrau.

The accused bore names which compelled the
attention of Germany and the whole world. It was
indeed an honour to share a dock with Ludendorff,
Poehner, Roehm, Weber and Kriebel.

Moreover Hitler had a very useful card up his
sleeve. The Bavarian Minister of Justice, Dr. Giirtner,
was his friend. A few months on remand in prison
had entirely changed the heart of the ex-painter of
Braunau. He took his stand before the court not as a
revolutionary but as a public benefactor. He was now
entirely loyal to the authority of the state. Never again
would he bid for power by force; he would woo it as a
demagogue, and gain it at the price of a thousand
concessions.

Thus the Munich Trial began. The judges carefully
avoided asking awkward questions, and the accused
answered according to their character, their interests
and their honour.

Adolfs main object was to demonstrate the utter

60

HITLER WRITES MEIN KAMPF

innocence and purity of his intentions. He humoured
the mighty, and bowed respectfully to the president of
the court.

£ I did not plan a revolution,’ he declared; c on the
contrary, I wished to aid the authority of the state to
create the unity of our country.’

Intoxicated with his own eloquence, he ended his
speech to the court with the following grandiloquent
phrases:

‘In view of the unhappy state of our country, I do
not wish to draw a final barrier between us and those
who in the future will form part of the great common
front that we shall have to set up to face the enemies of
our people. I know that our enemies of to-day will
one day think with respect of those who chose the
bitter way of death for the love of the German people.’

Ludendorff’s evidence should have produced some
interesting revelations, but the prosecution, primed by
the complaisant Minister Giirtner, successfully applied
itself to the task of stifling the voice of truth.
The indomitable general’s confession of faith is,
however, worth comparing with the empty verbiage
of the chief of the Nazi party.

‘The hopes that I had of the deliverance of my
country on November 8,’ declared LudendorfF,
‘vanished because Kahr, Lossow and Seisser lost the
common goal from sight, and when the great hour
came they turned out to be little men. The dangers
that I saw are still there. The most painful thing for
me is that events have convinced me that our rulers

61

HITLER AND I

have shown themselves incapable of inspiring the
German people with the wish for liberty. 5

Ludendorff also said something else that should
have been said by the socialist Adolf Hitler. ‘Marxism
cannot be killed with rifle-butts, 5 he said, ‘but a new
idea must be given to the people. 5

The military prisoners all behaved with more
dignity than the civilians.

Poehner, the chief of police, was magnificent. He
laughed at the attempts of the court and the con¬
spirators to minimize his guilt.

‘Of course I am a traitor, 5 was the phrase he hurled
in the teeth of his judges. ‘Wouldn’t it be absurd to
try to prove the opposite in a court of law? 5

Roehm, who had not organized the putsch, but, like
Gregor, had only commanded a detachment of the
Party’s paramilitary forces, was indignant at Adolf’s
cowardly attitude. He knew that Goering, chief of the
S.A., had fled and was hiding abroad. Roehm was the
only man of November 8 who had attempted any
military action. He had seized the Reichswehr
building and had been driven out of it by force. Once
more Hitler, the former corporal in his regiment,
had let him down. He resolutely sided with General
Ludendorff. In his reminiscences, which he entitled
Memoirs of a Man Guilty of High Treason, he severely
criticized the men and the methods of the November
putsch.

So great was his disgust that as soon as he was
released from the fortress of Landsberg he parted from

6a

hitler WRITES mein kampf

Hitler and wrote an open letter to the Volkischer
Beobachter in which he announced his breach with the
Party. The following passage in his memoirs was
suppressed after his reconciliation with Hitler:

S I know that certain men refuse to listen to those
who warn them of danger; I do not approve of them.
A true friendship used to bind me to Hitler. Flatterers
surrounded him, no one dared to criticize him, but it
was my duty to speak to him openly.’

Soon there was such high feeling among the
prisoners that they split into two camps and refused
to sit beside each other. Hitler remained with Weber
and Frick, while LudendorfF, Poehner, Kriebel and
Roehm formed a group on their own.

The trial dragged on for weeks and months without
the shadows clearing. The various roles were, so to
speak, written in advance. Thanks to Giirtner, the
Minister of Justice, Adolf was assured of not incurring
the penalty he dreaded most, namely expulsion from
Germany. Not having done his military service in
Austria, he had forfeited his Austrian nationality, and
he had not yet acquired German nationality. Had he
been expelled from Germany, he would have been a
man without a country, unwanted everywhere. More
than one mystery surrounds Hitler’s past. He is known
to have served in the German Army during the war,
but how and where he won his Iron Gross is unknown,
and no doubt always will be.

The court delivered its judgment on April i.
LudendorfF was the only one to be acquitted. The

6 3

HITLER AND I

principal accused, Hitler, Poehner, Weber and Kriebel
were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in a fortress,
while the secondary figures, Gregor Strasser, Frick and
several others, were let off with eighteen months, a
year or six months. All the prisoners, however, could
count on being released before the end of their term,
though Hitler’s case was complicated by the fact that
this was not his first conviction.

Five years’ imprisonment for Adolf Hitler! The
news spread like wildfire through Southern Germany,
and the people, whose heartstrings were easily wrung,
made him a martyr of the German cause. Ridiculous
coloured postcards pictured him in a gloomy cell, his
grief-stricken countenance illuminated by the pale
rays of sunlight that peeped in through a heavily-
barred window. But while he was thus an object of
pity to the public outside, Adolf, installed in the most
comfortable of fortresses, was contentedly putting on
weight.

Landsberg was more like a military club than a
prison. Each prisoner had one or two rooms at his
disposal. They received visitors, passed the time
together, talked, smoked, played cards and ordered
any delicacies they required from the gaoler.

Those on the ground floor would actually have been
very happy indeed but for the unfortunate tendency of
the man on the first floor’ to make interminable

64

HITLER WRITES MEIN KAMPF

speeches. Needless to say, ‘the man on the first floor’
was Adolf Hitler.

One day the conspirators downstairs held a council
of war to discuss ways and means of protecting them¬
selves from Adolf’s eloquence. Gregor Strasser had the
brilliant idea of trying to persuade him to write a book.

The suggestion that he should write his memoirs
was therefore gently and tactfully put to him. Adolf
positively leapt at it. Henceforward Strasser and the
other ‘gentlemen’ on the ground floor were able to
drink and play cards in peace. Hitler kept to himself,
pacing up and down his room. Emile Maurice, his
chauffeur and handyman, provided him with
company.

Adolf practised his eloquence, the effectiveness of
which he had already discovered, on this sinister indi¬
vidual, who was to play a bloodthirsty r 61 e on the night
of June 30.

Meanwhile the National-Socialist Party, deprived of
its leader, underwent a grave crisis. The anti-Semites
tried to gain control of it, while the people, impressed
by the putsch and the Munich Trial, rallied to the
movement.

The Bavarian elections of 1924 resulted in Hitler’s
party gaining twenty-seven seats, at a time when the
latter was opposed to his followers’ sitting in Parlia¬
ment at all.

e 65

HITLER AND I

Among the successful candidates were Poehner and
Gregor Strasser. Their election permitted them to
leave the fortress of Landsberg without serving the
remainder of their term.

The tendency at the time was for all the Nationalist
political groupings to fuse into a single bloc. The Nazi
Party, which was banned as the result of the putsch ,
sank its identity in the Popular Liberty Movement,
founded by Albert von Graefe. The leaders of the
‘National-Socialist Liberty Movement 5 were Luden-
dorff, Graefe and my brother Gregor, acting as deputy
for Adolf Hitler.

But a profound gulf divided LudendorfF and
Poehner, who became president of the Bavarian
parliamentary group, from Hitler. Hitler refused to
receive LudendorfF, and Gregor therefore acted as go-
between. It was at this stage that Rosenberg, Dietrich
Eckhart’s successor as editor of the Volkischer Beo-
hachter , started to play an important role. Rosenberg
worked hand-in-hand with Gregor. He was a Baltic
emigri who had fled from the Bolsheviks. His political
influence on Hitler, whom he visited at Landsberg
every day, grew stronger and stronger. Munich was
then the centre of White Russian emigration. Rosen¬
berg tried to make the National-Socialist movement
serve the interests of his Baltic compatriots.

Men like LudendorfF Gregor, and Rosenberg (who
is a person of decent and respectable morals) could not
possibly put up for long with the activities of persons
such as Julius Streicher and Hermann Esser. These

66

HITLER WRITES MEIX KAMPF

two, who were worthy of each other, represented not
the street but the gutter.

I myself advised Gregor, when I saw him hesitating,
to avoid splitting the party and parting from Hitler.
But two sexual maniacs like Streicher and Esser could
only throw discredit on those who still honestly desired
a new Germany. They were demagogues of the worst
type. With Christian Weber, and Hofmann, the
‘court photographer’, they must be numbered among
the obscure acolytes of the Fuhrer of whom Germany
has every reason to be ashamed. Hermann Esser, in
particular, had avoided war service by shamming
madness. This, however, had not prevented him from
becoming a member of the Soldiers’ Soviet, and to-day
he is Bavarian Minister and Under-Secretary of State
for the Reich Ministry of Propaganda. Julius Streicher
and Hermann Esser share everything. They have the
same views and the same women.

LudendorfF, Graefe and Strasser agreed to expel
them from the Party. They immediately founded the
‘Anti-Semitic Movement’, in which they found an
outlet for their diseased sexuality by composing
pornographic diatribes against the Jews.

Hitler, however, in his fortress, did not commit
himself to either side. He received Gregor and Rosen¬
berg, listened to Streicher and Esser, and mentally
noted those on whom he could still rely, thus keeping
the future open.

If he offered his resignation as leader of the Party,
it was because he did not wish to be accused of con-

67

HITLER AND I

spiring against the state while still serving his term.
He was still haunted by the fear of expulsion. His need
for ‘legality’ increased. He felt his party disintegrating
in his absence, and looked forward to picking up the
reins again as soon as he was free.

In July he started dictating to Rudolf Hess, who was
also a prisoner at Landsberg. Hess was completely
and utterly devoted to him. There was no fear of
criticism from him, and Adolf could be sure that Rudolf
would swallow without complaint the historical in¬
accuracies and extravagant diatribes of which the
‘master’ unburdened himself.

In its original form Mein Kampf was a veritable
hotch-potch of commonplaces, schoolboy reminis¬
cences, personal opinions, expressions of personal
animosity. Vestiges of Hitler’s ill-digested political
reading were mingled with fragments from Lueger
(founder of the Christian-Social Party in Austria)
and Schonerer (leader of the big German and anti-
Semitic party founded by the Sudeten Germans under
the Dual Monarchy).

Passages reminiscent of Houston Chamberlain and
Lagarde, two authors whose ideas had been passed on
to Hitler by the unfortunate Dietrich Eckhart, were
interspersed with the anti-Semitic ravings of Streicher,
including the latter’s beliefs about Jewish sexual
excesses, and Rosenberg’s ingenious ideas on foreign
politics. The whole was written in the style of a fifth-
form schoolboy, and a not very intelligent one at that.
Only a single chapter, if I am to believe Father

68

HITLER WRITES MEIN KAMPF

Staempfle, who twice revised the entire manuscript, was
really original. This was the chapter on propaganda.

Good Father Staempfle, a priest of great learning,
editor of a paper at Miessbach, spent months re¬
writing and editing Mein Kampf. He eliminated the
more flagrant inaccuracies and the excessively childish
platitudes. Hitler never forgave Father Staempfle for
getting to know his weaknesses so well. He had him
murdered by a ‘special death squad’ on the night of
June 30, 1934.

A propos of Mein Kampf, I remember an amusing
incident which I shall relate here, though it is antici¬
pating my story by several years.

It took place at the Nazi Party Congress at Num-
berg in 1927. I had been a member of the Party for
two-and-a-half years, and presented the annual report.
In the course of it I quoted a few phrases from Mein
Kampf, and this caused a certain sensation.

That evening, at dinner with several colleagues,
Feder, Kaufmann, Koch and others, they asked me if
I had really read the book, with which not one of them
seemed to be familiar. I admitted having quoted some
significant passages from it without bothering my head
about the context. This caused general amusement,
and it was agreed that the first person who joined us
who had read Mein Kampf should pay the bill for us
all. Gregor’s answer when he arrived was a resound¬
ing ‘No’, Goebbels shook his head guiltily, Goering
burst into loud laughter and Count Reventlow excused
himself on the ground that he had no time.

69

HITLER AND I

Nobody had read Mein Kampf, so everybody had to
pay his own bill.

Meanwhile Hitler’s ‘conversion’ had become known
in high places. It was certain that never again would
he revolt against the Reichswehr or the civil authorities.
What was not realized, however, was that if Hitler the
revolutionary was dead, Hitler the opportunist was
more alive than ever.

Faced with the combative fury of Ludendorff and
Gregor Strasser, the Bavarian Government, urged on
by the Minister Gurtner, decided on Adolf’s premature
release.

On December 20, 1924, a telegram addressed to the
fortress of Landsberg ordered the immediate release of
Hitler and Kriebel. Hitler left the prison the same day.
Saul the revolutionary, transformed into Paul the good
apostle, left on his journey towards the conquest of
power.

His first care was to make peace with Rome. ‘One
cannot fight two enemies at once,’ he explained to the
deputy Jurgen von Ramin, who visited him at Lands¬
berg. He adhered to this policy in spite of the attacks
of the Right Wing paper the JReickswart , edited by
Count von Reventlow, and he solemnly informed Herr
Heinrich Held, Prime Minister and leader of the
Popular Catholic Party of Bavaria, that he condemned
General Ludendorff’s atheism.

70

HITLER WRITES MEIN KAMPF

‘The latter alone is the enemy of the Roman
Church, 5 declared Hitler, who was profoundly imbued
with German paganism, more so, perhaps, than
LudendorfF or Rosenberg himself.

He humiliated himself still further, setting the seal
on his behaviour a year earlier at the trial.

‘The Munich putsch was a grave error, 5 he admitted
to Held, the ‘reactionary 5 and ‘papist 5 . Held had it in
his power to reconcile him both to Cardinal Faulhaber
and the President, but for that it was necessary to
abjure the past.

There was also something else. Held had only to
speak the word, and the ban on the Nazi Party would
be lifted. If this were done the Party would immedi¬
ately be able to revert to its old shape, and the storm-
troopers would be able to resume their activities.
Hitler would then become the absolute master of his
movement, and would no longer have LudendorfF and
Graefe to contend with.

Hitler implored, Giirtner supported him, and Held,
who was vain and self-satisfied, agreed with a smile.

‘The wild beast is checked, 5 Held confided to Giirtner
the same evening. ‘We can afford to loosen the chain. 5

All the same Hitler had lost two friends. Roehm
went into voluntary exile and left for Bolivia as a mili¬
tary instructor, and Kriebel went to Shanghai, where
he was appointed consul on the day that Adolf Hitler,
who remained attached to him, became Chancellor of
the Reich.

LudendorfF, yielding to my brother Gregor’s impor-

7i

HITLER AND I

tunity, only once agreed to meet his former friend.
This was on the occasion of the presidential election
that followed Ebert’s death.

General Ludendorff was chosen to stand for the
Nazis against Field-Marshal Hindenburg, representing
the bourgeois bloc. Hitler promised Ludendorff his
full support, but he ordered his men to vote for
Hindenburg on the second count. It was a flagrant
and typical breach of faith.

After m akin g his peace with Rome and the Bavarian
Government, Hitler started his first approach towards
the living forces of Prussia, the Reichswehr and the
capitalists.

Ludendorff scarcely suffered from his political de¬
feat. But he never forgave Hitler’s duplicity.

On his death-bed in 1937 he abruptly refused the
field-marshal’s baton sent him by the Chancellor of the
Reich.

72

CHAPTER V

THE MAN HITLER

It is difficult to judge a man fairly, even when one
knows the innermost recesses of his mind. When that
man is one’s enemy and the object of one’s most bitter
feelings the task is peculiarly difficult. To analyse ob¬
jectively a being destined by circumstances to become
the instrument of history one must above all be able to
distinguish between the man and his mission.

A biographer of a Cromwell or a Robespierre who
restricted himself to his hero’s personality might very
easily falsify history without deviating an inch from the
truth.

The drama which we are witnessing in Germany is
that of a revolution which has so far only reached its
second stage. The years from 1920 to 1930 was the
period of preparation. This period had its philosophers,
its writers and their apostles, its small-scale Encyclo-.
paedists, among whom Moller van den Bruck, whom I
have compared to Rousseau, was an eminent figure.

The next period is the period of destruction, when
the earth trembles, the foundations of the old order are
shaken and the world is given over to fire and the
sword. This is the truly revolutionary period, a period
which must inevitably give place to a period of recon¬
struction and consolidation.

Here we will consider only Adolf Hitler. We will

73

HITLER AND I

try to discover what were the purely human qualities
that make him an incarnation of the principle of
destruction.

Hitler responds to the vibration of the human heart
with the delicacy of a seismograph, or perhaps of a
wireless receiving set, enabling him, with a certainty
with which no conscious gift could endow him, to act
as a loud-speaker proclaiming the most secret desires,
the least admissible instincts, the sufferings and per¬
sonal revolts of a whole nation. But his very principle
is negative. He only knows what he wants to destroy;
he pulls down the walls without any idea of what he
will build in their place. He is anti-Semitic, anti-
Bolshevik, anti-capitalist. He denounces enemies, but
knows no friends. He is devoid of any constructive
principle.

I remember one of my first conversations with him.
It-was nearly our first quarrel.

Power! 5 screamed Adolf. ‘We must have power!’

‘Before we gain it, 5 I replied firmly, ‘let us decide
what we propose to do with it. Our programme is too
vague; we must construct something solid and endur¬
ing.’

Hitler, who even then could hardly bear contradic¬
tion, thumped the table and barked:

Power first! Afterwards we can act as circumstances
dictate. 5

Hate, I sometimes said to him, ‘must be born of
love. One must be capable of loving to know what is
hateful, and so have the strength to destroy it. 5

74

THE MAN HITLER

He hated without knowing love. He was drunk
with an ambition that was utterly without moral re¬
straint, and had the pride of Lucifer, who wished to
cast down God from His immortal throne.

Hitler has given two descriptions of himself, the
accuracy of which has not been impaired by time. In
the first he described himself as ‘the young drummer of
the German people 5 . Let us take to heart the words
he spoke at the Munich trial, when he pleaded his own
cause.

‘When I found myself for the first time before
Wagner’s grave, 5 he said, ‘my heart overflowed with
pride to think that there lay a man who had scorned
to have inscribed on his tombstone, “Here lies Privy
Councillor Musical Director His Excellency Baron
Richard von Wagner 55 . I was proud that this man,
like so many men in the history of Germany, was con¬
tent to leave his name to posterity, and not his tides.
It was not out of modesty that I desired then and
there to be nothing more than a drummer. That for
me is the highest achievement; the rest is vanity. 5

No, it was certainly not out of modesty that Roehm’s
litde corporal confessed to a contempt for tides.

His ambition was to rouse the masses, to be the
centre towards which they gravitated, to go down to
posterity.

The other self-revelatory phrase was pronounced
twelve years later, when the ‘drummer 5 of the revolu¬
tion had become Chancellor and President of the
Reich. It is even more significant than the first.

75

HITLER AND I

‘I shall go on my way,’ he said, ‘with the precision
of a sleep-walker.’

I have been asked many times what is the secret of
Hitler’s extraordinary power as a speaker. I can only
attribute it to his uncanny intuition, which infallibly
diagnoses the ills from which his audience is suffering.
If he tries to bolster up his argument with theories or
quotations from books he has only imperfectly under¬
stood, he scarcely rises above a very poor mediocrity.
But let him throw away his crutches and step out
boldly, speaking as the spirit moves him, and he is
promptly transformed into one of the greatest speakers
of the century.

He makes no attempt to prove his assertions. He is
strongest when he speaks of abstractions such as
honour, country, nation, family, loyalty; his effective¬
ness on such matters is quite astonishing.

‘When a nation wants liberty arms spring to its
hand ...’ ‘When a nation has lost faith in the power
of its sword it is vowed to the most lamentable destruc¬
tion.’ An educated person, writing these phrases,
blushes at their triteness. But spoken by Hitler they
inflame the audience, they go straight to every heart.

It would, as a matter of fact, be wrong to imagine
that Adolf Hitler was always an utterly unscrupulous
demagogue. He was at one time genuinely convinced
of the rightness of his cause. He had the feelings of
a revolutionary, but not the temper. He had that flair
which, in a leader of the masses, takes the place of
psychological insight.

76

THE MAN HITLER

Adolf Hitler enters a hall. He snufis the air. For a
minute he gropes, feels his way, senses the atmosphere.
Suddenly he bursts forth:

‘The individual has ceased to count ... Germany
was trampled underfoot. Germans must be united, the
interests of each must be subordinated to the interests
of all. I will give you back your honour and make
Germany invincible ...’

His words go like an arrow to their target, he touches
each private wound on the raw, liberating the mass
unconscious, expressing its innermost aspirations, tell¬
ing it what it most wants to hear.

Next day, addressing this time an audience not of
ruined shopkeepers but of important industrialists,
there is the same initial uncertainty. But a flash comes
into his eyes, suddenly he has the feel of his audience,
he has tuned in.

‘Nations are regenerated by individual effort,’ he
declares. ‘Only individual effort counts. The masses
are blind and stupid. Each of us is a leader, and Ger¬
many is made up of these leaders . ..’

‘Hear! Hear!’ say the industrialists, and swear
henceforward that Hitler is their man.

At the Nurnberg Congress of 1937 he addressed
twenty thousand women. They were old and young,
ugly and beautiful, married, spinsters and widows,
embittered and hopeful, worried and lonely, of re¬
spectable morals and otherwise. Hitler knows nothing
of woman or of women; yet to his lips there sprang a
phrase that provoked delirious enthusiasm:

77

HITLER AND I

‘What have I given you? What has National-
Socialism given you? We have given you Man! 5

The response of the audience can only be described
as orgiastic.

A clairvoyant, face to face with his public, goes into
a trance. That is his moment of real greatness, the
moment when he is most genuinely himself. He be¬
lieves what he says; carried away by a mystic force, he
cannot doubt the genuineness of his mission.

But when Adolf is in a normal state it is a different
matter. He cannot be straightforward and natural;
he never ceases watching himself and playing a
conscious part. He began by being the Unknown
Soldier who had survived the War. A moving and
obscure hero, he shed real tears for his country’s mis¬
fortunes. Soon he discovered that his lachrymatory
glands were obliging and could be turned on at will.
After that he wept to the point of excess. Next he was
St. John the Baptist, preparing for the coming of the
Messiah; then the Messiah himself, pending his appear¬
ance in the r 61 e of Caesar. One day he realized the
shattering effect of his rages; henceforward rage and
abuse were the favourite weapons in his armoury.

Some time before our rupture we had an argument
about Der JVationalsozialist, the paper I edited in Berlin.
Gregor was present, as well as Hinkel, who was a con¬
tributor. For half an horn the Ftihrer advanced an
untenable argument.

‘But you are mistaken, Herr Hitler, 5 I said to him.

He fixed me with a stare and exclaimed in a fury:

78

THE MAN HITLER

‘I cannbt be mistaken. What I do and say is
historical.’

Then he lapsed into a profound silence, his head
sank and his shoulders slumped. He looked old and
shrunken, exhausted by the part he had been playing.

We left without a word being added.

‘Gregor, the man’s a megalomaniac!’

‘You provoke him,’ Gregor replied. ‘Your objectiv¬
ity exasperates him. He never forgets himself like that
with me.’

But Gregor was wrong. That day the dogma of
Hitler’s infallibility was bom. It was to be confirmed
in many National-Socialist writings, and more par¬
ticularly in Hermann Goering’s recent book.

In the self-dramatization of a hysteric it is not easy
to distinguish the conscious from the pathological.
There is no doubt that Hider is unbalanced. When
the man is still, which happens rarely, he seems petri¬
fied; otherwise he seems not to be able to keep still at
all. A train exasperates him by its slowness. A car
travelling at less than seventy miles an hour he
describes as an ox-cart. He takes a ’plane to save
time, but complains that in the air he has no sense
of speed.

This man, who has plunged Europe into war with¬
out blinking an eyelid, hesitates in agony over minor
decisions. Once Gregor had to see him in connection
with some minor detail concerning the Landshut
stormtroopers. For weeks Hider excused himself on
the grounds of urgent pressure of work. Eventually he

79

HITLER AND I

arranged to meet my brother at a restaurant. The
meal began well enough, but as soon as Gregor brought
the conversation round to the point at issue, Hitler
showed signs of discomfort and made an excuse to go
out. He left by the side door which led from the cloak¬
room to the street, and sent his chauffeur back later in
the evening to fetch his hat and coat.

He has fits of courage as well as of rage, but ordinarily
he is weak, impatient, irascible, unstable and terrified
at the thought of endangering his health or losing con¬
trol of his ideas. He is termed an ascetic, but the
description fits his way of living far better than his
mentality. Your true ascetic sacrifices the pleasures
of the flesh for the sake of an ideal, from which he
derives his strength. Adolf’s renunciations are purely
materialistic; he believes that meat is unhealthy, that
smoking is poisonous, and that drink lulls one’s
vigilance.

This monster, so often uncontrolled, nevertheless
dreads moments of confidence or involuntary abandon.
He would consider it a supreme disgrace to drop his
guard.

I am by temperament mistrustful of those who set
no store upon the legitimate pleasures of life. When I
think of Adolf Hitler I remember Bismarck’s remark
that ‘a German is only tolerable if he drinks half a
bottle of champagne a day’.

‘A good German dictator,’ I suggested one day,
‘should teach the German people to appreciate
subtlety in cooking and in love.’

80

THE MAN HITLER

Hitler stared at me wide-eyed, for once at a loss for
words. I added:

‘A university ought to be founded for the purpose.
Germans can’t be past masters of any art without a
diploma.’

For a moment I thought that Adolf was about to
break into a torrent of words. But he stopped short.
Instead, dryly, with the most profound contempt, he
hissed through clenched teeth:

‘You cynic! You sybarite!’

He liked to think of himself as an incarnation of the
heroic conception of life, and he called my own atti¬
tude Bacchic. It was useless to explain to him that the
gods of antiquity loved women and wine none the less
for being heroes. This kind of reflection appalled
Hitler, who always fought shy of the slightest allusion
to or hint of suggestiveness.

His nearest approach to the subject was to say that
women destroyed a politician’s strength and his
judgment.

‘There are only two schools for the politician,’ I
would retort. ‘History, which teaches him to under¬
stand forces, and woman, who teaches him to under¬
stand men.’

The Fiihrer’s panic fear of giving himself, of losing
himself in a tender emotion, hid a jealously-guarded
secret, the whole truth of which was not known even
to his intimates.

I have known three women who played a part in the
life of this ascetic with the perverse imagination. I was

t 81

HITLER AND I

taken into the confidence of one of them, and it was
edifying.

The first was the wife of the Berlin piano-maker, the
famous Bechstein. Frau Bechstein was twenty years
older than Adolf, and lavished on him an ecstatic and
faintly maternal devotion. When he went to Berlin he
generally stayed with her, and it was at her house that
he met the politicians whose acquaintance he desired
to make.

When they were alone, or occasionally in front of
friends, he would sit at his hostess’s feet, lay his head
on her opulent bosom and close his eyes, while her
beautiful white hand caressed her big baby’s hair,
disturbing the historic forelock on the future dictator’s
brow. c Wolfchen ,’ she murmured tenderly, ‘mein
Wolfe hen .’ 1

This purely platonic affair eventually ceased to
satisfy Adolf Hitler, who made the acquaintance of a
younger and unquestionably more attractive female.
This was the daughter of Hofmann, the photographer,
an exceedingly attractive young blonde, with frank
and boyish ways.

Adolescent girls are rarely discreet. Fraulein Hof¬
mann chattered so freely and to such effect that one
day her father went to demand an explanation from
the seducer of Munich. *

Hitler was not yet Chancellor of the Reich, but his
fame was growing, and Europe was beginning to talk
about him. The matter was soon settled. Hofmann

1 ‘My little wolf, my little wolf/

82

THE MAN HITLER

left holding the exclusive world rights for Adolf
Hitler’s photographs. The complaisant father has
become one of the richest and most respected men in
Germany. In 1933 his daughter was married to
Baldur von Schirach, a young effeminate whom the
Fiihrer loaded with favours and created Reich Youth
Leader.

But the adventures of the master of Germany did not
always end in a happy marriage.

About 1928 he took into his home his little niece, an
Austrian, amusing, pretty and gay. Angela, or Gely,
as we called her, was nineteen, and Uncle Adolf’s
mfaage bored her. She wanted to go about, meet
people, dance. I used to pay her attentions. She was
no prude.

One day I arranged to take her to one of the famous
Munich masked balls. While I was dressing Gregor
burst into my room.

‘Adolf doesn’t want you to go out with Gely,’ he
said.

Before I had time to recover from my astonishment
the telephone rang. It was Hitler.

‘I leam,’ he roared, ‘that you are going out with
young Gely this evening. I won’t allow her to go out
with a married man. I’m not going to have any of
your filthy Berlin tricks in Munich.’

I had no choice but to submit.

Next day Gely came to see me. She was red-eyed,
her round little face was wan, and she had the terrified
look of a hunted beast.

83

HITLER AND I

‘He locked me up, 5 she sobbed. ‘He locks me up
every time I say no! 5

She did not need much questioning. With anger,
horror and disgust she told me of the strange proposi¬
tions with which her uncle pestered her.

I knew all about Hitler’s abnormality. Like all
others in the know, I had heard all about the eccentric
practices to which Fraulein Hofmann was alleged to
have lent herself, but I had genuinely believed that the
photographer’s daughter was a little hysteric who told
lies for the sheer fun of it. But Gely, who was com¬
pletely ignorant of this other affair of her uncle’s, con¬
firmed point by point a story scarcely credible to a
healthy-minded man.

What could I say? What advice could I give Gely?

Her confidences, once set flowing, were inexhaust¬
ible. Her uncle kept her literally isolated. She was not
allowed to see a man. One evening, driven crazy by
this treatment, she had yielded to the importunities of
Emile Maurice, Hitler’s chauffeur. Hitler had sur¬
prised them.

Her ear to the door, she had heard the words that
passed between these two men, both of whom she
dreaded equally.

‘You’ll never set foot in this house again!’

‘Sack me, and I’ll take the whole story to the Frank¬
furter ZeitungV

The blackmail succeeded. Emile Maurice, richer
by twenty thousand marks, set himself up in a watch¬
maker’s shop in Munich.

84

THE MAN HITLER

All this was incredibly disgusting, and I could find
no word of comfort for this girl who, had she not been
prematurely corrupted, might one day have made a
good wife and mother.

Poor Gely! I hardly saw her again. My final break
with Hitler came not long afterwards. She died
mysteriously in 1931. I was not to learn the horrible
circumstances until much later.

Having thus by chance lifted a comer of the veil that
hides his private life, and knowing his incapacity for
normal love, and his perverted methods of procuring
vicarious satisfaction, I could not feel for Hitler’s
pseudo-asceticism the respect which, despite my
‘Bacchic’ ideas, I have always felt for genuine morality.

Hitler lived on the fringe of life, of women and of
love. His real friends were recruited from a special and
unsavoury world, while by his actions and his bad
faith he systematically alienated the men of integrity
who would have fought at his side.

Ludendorff broke with him. Poehner disowned him.
Hellmuth von Mxicke, commander of the Emden , a
Party deputy, refused to follow him to the end. Where
there were decent men among his followers, obstinate
in their loyalty like my brother Gregor, the time came
when their presence proved awkward, and he had them
murdered.

He is surrounded not by friends but by accomplices,
depraved and vicious creatures or blind and brutal
instruments. These include the utterly unscrupulous
Amann, director of Eher Publications, publishers of the

85

HITLER AND I

Volkischer Beobachter, Hofmann, who owes his fortune
to the sale of his daughter; Emile Maurice, ex¬
chauffeur and now a Groupleader in the Black Guards
and one of the killers in the monster’s service on the
night of June 30. Perhaps the most despicable of
Hitler’s underlings is Christian Weber, a pimp who
worked as chucker-out at Donisl’s, a disreputable
Munich dive. This is the man whom Hitler receives
and consults daily, the one man besides Hofmann who
can go in to him without being announced. There is a
photograph of this ape-like creature meeting Hitler at
the Munich air-field; it is horrifying. He serves the
master of Germany with the same muscular strength
and the same unscrupulousness that he devoted to his
work at Donisl’s. Schaub, Schreck and Bruckner,
former petty police officials, less vile than the fore¬
going, are impersonal extras in this gang of crooks.

The privilege of addressing Hitler in the second per¬
son singular is reserved to this small group of intimates.
They and a few friends call Hitler ‘Adi’, slap him on
the back and even dare to tell smutty stories in front
of him. Hitler enjoys their company, for they confirm
his profound conviction that man is essentially vile.

From this conviction he will never depart. It is
typical of him that, though reading tires and bores him,
he is thoroughly familiar with Machiavelli and with
the Anti-MacMaoetti of Frederick the Great. He is a
fervent admirer of the Florentine, whom he uses to
defend and justify his own crimes and treachery.

I discussed Machiavelli with him one day when he

86

THE MAN HITLER

came to lunch at my parents’ home at Dinkelsbuhl,
in Franconia, the little town where my mother was
bom and where the family settled when my father
retired.

Machiavelli, so I was convinced and so I tried to
explain to him, lived in an age when religion and
politics were identified. The principles of good and
evil were mercilessly opposed. It was not the same to¬
day. Religion belonged to the divine, politics essen¬
tially to the human sphere. Man was both good and
evil.

‘Man is congenitally evil,’ replied Hitler. ‘He can
only be controlled by force. To govern him everything
is permissible. You must lie, betray, even kill when
policy demands it.’

‘Murder and treachery may be permissible in poli¬
tics, I grant you; but what would happen to you if man
were, as you say, fundamentally evil? Wouldn’t you
long ago have been betrayed and murdered?’

He cut short the discussion, as he always does when
he is out of his depth, and said simply:

‘That morality is only valid for men bom to com¬
mand. It gives them the right to act as masters.’

What joy can a man like Hitle r find in life? He lo ves
no one. He does not evenn mev-aaiii re. and his eves
see no thing of its beaut y. He rarely smiles, and is
denied - the gift of humour , that divine gift that
enab les~men to la ugh even at themselve s. Sir Nevile
Henderson, in the White Paper, confesses that he was
struck by the Nazi leaders’ lack of humour. They

87

HITLER AND I

treat themselves with appalling seriousness; in fact
their gravity is animal-like.

Nor is that all. We have already seen that Hitler is
afraid of logic. Like a woman, he evades the issue and
ends by throwing in your face an argument entirely
remote from what you were talking about. On the
other hand, give him a vague and nebulous generaliza¬
tion and he is in his element. But he is incapable of
thinking anything to its logical conclusion.

‘The collective good before the individual good.’ Is
not that one of his favourite slogans, and does it not
imply the construction of a new social order?

Yes, but the sleep-walker has no desire to see clearly.
Systematic thinking, and above all criticism, are hate¬
ful to him. He has no ideas, and no true ideals. He
advances blindly, guided by that extraordinary flair
which has made him what he is. He hates intelligence,
and he is tormented by the sense of his own inferiority.
Like Himmelstoss, the subaltern in All Quiet on the
Western Front, he is in rebellion against the thing s of the
mind.

In his speeches words such as hate, destruction,
fanaticism constantly recur; but one searches vainly
for words such as love, cultivate, sprout, bud, grow.
He is the slave of technique and seems to have no
conception of organic evolution.

The miracle of creation, the mystery of birth are
unknown to him. He has never had children, nor the
hope of them. The privilege of creating the simplest
and most beautiful thing in the world was denied him.

88

THE MAN HITLER

What does he know of life?

Roses covered with dew; a calf frisking on uncertain
legs; a child’s mischievous laughter; the love of a
woman; the sight of a field of golden com rippling in
the sunlight; the sadness of one of Verlaine’s November
days; the silence of snow-covered forests and frost-
gripped streams; the sound of bells calling the faithful
to prayer; to all these gifts of the Creator he is blind
and deaf.

Woe to a people without morality, a world without
love, an age without God.

But since Hitler had a mission, since he was not just
a man but an instrument of history, could he have been
different? Did he not have to have the face of Lucifer,
the tongue with which Mephistopheles spoke in order
to seduce Faust? Goethe’s Mephistopheles only said
what Faust felt, thought, wanted, just as Hitler only
says what the German people feel, think, want.

But there were two men in Faust, and Mephisto¬
pheles made himself the spokesman only of his base
instincts and brutal desires, just as Hitler is the mouth¬
piece of a violent Germany dominated by negation
and the destructive principle.

All men and all nations are composite of vice and
virtue. Faust freed himself from Mephistopheles.
Germany will free herself from Hitler.

89

CHAPTER VI

HITLERISM VERSUS
STRASSERISM

After my first meeting with Hitler nothing that
Gregor could say had persuaded me to join the Party.

When occasion arose I gave my brother advice.
I observed at close quarters the progress and the back-
slidings of the Nazi leaders. I felt that the National-
Socialist idea was the only thing that could regenerate
my country, but I refused to collaborate openly with
men of whom Adolf Hitler was the undisputed leader.
I had seen him at work, and had formed my judgment.

But in 1925 the situation took on a new aspect.
Hitler, released from prison, resumed his leadership
of the movement in South Germany. The North,
however, was partly closed to him. He was banned
from speaking in any of the Prussian provinces.

Hitler was aware of Gregor’s organizing ability, his
popularity with the workers and his fundamental
honesty. He asked him to take charge of the National-
Socialist movement in North Germany, and offered
him complete freedom of action.

Once more my brother asked me to help him. In
these circumstances I consented, and in the spring of
1925 I became a member of the Party.

During Hitler’s imprisonment I had contributed to

90

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

the Volkiscker Beobachter , under the pseudonym of
Ulrich von Hutten, and had to some extent laid in
that journal the foundations of our National-Socialist
theories. For the first time Strasserism ventured to
oppose Hitlerism. But the liberation of the Nazi
leader put an end to the opening phase of this conflict,
and I felt ready to support Gregor and to prepare the
way for the victory of our ideas.

Collaboration with Graefe had had to be aban¬
doned. Graefe was even more reactionary than
Hitler, and on regaining his liberty he and his followers
dissociated themselves from us and pursued their
activities independently. LudendorfF, however, was
in perfect agreement with Gregor, and the great work
could begin. Our immediate task was to find a solid
political and intellectual foundation on which to build
the organization of the National-Socialist Party of the
North.

Hitler, whether because he failed to realize the gulf
that even then divided me from him or because he
regarded my collaboration as a necessary evil, heartily
congratulated Gregor on learning that I had been
won over.

‘Whatever he does, he’ll do well,’ he assured my
brother. ‘Two men like you cannot fail.’

Our task in North Germany was hard but full of
interest. The scattered Party members had to be
regrouped, and they had to be offered an intelligent
Press, adapted to their mentality as well as to our own
ideas.

91

HITLER AND I

We first founded a fortnightly review intended only
for party officials. We called it the Nationalsozialistische
Briefe.

Our second step was to work out an economic,
political and cultural programme. In the economic
field it was opposed alike to Marxism and capitalism.
We foresaw a new equilibrium on a basis of state
feudalism. The State was to be the sole owner of the
land, which it would lease to private citizens. All were
to be free to do as they liked with their own land, but
no one could sell or sub-let state property. In this way
we hoped to combat proletarianization and to restore
a sense of liberty to our fellow-citizens. No man is
free who is not economically independent.

We proposed nationalization only of such wealth as
could not be multiplied at will, i.e. the country’s
landed and industrial inheritance.

In the political field we rejected the totalitarian idea
in favour of federalism. Parliament, instead of con¬
sisting of party representatives, would consist of
representatives of corporations. These we divided
into five groups; workers, peasants, clerks and officials,
industrialists, and the liberal professions. Politically
Germany would be decentralized and divided into
cantons on the Swiss model. Prussia, separated from
the Rhineland, from Hesse, Hanover, Saxony and
Schleswig-Holstein, would lose her hegemony and
cease to exist. The administration of each canton,
from the governor to the humblest porter, would be
exclusively in the hands of natives of the canton.

92

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

The prosperity of the country would be assured by
the nationalization of heavy industry and the distribu¬
tion of the great estates as state fiefs.

Our programme foresaw the destruction of Prussian
mili tarism. Under a new Constitution there would be
either a small professional army or a militia on Swiss
lines.

In the field of foreign politics we naturally demanded
equality between the nations, and the cessation of the
ostracism of Germany that still prevailed. We had no
territorial demands, looking forward at most to the
holding of honest plebiscites in disputed areas.

A European federation, based on the same principles
as those of federal Germany, would lead to a disarmed
Europe, forming a solid bloc in which each country
retained its own administration, customs and religion.
The abolition of tariff walls would create a kind of
European Autarkie, with Free Trade prevailing
throughout the Continent. This would be as desirable
in the economic as in the cultural field.

The war of 1914 was the result of the progressive
disintegration of the old economic and cultural
principles. Reconstruction, to our minds, could only
be brought about on the basis of a new order which
would re-establish harmony between capital and
labour and between the individual and the community.
The word ‘harmony’ excluded any idea of dictator¬
ship. There would be no dictatorship, either of class
or of race.

Harmony, too, had to be re-established between men

93

HITLER AND I

and God, between the people and religion; the psycho¬
logical problems which since the beginning of the
century had been created by materialism, the deifica¬
tion of technique, had resulted in the profoundest
demoralization.

In short, harmony in every field was our primary
and fundamental aim, for harmony permitted unity
in diversity and was the enemy of standardization.

I had many times tried to convince Hitler of this,
but the idea was too foreign to his mentality. To him
harmony meant uniformity, columns of men and
women marching in goose-step, giving the. same
salute and shouting the same words.

Gregor was not able to bring his adjutant, Heinrich
Himmler, to Berlin. The latter replaced him at
Landshut, where my brother returned from time to
time to maintain contact with his men and to keep an
eye on his pharmacy.

For some time Gregor and I had been struck by the
gifts of a young Rhinelander, Josef Goebbels, secretary
to the deputy Wiegershaus, a leading member of
Graefe’s party. With his unpleasant features and his
club foot, Goebbels’ appearance could certainly not
be called prepossessing. But he was an extremely
gifted speaker and had a flair for propaganda. We
saw him at work and heard his passionate denuncia¬
tions of the Nazi Party, and we realized that he would

94

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

make an invaluable ally. Gregor, who had transferred
the scene of his operations to the Ruhr, where our
fortnightly was published, entered into negotiations
with him. To bribe Josef Goebbels was an easy task.
For two hundred marks a month the young man
agreed to become editor of the Nationalsozialistische
Briefe and my brother’s private secretary.

Goebbels’ aspirations appeared to have been real¬
ized beyond his wildest dreams. The unsuccessful
journalist who had vainly peddled his articles round
the German Press, the author who had been utterly
unable to find a publisher, was now about to get his
own back. Karl Kaufmann, Gauleiter of the Ruhr (now
Governor of Hamburg), and Erich Koch, chief of the
Ebersfeld district, where our periodical appeared,
agreed to his appointment.

We soon realized that our new acquisition was by
no means without its disadvantages. Goebbels was
ambitious, an opportunist and a liar. To hear him,
one would have supposed he had been a heroic figure
in the Ruhr struggle, where he gave the impression
that he had been imprisoned by the French and flogged
daily in his cell. As we already had some doubts about
his veracity, I caused inquiries to be made, and
established the fact that he had never spent a day in
prison in his life and that his story was a fabrication
from beginning to end.

Another of his frauds was to ante-date his Party
membership card. Gauleiter Kaufmann, when he
discovered this, set afoot a second inquiry which

95

HITLER AND I

resulted in the utter confusion of the imposter. But
by this time Josef Goebbels had already betrayed and
left us.

Meanwhile he carried on his duties in the National-
Socialist Party with all the zeal of a neophyte.

When all was in readiness Gregor called a meeting
of the regional leaders of Hanover under our joint
presidency. The Gauleiters of the North answered his
call; Kaufmann, Rust, now Reich Minister of Educa¬
tion; Kerri, present Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs;
Ley, leader of the Labour Front, and Hildebrandt, the
present Governor of Mecklenburg. There were about
twenty-four of us, and our number was completed by
Gottfried Feder, Hitler’s deputy.

When the northern leaders learned that Hitler pro¬
posed to be represented at Hanover there was great
indignation.

‘No spies in our midst!’ exclaimed Goebbels, always
more royalist than the king.

The motion that Feder should be admitted to the
meeting was put to the vote and passed by a bare
majority.

A problem of the greatest importance was raised at
this conference.

The whole country was divided on the question of
the expropriation of the German royal houses.

The inflation period was fortunately over, and the
mark had been stabilized, but War Loan subscribers
could not be repaid and the small rentiers were not
drawing a farthing. In these circumstances was it not

96

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

immoral to restore to the princes, the men responsible
for the war and its consequences, their castles, their
lands and something like a hundred million gold
marks? The working-class parties and the German
democrats were violently opposed to the measure, and
the National-Socialist Party of the North seemed
equally opposed. In anticipation of this first German
plebiscite our leaders were anxious to pass a resolution
on the subject, and Feder’s presence was embarrassing.
Daily reports from Bavaria told us which way Adolf
was moving, and we were perfectly well aware that a
National-Socialist vote in favour of expropriation
would be at complete variance with his new tactics.

At Hanover everyone except Dr. Ley voted for it.
When Feder protested in Hitler’s name Goebbels leapt
to his feet and made a passionate speech in our
support.

‘In these circumstances I demand that the petty
bourgeois Adolf Hitler be expelled from the National-
Socialist Party,’ he thundered. I may add that he
was loudly applauded.

Gregor had to intervene firmly and point out that
such a decision could only be taken by a general Party
Congress. In any case it was agreed that the National-
Socialist Party of the North would vote against the
princes.

‘The National-Socialists are free and democratic '
men,’ Rust ardently declared. ‘They have no pope
who can claim infallibility. Hitler can act as he likes,
but we shall act according to our conscience.’

97

G

HITLER AND I

Similar incidents occurred in the Democratic Party.
Dr. Schacht, Reichstag deputy and member of the
Party executive, came out in opposition to the
majority and in favour of the princes and handed in
his resignation. This was the first occasion on which
Hider and Schacht found themselves in agreement,
and a basis was thus laid for future understandings.

Moreover the Hanover Congress accepted the
‘Strasser programme 5 , and resolved to substitute it for
the Twenty-Five Points of Hitler’s National-Socialist
Party. It was open dissidence.

In order to extend our activities we decided to found
in Berlin the Kampfverlag (Combat Publications) and
to establish several new journals. I assumed control of
our publications. In the whole of North Germany only
Dr. Ley’s paper, and hence his district of Cologne,
remained pro-Hitler.

To understand Hitier’s fury it was necessary to have
followed his recent change of front. Hider had become
conservative. He needed money for his party, and
this could only come from the capitalists. The
expropriation of the princes would obviously alarm
the big industrialists, the financiers and the landowners,
who would naturally regard the breaking-up of the
property of the former reigning houses as the first step
towards similar measures directed against themselves.

The reply to the Hanover resolution was not long in
coming. Adolf, faithful to his tactics of fraud and
violence, also summoned a regional conference, but
under peculiar conditions. Knowing that most of us

98

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

were tied down by our jobs, he was careful not to
choose a Sunday. He summoned to Bamberg not only
the Southern district leaders but also the sub-leaders,
in order to amass more votes, and to ensure victory he
mobilized the S.A. But there is no need to-day to
explain what Adolf Hitler means by liberty of opinion
and how he behaves when he pretends to consult his
associates, his rivals or the voice of the people. His
methods have scarcely changed, as Europe has since
learned to its cost.

Hitler had long since decided to make the position
of Gauleiter a salaried one, and thus turn the Southern
leaders, who should have been his collaborators and
advisers, into nothing more or less than his hired
underlings.

Among our number there was hardly anyone who
had the time or the means to travel to Bamberg. Only
Gregor, as a Reichstag Deputy, had a free pass on the
German railways. For support he took with him that
ardent apostle of our cause, Josef Goebbels.

This was in February, 1926, about three months
after our Hanover conference. Adolf made a brilliant
plea for the princes and the claims of their aristo¬
cratic families. Goebbels had had time to make
contact with the officials of the Bavarian Nazi Party.
The number of cars at the disposal of Hitler’s associates
did not fail to impress him, and he compared his own
modest way of living with the luxury already enjoyed
by the Streichers, the Essers and the Webers. His choice
was made even before the meeting started.

99

HITLER AND I

As soon as Hitler had finished, Josef Goebbels,
spokesman of the National-Socialist Party of the North
and Gregor Strasser’s private secretary, rose to his
feet.

‘Herr Adolf Hitler is right, 5 he declared (the word
‘Fiihrer 5 had not yet been introduced into the Nazi
vocabulary). ‘His arguments are so convincing that
there is no disgrace in admitting our mistakes and
rejoining him. 5

No one in the Party has forgotten Goebbels 5 un¬
speakable conduct. Veterans talk of ‘the traitor of
Bamberg 5 to this day.

Hitler seemed to have anticipated the little cripple’s
volte-face, and to have decided that Gregor Strasser,
separated from his associates, isolated in a hostile
congress and facing a bitter defeat, would be in no
position to resist him.

A battle-royal between Adolf and Gregor inevitably
ensued next day. So terrific was the debate between
them that at times Gregor felt it was more like hand-
to-hand fighting.

‘I defended our position vigorously, 5 he told me, ‘but
I could feel that Adolf was gaining ground. He was
rarely violent, but he called on all the generosity and
all the arts of seduction of which he is master. Once
or twice he came close to me, and I thought he was
going to seize me by the throat, but instead he put
his arm round my shoulders and talked to me like a
friend. “Listen, Strasser”, he said, “you really mustn’t
go on living like a wretched official. Sell your

ioo

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

pharmacy, draw on the Party funds and set yourself
up properly as a man of your worth should.” 5

I listened to Gregor’s story with growing mis¬
givings, knowing only too well which way Adolf
Hitler was going. He was trying to turn Gregor into a
docile instrument like the rest, a slave of the funds that
he had amassed.

The compromise that resulted from this oratorical
clash between Hitler and Gregor was not entirely
disastrous to us. We retained our independence, the
right to run our publishing house and to publish the
Nationals*) zialistische Briefe. On the other hand we had
to renounce our programme and adhere once more to
Hitler’s Twenty-Five Points.

‘Above all, 5 I counselled Gregor, ‘keep your
pharmacy and don’t take any of his money.’

I was then acting as legal adviser to a big industrial
concern. By resigning my post I was able to draw a
handsome bonus, and with this money we founded the
Kampfverlag and acquired first six and then eight
periodicals, which we later converted into dailies.

The struggle was resumed with increased vigour.
Our ideas were forcefully expounded in the papers
which I edited, and our democratic organization
opposed the increasingly capitalist tendencies of the
National-Socialist Party of the South. Eventually we
even rivalled them commercially, for between 1926
and 1930 the Kampfverlag went from strength to
strength and overshadowed the resourceful Amann’s
Eher Verlag.

roi

HITLER AND I

In 1928, while living with my parents at Dinkels-
biihl, I made a loyal attempt to call a halt by the
complete airing of our views. Adolf replied by advo¬
cating Machiavellism.

Meanwhile Hermann Goering had returned from
his long stay in Italy and Sweden. He began to intrigue
for a seat in Parliament, and did not hesitate to bring
the most unscrupulous pressure to bear upon his old
comrade-in-arms Hitler.

‘Either I become a deputy,’ he said, ‘or I bring an
action against the Party for damages and interest for
the wound I received on November 9.’

Did Adolf allow himself to be intimidated?

I think not. Gregor, more credulous than I, said to
me one day:

‘You know Koch has been thrown out? Goering is
to have the seat. The swine has blackmailed Hitler.’

I saw further than Gregor, and could imagine the
use Hitler could make of Goering, an ex-officer with
excellent connections among the big industrialists.
Without him Hitler would undoubtedly have had to
make do with such second-rate capitalists as had
already gravitated within his orbit. But through
Hermann Goering he established contact with the
celebrated industrialist Thyssen, with Kirdorf, who
managed the secret funds of heavy industry, and
eventually with the financial wizard Schacht. Life in

102

HITLERISM VERSUS STRASSERISM

the grand manner was opening out before Hitler. The
munitions that he expended upon us were made of
good, hard cash.

I went several times to Munich and had many
interviews with Hitler, but these grew more and more
stormy as time went on. It was in 1928, at his home,
that I made the acquaintance of Gely Raubal, but
this young woman played no part in the rooted
antagonism between us.

Meanwhile Himmler, seduced by the prospect of
commanding the S.S. shock troops, or Black Guards,
whom Hitler had just founded for his own purposes,
had ceased working for my brother and had gone over
to Adolf.

We fought back as best we could. Our propaganda
was admirably organized. The speeches of Kaufmann.
Koch, Stohr, Schopke, Franzen and Groh were warmly
applauded throughout Northern Germany and
vigorously reported in our Press. We succeeded in
winning Saxony, but Thuringia fell to Hitler. Thanks
to his new and powerful friends, the ban on his making
public speeches, which had seriously handicapped him,
was lifted in certain places, notably Bremen, Anhalt
and Oldenburg. The prospect of a reconciliation
between the parties of North and South grew
increasingly remote.

As a result of the situation in the years 1928 and
1929, relations between Gregor and myself began to be
a little strained. When Gregor came to Berlin he
generally stayed with me, and we would spend the

103

HITLER AND I

night in endless and futile argument. Even poor Else,
my sister-in-law, in spite of her instinctive mistrust of
Hitler, dreamed of having a car like the wives of other
high Party officials in Bavaria. Gregor had more solid
arguments to justify his obstinacy.

I reminded him of Hitler’s successive acts of
treachery.

‘We no longer talk the same language,’ I said. ‘We
are socialists, and Hitler has already come to terms
with the capitalists. We are republicans, and Hitler
allies himself with the Wittelsbachs and even with the
Hohenzollems. We are European and liberal; we
demand our liberty but we also respect the liberty of
others, while Hitler talks to his confidants of the
domination of Europe. We are Christians; without
Christianity Europe is lost. Hitler is an atheist.’

Gregor listened to me gravely, his brows contracted
in a frown.

‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘I won’t allow myself to be
unhorsed. I shall tame him.’

Did Gregor really believe he would tame Adolf?
Was he not bound to him by one of those obstinate
fidelities that nothing could shake?

‘You won’t tame him, Gregor. The horse won’t
unseat you; he’ll drag you with him on his ruinous
career. You have lost the reins. You must take the
risk while there’s still time, and abandon your mount.
Gregor, we must part from him.’

But Gregor said no.

104

CHAPTER VII

OPEN COMBAT

Whether his tactics were Machiavellian or merely
Hitlerian, the fact remains that Adolf appointed
Goebbels Gauleiter of Berlin. The result of this brilliant
stroke was that Gregor’s former private secretary
assumed a degree of authority over us. He was able to
obstruct our activities, and the S.A., now financed
throughout Germany by Hitler, were at his disposal.

In July, 1927, he founded in Berlin a daily, Der
Angrijf, designed to compete with our Arbeitsblatt,
which had been appearing since 1926. Naturally our
new Gauleiter missed no opportunity of manhandling
our supporters and having our sellers arrested. He
even arranged that the times of meetings organized
under his jurisdiction should be withheld from us,
with the result that would-be well-informed Party
members gave up the Arbeitsblatt in favour of the
Angrijf. Several times Gregor and I wrote to Hitler to
protest against the abominable conduct of his new
favourite. But Adolf was an expert at hedging. ‘Your
paper is certainly the official Party organ in Berlin,’
he replied, ‘but I can’t stop Goebbels from running a
private sheet of his own.’ One might ask how the
organ of the Gauleiter of the capital could be a private
sheet.

105

HITLER AND I

As the months passed Goebbels organized a minia
ture terror, a guerrilla warfare against our supporters
One after another our associates fell under the ban o
his displeasure, and stormtroopers disguised as hooli
gans were set to trail our friends in the street and bea
them up; he even made several attempts to get hold o
me, though without success. When we demandec
daylight on these nocturnal attacks we received th(
invariable reply: ‘The Communists are after you,
Get the S.A. to protect you.’ In other words, ‘Admit
spies to your ranks and we shall leave you in peace’.

Most of my associates settled in suburbs of Berlin
belonging to the political district of Brandenburg,
whose Gauleiter was absolutely pro-Strasser. I had
to hold the fort in Berlin itself.

One morning in the spring of 1928 I was at work in
my enormous study, a thirty-foot long apartment
where Gregor and I used to work at two desks face-to-
face. I was alone, examining the layout of our
periodical, when Hitler burst in unannounced. I did
not even know he was in Berlin.

Without a word of greeting he made for Gregor’s
desk, sat down and announced point-blank:

‘This can’t go on.’

‘What can’t go on, Herr Hitler?’

‘Your incessant quarrels with my people. Last year
it was Streicher, then it was Rosenberg, and now it’s
Goebbels. I’ve had enough of it.’

‘There is no connection between them, Herr Hitler.
Julius Streicher is a dirty swine. At the Nurnberg

106

OPEN COMBAT

Congress last year he served me up with Jewish sexual
crimes as a “delicate aperitif”. I told him I considered
his paper disgusting and that I liked literature, not
pornography. In fact we had quite a violent quarrel,
which, in view of its subject, should neither shock nor
surprise you.’

‘And Rosenberg?’ asked Hitler, discountenanced by
the word ‘pornography’. ‘What have you got against
him?’

‘His paganism, Herr Hitler.’

Adolf rose and began to pace the room.

‘Rosenberg’s ideology is an integral part of National-
Socialism’, he solemnly declared.

‘I thought you had made peace with Rome.’

Hitler stopped and looked me in the eyes.

‘Christianity is, for the moment, one of the points in
the programme I have laid down. But we must look
ahead. Rosenberg is a forerunner, a prophet. His
theories are the expression of the German soul. A
true German cannot condemn them.’

I made no answer, but stared at the man. I was
genuinely taken aback by his duplicity.

He made a gesture as though to wipe out what he
had said.

‘Let’s get down to brass-tacks. It’s the Goebbels
business that I’ve come about. I tell you again, it
can’t go on.’

‘Quite so. But you should tell that to Goebbels.
He came here after I did, and he founded his paper
after mine. I am within my rights.’

107

HITLER AND I

Hitler gave a dry little laugh.

‘It’s not a question of right but of might. What wi]
you do when ten of Herr Goebbels’ stormtrooper
attack you in your office?’

I slowly took my big revolver from my drawer anc
placed it beside me.

e I have eight rounds, Herr Hitler. That will b<
eight stormtroopers less.’

Hitler stiffened.

‘I know you are mad enough to shoot,’ he barked,
‘I know that you would not hesitate to defend yourself.
But nevertheless you can’t kill my stormtroopers.’

‘Yours, or Herr Goebbels’?’ If they are yours, I
advise you not to send them. If they are Herr
Goebbels’, it’s up to you to stop them from coming.
As for me, I shall shoot anyone who attacks me. I
don’t give a damn for their uniform. Brown shirts
can’t frighten me.’

‘Otto,’ said Hitler suddenly, for the first and last
time calling me by my Christian name, ‘Be reason¬
able. Think it over, for your brother’s sake.’ He had
seized my hands.

I remained unmoved. The tearful eyes, the tremb¬
ling voice, the whole studied performance was wasted
on me.

‘You thi n k it over, Herr Hitler. I’ll do the same.’

By the time he left I had decided to fight his
hypocrisy openly; in short, either to beat him or to
break with him.

The process was a lengthy one. I was so deeply

ig8

OPEN COMBAT

attached to Gregor that the prospect of breaking with
him too held me back more than once.

At first I followed my brother’s advice, and, like my
friends, took up my residence at Lenitz, a Berlin
suburb belonging to the district of Brandenburg, and
transferred the press there. The Arbeitsblatt remained
the official journal of the North. My contributors,
with my approval, discussed, criticized, and con¬
demned without reservation the conduct of certain
regional leaders of the South. Count Reventlow was
among my most ardent followers.

Amann, director of our rival publications,
systematically incited the Fiihrer against us. I did not
complain. Sooner or later the ulcer would have to
be opened.

In 1929, when I was summoned to Munich, Hitler,
prior to informing me that ‘he could not be wrong,
for what he did was historical 5 , offered to buy my
Kampfverlag. I refused point-blank. I was determined
to remain in the Party only for so long as I could
honestly fight for what I considered right. Deprived of
the direction of the Press, I should become, like so
many others, a hireling of the man whom the syco¬
phants of the South had started calling the Fuhrer.

In 193° the tension had reached breaking-point.
In April the trade unions of Saxony declared an
industrial strike. I decided to support it with the full
weight of the National-Socialist Party of the North,
and to put my papers at the disposal of the cause. The
Sachsischer Beobackter, one of my journals, was heart and

109

HITLER AND I

soul behind the strikers. It is easy to imagine the fury
of the pundits of industry with whom Hitler had
recently come to terms. For some time the S.A. had
only been financed thanks to the donations of Thyssen
and his fellows; the Reichswehr had resolutely turned
its back upon them, and now reserved its favours for
the extreme Right formation of the Stahlhelm.

Without his new friends Hitier could count himself
lost, and he received from the Federation of
Industrialists of Saxony an ultimatum couched in
rather abrupt terms:

‘Unless the strike order is condemned and opposed
by the National-Socialist Party and its papers, notably
the Sachsiscker Beobachter, the entire Reich Federation
of Industrialists will cease its payments to the Party.’

Such an insult to the Party could not remain secret.
We knew the contents of this shameful ultimatum,
we knew that Hitler was sold to the capitalists, and we
realized that there was nothing more to hope from him;
for he accepted the ultimatum.

A resolution of the Reich Party Executive forbade
any member of the National-Socialist Party to take
part in the strike. It was signed by Adolf Hitler
himself.

The cowardly Mutschmann, Gauleiter of Saxony,
managed to have the decision carried by a bare
majority, and Saxony had to be written off as a gain
to Hitler. I and a few friends, disgusted by the
cowardice of some and the treachery of others, refused
to submit. We continued to support the strikers in our

no

OPEN COMBAT

papers, and we attacked Hitler’s conduct and
associates with a hitherto undreamed-of violence.

Among the methods favoured by Hitler the element
of surprise plays an important part.

At a quarter to one on May 21, 1930, just as I was
leaving for my office in Oranienburg, I was called to
the telephone.

‘Hullo! Rudolph Hess speaking. Herr Hitler asks
you to be good enough to come at once to the Hotel
Sansouci for an urgent discussion.’

Adolf’s visit to Berlin had been kept secret. This
time he did not come and surprise me in my office.
He summoned me to an interview which I knew to be
decisive.

The sooner the better, I thought, and answered the
summons without delay.

Adolf received me in the lounge of the hotel. We
were alone. He offered me a chair and took a seat
facing me.

‘Have you thought over my proposition of last
year?’ he asked. ‘Amann has given me a very en¬
thusiastic report on your publishing house. I’m ready
to buy it from you. You, Gregor and Hinkel will
receive sixty thousand marks each, and you and
Hinkel will be made deputies.’

‘That is hardly the question, Herr Hitler. My
refusal at Munich still holds good.’

Hitler immediately began to deluge me with abuse.

‘The tone of your papers is a public disgrace. Your
articles infringe the elementary laws of discipline.

hi

HITLER AND I

They are an insult to the Party programme. My
patience is exhausted. The Kampfverlag will go into
voluntary liquidation. If you refuse your consent I
shall proceed against you with all the means in my
power.’

I stood up.

T thought, Herr Hitler, that you had sent for me
for an interview that might clarify the situation. I am
quite prepared to talk things over, but I refuse to
accept an ultimatum.’

‘Naturally I should like to come to some arrange¬
ment,’ said Hitler, a little more mildly. ‘I don’t want
the Party to lose a man of your worth. That’s why I
asked you to come here. You are young, you are an
ex-soldier, you are one of us veteran National-
Socialists, and it seems to me you should still be capable
of learning and understanding. I can’t say as much for
Reventlow. He’s an old man, and a journalist into the
bargain, incapable of changing his ingrained ideas.
He’s a hopeless case; but you .. .’

Hitler was adopting his classic manoeuvre of
isolating his opponent.

‘Your complaints are rather vague, Herr Hitler.
I can only say that the articles of the last few weeks
were written by members of the official National-
Socialist Press, and that every one of them had my
entire approval. I may say that I am delighted at
having the opportunity of explaining my position to
you. 5

The conversation that ensued lasted exactly seven

112

OPEN COMBAT

hours; we had to break off and resume next day.
I dictated a record of this final duel immediately
afterwards and gave it to my friends. The reproduc¬
tion of my notes in their entirety would be outside the
scope of this book and would lead me down the tedious
by-ways of German domestic politics. I shall only
attempt to reproduce here the essential parts of our
conversation, those which cast some light on the m an
whom I was challenging and throw into relief the
fundamental cause of our rupture.

Hitler, as usual, paced up and down the room.

‘The article in the Nationalsozialistische Briefe is a
stab in the back of our National-Socialist Prime
Minister, Dr. Frick,’ he said. ‘As for Schulze-Naum-
burg, he is an artist of the first rank. Everyone who
knows anything about art realizes that he is the man
above all others to teach true German art. But you
join with the Jewish Press in sabotaging the decisions
of the National-Socialist Minister on this question.’

‘The Nationalsozialistische Briefe merely stands up for
the young Party artists of the Wendland group. We
want to save these young men from being left out in
the cold for the benefit of hoary prophets.’

Schulze-Naumberg was a bearded fanatic, one of
those massive and prehistoric Teutons in whom Hitler
doubtless saw the incarnation of the soul of our people.

‘You haven’t the slightest idea of what art is, Herr
Strasser. The old art, the new art simply don’t exist.
There is only one kind of art, and that is Greco-
Nordic. There can be no such thing as a revolution
h 113

HITLER AND I

in art. There’s no such thing as Italian, Dutch or
German art, and to talk of Gothic art would be mad¬
ness. Anything worthy of the name of art can only be
Greco-Nordic.’

I replied that, without professing to be an expert on
such matters, I considered art to be the expression of the
soul of a people and believed it underwent diverse
influences. I drew his attention to the art of the
Chinese and the Egyptians.

‘You are talking stale liberalism,’ said Hitler. ‘I
repeat, there is no such art. Neither the Chinese nor
the Egyptians were homogeneous peoples. Their
bodies were those of inferior races; it was the Nordic
head on them that was responsible for all their master¬
pieces.’

I was burning to bring the conversation back to the
political questions that preoccupied me. When I
made no reply to his strange art theories, Adolf went
on, as I hoped he would, to talk of Blank’s article on
‘Loyalty and Disloyalty’.

‘How do you justify Blank’s theories?’ he demanded.
‘His conception of loyalty, the distinction he makes
between the Leader and the Idea, are incitements to
Party members to rebel.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it is not a question of diminishing the
Leader’s prestige. But for the free and protestant
German the service of the Idea first and foremost is an
ingrained necessity. The Idea is divine in origin, while
men are only its vehicles, the body in which the Word
is made flesh. The Leader is made to serve the Idea,

114

OPEN COMBAT

and it is to the Idea alone that we owe absolute
allegiance. The Leader is human, and it is human to
err.’

‘You are talking monumental idiocy. You wish to
give Party members the right to decide whether or not
the Fuhrer has remained faithful to the so-called Idea.
It’s the lowest kind of democracy, and we want
nothing to do with it! For us the Idea is the Fuhrer,
and each Party member has only to obey the Fuhrer.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘What you say is all very well for
the Roman Church, from which, incidentally, Italian
Fascism took its inspiration. But I maintain that for
Germany the Idea is the decisive thing, and that the
individual conscience should be called upon to decide
if there is any divergence between the Idea and the
Leader.’

‘On that point we disagree,’ barked Hitler. He sat
down and began rubbing his knees with a circular
motion that grew quicker and quicker. ‘What you
say would lead to the dissolution of our organization,
which is based on discipline. I have no intention of
allowing our organization to be disrupted by a crazy
scribbler. You have been an officer, and you see that
your brother accepts my discipline, even if he doesn’t
always see eye-to-eye with me. Take a lesson from
him; he’s a fine man.’

He seized my hands, as he had done two years before.
His voice was choked with sobs, and tears flowed
down his cheeks.

‘Discipline, Herr Hitler, is only an aid to the crea-

115

HITLER AND I

tion of unity in an already existing group. It cannot
create that group. Don’t allow yourself to be misled
by the adulation and flattery of the base creatures that
surround you.’

‘I forbid you to insult my associates!’

‘After all, Herr Hitler, we are talking as man to
man. We’re not at a public meeting. How many men
are there among your immediate associates who are
capable of independent judgment? They haven’t the
intelligence, let alone the character. Even my
brother would be less docile if his office did not make
him financially dependent upon you.’

‘For the sake of your brother,’ said Hitler, his eyes
still moist, ‘I once more offer you my hand. I have
several times offered you interesting jobs in the Party.
You can become my Press Chief for the whole Reich,
any time you like. Come to Munich and work under
my direction. I have a very high opinion of your
talents and intelligence; put them in the service of the
National-Socialist movement.’

‘I could only accept, Herr Hitler, if we could find a
basis of agreement for our divergent political views.
If the understanding were only superficial, later on
you would feel that I had deceived you, and I should
always have the feeling that you had deceived me.
If you like, I am willing to spend a month at Munich
to discuss socialism and foreign policy with you and
Rosenberg, whose rivalry is very obvious to me.’

‘No,’ said Hitler abruptly, ‘it is too late. I must
have a decision at once. If you don’t accept I shall

116

OPEN COMBAT

begin to act on Monday. These are the measures I
have decided on. The Kampfverlag will be declared
an enterprise harmful to the National-Socialist Party;
I shall forbid any Party member to have anything
whatever to do with your papers, and I shall expel you
from the Party, and your supporters with you.’

I made a superhuman effort to control myself. I
was thinking, as a matter of fact, of Gregor, whom a
final rupture with Adolf would separate from me.

‘All that is very simple for you, Herr Hitler, but it
only serves to emphasize the profound difference in
our revolutionary and socialist ideas. The reasons you
give for destroying the Kampfverlag I take to be only
pretexts. The real reason is that you want to strangle
the social revolution for the sake of legality and your
new collaboration with the bourgeois parties of the
Right.’

At this Hitler grew violent.

‘I am a socialist, and a very different kind of
socialist from your rich friend Reventlow. I was once
an ordinary working-man. I would not allow my
chauffeur to eat'worse than I eat myself. But your kind
of socialism is nothing but Marxism. The mass of the
working classes want nothing but bread and games.
They will never understand the meaning of an ideal,
and we cannot hope to win them over to one. What
we have to do is to select from a new master-class men
who will not allow themselves to be guided, like you,
by the morality of pity. Those who rule must know
that they have the right to rule because they belong to

117

HITLER AND I

a superior race. They must maintain that right and
ruthlessly consolidate it.’

I was dumbfounded at these words, and told Hitler
so openly.

‘Your racial ideas,’ I added, ‘which you owe to Herr
Rosenberg, are not only a flagrant contradiction of the
great mission of National-Socialism, which should be
the creation of a German nation; they are calculated to
bring about the disintegration of the German people. 5

Hitler continued as though he were addressing a
public meeting.

‘What you preach is liberalism, nothing but
liberalism. There is only one possible kind of revolu¬
tion, and it is not economic, or political, or social, but
racial, and it will always be the same; the struggle of
inferior classes and inferior races against the superior
races who are in the saddle. On the day the superior
race forgets this law, it is lost. All revolutions — and I
have studied them carefully — have been racial. When
you read Rosenberg’s new book 1 you will understand
these things, for it is the most powerful book of its
kind, greater even than Houston Chamberlain’s
Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. Your ideas of
foreign policy are false because you have no racial
knowledge. Didn’t you declare openly for the Indian
independence movement when it was obviously a
rebellion of the inferior Hindu race against the valorous
Anglo-Nordic? The Nordic race has the right to
dominate the world, and that right will be the guiding

1 The Myth of the Twentieth Century.

1x8

OPEN COMBAT

principle of our foreign policy. That is why any
alliance with Russia, a Slav-Tatar body surmounted
by a Jewish head, is out of the question. I knew those
Slavs in my own country! When a German head
dominated them Germany could make common cause
with them, as it did in Bismarck’s time. To-day it
would be a crime.’

‘But, Herr Hitler, such ideas can never be the basis
of a foreign policy. For me the only problem that
counts is whether the political constellation is favour¬
able or unfavourable to Germany. We cannot let
ourselves be guided by considerations of sympathy or
antipathy. One of the principal aims of German
foreign policy will have to be, as I have told you
before, the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles.
Stalin, Mussolini, MacDonald, Poincare, what does it
matter? A good German politician must put the good
of Germany first.’

‘Certainly,’ Hitler agreed, ‘the good of Germany
must come first. That is why an understanding with
England is indispensable. We must establish Germano-
Nordic domination over Europe, and then, with the
cooperation of America, over the world ... The land
for us, the seas for England ...’

We had not yet reached the crucial point of our
discussion. I took out my watch; it was ten past four.
Hitler, suddenly exhausted, had flung himself into a
chair, panting like a spent runner.

‘Couldn’t we continue our conversation to-morrow
morning?’ I asked. ‘Foreign policy is still only a

”9

HITLER AND I

theoretical matter for us, there are no decisions to be
made yet. The formula of the good of Germany, upon
which we are agreed, is enough for the moment.
Cultural problems are of only secondary importance
to me. The burning question is that of the economic
and social order. I am not satisfied that the policy of
the Party is sound on this question, and I have some
grave criticisms to make.’

Hitler held out his hand. For the third time his
eyes filled with tears.

‘To-morrow, at ten o’clock.’

The same evening I described this conversation to
my friends, Richard Schapke, Gunther Kiibler,
Herbert Blank and Paul Brinkmann, and they asked
me to transcribe it for their use.

I sat up all night, making notes and preparing the
chief questions which I proposed putting to Hitler
next day.

Before leaving the house next morning I had a short
talk with Gregor which served to establish his attitude.

Adolf Hitler was just finishing breakfast when I
entered the dining-room of his hotel. He rose and
asked me to follow him.

In the reading-room four men awaited us; Rudolf
Hess, Amann, director of the Volkischer Beobachter, our
colleague Hans Hinkel, and my brother Gregor.

‘Herr Hitler, I expected to continue our conversa¬
tion tete-a-tete,’ I objected when I saw them. It seemed
to me that if I were alone with my adversary I could
more easily penetrate to his real intentions.

120

OPEN COMBAT

‘These gentlemen/ he replied, ‘will be very
interested to hear your arguments, and mine. 9

After all, it was not a bad idea to speak in front of
witnesses. But the precariousness of my position was
clear to me; these men were won to Hitler in advance.

Adolf invited me to speak.

‘This is the question that I propose to put to you,
Herr Hitler. Are you convinced, as I am, that our
revolution must be a total one in the political,
economic and social spheres? Do you envisage a
revolution which opposes Marxism as energetically as
capitalism? Do you consequently admit that our
propaganda should attack both equally in order to
obtain German socialism?’

Then I laid before him the points of the Strasser
programme, as it had been drawn up at Hanover, and
our ideas on the nationalization of industry.

‘It’s Marxism! 9 cried Hider. ‘In fact it’s Bolshevism!
Democracy has laid the world in ruins, and never¬
theless you want to extend it to the economic sphere.
It would be the end of German economy. You would
wipe out all human progress, which has only been
achieved by the individual efforts of great scholars and
great inventors. 9

‘I don’t believe in the progress of humanity, Herr
Hider. Men have not changed in the last thousand
years. Their physique may have altered, and their
conditions of life, but nothing more. Do you think
that Goethe would have been happier if he had been
able to ride in a motor car or Napoleon if he had been

121

HITLER AND I

able to broadcast? The stages of human evolution
resemble those in the life of a man. A man of thirty
thinks he has progressed since he was twenty; a man of
forty may still nourish a similar illusion. But a man of
fifty rarely talks of progress, and at sixty he has com¬
pletely given it up.’

‘Theory, pure theory,’ Hitler replied. ‘Humanity
does progress, and progress is the result of the actions
of great men.’

‘But the r 61 e of these great men, these leaders, Herr
Hitler, is not what you think. Men do not create or
invent the great epochs of history; on the contrary they
are the emissaries, the instruments of destiny.’

Adolf Hitler stiffened.

‘Do you deny that I am the creator of National-
Socialism?’

‘I have no choice but to do so. National-Socialism
is an idea bom of the times in which we live. It is alive
in the hearts of millions of men, and it is incarnated in
you. The simultaneity with which it arose in so many
minds proves its historical necessity, and proves, too,
that the age of capitalism is over.’

At this Hitler launched into a long tirade in which
he tried to prove to me that capitalism did not exist,
that the idea of Autarkic was nothing but madness, that
the European Nordic race must organize world com¬
merce on a barter basis, and finally that nationaliza¬
tion, or socialization, as I understood it, was nothing
but dilettantism, not to say Bolshevism.

Let us note that the socialization or nationalization

122

OPEN COMBAT

of property was the thirteenth point of Hitler’s official
programme.

‘Let us assume, Herr Hitler, that you came into
power to-morrow. What would you do about
Krupp’s? Would you leave it alone or not?’

‘Of course I should leave it alone,’ cried Hitler. ‘Do
you think me crazy enough to want to ruin Germany’s
great industry?’

‘If you wish to preserve the capitalist regime, Herr
Hitler, you have no right to talk of socialism. For our
supporters are socialists, and your programme de¬
mands the socialization of private enterprise.’

‘That word “socialism” is the trouble,’ said Hitler.
He shrugged his shoulders, appeared to reflect for a
moment and then went on:

‘I have never said that all enterprises should be
socialized. On the contrary, I have maintained that
we might socialize enterprises prejudicial to the
interests of the nation. Unless they were so guilty, I
should consider it a crime to destroy essential elements
in our economic life. Take Italian Fascism. Our
National-Socialist state, like the Fascist state, will safe¬
guard both employers’ and workers’ interests while
reserving the right of arbitration in case of dispute.’

‘But under Fascism the problem of labour and capital
remains unsolved. It has not even been tackled. It
has merely been temporarily stifled. Capitalism has
remained intact, just as you yourself propose to leave
it intact.’

‘Herr Strasser,’ said Hitler, exasperated by my

123

HITLER AND I

answers, ‘there is only one economic system, and that
is responsibility and authority on the part of directors
and executives. I ask Herr Amann to be responsible
to me for the work of his subordinates and to exercise
his authority over them. Herr Amann asks his office
manager to be responsible for his typists and to exer¬
cise his authority over them; and so on to the lowest
rung of the ladder. That is how it has been for
thousands of years, and that is how it will always be.’

‘Yes, Herr Hider, the administrative structure will
be the same whether the state is capitalist or socialist.
But the spirit of labour depends on the regime under
which it lives. If it was possible a few years ago for a
handful of men not appreciably different from the
average to throw a quarter of a million Ruhr workers
on the streets, if this act was legal and in conformity
with the morality of our economic system, then the
system is criminal, not the men.’

‘But that,’ Hider replied, looking at his watch and
showing signs of acute impatience, ‘that is no reason
for granting the workers a share in the profits of the
enterprises that employ them, and more particularly
for giving them the right to be consulted. A strong
State will see that production is carried on in the
national interests, and, if these interests are contra¬
vened, can proceed to expropriate the enterprise con¬
cerned and take over its administration.’

_ ‘As I see it, that would change nothing, Herr Hider.
Since you are prepared, if need be, to expropriate
private wealth, why make use of local authorities and

124

OPEN COMBAT

leave the responsibility to their judgment? Why risk
arbitrary action on the part of men who may be mis¬
informed? Why trust dubious informers rather than
set up the right of intervention as an integral part of
our economic life?’

‘That,’ said Hitler with a hypocritical sigh, ‘is where
we differ. Profit-sharing and the workers’ right to be
consulted are Marxist principles. I consider that the
right to exercise influence on private enterprise should
be conceded only to the State, directed by the superior
class.’

It was half past one. Two men, Stohr and Buch,
apparently sent for by Hitler, entered at this moment.
Adolf excused himself and then, without another word,
conducted them to his room. Rudolf Hess followed
them.

There were no raised voices that day, and no violent
quarrel. But the situation was clear, and I expected
Hider to carry out his threats the same evening, or at
latest next morning. However, he did nothing of the
sort.

The task of settling the matter, in a fashion at once
cowardly and cunning, was once more left to Goebbels.

From the beginning of June onwards my occasional
contributors started being expelled from the Party.
Hitler was not yet powerful enough to ban our papers
or to persecute me openly, though I had reckoned

125

HITLER AND I

on an open letter breaking with me, or something of
the sort.

When it came to Schapke’s turn to be expelled for
writing a violent article attacking Hitler’s methods, I
declared my solidarity with him and called upon
Goebbels to convene a conference of Berlin Party
officials.

To my great surprise, Goebbels did so. But when,
on the evening of July 2, I presented myself at the
entrance of the building where the meeting was in pro¬
gress, an S.S. officer, with five men at his heels, in¬
formed me that, as I did not reside in the Berlin district,
I could not enter the hall. Strictly he was within his
rights, for meetings of this kind were limited to men
of the same political district. I insisted, however,
since the meeting had been called at my instigation.
The officer remained adamant.

Meanwhile the meeting had begun. The building
was surrounded by Black Guards.

Goebbels, at the top of his form, attempted to justify
Schapke’s expulsion. When he had finished Major
Buchrucker, my best friend, rose and demanded the
right to speak.

T regret that I cannot permit it, since a Party
inquiry has been set on foot against you.’

‘Against me?’ cried Buchrucker. ‘I know nothing
about it!’

‘You will receive notification by the evening post.’

The comedy was repeated when Herbert Blank rose
to speak. One hundred and seventy of the thousand

136

OPEN COMBAT

Party members present immediately rose and left the
hall in protest.

Meanwhile I had been waiting in the street, and my
friends had kept me informed of what had been
happening inside. We went at once to Blank’s home,
and to Buchrucker’s. No notification of any kind had
arrived.

That night I saw my brother.

‘Gregor, since Hitler does not dare to break openly
with me, I shall break with him. To-morrow I leave
the Party.’

‘Very well,’ said Gregor. ‘I must stay.’

We said good-bye.

On July 3 I sent Hitler the following ultimatum:

‘Herr Goebbels has expelled certain of my colleagues
from the Party; at yesterday’s meeting, on the flimsiest
of pretexts, he deprived others of their right to speak.
If these measures are not revoked within the next
twenty-four hours I shall consider myself and my
friends to have broken with the Party.’

The telegram remained unanswered.

On July 4, 1930, I had ceased to belong to the
National-Socialist Party of Germany.

127

CHAPTER VIII

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

On July 4, then, I once more became a free man. I
brought out my papers as usual, the front page carry¬
ing the banner headline: ‘Socialists Leave the Nazi
Party’. I published my last interview with Hitler
almost verbatim, under the sensational heading, ‘A
Ministerial Portfolio or the Revolution?’

Naturally all the German newspapers, with the ex¬
ception of Herr Hitler’s, took up the theme and em¬
broidered it with infinite variations. The rupture was
complete. It remained for me now to call die roll of
my supporters and to organize my offensive.

An appeal was launched, and my papers announced
the immediate formation of a ‘fighting union of revolu¬
tionary National-Socialists’. Hitler and Goebbels
replied with a well-orchestrated propaganda campaign.
The S.A. and S.S. district leaders announced that any
Nazi who associated with me or read any of my papers
would be immediately expelled from the Party. Hitler’s
Volkischer Beobachter and Goebbels’ Angriff outbid each
other in slander and abuse. Hitler himself took up his
pen to declare me an obscure and rootless scribbler
and a parlour Bolshevik, and Goebbels asserted that I
was in the pay of Moscow.

I remembered that on leaving the army I had asked

128

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

my commanding officer, now Herr Haushofer, the
famous professor of ‘geopolitics 5 , to give me a military
testimonial. I was anxious to have this because, as a
consequence of the 1918 revolution, I had never re¬
ceived either the Order of Max-Joseph or the Order
Pour le Merite, for both of which I had been recom¬
mended. The testimonial mentioned all my decora¬
tions, including the Bavarian Medal of Merit, the
Iron Cross of the first and second class, my wound
stripes, my mentions in despatches. It also mentioned
all the engagements in which I took part, and con¬
cluded with a personal appreciation by my command¬
ing officer which stated: ‘Strasser is a man who stands
up for what he considers right with his whole soul and
with unshakeable courage. 5

I replied to my opponents’ campaign of slander by
publishing this document.

This first round was fought out without any hint as
to the future. The situation was clarified on the even¬
ing of July 10, when I was returning to the station
through the streets of Brandenburg, just outside
Berlin, with my friend Brehm, a disabled ex-soldier.
This was the night after the first meeting of the Black
Front.

We were suddenly attacked by a number of men
dressed as hooligans, and I was half-blinded by a
handful of pepper which was thrown in my face. I
wasted no time but leapt into the road and gained the
opposite pavement. My attackers’ aim was poor, for
I was left with one eye open. I saw my friend stretched

1 129

HITLER AND I

in the middle of the roadway, and our assailants were
preparing to make a rush at me. I drew my revolver
and shouted: ‘The first man who moves is dead!’ I
then advanced towards my injured friend, helped him
up and backed again towards the pavement, holding
him up with one hand and keeping our assailants
covered with my revolver. They were armed only with
knives and bludgeons.

Brehm was bleeding copiously and, with his wooden
leg, it was not easy for us to get along. We resumed
our way to the station as best we could, and I repeated
my warning to the hooligans at the top of my voice.
Passers-by disappeared as if by magic. Political
brawls were common at that time, and nobody wanted
to be mixed up in them.

T know them all. They’re S.A. men,’ Brehm, who
was a high official in that political district, whispered
in my ear.

T thought so,’ I replied.

Protected by my faithful Browning, we managed to
reach the station, where my friend’s injuries were
attended to. Next day we brought a charge against
our assailants, who were sentenced to two years’
imprisonment.

As the barrage of abuse hurled at me by the whole
of his propaganda machine proved insufficient, Hitler
resolved to ruin me. This was a task that presented no
difficulties. All he had to do was to confiscate the
shares which my brother and Hinkel held in the
Kampfverlag, and inform me through his lawyer that

13°

THROUGH treason to power

the firm would be closed down, the presses seized and
the work discontinued.

I thus found myself without resources on the thres¬
hold of a new life and confronted with a colossal task.

My departure, and the reasons for it, caused great
excitement in the Party. The results, however, were
not very tangible. Gregor’s decision to remain in the
Party enabled the great majority of Strasserites to
decide that they could do the same without betraying
the cause. Hitler was in the ascendant. He had money
behind him, and the S.A., disciplined like a proper
army, had no political convictions; a uniform and
implicit obedience were good enough for them.

The Party men who followed me into the wilderness
were idealists, and their number was necessarily very
limited. But new recruits, members of the non-Nazi
paramilitary organizations of the Right, poured in
upon me from the first. Such were the Stahlhelm, the
Wehrwolf and the Jung Deutsche Orden.

These no longer consisted only of ex-soldiers. A new
generation had grown up in search of a political ideal.
The Weimar Republic was repugnant to these young
people, and they had not yet been corrupted by
Hitler. The news of my break with him gave them
new hope.

Then there was the Peasants’ Revolutionary Move¬
ment, whose leader, Claus Hein, came from Schleswig-
Holstein. They were formidable country people,
handy with a bomb and noted for their intrepidity.
Their leader in Silesia was my friend Schapke.

131

HITLER AND I

I was thus able to count on a nucleus of faithful
followers. My ambition, however, was not to terrorize
the country or use the methods for which I condemned
the Nazis. Obviously I had to be prepared to meet
their attacks, but my primary object was to re-educate
the socialists of Germany and make my programme
and my ideas known.

At this time one of the most interesting groups, the
Tatkreis (‘Action Group’), sought contact with me.
This was an association of intellectuals whose monthly,
Die Tat, had a big circulation in military circles. Its
leader, Dr. Zehrer, was assisted by a very eminent
man, Ferdinand Fried, who is now the valuable and
only aide of the Minister Herr Darre. Fried had
just published a sensational book, The Twilight of
Capitalism.

These various elements soon constituted the Black
Front, an invisible but ever-present force which Hitler
and his accomplices still had cause to fear even after
its leader had left Germany to live in exile.

The organization of such a secret society was
attended by a host of problems. We were devoid of
funds, and could not count on subscriptions from any
of our adherents. Each remained in his own organiza¬
tion, and was bound to us by sympathy alone. It was
a kind of freemasonry, with ramifications in every
class, caste and party of the German people. The
central organization, of which I was the head, con¬
sisted of trusted friends who had broken with the Nazi
Party and belonged officially to the Black Front. The

132

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

others were lost in anonymity. Hence the name Black
Front, for black suggests invisibility and intangibility
to the German mind.

The Black Front was to be ‘the school of officers and
non-commissioned officers of the German Revolution’.
The emblem of official members was a tiepin embody¬
ing a hammer and a sword. For ‘Heil Hitler /’ we sub¬
stituted ‘Heil DeutschlandT

The periodical Die Tat was inadequate for our needs.
We needed at least a weekly, and we issued the first
number without knowing if we would have enough
money to pay for the second. Our boldness, however,
succeeded beyond expectations. Not only did we
never run into debt, but our organ, which we first
called The German Revolution and then simply The
Black Front, soon had a considerable circulation. We
used it to expound the principles of the regeneration
of Germany, and regaled our readers with interesting
sidelights on Hitler’s party. In 1931 and 1932 we
founded three weeklies one after another, in Berlin,
Breslau and Munich itself.

I came into contact only with the leaders of the
various organizations in sympathy with us. To them
I distributed leaflets and pamphlets, in fact all the
literature from which they could imbibe the first
principles of the national regeneration at which I
aimed.

We held our Black Front meetings secretly on the
premises of the Tatkreis. The organization of intel¬
lectuals developed from month to month. Members

i33

HITLER AND I

were carefully handpicked by our local leaders. Most
officers and non-commissioned officers now read Die
Tat , the circulation of which increased tenfold. At the
‘Ring’, as our secret meetings were called, officers
rubbed shoulders with trade unionists and ardent
young intellectuals. There were various degrees of
membership of the Black Front, as there are in masonic
lodges. There were naturally ‘Rings’ in all big garrison
towns and all industrial centres.

Hitler, relieved of the millstone represented by the
real revolutionaries among his followers, sailed full
steam ahead towards the reactionary forces of the old
regime. Nothing was left to stop him from contracting
a close alliance with capitalism and heavy industry.
From his partnership with the rich and influential he
looked forward to securing the right of addressing
public meetings in Berlin, and eventually, of course,
to the conquest of North Germany. He also had one
eye on the possibility of ousting Gregor, and he was
planning an expansion of the S.A., upon whose brute
force his authority in part relied. Thyssen was a
harbinger, the first swallow announcing the spring.
The prizes that he was really after were Hugenberg
and Schacht.

Hugenberg is a curious character, a typical Prussian
of the old school, heavy, intelligent, brutal, but more
or less honest. He was the leader of the Pan-Germans,

*34

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

the party fancied by the industrialists. Prussia had
always been its nerve-centre. There is, by the way, a
sensible difference between the Pan-Germans and the
Greater Germans which often causes confusion abroad.
The former aspire to German world domination, while
the latter aimed at a reunion of the German states,
possibly under some sort of federal regime, without
having any imperialist ambitions.

Hugenberg was the one man in Germany who had
recognized the vital importance of propaganda.
During the war of 1914 he had operated the greatest
propaganda machine in the world. The Scherl concern,
which printed most of the journals of the Right, the
official news agency, Telegraphen Union Internation¬
ale, and the Ufa company were his private property.

Winning Hugenberg would mean multiplying a
thousandfold the range of the Nazi Party’s propa¬
ganda, while Hugenberg for his part was seeking a
contact with the German people in order to extend his
personal influence. One man had his confidence,
Councillor Bang of Dresden, one of the industrial
leaders who had issued the ultimatum to Hitler. T his
man was also in contact with the Fiihrer. The Coun¬
cillor adroitly brought the two together.

Schacht and Hitler were brought together in similar
fashion. Dr. Schacht had recently left the Democratic
Party because of his opposition to the expropriation of
the princes, and, unknown to the Party, a meeting
between him and Hitler took place a little later. The
diary of the first Frau Goering contains the statement:

r 35

HITLER AND I

‘Hermann and I are expecting Hjalmar Schacht and
Adolf Hitler to visit us to-day.’ We later learned that
Schacht made his co-operation with Hitler dependent
upon the latter’s sacrificing the Strasser brothers.

The road was thus cleared, or very nearly cleared.
As a result of his refusal to accept the Young Plan,
Schacht had lost his position as President of the Reichs-
bank. He was inordinately ambitious, and had visions
of becoming Chancellor, or at least Minister of
National Economy, in a government of the Right.
Hjalmar Schacht vies with Franz von Papen for the
title of most shameless opportunist in Germany.

The Hitler-Hugenberg-Schacht alliance was quickly
cemented, and its results were soon apparent. In a few
months the National-Socialist Party, which had fared
disastrously at the last elections, obtained thousands of
new votes. Its propaganda increased in efficiency as
its programme increased in prudence. Even the most
timorous dared support a movement on which Hugen-
berg and Schacht had set the seal of their approval.
Roused by a skilfully conducted campaign, even the
indifferent and apathetic went to the poll. The
elections of September, 1930, were like a general
mobilization, and Hitler’s party won one hundred and
seven seats in place of fourteen.

The impatient Adolf saw, or thought he saw, power
almost within his grasp when a serious rebellion broke
out among his followers.

The Black Front had made it its business to expose
fully the underhand manoeuvres of the Nazi leader,

136

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

and had duly denounced his venality. The blow struck
home. The paramilitary organization of the Berlin
S.A., enlightened by the pamphlets distributed by
Black Front agents, were indignant at the revelations of
Party intrigues, and a revolt against Hitler was planned
by Captain Stennes.

On Good Friday, 1931, the Berlin S.A., in full uni¬
form, with Stennes at their head, seized the building
in which Goebbels lived and the Angriff was printed.
Goebbels, who had fled, had no alternative but to call
for help upon the deputy police-chief of Berlin, who
was a Jew named Weiss, against whom he had written
a notorious pamphlet, the ‘Isidore Book 5 . In these cir¬
cumstances Weiss was in no hurry to intervene. So
Josef Goebbels courageously took the train to Munich,
where he contented himself with sending bis Berlin
associates valiant instructions by long-distance tele¬
phone.

Stennes informed me of what had happened.
‘Goebbels is in flight, but the police are on the move
against us,’ he said.

I immediately joined him at the Angriff building.

‘What are we to do?’ he asked me. ‘The revolt was
planned in agreement with Goebbels, but at the last
moment he betrayed us, warned the police and fled to
Munich to take refuge in Hitler’s bosom.’

‘A revolt which does not develop into a revolution,’ I
replied, ‘is doomed in advance. We must hold out.’

The S.A. occupied the Angriff works for three days,
publishing the paper on their own. Hitler and

i37

HITLER AND I

Goebbels were declared to have been deposed. The
Gauleiters of North Germany decided to support Stennes
in the total revolution, and Goebbels’ second betrayal
was reported in large type in all their papers. Once
more Ley’s Cologne was the only Gau to remain faith¬
ful to the Fiihrer.

Meanwhile counter-plots were being secretly hatched
in Munich. This was no political cabal, but a revolt
of armed men led by a man on whom Hitler had be¬
lieved he could implicitly rely. All the high officials of
the National-Socialist Party of the North were sum¬
marily dismissed. But to deliver the counter-stroke
and crush Stennes’ men a leader with an iron hand
was required, and Pfeffer von Salomon proved inade¬
quate. One man, and one only, could save Hitler, and
this was his old friend Roehm, who had recently re¬
turned from Bolivia. Adolf did not hesitate to appeal
to him, and Roehm, who remained attached to him in
spite of many disappointments, consented.

Violence is always answered with violence. To crush
the insurrection Roehm chose Lieutenant Schultz, an
individual with a murky past, one of the Fehme
murderers at whose name all Germany shuddered.
Schultz was undoubtedly the man for the job. The
S.A. revolt, having failed to develop into a revolution,
was crushed on Easter Monday, thanks to him and to
the co-operation of the S.S. and the police.

‘There must be no martyrs or malcontents in our
ranks,’ Roehm ordered. ‘Do not indulge in reprisals
and promise an increase in pay to those who give in.’

138

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

Meanwhile Hitler too had come to Berlin. Would
he, as in the previous September, go from cafe to cafe
appealing to the S.A. not to compromise his position?

No. Times had changed. At the time of the last
elections the threatening attitude of the S.A. might
have influenced the result at the poll. Now, with the
Party holding one hundred and seven seats and the
revolt stifled, Hitler could content himself with a
grandiloquent manifesto.

Nothing came of Stennes’ great putsch. The defeated
captain and thousands of resolute men passed that
day into the ranks of the Black Front.

The zealous Roehm did not rest content with saving
Hitler. As S.A. Chief of Staff he decreed that in future
Adolf was always to be referred to as ‘Mein Fukrer‘, and
that he was to be addressed in the third person.

Thus died the ‘drummer of the revolution’ and thus
the ‘Fiihrer’ of the German people was officially born.

Adolf should have been touched by such devotion,
but recent experiences had made him suspicious. If
Pfeffer had proved inadequate, if Stennes had be¬
trayed him, Roehm, with whom he had already had
such violent clashes, might one day turn against him
too. To guard against this danger he needed a body
of shock troops devoted to him to the death. The rapid
increase in numbers and importance of the small para¬
military organization of the S.S. dates from this time,
and Himmler soared to giddy heights. Roehm, chief
of the S.A., and Himmler, chief of the S.S., were at
daggers drawn. Hitler viewed their antagonism with

i39

HITLER AND I '

favour. Machiavelli would have approved of his pupil.
The precept ‘divide and rule’ was never better applied.

Naturally the activities of the Black Front were in¬
cessantly disturbed by the aggression of Hitler’s
hirelings. Our secret meetings were often ferreted out,
and the police declared themselves powerless to pro¬
tect our men from Nazi violence. When we were few
in number Himmler’s thugs would insinuate them¬
selves into our midst, storm the platform and put the
speaker out of action before you could say Jack
Robinson. At Bremen, Helken came off with a broken
arm and knife wounds in the chest and stomach. On
one occasion I was bludgeoned, wounded in the eye
and only saved by the intervention of some courageous
Stahlhelm men. When I was confronted with my
assailants in court, one of them confessed that he had
had orders to kill me while I was speaking, but, not
having succeeded in cutting off the electricity and
plunging the hall into darkness, he had had to abandon
the idea.

There was an even bloodier affray at Itzehoe. My
friend Buchrucker, who had co-operated with me in
the foundation of the Black Front, had a meeting with
Dr. Grantz, a young veterinary surgeon whom Hitler’s
party had christened ‘the hero of Wohrden’. He was a
fine type, intelligent, courageous and honest, and had
led the Hitlerites to victory against the Communists

140

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

in 1929 in an affray which cost several of his men then-
lives. Adolf had attended the victims’ funeral. He had
embraced the hero of Wohrden before his comrades’
open grave and declared between his sobs:

e Dr. Grantz, I shall never forget this moment!’

Less than two years later he learned of Buchrucker’s
meeting with Grantz. ‘Get rid of them!’ he roared.
Himmler knew what was expected of him.

The coup which was intended to cost Buchrucker
and the hero of Wohrden their lives was only a partial
success. Warned by past experience, our men were
always armed and on the alert. Grantz was wounded
and Buchrucker’s nose was broken, but the assailants
were put to flight. Poor Grantz! It might have been
better had he succumbed to his wounds. Since 1933
he has been in a concentration camp. In six years no
charge has been made against him, and he has not
even been interrogated.

There were similar incidents at Hamburg, Frank¬
furt, and Stuttgart. But, though the pack of killers
were at liberty to murder my friends, they had orders
to take me alive and to avoid even wounding me.

This was not so easy.

I remember an exciting chase through the little
town of Rostock. I was just coming out of a meeting
when I found myself surrounded. A taxi was passing.
I drew my revolver and managed to bundle myself
into the taxi. The others also took taxis and the chase
began.

They were twelve to one, and every time I told the

141

HITLER AND I

driver to slow down, thinking of asking him to put
me down outside a cafe, restaurant or wine shop, I
could see two or three other taxis on my tail. ‘Go on! 5
I shouted to the driver, and off we went again.

Suddenly two revolver shots shattered the taxi
window. The driver jammed on his brakes, abandoned
the wheel and ran for his life. I had two minutes’ start
of my pursuers, and it was necessary to put them to
good use. I was outside the entrance of a block of
flats. I rang the bell. Luck was with me, for the porter,
who had just locked up, promptiy opened the door.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, but I pushed past
him, slammed the door behind me and dashed upstairs
four steps at a time.

On the second floor I stopped and rang a bell at
random. A woman opened the door —the age of
miracles is not past! She let me in, I explained the
situation and she telephoned for the police.

After we had been waiting for ten minutes the door
of the next room opened and a girl of about seventeen
came in.

‘Heil Hitler!' were her words of greeting.

‘The young lady is an admirer of Hitler?’ I asked her
mother.

The answer was yes.

In spite of my situation I found this piquant. I
stood to attention and introduced myself in German
officer fashion:

‘Otto Strasser, leader of the Black Front.’

She gave a cry and turned very pale.

142

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

‘Hitler’s men are waiting for me outside your
house,’ I added. ‘The police haven’t arrived yet.’

Without answering, the girl went to the window
and opened it. She leaned out, scanned the street,
came back and said gravely:

‘Yes, they are there.’

Poor little girl! What horrible stories she must have
heard about me and my collaborators. She was
trembling. I told her how I had been chased through
the town. She listened, and her face hardened.

We heard the noise of a car stopping outside and of
men running away. Voices cried ‘This way! Stop
them!’

‘It’s the police,’ the girl said. ‘You’re all right now.
I hope they arrest the lot.’

I continued for a long time to receive letters from
this young ex-admirer of Hitler’s.

Our meetings were constantly raided, but the
assailants were always repulsed. This persecution, so
far from damaging us, actually increased our popu¬
larity. By the end of 1932 the Black Front was be¬
coming quite a power in the land.

I introduced an innovation at public meetings, in
the form of debates between political opponents.
Each speaker was allowed ten minutes to put his case,
after which he yielded the floor to his opponent, to

m

HITLER AND I

resume at the end of another ten minutes. This seemed
to me an eminently fair arrangement, giving each
side an immediate opportunity to reply. Attacks on
absent opponents were forbidden and personal slanders
involved instant expulsion from the meeting. I found
that this method did a great deal to discount the
advantages of eloquence. I plastered the walls of
Berlin with huge placards challenging Hitler and
Goebbels to take part in one of these debates and
attempt to vindicate themselves before us, but the
challenge was never accepted.

Hitler had bigger fish to fiy. A series of adroit or
violent manoeuvres had brought the Chancellorship
within his reach.

Towards the end of 1931, a common front of Nazis,
Pan-Germans, Stahlhelm (of which the Youth section
only had been secretly won over to the Black Front),
S.A. and Landsbund had been formed at Harzburg
under the joint leadership of Hugenberg, Hitler and
Schacht. The members of this front were at logger-
heads among themselves, and the only point on which
they agreed was the desirability of overthrowing
Chancellor Bruning and forcing the President, Field-
Marshal von Hindenburg, to set up a national
government of the Right. Their hopes were dis¬
appointed. The Reichstag elections of 1932 resulted
in a small majority for Bruning.

The Social-Democrats had no affection for Bruning,
who favoured retrenchment, wage-cutting and a
reduction in the standard of living. But they lacked a

144

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

candidate to set up against ‘the frenzied orator of
Braunau’.

A dangerous obstacle remained to be surmounted;
the election of a new President of the Republic. The
Harzburg Front became so powerful that the re-election
of Hindenburg, for which Bruning worked, seemed
impossible without its co-operation. Hitler informed
Bruning that he would support the old President on
condition that the latter set up a Right Wing Cabinet
and made him Chancellor. Hindenburg refused. A
paradoxical situation then arose, a situation unique in
history. The Prussian militarist Field-Marshal von
Hindenburg became the candidate of German demo¬
cracy, while the revolutionary Adolf Hitler, sponsored
by the Harzburg Front, was supported by the reaction¬
ary elements of old Prussia.

But Hugenberg was a prudent man, and he thought
it rash to support Hitler unconditionally. Hinden-
burg’s majority was evident at the first poll, but as the
Communists suddenly entered the lists in support of
the celebrated Thaelmann, a second poll took place.
Hitler then came forward, this time with all the votes
of the Harzburg Front behind him, but it was of no
avail. Hindenburg was re-elected. For the second
time Bruning had the better of Adolf Hitler. Without
the indefatigable campaigning of his Chancellor,
Hindenburg would not have been returned.

Hitler, surrounded by all his faithful, learned of his
defeat at Coburg, in Bavaria. He promptly burst into
tears. He breaks down whenever he suffers a reverse.

K

145

HITLER AND I

Events, however, were moving swiftly in Germany,
where party alliances were made one day and dissolved
the next. At the municipal elections Hitler’s party
gained victory after victory, and Briining, the victor
of yesterday, saw the ground slipping away from
beneath his feet. The ever-powerful Prussian Junkers
warned Hindenburg that the Chancellor, by his new
measures, was heading the country for Bolshevism.
On the other hand Hugenberg’s and Schacht’s en¬
thusiasm for Hitler had noticeably waned. Since his
recent successes he had perceptibly drawn away from
them and relapsed into his old revolutionary ideas.
The game of biters bit began once more.

Chancellor Briining was disowned by the President
and resigned, and von Papen, Hugenberg’s new
candidate, succeeded him. Hitler promised von
Papen his support.

On the strength of this promise the exquisite Franz
von Papen, reserve captain of Hussars, former
Embassy attach^, proprietor of the Catholic journal
Germania , man of the subtlest strokes and most cunning
and ingenious devices, envoy extraordinary on the
most hopeless missions, incorrigible dilettante doomed
to perpetual mortifications, felt himself in a position to
establish a kind of dictatorship. 'Once more Hitler is
checkmated,’ Hugenberg stated on the night of July 20,
J 932- .

But the Reichstag elections on July 31 gave the
Nazis two hundred and thirty seats.

On the same night the S.A., believing the time for

146

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

action had come, committed a series of atrocities at
Konigsberg. A few days later a number of political
murders were reported from Silesia. At Potemba the
worker Pietrzuch was trampled to death by S.A. men
in the presence of his mother. The murderers were
arrested and condemned to death, but Hitler pro¬
claimed his solidarity with them and telegraphed his
sympathies to them in prison.

General von Schleicher, Minister of War in the von
Papen Cabinet, now decided that it was time to make a
firm stand. Schleicher was an ambitious man. Not
long ago he had received Roehm and, with the latter’s
consent, had agreed to overthrow Bruning, on condi¬
tion that Hitler did not intrigue for the office of
Chancellor; and he had put von Papen in power with
Hitler’s approval. General von Schleicher informed
the Nazis that if they misbehaved themselves again
the Reichswehr would fire on them, and von Papen
proclaimed martial law.

Was there to be another putsch ? Would the Reichs¬
wehr dare to fire on the S.A. and the thirteen million
Germans behind Hitler?

No. Hitler decided otherwise. As a reward for con¬
tinuing his support of the von Papen Cabinet he
imperiously demanded ‘three nights of liberty for the
S.A.’, in other words three nights on which murder
and violence could flourish unrestrained. Von Papen
declined to assume responsibility for this, and next day
Hitler, Roehtn and Frick went to see President
Hindenburg.

147

HITLER AND I

The old man received them leaning on his stick.
From under his lowered brows he contemplated the
three men who stood before him. He detested Roehm
for his unnatural vice, and in his eyes Hitler was still
‘the Bohemian corporal’ (Hindenburg would never
admit that Hitler was an Austrian). Frick meant
nothing to him whatever.

‘You demand power,’ the field-marshal growled.
‘I can only offer you the Post Office.’

Hitler was about to launch forth upon an explana¬
tion, but the field-marshal cut him short.

‘You are breaking your word. You promised to
support von Papen.’

The audience lasted less than ten minutes. Crest¬
fallen, the three Nazis withdrew. Hindenburg followed
them to the door, brandishing his stick.

‘No more of these acts of violence!’ he shouted after
them.

He might have been Frederick William, the
seijeant-king, who used personally to administer
drubbings to his rebellious subjects.

Once more there was a rapid change of scene.
Hitler had sustained an unimportant defeat. His
popularity was growing, and he decided to fight von
Papen by the old parliamentary methods. As a result
we were treated to the remarkable spectacle of Nazis
defending the institutions of the Weimar Republic in
the Reichstag in Berlin. Goering acted as the spokes¬
man of democracy while the Communists allied
themselves with the Nazis. It was all past compre-

148

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

hension. But von Papen had to resign and was
replaced by General von Schleicher.

Schleicher’s plans were very simple. He wanted to
get rid of Hitler while preserving die good and useful
elements in National-Socialism. He wanted a govern¬
ment resting on a broad basis, on the Reichswehr, the
trade unions and the intellectuals. Whom could he
choose to second him better than Gregor Strasser,
excellent organizer and true socialist?

Gregor Strasser hesitated. If he agreed to become
Vice-Chancellor, perhaps one day even Chancellor,
would he not be betraying Hider?

He wanted his conscience to be clear. He put the
question to President Hindenburg.

‘I give you my word of honour,’ the latter declared,
‘that the Bohemian corporal will never be Chancellor.’

Gregor thereupon departed for Munich to consult
Adolf and tell him what Hindenburg had said.

Hitler, after some hesitation, agreed in principle to
Gregor’s becoming Vice-Chancellor and promised to
come to Berlin in December to settle the details of the
new Cabinet.

I have already mentioned that events moved quickly
in 1932. Gregor, assured of Adolf’s consent, proposed
to Schleicher a new ally, Herr Leipart, leader of the
German free trade unions.

Once more the Junkers took fright. Why had they
overthrown Burning if the Government were again
moving to the Left?

Hugenberg and Schacht, aware of their mistake,

*49

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

Gregor turned on his heel and left the room without
a word.

On the same evening he resigned all his offices and
his seat in the Reichstag and left with his family for
the South. He spoke to no one, and took no one into
his confidence, but remained in the Party, resolved, as
a simple soldier in the ranks, to continue his fight for
the ideas which were dear to him and for the man who
had just misjudged and betrayed him.

Meanwhile a no less dramatic scene took place at
the Palace of the Chancellery.

‘Is it true,’ Chancellor von Schleicher asked his old
friend von Papen, ‘is it true that you are plotting
against me with Hitler?’

‘It is false,’ von Papen replied.

‘Think, Franz. Can you give me your word of
honour!’

‘I give you my word of honour,’ Captain von Papen
of the Hussars solemnly replied.

Schleicher, speechless with indignation, took from
his wallet a photograph showing Hitler, von Papen
and Schroeder in conversation outside the financier’s
house. Von Papen attempted an explanation, but
Schleicher cut him short.

‘That’s enough, I know what to believe,’ he said.

That evening Schleicher received Gregor before the
latter’s departure. He was less hurt by von Papen’s
actions than by his mendacity.

‘An officer, remember, a German officer,’ he re¬
peated. ‘I blush for our army.’

151

HITLER AND I

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Nothing. Anything I did would look like personal
revenge. I’m not afraid of their intrigues.’

Schleicher, however, was too sure of himself. The
plot that led to his undoing was of the deadliest kind.
Oscar von Hindenburg, one of the worst intriguers of
them all, drew his father’s attention to the laxity of the
Chancellor’s morals and his scandalous amours.
The speech the latter had made on December 15,
his profession of faith as a ‘social general’, had
frightened old Hindenburg as well as die capitalists.
Schleicher’s days of power were numbered, but he only
realized it on January 28, when it was too late.

On the 26th I dined with Madame Tabouis, the
French journalist, at a restaurant in the Unter den
Linden.

‘There is nothing to be afraid of,’ that charming
woman assured me. ‘I have just come from
Schleicher’s, and he tells me he has Hider in the
hollow of his hand.’

‘Well,’ I replied, laughing, ‘if he has him there, he
had better hold h i m tight; otherwise it will be too
late.’

I wonder if Madame Tabouis ever thinks of that
conversation?

Once more Hindenburg declared that things could
not go on in this fashion. The Red General Schleicher

152

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

must resign and von Papen be recalled. Hitler, if
necessary, could be Vice-Chancellor.

That night there was a meeting of von Papen, Hitler,
Hugenberg, Seldte, leader of the Stahlhelm, and
Dusterberg. T must be Chancellor, 5 Hitler insisted,
‘or I refuse to support the new Cabinet. 5

But Hugenberg appeared inflexible.

‘Von Papen has Hindenburg’s confidence. Von
Papen has our confidence. Von Papen it shall be. 5

Hugenberg and Seldte, supported by Meissner and
Oscar von Hindenburg, refused to yield. Hitler was
exasperated. His voice was tremulous and his eyes
watery. Nobody noticed that Herr von Papen had
crept out of the room.

‘I shan’t allow myself to be pushed aside, 5 Hitler
shouted.

Von Papen came back, very calmly, and whispered
something in his ear.

At dawn Herr von Alversleben burst into the
room.

‘We must act quickly! Schleicher refuses to leave the
Chancellery. He has mobilized the Potsdam garrison
for an emergency. 5

There was a general panic. Hugenberg and Seldte
feared nothing so much as a Red military dictatorship.

The news put the old President in a panic too. His
entourage became excited, and his Ministers trembled.
Von Papen alone smiled secretly, while Hitler made a
bold display of resolution. Was he not the strongest
man in Germany? Had he not the S.A. to pit against

i53

HITLER AND I

the Potsdam garrison? In point of fact there was no
question of mobilizing the Potsdam garrison. Von
Papen was too compromised with Schleicher to desire
immediate power, but his ruse had succeeded.

As the clocks struck twelve the Bohemian corporal
presented himself to Field-Marshal von Hindenburg
as Chancellor of the Reich.

Adolf was in power. He had stopped at nothing to
get it. Only one thing was still lacking, and that was
absolute authority.

But what were Goering and Goebbels for if a trifle
like that was to present any difficulties?

On the night of February 27 the streets of Berlin
resounded with the clamour of fire engines, tearing
through the Chancellery district in the direction of the
Zoo. It was a few minutes past nine. At half past nine
all Berlin knew what had happened. The Reichstag
was on fire.

Thousands of onlookers gathered to watch the blaze.
The building was surrounded by a cordon of police.
Flames roared through a yawning hole in the shattered
glass dome. Goering and Goebbels appeared on the
scene. They spoke historic words. They already knew
all about the catastrophe; the full extent of Communist
guilt was already an open book to them.

I was at the Anhalt station and saw the glow in the
sky. I asked my taxi-driver what it was.

‘The Nazis have set fire to the Reichstag,’ he replied
indifferently.

Probably two-thirds of the German, people suspected

154

THROUGH TREASON TO POWER

the real origin of the outrage. But what difference did
that make?

Next day, February 28, the senile President Hinden-
burg, no longer capable of independent judgment,
signed a decree ‘for the protection of the people and of
the State’.

‘Hitler has saved Germany from Bolshevism,’ was
the official watchword.

In reality Hindenburg had laid the legal founda¬
tions of the Hitler dictatorship and terror.

155

CHAPTER IX

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS 1

The signal for the outburst of terrorism had been
given. I knew what this would mean for us. Perse¬
cution was about to assume a legal form, backed with
all the authority of the state. Death, imprisonment or
torture awaited all those on whom the Gestapo could
lay its hands. We had foreseen this moment, and
there were no defections from our ranks. We were
determined to continue our struggle, come what may.

As early as February 4 the activities of the Black
Front were prohibited by decree throughout the Reich,
and all our newspapers were suppressed. Thus we
were forced underground, and our ‘illegal’ work began.
We became public outlaws and enemies of the state.

We had taken the precaution of removing our arms
and our documents from the capital, and we had
spent several weeks reorganizing in the provinces.

Nothing unusual occurred until February 27.

But after the Reichstag Fire, anyone who knew
Hitler as I knew him could have no possible doubt
about the pitiless persecution that would follow. I
packed the same night, and at dawn set off in the
direction of my new headquarters in a little water¬
ing place in Thuringia.

1 The material on which this chapter is based was put at the disposal of
Douglas Reed by Otto Strasser, and was used by the former in his book,
Nemesis?

156

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

My forecast was perfectly correct. That very day the
Gestapo, reinforced by Goering’s auxiliary police,
seized the premises we had abandoned. Himmler’s
and Goering’s men searched high and low, but finding
nothing, smashed up the whole place. The two unfor¬
tunates whom we left behind, one as caretaker and
the other to cover our retreat, were taken to the con¬
centration camp at Oranienburg.

During the following weeks hundreds of arrests took
place among members of the Black Front in the Berlin
area. Similar arrests took place in the provinces,
Bavaria and South Germany alone excepted, for in the
birthplace of National-Socialism Hitler only came into
power six weeks after his conquest of Prussia.

For two months I worked secretly in Thuringia,
directing the activities of my followers. Then one
morning the telephone rang. A member of the Black
Front who had succeeded in worming his way into the
Gestapo wanted to talk to me urgently.

‘Danger?’ I asked him.

‘Yes. X. was tortured at Oranienburg until he told
them your hiding-place.’

I promptly took my departure and walked to an inn
a few miles away, where I had friends, with whom I
spent the night.

A car was waiting for me in the neighbouring forest
at five o’clock next morning. The driver was one of my
men, disguised as a stormtrooper.

‘To Munich as fast as you can!’ I told him.

Before we had covered thirty miles we heard the

i57

HITLER AND I

unmistakable sound of a Berlin police motor horn, and
a police car rapidly overtook us. I had time to see
several Black Guards in uniform inside.

‘Are they after us? 5 asked my driver.

‘I don’t know, drive on. 5

There was only one road into Bavaria, and some
seventeen or eighteen miles farther on we caught up
with the S.S. car in our turn. This time it had stopped
by the roadside.

‘There’s no doubt about it, then, 5 I murmured.

‘Shall I run them down? 5

‘No, they outnumber us, we had better not attack
them. 5

To my extreme surprise the S.S. men made no
attempt to stop us. For several hours we went on in
the same way. Time after time the police car over¬
took us and then allowed us to overtake it, but we
could discover no clue as to what its occupants were
after.

We reached the little Bavarian town of Eichstaedt
in very good time. I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Thank heavens, we’re in Bavaria, 5 I said. ‘Stop,
they can’t touch us here. I’ll go and warn my wife of
my arrival. 5

Great was my surprise on emerging from the post
office to see an excited assembly of Bavarians, armed
with picks and cudgels, threatening eight Black
Guards who were surrounding the building.

‘Dirty Prussians! 5 they shouted. ‘Stay in Be rlin, or
we’ll send you packing back there! 5

158

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

I did not yet know that that morning Himmler and
Roehm had overthrown Dr. Held’s Bavarian Govern¬
ment in favour of Adolf Hitler. The Bavarians, jealous
of their independence, looked upon this handful of
Black Guards as the forerunners of the Prussianization
of their country.

This surprising little incident enabled me to regain
my car and finally elude my pursuers. I could not
imagine, however, why these armed men, who heavily
outnumbered us, had not arrested us on the road.

Not long afterwards my Black Front agent in the
Gestapo gained access to the special report which the
Black Guards made to Heinrich Himmler, and he was
thus able to provide me with the explanation.

‘Knowing Otto Strasser,’ the report stated, ‘and
being aware that he is inseparable from his automatic,
and that by reason of his character he would have
been capable of using it against us, we decided to wait
for nightfall before attacking him, when we proposed
dazzling him with our headlights and thus taking him
alive.’

That is what I call personal bravery.

The situation was none the less critical for that. I
ordered all my followers whose membership of the
Black Front was not known to the police to join the
army, the police, the S.S. or the S.A., and to continue
their activities within those organizations. Hitler
feared nothing more than this infiltration into his
r anks of fundamentally German and decent men, who
threatened in the long rim to cause the disintegration

i59

HITLER AND I

of his best troops. He ordered the most vigorous action
to be taken against me, and my whereabouts to be dis¬
covered at all costs. Poor devils who had served me
faithfully were continually arrested and tortured by
the Gestapo. Most of them maintained an indomitable
silence, but occasionally some poor wretch would
break down and tell what he knew. In order to
minimize the risks and difficulties I left Bavaria and
established myself in the forest of Teutoburg. I was
always driven by a man in S.A. uniform. I called a
meeting of Black Front leaders of the North of Ger¬
many for Easter Day, and it took place a few miles
from the place where thirty thousand local storm-
troopers celebrated the holiday. That implied that
there were no traitors in our ranks, and that our
organization was functioning perfectly.

Towards mid-April I left for Chiemsee in Bavaria,
and called a meeting of the Southern German leaders
for May 5. I was particularly anxious to meet our
Austrian representative, as I wanted to make arrange¬
ments to provide for the possibility of Germany be¬
coming too hot to hold us. A Munich woman student,
whose husband kept a chicken farm, gave me hospital¬
ity in her house on the Chiemsee, and at her suggestion
the meeting was arranged, not in her house by the
lakeside, but in a hut she owned six thousand feet up
in the mountains.

Til come with you, 5 she said, ‘and I’ll take my maid,
and that will make the whole thing look perfectly
above-board.’

160

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

We made the ascent to the hut, and there was a
romantic quality about that meeting six thousand feet
above sea-level.

The Black Front leaders of Bavaria and Wurtem-
berg, as well as our Austrian representative, all duly
made their appearance.

At midday the sun was beating straight down on the
hut and the little garden, where we spread our papers
on a big table and started earnestly discussing our
plans. Local leaders of our organization were con¬
tinually being arrested. It was necessary to replace
them, to complete lists, to exchange pass-words. So
warm was the May sun that we wore nothing but
bathing-slips, and so absorbed were we in our work
that the approach of two Black Guards took us com¬
pletely by surprise.

‘Your identification papers, please.’

My three companions leaned over the table and con¬
cealed the documents spread on it with their naked
bodies. The Black Guards had only to lift a hand
and all our most precious secrets would have been
revealed.

I was the only one who could speak the Bavarian
dialect, and so it was I who answered.

‘Where do you expect us to keep our papers? Do
you take them about with you when you’re in bathing
costume?’

One of the Black Guards made as if to attack me,
but the other restrained him.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

l 161

HITLER AND I

I answered loudly, in order to be overheard by the
two women, who were sun-bathing not far away.

‘What does one do in a mountain-hut? You’d better
ask the two ladies.’

They immediately came over, and with much
pleasantry and adroitness applied themselves to soften¬
ing the two young soldiers’ hearts.

‘All right,’ said the aggressive one who had nearly
attacked me. ‘Two women and four men. It’s
peculiar, but we shall see.’

They went away in the direction of the Austrian
frontier, which was only about two hundred yards
away.

‘Let us escape into Austria,’- our hostess suggested.
‘I don’t see any other way out.’

‘Black Guards will be guarding the frontier,’ our
Austrian representative pointed out.

From time to time we heard Hitler’s men blowing
their whistles. Answering whistles came from all the
heights surrounding the hut.

Never have I felt such an acute sense of danger.
There seemed to be no way of escape. The curtain
seemed to be about to fall on the third act of a
drama.

But a miracle happened. A tremendous thunder¬
storm broke out. The sky was completely blacked out,
big hailstones covered the half-melted snow, every
rock became a waterfall and every crevice a torrent.
A gale of wind arose, the thunder was terrific, and the
lightning came in blinding flashes.

162

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

‘This is our only hope,’ I whispered to the young
woman. ‘Let us try to get back.’

The others were experienced mountaineers, and I
had difficulty in keeping pace with them.

The lightning flashes enabled us to see now a man
clinging to a rock, now another lying prone on a
ledge; then the blackness of night descended again,
and our pursuers stumbled, fell, picked themselves up
and resumed the chase.

We had a good quarter of an hour’s start, and our
party were more experienced in the mountains. After a
six-hour struggle with the elements we reached the
little house on the Chiemsee safe and sound.

It was clear that the Gestapo were hot on our trail,
and we might be discovered at any moment. It was
obviously necessary to flee again.

My first care was to blacken my hair and buy a
false moustache and a pair of spectacles.

On May 9 I was just preparing to leave Chiemsee
when a car stopped outside the door. The driver got
out, opened the garden gate and handed my hostess a
letter. It was addressed to me. She pretended she did
not know me and brought the letter in to me, telling
the driver she would ask her husband.

I immediately recognized Gregor’s handwriting. I
hastily tore open the envelope. I had not heard from
him for two years.

‘I dined last night with the Minister Frick,’ he wrote.
‘He told me that Goering was sending two death
squads to Chiemsee to kill you. I have come to

163

HITLER AND I

Munich by aeroplane, and I appeal to you to fly to
Austria in the car that I am sending you. Gregor.’

I hurried out to the driver.

‘Can you take me to Munich to the gentleman who
gave you this letter?’

‘Certainly.’

An hour later I was with my brother. It was a
moving meeting. I was never to see him again.

Gregor, to disguise his emotion, laughed and re¬
marked how much I had changed.

Obviously the moustache, the hair and the glasses
had changed me gready. But Gregor, who was not
in disguise, had changed much more than I.

‘Gregor, you’re risking your neck by helping me to
escape.’

‘Goering will murder me one day in any case, just
as he’s trying to murder you now. It doesn’t make any
difference what I do.’

‘I implore you to escape with me.’

Gregor shook his head.

‘My family,’ he said. ‘My business.’

‘And Hider, I suppose, still Hider.’

‘No,’ he said in a tired voice. ‘Germany. Anywhere
else life would be useless.’

We talked for several hours, and I again appealed to
him to come with me, but in vain. Time pressed and
I had to go. A last handshake and Gregor wished me
good luck. He stayed and I went into exile.

* # # *

164

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

The car took me to an Alpine pass which, Gregor
said, was very poorly guarded by the frontier police.
I had a letter addressed to one of the guides there, and I
had no difficulty in finding him. Towards midnight
I set off with him across the mountains.

At dawn I reached the Austrian frontier, and that
evening, after a tramp of eighteen hours, I reached the
charming Tyrolese town of Kufstein.

No more Gestapo, I said to myself. Austria is free,
and Hitler is powerless in this little German-speaking
republic.

For a long time we had had a printing-works in
Vienna, and a clandestine organization for sending
pamphlets over the frontier. I felt I would be able to
do something in this country. I hoped to gain the
confidence of Chancellor Dollfuss, participate in his
struggle, help him with my long experience.

As though with a premonition of the future, I called
my new paper The Black Transmitter. I wrote three
pamphlets, of which thousands of copies were sent to
Berlin, How Long Will Hitler Last?, The Second Revolution
is in Progress , and Marxism is Dead , Socialism Still Lives.

But I had counted without Steinhausl, the Vienna
chief of police, who was an agent of the Gestapo’s and
in Hitler’s pay.

The Austrian Nazis, in the pay of Berlin, had
already started a campaign of terrorism. Bombs ex¬
ploded, tear gas was let loose in theatres and cinemas,
Jewish shops were pillaged and trains were wrecked.

The chief of police worked his men to death, but all

165

HITLER AND I

to no purpose. The press was baffled. The cri mina ls
always disappeared and left no trace behind. It was
all very puzzling.

What made this state of affairs all the more suspicious
was that the Austrians themselves openly accused the
Nazis.

In any case I soon discovered that effective work was
impossible in Vienna. One day I went to Prague, to
explore the ground there.

I returned forty-eight hours later. It was late, and
I went straight home, but my latch-key no longer
fitted the lock.

‘The police came and arrested people here to-day,’
the porter came and confided in me. ‘They took your
cousin, and I think they’re after you.’

‘If my cousin comes back’ I said, ‘tell her I shall be
waiting for her at the usual cafe.’

I went to the cafiS and sat down at my usual marble-
topped table. I ordered a coffee with whipped cream
and asked for an evening paper. After paying the bill,
I had only fifty groschen left, which was worth about
fourpence.

The waiter brought me some papers. I read the
following startling information, printed in large
type:

‘Yesterday, July 4, the police at last discovered the
perpetrators of the bombing outrages. They are mem¬
bers of the Black Front, Otto Strasser’s General Staff.
Seventeen men and two women have been arrested.
Otto Strasser, the leader, has unfortunately escaped.’

166

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

Nothing in all this was true. My friends were inno¬
cent, and there was I, caught in Vienna like a rat in a
trap.

In a flash the true situation of Austria and myself
dawned on me.

A year later, when Steinhausl was thrown into
prison for his part in the murder of Dollfuss, and
subsequently when he was sentenced to ten years’ im¬
prisonment, I thought of the evening of July 5, 1933,
when I sat in that Vienna cafe and had a premonition
of the future.

Steinhausl was, of course, released by the Nazis after
the Anschluss and reinstated as chief of police. But,
hated as he was by the Austrians, he was killed in
November, 1939, in a brawl between some Vienna
stormtroopers and the police.

Meanwhile I was in a tight spot. I could not go
home, nor could I go to an hotel with fifty groschen in
my pocket. The only thing to do was to return to
Prague as quickly as possible.

After a night spent in the pouring rain, I managed
to secure some money and made my way to the
station. To enter Austria I had used a false passport,
made out in a name which had started getting too
well-known to be comfortable in Germany. A fort¬
night later my friends in the Black Front had procured
me another. With its aid I had no difficulty in crossing
the Czech frontier, but in Vienna I left nineteen
friends, who were only released a year later, when the
proofs of Steinhausl’s guilt confirmed their innocence.

167

HITLER AND I

Once more I had to make a fresh start, with a new
name, in a new city, and in a new country.

I was no longer Otto Strasser, which had been my
name in Berlin, or Engineer X, as I had been known
in Vienna. I was a being without a past, and when I
established myself in Prague I had difficulty in
recognizing myself. But the Gestapo were still on my
trail.

Three months of relative peace gave me a sense of
growing security. Then one morning I was suddenly
awakened by my landlady.

‘It’s the police! It’s the police. They are looking for
you!’

There is something so funny about German spoken
with a Czech accent that I could not help laughing.
The woman woke me so suddenly that it took me
several moments to pull myself together.

Two policemen entered my room, and a flood of un¬
intelligible Czech was let loose upon me.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen, but in the first place who
are you, and in the second place would you mind
speaking German?’

They showed me their police badges, which were
perfectly correct, and asked me if I were Engineer X.

This was, of course, the name I had used in Austria.
I smiled.

‘No, I am afraid I don’t know the gentleman. I
believe he died some time ago.’

‘Your identification papers, please.’

I produced my passport, which was perfecdy in

168

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

order. It was even stamped with the special visa with¬
out which Germans were no longer allowed to go
abroad.

The two policemen kept me covered with their re¬
volvers. They examined my passport carefully and
seemed discountenanced.

One of them started searching my drawers while the
other went through my entire wardrobe. He confis¬
cated my revolver, shouting in German that such
weapons were forbidden.

Swearing and cursing, they handed me back my
passport and left, slamming the door behind them.

My landlady immediately entered the room.

‘There were two other policemen outside,’ she said
in her precarious German. ‘They were all very angry,
but they have gone away.’

About midday I called on M. Benda, chief of the
police political department, to complain about my
discourteous treatment.

‘Why send four armed policemen in a car?’ I asked
him. ‘You know me.’

M. Benda looked at me in astonishment.

‘You must have made a mistake,’ he said. ‘We have
no car.’

During the afternoon he telephoned me.

‘Please come immediately,’ he said, ‘and bring
your landlady with you. We want a statement from
her. No police order about you was issued from
here.’

My landlady was exceedingly eloquent. Once

169

HITLER AND I

launched out in her own language there was no stop¬
ping her.

We learned that the number of the car which h ad
stopped outside the house was IIa, in white letters on
a black background. Czech number plates were
always in black on a white background. This indi¬
cated that the car came from Germany, and more
specifically from Munich.

‘Of course!’ exclaimed the good woman, to whom
this revelation opened new horizons. ‘The men wait¬
ing outside spoke German, and when the other two
came back they threw down a big piece of cotton-wool
and trampled angrily on it. It smelled of. .. some¬
thing strange, I don’t quite know what.’

An examination of the spot revealed the cotton-wool.
The smell, however, had evaporated.

The Gestapo had obviously been trying to kidnap
me. The order still seemed to be ‘bring him back alive’.

Moreover the Gestapo would have succeeded in
kidnapping me on this occasion if they had employed
Black Guards from Munich, who would certainly have
recognized me. But, for a change, Herr Himmler had
detailed four Sudeten Germans for the job. The latter
could, of course, speak Czech. I owed my escape to my
false passport and the credulity of these bogus police¬
men.

The Prague authorities were exceedingly indignant
at this German coup brazenly attempted in their capital
city. Henceforward I was given special police protec¬
tion, and the investigation department, in which the

170

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

carefree spirit of a happy country had hitherto pre¬
vailed, was reorganized. These measures were not,
unfortunately, extended to the provinces; otherwise
the shocking murder of my friend Formis would not
have taken place.

For the time being I was left in peace, and my dear
friend Heinrich Himmler realized he could not touch
me. But the Gestapo net is spread wide, and more was
in store for me.

At the beginning of March, 1934 ,1 was invited by
the Prague Law Society to deliver a lecture on
National-Socialism which had considerable political
repercussions. Next day a smartly dressed, tall, fair
Englishman came to see me. He was called Mr. Frank,
and he was accompanied by a gentleman named
Poliak, a Jewish business man of Prague, whom he
introduced as his future brother-in-law.

Frank, who spoke German with a perfect English
accent, informed me that he was acting as representa¬
tive of an American anti-Nazi society, the name of
which he was not entitled to divulge, and he said he
was very interested in my work.

‘My instructions,’ he said, ‘are to procure five thou¬
sand copies of your new weekly, and help with its
distribution in Germany. I will pay you cash for so
many weeks or so many months in advance, whichever
you prefer.’

‘That is very kind of you, Mr. Frank,’ I replied, ‘but
my organization is already complete, and I am in no
need of further assistance.’

171

HITLER AND I

Mr. Frank was not to be lightly put off.

‘Very well/ he said, ‘if you do not wish for my
assistance in the distribution of the paper, I will at
any rate give you the money for three months in
advance. 5

This offer I accepted, particularly as Mr. Frank
showed me a proper British passport, and his ‘Jewish
brother-in-law’ seemed a good guarantee.

When the three months were over, Mr. Frank came
to see me again. He declared himself very satisfied
with our collaboration, and gave me a pressing invita¬
tion to accompany him to Paris.

‘My American patron would very much like to meet
you, 5 he said, ‘but he cannot come to Prague for the
moment. He will be in Paris at the beginning of June.
Won’t you travel to Paris with me? 5

I had made inquiries of the police, but nothing in
any way suspicious was known either about Frank or
about Poliak.

I made various excuses to avoid travelling in their
company, but promised to keep the appointment in
Paris that Mr. Frank suggested.

I was, however, compelled to postpone the journey
for some days, and I reached Paris after the 15th. I
informed Frank of the delay, though I refrained from
telling him the exact date of my departure or the train
by which I proposed travelling.

‘How unfortunate! 5 Mr. Frank exclaimed when he
came to see me in Paris. ‘My patron has had to go to
the Saar. He is conferring with Conrad Heiden, who

172

THE.GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

could not come here. He expects you on June 21 at
Saarbriicken.’

All this was none too plausible, but after all it was
not entirely impossible that the American leader of an
anti-Nazi league might wish to meet such a distin¬
guished anti-Nazi author as Conrad Heiden.

‘We shall go there together on the 20th/ Frank
hurriedly added.

‘Thank you, I have business in the provinces, but
I shall be there on the 21st.’

Frank agreed. His manner was very friendly. We
arranged a meeting at such-and-such a time at Saar-
briicken on June 21.

I had no desire to travel with this suspicious indi¬
vidual, and also I wanted to talk to Conrad Heiden
before seeing him again. I had had the prudence not
to tell Frank that I knew Heiden, and that I knew he
was at Saarbriicken.

On June 21 I went to Saarbriicken, the capital of
the Saar, which was still independent, and Conrad
Heiden came to meet me at the station.

‘Strasser,’ he said, after we had exchanged a cordial
greeting, ‘your letter was all Greek to me, I couldn’t
make head or tail of it. I know neither Frank nor his
patron. Be careful.’

‘Of course, but I want to get to the bottom of this
business.’

Men in civilian clothes, but with a military bearing
and big German boots, were walking up and down out¬
side the Hotel Reichsadler. I know you, my dear

HITLER AND I

Black Guards, but you won’t catch me, I said to
myself.

Mr. Frank arrived.

‘Come up to my room, my dear fellow,’ he said.

With my hand in the pocket in which I kept my
revolver, I followed him into a luxurious hotel bed¬
room.

We started talking about Germany.

‘The situation is critical,’ I said. ‘A second revolu¬
tion is in the offing.’

‘We shall have some surprises before the end of the
month,’ Frank remarked. ‘Germany will have a
blood-bath the like of which the world has never seen.’

‘Really, Mr. Frank,’ I said. ‘Was it your patron who
told you that?’

Mr. Frank looked uncomfortable.

‘He hasn’t come yet. In the meantime is there any¬
thing I can offer you? A bath or a glass of cham¬
pagne?’

‘No, thank you, Mr. Frank,’ I said, laughing. ‘If
only I were sure you were an agent of the Gestapo, and
if only I were not afraid of complications with the
British Embassy, I’d shoot you dead on the spot with
this revolver.’

Mr. Frank grew very pale.

‘Herr Strasser,’ he said, ‘your sense of humour is
rather difficult for an Englishman to understand.’

There was a short silence.

‘Will you excuse me for a moment while I telephone?’
he said.

174

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

He went away for a few minutes, and then returned.
He seemed agitated.

‘He hasn’t come yet, but he won’t be long. I’m
terribly sorry that you are having to wait like this.’

By this time I was convinced. If Frank had been a
genuine Englishman, not implicated in the Gestapo,
he would have struck me, or at least he would have
reacted indignantly to the insult I had flung at him.
He was, however, only an agent, instructed ‘to bring
me back alive’. He was still waiting for his accomplices.
The idea was for us all to have a merry party. As soon
as I was full of drink they would take me for a ride in
a motor car over the German frontier.

‘Very well, Mr. Frank, but you must excuse me
while I go and cancel another appointment. Allow
me to leave my bag here. I shall be back in half an
hour.’

Outside the hotel I called out in an authoritative
voice to the booted men who were standing there on
the watch.

‘A taxi, quickly!’

A German never fails to recognize the voice of an
ex-officer.

A taxi appeared in less than a minute, and I went
straight to see Conrad Heiden.

‘Leave by the first train,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and see
Mr. Frank and apologise for you, and I’ll collect your
bag. It will be very funny.’

In the train I thought of Mr. Frank’s words. Ger¬
many, he said, would have a blood-bath.

i75

HITLER AND I

He must have felt very certain of my capture. Other¬
wise he would never have said anything so indiscreet.

In spite, however, of the events of June 30, when his
forecast came true, Mr. Frank did not hesitate to call
on me again in Prague.

‘My dear fellow, you let me down terribly,’ he said.
‘My patron will never forgive me. You owe me
reparation. Gome along, my private aeroplane is
waiting.’

I burst out laughing.

‘Frank,’ I said, ‘you take me for a fool.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘If you don’t trust me, take
your faithful colleague Mahr as pilot.’

Mahr, whose real name was Adam, was the son of
a rich Jewish merchant in Berlin. In spite of this
guarantee, I made some objections in order to gain
time.

As soon as Frank left me I telephoned to M. Benda,
chief of the police political department.

‘Listen, M. Benda,’ I said. ‘The person I spoke to
you about is in Prague, at the Hotel Sroubek.’

Adam, alias Mahr, was by my side as I telephoned,
and as soon as I said this I noticed that he left the
room.

By the time the police reached the Hotel Sroubek
Frank had disappeared. My faithful Adam and Mr.
Frank’s secretary were, however, arrested. After a
few weeks they made complete confessions.

Frank was a Berlin Gestapo official, in charge of the
Black Front dossier. After his failure to kidnap me at

176

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

Saarbrucken (the kidnapping had been arranged for
four o’clock that afternoon), he had suborned my two
colleagues, Kritsche, whose real name was Hilde¬
brand, and Mahr (the faithful Adam). To the first
he had offered plenty of money, to the second 'aryan-
ization’.

After a few years’ imprisonment the traitor Adam
was released, and I have never seen him again, but I
know that he and Hildebrand continued their un¬
savoury activities. A year ago they were in Copen¬
hagen.

That was the end of my adventure with Mr. Frank,
whose only success was to have financed the distribu¬
tion of fifty thousand anti-Nazi pamphlets in Germany.

Tragedy, however, was to follow. Adam had had
time to reveal the name of the man who had set up
our secret broadcasting station. We had set it up for
the purpose of fighting Hitler with his own weapons.
Actually the wireless, that indispensable instrument of
propaganda, had been scarcely exploited for propa¬
ganda purposes outside Germany and Italy. Wireless
propaganda, that powerful weapon without which a
modem war is almost unthinkable, was in its infancy.
There is no more effective device for demoralizing the
enemy and making the truth heard in his country.
The Black Front was the first organization in Europe
m 177

HITLER AND I

and the world to make use of a secret wireless trans¬
mitter for political purposes, and it was my friend
Formis who was responsible for the idea.

Formis was an absolutely first-class man. A brilliant
officer during the war, an electro-technician and dis¬
tinguished inventor in the wireless field, he had
quickly obtained an important post in Germany.

He directed the Stuttgart broadcasting station with
as much love for his job as hatred for Adolf Hitler.
Soon after the latter’s accession to power, he sabotaged
his big Stuttgart speech by himself cutting the cable.
The police failed to discover him, but as this kind of
thing happened at Stuttgart every time Hitler spoke,
he ended by becoming suspect. He managed to escape,
and after innumerable adventures succeeded in joining
me in Prague.

The secret transmitter that Formis made was so
perfect that after his murder it was exhibited at the
Prague Post Office museum.

The task we set ourselves was no easy one. It was
necessary to set up the transmitter in a safe place, un¬
known to the Czech authorities. It was also necessary
to find an announcer, and to have someone in reserve
to take his place should he fall a victim to the Gestapo.
We had scarcely any money. Our followers in Ger¬
many sent us remittances from time to time, but they
were small and few because of exchange difficulties.

At last we found a place called Zahori, about forty
miles from Prague, on the banks of the Moldau, where
there was a charming week-end hotel. The proprietor

178

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

did not seem to be inquisitive, and as it was late in the
season the hotel was nearly empty. Here Formis set
to work, and a few weeks later his transmitter was
working beautifully, broadcasting the truth about
Hitler three times an hour every day.

Hitler lost sleep over it, and Himmler trembled for
his life. He summoned his assistant, the sinister
Heydrich, and ordered him to discover and destroy
the secret announcer who was attacking the dictatorial
regime at its weakest point. But four weeks, then four
months passed, and the ‘Black Transmitter’ was still
on the air.

On January 16, 1935, I went to Zahori to make a
recording of my usual weekly speech.

‘Nothing suspicious yet, Formis?’ I added.

‘No, nothing at all. A couple from Germany, young
and harmless. They left again this morning.’

‘Be careful!’

‘I’m armed, and that young woman won’t do me
any harm.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Hans Muller, a business man from Kiel, and a
woman gymnastic teacher, named Edith Kersbach.
She’s very pretty.*

‘If they come back, warn the Aliens Department.’

Formis did not tell me that, under the pretext of
making her gentleman friend jealous, the woman had
had herself photographed by one of the waiters arm-
in-arm with him.

On January 23 the couple reappeared, and as it

i79

HITLER AND I

was late and the hotel was not on the telephone,
Formis put off warning the police till next day.

The man, who seemed tired, retired to his room
before dinner, and the young woman remained alone
with Formis.

The hotel people told me later that never had they
seen a young woman behave as she did. Never had
they seen a respectable woman fling herself at a com¬
plete stranger like that. When they left the lounge
they wondered whether she wasn’t going to sit on his
knee.

About ten o’clock Formis and Edith went up to the
first floor. Muller had taken room No. 3 and Formis
occupied No. 7.

A few minutes after ten o’clock a waiter who slept
in the basement was awakened by revolver shots. He
dashed to the first floor, and saw Muller dragging
Formis’ body towards No. 7. Edith was bent double,
groaning like a wounded animal. An unknown man
was standing there and threatened him with two re¬
volvers. The whole hotel staff was roused, but this
man kept them all at bay. He made them all go down
to the cellar at the revolver-point, and locked them in.
The proprietor and his family, who lived in the other
wing, heard nothing of all this.

Suddenly the terrified hotel staff noticed huge clouds
of smoke issuing from one of the windows. Stimulated
by terror, some of them succeeded in slipping out by
the ventilator, and went to rouse the proprietor. One
of them went on foot to warn the police.

180

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

The proprietor, accompanied by a waiter, dashed to
the victim’s room. Formis was dead, and his body was
soaked in petrol. On either side of him were two
incendiary bombs, which had not exploded because
of the smoke.

Meanwhile the three malefactors had disappeared
in their big Mercedes.

The crime was reconstructed by the police. Muller
had gone to Berlin armed with Formis’ photograph,
no doubt for the purpose of confirming his identity,
and had returned with a second killer, whom he con¬
cealed near the hotel.

‘Bring him up, whatever you do,’ were the words
that Muller, according to a chambermaid, had
muttered to the young woman before going up to his
room.

‘He spoke in a whisper,’ she said, ‘but I was terrified
by the brutality of his expression.’

While Edith was cajoling Formis, Muller had used
a rope-ladder to introduce his accomplice into the
hotel. At ten o’clock Edith, talking all the time, had
led her new friend to the door of room No. 3. She had
certainly invited him inside, she must even have tried
to drag him in, because poor Formis’s arm was
scratched and tom by finger-nails. Formis, seeing the
two men behind the door, had drawn his revolver, the
woman had tried to snatch it from him and received
a shot in the stomach. Thereupon Muller had fired,
and Formis was shot twice in the stomach and once
in the head.

181

HITLER AND I

He was killed outright. The two men, no doubt
after searching vainly for the secret transmitter, which
was in a loft, had soaked the corpse in petrol, dragged
it into his room, and placed beside it two incendiary
bombs which were intended to obliterate the traces of
the crime and destroy the mysterious transmitter.

The rope-ladder was still suspended from the win¬
dow, and drops of blood showed how the woman had
been carried out. The murderers’ car was stopped
several times by the police, but the two men’s papers
were in order and the dying woman, who no doubt
lay at the bottom of the car, covered with coats and
rugs, was not seen. A blood-stained petticoat was
found some way away on the banks of the Moldau.
We subsequently learned from Germany that the woman
died twenty-four hours later, on her way to hospital.

The crime was completed, and the murderers
received their reward. The voice of truth that had
spoken to the German people was silenced, and Hitler
and Himmler could once more sleep in peace.

Diplomatic representations were made, and pro¬
tests and exchanges of Notes took place between
Prague and Berlin. Although the Czech police
established beyond any possibility of doubt the com¬
plicity of the German authorities, Berlin obstinately
repudiated all responsibility.

The German Minister in Prague even had the
temerity to inquire whether Otto Strasser, guilty of
operating a clandestine wireless transmitter, was to go
unpunished. As a result on January 6, 1936, I was

182

THE GESTAPO ON MY HEELS

sentenced to four months’ imprisonment. But Presi¬
dent Benes made the sentence ineffective by con¬
tinually postponing my appeal.

After this appalling story I shall pass over the minor
attempts that were made to get me. I can only smile
when I think of my faithful Constantin’s poison-bottle,
of the anonymous letters that summoned me to gallant
rendezvous, and the ill-advised attempt made by an
English pseudo-journalist to persuade me to spend a
sentimental week-end in the Sudetenland.

I shall only describe two incidents that have a cer¬
tain political bearing.

In January, 1938, on my way back from Switzer¬
land, I spent a few days in Vienna. I was warned by
Herr Guido Zernatto, leader of the Fatherland Front
and Minister without Portfolio, that Hitler’s men now
had orders to shoot me as soon as I set foot on Austrian
soil. Herr Zernatto said the Austrian police could
not guarantee my safety, and advised me to avoid
Vienna.

This was two months before the Anschluss. That will
be sufficient to indicate the terror already prevalent in
Austria.

The second incident occurred in Prague seven
months later. A member of the Black Front warned
me of a plan to kidnap me in the car belonging to
Colonel Toussaint, Military Attache at the German
Legation. The plan was said to have originated with
von Bibra, Counsellor of the Legation.

Colonel Toussaint’s chauffeur, who was naturally a

183

HITLER AND I

Black Guard, was given the task of recruiting the neces¬
sary thugs, and he found two Sudeten Germans be¬
longing to Henlein’s party who were willing to do the
job. All he needed to gain my confidence was a
German refugee who would seem beyond suspicion.

The refugee was found, but he hastened to inform
the police.

This time it was decided to catch the criminals red-
handed. The refugee claimed an advance on the fee
that was promised him, and, with the connivance of
the police, met the chauffeur and his accomplices at
a cafe. The police surprised them just when the money
was being passed.

The fact that German diplomats put themselves at
the disposal of the Gestapo was not new. Once more
Prague vigorously protested to Berlin.

The chauffeur was expelled, the Sudeten Germans
were imprisoned, and Colonel Toussaint was recalled.

As for Bibra, he was transferred to Berne, where I
came across him again, for I left Prague in September,
1938, when Hitler was threatening to invade Czecho¬
slovakia. Herr von Bibra could scarcely do harm in
Switzerland, where there are no traitors and fortu¬
nately no Henleins.

One thing more to complete my tale and throw
additional light on German methods.

On November 23, 1939, the German wireless
officially admitted that my friend Formis was killed
by two Black Guards by order of the Reich authorities.

184

CHAPTER X

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

During the first year of my exile events in Germany
followed the course I had foreseen. The Hitler regime
pursued its destructive way, sapping at the founda¬
tions of the old order, oscillating violently from reaction
to revolution, unable to fix upon a stable course.

To keep himself in power Adolf Hitler used two
instruments, propaganda and terrorism, the devastat¬
ing effectiveness of which it would be idle to deny.

If we are to understand the tragic events of June 30,
1934, we must pause in our narrative and once again
consider the forces that brought Hitler into power.

Hugenberg, the man of German heavy industry,
von Papen, the reactionary and candidate of the
Junkers, put Hitler’s foot in the stirrup, and President
Hindenburg, that incarnation of Prussianism, re¬
luctantly made him Chancellor.

Industrialists and generals still looked upon the ex-
Austrian corporal as a servant who, when properly
trained, would serve their interests well. They utterly
failed to recognize the dynamic quality of the National-
Socialist movement and Hitler’s role as an instrument
of history. A revolution had been born of the German
cauldron, and had carried Adolf Hitler to the surface,
where he floated like a skilful swimmer. The fact that

185

HITLER AND I

he could float at all showed the depth of the revolu¬
tionary flood.

A struggle for Hitler’s allegiance ensued between the
forces of conservativism and the new and virulent
forces that Hitler had engendered; and between the
two he vacillated, a prisoner of his own indecision.
This was both his strength and his weakness.

Dissatisfaction, however, existed. The ‘Jacobins’
accused the ‘Gironde’ of weakness. The S.A., who,
unlike the S.S., were sworn to the Party, and owed
allegiance to an ideal and not to the Fuhrer, consisted
of radicals — three million Germans exasperated by
the politics of Papen, Hugenberg and Schacht.

‘When will the second revolution begin?’ was the
question that started to circulate among them.

Gregor Strasser, an ordinary Party member, re¬
ceived letters by hundreds and thousands. ‘Resume
your activities,’ his correspondents said. ‘You alone
can save National-Socialism. Open the Fuhrer’s eyes.
The Goerings blind him ...’

Gregor was perfectly well aware that all his letters
were opened and read before they reached him. On
the other hand there was Roehm, leader of the
Brownshirt army, with hundreds of secondary leaders
entirely devoted to him. Social questions did not
worry them, but they were hostile to the generals, and
resented the fashion in which the army kept aloof from
the Party. Roehm was himself an officer, and knew the
German military mind only too well. The army
despised the Brownshirts; it merely used Hitlerism as

186

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

a mask behind which it pursued its perennial aims.
Roehm had lived in Bolivia, and had learned by ex¬
perience that a political party was helpless without
army backing. The generals could upset any govern¬
ment any day they liked.

The Gregor Strasser and Roehm front was formed
in opposition to the Hindenburg, Hugenberg, Papen
and Goering front, which was in alliance with the
industrialists. Hitler still hesitated, while dissatis¬
faction grew. He knew that he must act, but did not
yet know how. Behind him was Goebbels, ready for
every compromise, anxious above all to be on the
winning side. Adolf regretted Gregor. At a meeting
in Berlin he met the head of my brother’s firm and
said at the top of his voice that ‘he simply must recall
that excellent fellow Gregor.’ These words were
repeated to Goering, who sharpened his arms.

Roehm was working from Munich. No contact
existed between him and Gregor, though the two
shared the same ideals and the same ultimate aims.
Roehm’s first success was to obtain the dissolution of
the Stahlhelm, the paramilitary formation of the
Reichswehr. He next set about attacking the Reichs-
wehr itself, without taking into account that during
Hindenburg’s lifetime the conquest of the army was
impossible. Instead of striking at Schacht and
Thyssen, the Nazi regime’s first enemies, he made
Fritsch and Blomberg his immediate targets. At a
meeting of the Cabinet, to which he belonged, he de¬
manded the incorporation of the Brownshirts into the

187

HITLER AND I

regular army, the Brownshirt officers to retain their
ranks.

In other words he demanded supreme command of
the Reichswehr, the S.S. and the S.A.

He confidently believed that he had Adolf’s support;
he also believed that he had the enthusiastic backing
of Goebbels and Darre; Frick, hesitant at first, rallied
to his side, but Hitler remained silent.

The Cabinet meeting took a dramatic turn. Hitler
persisted in his silence, but Blomberg, the Minister of
National Defence, suddenly declared that the only
course open to President Hindenburg would be to
refuse outright.

‘The discussion is closed,’ Hitler then said, without
daring to look his old friend in the face. Roehm,
speechless with fury, walked quickly from the room.

After June 30 General von Reichenau declared in
an interview with the Petit Journal that Roehm’s death
sentence was virtually signed that day.

■ Hindenburg sent for Hitler on May 28, and on
June 7 it was officially announced that Roehm, acting
on medical advice, was about to take a holiday of
some weeks.

Hindenburg proved that his sympathies remained
unchanged; he pronounced himself in favour of the
two groups of reactionaries; Papen, Neurath, Meissner,
i.e., the landowners, who dreaded nothing more than
the socialization of the army, and Thyssen, Krupp and
Schacht, i.e., the industrialists, who dreaded the
socialization of industry.

188

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

Hitler felt uneasy; he knew the revolutionary spirit
of the S.A. too well to feel anything else. He was only
too well aware that abandoning his comrades would
mean seriously impairing his prestige.

He was at the cross-roads. One way led towards a
peaceful German revolution and the regeneration of
the country; this was the way of Roehm, Gregor
Strasser and General von Schleicher. The other was
the Imperialist way of old Germany, which led
inevitably to war. At this time I wrote a pamphlet,
Social Revolution or Fascist War? of which thousands of
copies were sold throughout the country.

On June 13, before leaving for Venice to meet the
Duce, Adolf sent for Gregor; the two had not met since
the stormy interview provoked by the intrigues of
Papen, Goering and Goebbels.

T offer you the Ministry of National Economy,
Strasser. Accept, and between us we can still save the
situation.’

T accept, Herr Hitler,’ said Gregor, ‘on condition
that Goering and Goebbels are removed; an honest
rnan cannot work with these individuals.’

Gregor’s reply, the authenticity of which has been
confirmed by my brother Paul, was that of a gentle¬
man but not of a politician. Trying to get rid of
Goebbels and Goering simultaneously was beating
one’s head against a brick wall. Goering might have
been sacrificed to Gregor. He was at odds with
Himmler, to whom he was unwilling to yield control
of the Berlin Gestapo. Himmler was chief of police of

189

HITLER AND I

Southern Germany, and insisted on bringing all the
police organizations of the Reich under his personal
control. Adolf favoured Himmler in this dispute, for
he disliked the fashion in which Goering had gone over
to the reactionaries. Also he wanted Gregor back.

Goebbels, however, was indispensable to the Fuhrer;
for, in spite of Adolf’s summary treatment of Roehm
at the last Cabinet meeting, Goebbels was secretly
negotiating with the latter on his master’s behalf.

Roehm was by no means idle, in spite of his enforced
rest. He had no intention of giving in or laying down
his arms. Let us raise a corner of the veil that still
obscures one of the bloody episodes of June 30. Why
were the landlord, the wine-waiter and the steward of
the Bratwurst-Glockle hostelry at Munich murdered
on the night of the German St. Bartholomew? Were
these men revolutionaries, dangerous agents, traitors
or S.A. men? No, the reason for their murder was
much simpler than that.

The Bratwurst-Glockle has private rooms where two
men may talk politics without being seen or recog¬
nized. The only persons aware of their presence were
the landlord and the two trusted waiters who attended
to them. Roehm, disgraced at Hindenburg’s bidding,
and Goebbels, Hitler’s emissary, met there several
times in the course of that famous month of June. What
did they talk about? The answer is that at first their
conversations were entirely non-committal; they
awaited the results of Adolf’s journey to Venice.
Adolf had two meetings with Mussolini, on June 14

190

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

and 15. The Duce, however, failed to succumb to the
German Chancellor’s charms. Everything that had
been happening in Germany during the last few weeks
he found displeasing and alarming, and he said that
Nazi terrorism in Vienna, and the constant threat to
Austria and her independence, must cease. Hitler, at
the Italian dictator’s bidding, solemnly promised to
put an end to the terror and to respect Austrian
sovereignty. Mussolini, however, went still further.
Would it not be prudent, he suggested, purely of course
as a friend, to restrain somewhat the radical actions
and speeches of the Left Wing of the National-Socialist
Party? Would it not be wise to dissolve the S.A.,
which formed a state within the state, and was led by
that notorious freebooter Roehm, in association with
notorious characters such as Heines, Ernst, etc.?
Would it not also, perhaps, be as well to get rid of
Goering, who was accused abroad, perhaps not un¬
justifiably, of having been responsible for the Reichstag
Fire, and of Goebbels, who dared speak of the possi¬
bility of a second revolution?

Hitler pricked up his ears. Was not this the lan¬
guage of von Papen, Meissner and company? Who
was this Meissner after all? Before serving as Hinden-
burg’s principal private secretary, had he not served
President Ebert in the same capacity? Was he not an
intriguer? It took Hitler several weeks to resolve his
doubts. When he became President he retained
Meissner as Hindenburg had done before him. But
for the time being he was furious. He knew that Herr

191

HITLER AND I

von Hessel, the German Ambassador in Rome, had
received instructions from President Hindenburg,
from the Minister von Neurath and from his friend
von Papen, and he felt certain that Mussolini was
merely acting as these men’s mouthpiece.

His anger concentrated on von Papen; on June 16
he met Goebbels in Munich.

The Minister of Propaganda gave him a satisfactory
report on his conversations with Roehm.

‘Wait a while,’ said Hitler. ‘There are other
problems to be settled first.’

On June 17 von Papen, the Vice-Chancellor, made
a speech at Marburg which left no further possibility
of doubt.

Papen’s r 61 e is very often under-estimated by super¬
ficial observers of German politics. One sees him
described as a brilliant knight-errant of politics, a
diplomat alternately stupid and acute, as the man
who put Hitler in power, but one tends to forget his
overweening ambition and his complete unscrupulous¬
ness. It is also easily forgotten that von Papen will
never forgive Goering fpr having supplanted him as
Prime Minister of Prussia, leaving him with no more
than the Vice-Chancellorship. Those who appre¬
ciated these points were not at all surprised that four
of von Papen’s secretaries and colleagues were killed
in the June 30 purge. This was Goering’s way of
settling a personal grudge. The diplomat had good
reason to believe that he had a very narrow escape
himself.

192

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

The Marburg speech, which was in effect the
reactionaries’ declaration of war on the revolution,
contained several passages of rare interest which are
worth quoting here.

‘It is time to rally together, to show fraternal love
and esteem for our compatriots, to disturb no longer
the work of earnest men and to impose silence on
doctrinaire fanatics,’ von Papen said.

‘The domination of a single party, in place of the
system of several parties which was rightly abolished,
seems to me historically a transitory stage, the only
raison d'etre for which was to assure the period of
cultivation.

‘For in the long run no people, if it wishes to survive
before history, can permit itself eternal insurrection
coming from below. The day must come when that
movement has to cease, and a solid social structure
must arise, sustained by equitable jurisdiction and
undisputed public authority.

‘Incessant dynamics lead to nothing durable.

‘Germany must not resemble one of those “blue
trains” which start off for adventure and then cannot
stop.’

The speech did not lack adroitness. It retained its
validity even after June 30. The one-party system still
survived, and all the doctrinaire fanatics were not
silenced.

Adolf was furious, for this was confirmation of his
worst suspicions. It seemed impossible to deny that
von Papen had been behind Mussolini’s advice.

n 193

HITLER AND I

Adolf saw Roehm, without whom he did not seem
to be able to make any decisions, and saw Goebbels
and gave him instructions.

The conversations between Roehm and Goebbels at
the Bratwurst-Glockle became much more animated.
When the landlord or the waiters entered their private
room they only heard fragments.

‘Mussolini demanded the sacrifice of the radicals ...
The reactionaries grow more and more insolent ...
The Marburg speech was a provocation . .. Adolf will
put these gentlemen of the Herrenklub in their place
.. . We’ll make a clean sweep.’

They didn’t hear much, but it was too much.

A few days later, when Hitler finally came down on
the side of the reactionaries, it was important that
nobody should be left alive who knew that Goebbels
had just been discussing with Roehm the liquidation
of the capitalist and bourgeois clique.

Hitler summoned von Papen to Berlin, but Roehm
and Goebbels did not lose confidence. After the Vice-
Chancellor’s insult to the Chancellor, a reconciliation
between them seemed impossible. The revolutionaries
and the radicals appeared to have gained the day.

Franz von Papen was described as ‘the sabotageur
of national unity’, and Adolf insulted him. He there¬
upon submitted his resignation. The Ministers of
Finance and of Trade, Count Schwerin-Krosigh and
Herr Eltz von Rubenach, also submitted their resigna¬
tions. Blomberg did not flinch, but on the whole the
pillar of reaction seemed to be tottering.

i94

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

Adolf need only have taken one further step to have
created a fait accompli, but Roehm, the soul of the
revolutionary movement, was absent, and Blomberg
and even Goering remained silent.

Hitler was upset by the resignations on the one hand
and the silence on the other. Might there not be a plot
against him? Though the ‘drummer of the revolution’
had become Chancellor of the Reich, he had not really
changed since November 9, 1923. He still needed
approbation and applause. Where was he to take
refuge? Only Roehm and Goebbels were faithful to
him. He made up his mind to deal once and for all
with the reactionary gentlemen, if not to-morrow, then
next day or next week.

His immediate need was the President’s consent to
the formation of a new Cabinet built on real Nazi
lines.

On June 21 Hitler went to Neudeck, where the
President lived. Hindenburg was already a very sick
man. Hitler was accompanied by Goebbels, by Hof¬
mann, the photographer, and by Herr Schreck, the
leader of the S.S. These three represented the radical
wing of the party in South Germany.

They were received on the steps by two men in
general’s uniform; Blomberg, the Minister of War and
Goering. Adolf was stupefied.

‘Having been informed of events by Vice-Chancellor
von Papen,’ General Blomberg said with great dignity,
‘President Hindenburg summoned General Goering,
in his capacity of Chief of Police, and myself to Neu-

195

HITLER AND I

deck. Our instructions are to consult with you on the
measures to be taken to ensure internal peace. If a
complete relaxation of tension does not immediately
take place (and to this end we must avoid any
ministerial crisis) martial law will be proclaimed. The
President, being ill, deeply regrets being unable to
receive you.’

Hitler and his companions were dumbfounded.
Adolf was the first to speak.

‘But it is absolutely essential that I see the President.
I must see him, do you understand?’

Blomberg went away and returned a few minutes
later.

‘Please follow me,’ he said to Hitler. ‘These gentle-
ment from Munich can wait.’

Marshal Hindenburg, in Blomberg’s presence,
briefly repeated to Adolf what Blomberg had already
told him. The audience lasted exactly four minutes.

Hitler found himself on the steps again, the pitiless
June sunlight accentuating his livid features. Frigid
good-byes were exchanged. Blomberg and Goering
remained at Neudeck.

Did not Goering belong to the Party? Did he not
owe everything to Adolf? Yet he dared come out on
the side of the Reichswehr and the police against the
Party and the S.A. Blomberg and Goering against
Hitler and Roehm ...

Goebbels reflected. From the comer of his eye he
watched Hitler pass from violent anger to complete
prostration. The little cripple had betrayed Gregor

196

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

Strasser at Bamberg, he had betrayed Stennes in
Berlin, and he would betray Adolf too if the latter
were obstinate, for he knew that power was on the side
of the Reichswehr .. . But Hitler must realize that too
. .. Hitler would reflect, he had already reflected, he
would go back on his original intentions. Goebbels
was sure of it. Only one petty act of treachery would
be necessary, and the Minister of Propaganda cheer¬
fully reconciled himself to it. What, after all, had he
promised Roehm? Nothing at all. Roehm must be
sacrificed.

Adolf could not think with the rapidity of his
favourite of the moment, but he duly weighed up the
situation. One might again defer a decision, and await
the old President’s death. An attack at this moment
might compromise the whole future. But that would
mean forgiving von Papen and company, tolerating
their audacity, their arrogance, their insubordination.
It would be madness for die S.A. to attempt to oppose
the Reichswehr and the police. Goering had betrayed
him. And after all, was he sure of the S.A.? Was he
sure of the brutal and exigent Roehm?

Roehm waited at Munich for the Fuhrer’s orders,
which did not come, even after the Chancellor’s visit
to Neudeck. All the newspapers said was that its
character was very formal.

What was happening? Goebbels’ reports continued
to be optimistic, but Hider’s silence was disturbing all
the same. Roehm informed Adolf that it was essential
to hold a meeting of the S.A. leaders, and the Fuhrer’s

i97

HITLER AND I

presence was indispensable. Hitler consented; he did
more, for he sent the following telegram, the original
of which was shown to me by a deputy S.A. group-
leader:

‘All leaders and sub-leaders of S.A. groups will
attend a meeting at General Headquarters of the
Chief of Staff at Wiessee on June 30 at 10 o’clock.
Adolf Hitler.’

Roehm had taken a year’s lease of a room at Wiessee.
Immediately on receiving Hitler’s reply he went to the
village inn and booked a number of rooms for June 29.
He even ordered a vegetarian lunch for Adolf. I
learned these details from responsible witnesses.

Hitler had seen Papen and made a provisional
peace with him, for the idea of unloosing the S.A. on
a bloc as powerful as that of all the German conserva¬
tives combined was obviously far too dangerous. The
Chancellor wanted to play for time; still tom by cruel
perplexities, he fulfilled an engagement to visit the
Krupp factories in the Rhineland.

But Krupp and Goering were allies. A momentary
armistice was not enough for them. They insisted on
finishing with these men of the ‘second revolution’, and
they wanted immediate action.

Krupp threatened to withdraw if the ‘National
Bolsheviks’ were not silenced, and in Berlin Goering
was active. He knew that the President had decided
to proclaim martial law if Hitler did not yield. He had
hated Roehm ever since November 9, 1923, when

198

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

Roehm had accused him of cowardice; he knew of the
rivalry between Himmler and Roehm, and was certain
that Himmler would act without hesitation; and he
was not worried about Goebbels, who could always be
won over to the stronger side. As chief of the Berlin
police he had no difficulty in procuring evidence com¬
promising Roehm; a dossier was quickly prepared and
placed before the Fuhrer.

Hitler was led to suppose that Roehm was planning
a rising, not against the Reichswehr or the industrial¬
ists but against him, the Fuhrer himself.

New ‘despatches from Ems’ were fabricated; the
imaginary danger grew. Meanwhile a genuine tele¬
gram arrived from Roehm, couched in the terms of an
ultimatum. The S.A. Chief of Staff demanded a rapid
decision.

Hitler replied in sibylline words: ‘Definite decisions,’
he said, ‘will be made at the leaders’ meeting.’

Roehm was not surprised at Adolf’s hesitancy, and
proceeded with the organization of his meeting at
Wiessee. There were more guests than usual at the
inn. Strange to say, the whole first floor was taken by
tourists from Berlin. These were in reality agents of
Goering’s Gestapo, but Roehm had no reasons for
suspicion, and was perfectly satisfied with his rooms
on the ground floor.

On the evening of June 29 Goebbels sent a report to
the Fuhrer.

‘Roehm must be officially dismissed before July 1,
This is Hindenburg’s wish. If all necessary measures

199

HITLER AND I

are not taken within twenty-four hours the Reichs-
wehr will disarm the S.A. and will not hesitate to
overthrow Hitler himself!’

What was Adolf to do? Wait for Goering to carry
out his threat?

Let us carefully examine the speeches in which
Hitler tried to justify himself after the event.

‘At two o’clock in the morning I received from Ber¬
lin and Munich two urgent and alarming messages. I
learned in the first place that the alarm was to be given
in Berlin at four o’clock, that trucks had been ordered
for the transport of shock-troops, and that at five
o’clock the assault and occupation of government
buildings was to begin.

‘With this in view S.A. Groupleader Ernst did not
go to Wiessee, but stayed in Berlin to direct the coup
in person.

‘In the second place I learned that the Munich S.A.
had already been warned at nine o’clock, when they
were not allowed to return home, but lodged in
emergency quarters.’

All this news unquestionably came from Goering,
and it was false. A Bremen newspaper, badly primed
by the Ministry of Propaganda, innocently stated on
July 3 =

‘The S.A. leader Ernst, who was arrested on June 30
at Bremen together with his adjutant Kirschbaum, was
taken to Berlin by aeroplane. Frau Ernst was arrested
at Bremen at the same time, but was released on
July 2.’

200

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

Ernst, in other words, was taken to Berlin in a
special aeroplane by order of the Gestapo. Hitler’s lie
was all the more flagrant to those who knew, as I did,
that Ernst was on the point of sailing on a honeymoon
trip to the Azores, and that cabins had been booked
for him for some time. In fact so ignorant was Ernst
of what was happening to him that when the firing
squad formed up in front of him he shouted ‘Heil Hitler /’
as a last protest against the conspirators of the Right.

In short, Goebbels’ last reports and Goering’s cries
of alarm got the better of Hitler’s hesitations. He tele¬
phoned to Wagner, his devoted Bavarian Minister, and
gave him instructions, and flew to Munich with
Goebbels.

The following details were given to me by eye¬
witnesses; men who were at Wiessee and subsequently
escaped from Germany, S.A. men in flight, a friend of
the aviator Udet, and a gaoler in my brother’s prison.

The Minister and Gauleiter Wagner ordered all the
S.A. leaders present in Munich to meet at the Ministry
of the Interior to receive Hitler in state. They took
their places round a table, and a killer sat beside each
one of them. There was wine, beer and talk. The
horns passed. Dawn came and the telephone rang.
The Ftihrer had reached the aerodrome. Wagner
gave the signal and the S.A. men were instantly over¬
powered and disarmed by their neighbours, who pro¬
ceeded systematically to strike them down with
revolver butts and beer bottles.

Only one managed to survive. This was the aviator

201

HITLER AND I

Udet, of the S.A. air squadron, who escaped into the
corridors of the Ministry, where he wandered, mad
with fear, anger and horror. He met Hitler and did
not mince his words.

‘Have you gone out of your mind? 5 he yelled.
‘What have you against us? Roehm has done nothing,
and he is our leader. 5

Sweat was pouring from Hitler’s brow.

‘Nothing, nothing, no one will harm a hair on your
head, 5 he stammered.

And Udet was allowed to go unmolested. He was
even able to go on living in Germany, where he now
has an important post.

After this incident Hitler, livid with rage, entered
the room where the massacre had taken place. The
chief killers of Munich, Wagner, Esser, Maurice,
Weber and Buch, were standing on guard at the door,
proud of having done their duty. Nine corpses were
stretched on the floor, stabbed, or with broken skulls.
Among them were Schneidhuber, Schmitt and Du
Moulin.

But in his broadcast speech of July i Goebbels had
the insolence to say that ‘the Fuhrer advanced alone
towards Schmitt, Schneidhuber and the others and
tore off their epaulets. 5

The liquidation at the Ministry of the Interior hav¬
ing been completed, the next objective was Wiessee.
Hitler’s bullet-proof car was waiting, and it set off with
its escort of Black Guards. Maurice, Dietrich, Schaub
and Bruckner led the way.

203

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

The inn at Wiessee was quickly surrounded. The
policemen from Berlin were ready and waiting at their
first-floor windows. On the ground floor the ‘danger¬
ous rebels’ were peacefully asleep. Room No. 5 was
the first to be entered, and Count Spretti, chief of the
Munich Standarte , was arrested in his bed. Heines,
who shared room No. 9 and his bed with his chauffeur,
suddenly found himself gazing down the barrels of
Bruckner’s and Maurice’s revolvers. He felt for his
own weapon, but was stunned by a revolver butt and
dragged out in his pyjamas. Two shots rang out and
Heines and his chauffeur had been eliminated.

Hitler then went to room No. 7. The conversation
that followed was repeated to me verbatim.

‘Who’s there?’ Roehm asked in a sleepy voice.

‘It’s I, Hitler, open the door at once!’

‘What! Already? I didn’t expect you till midday!’

Roehm rose, opened the door and recoiled. Hitler
overwhelmed him with a volley of abuse. Roehm,
shocked into silence, ended by replying vigorously.

The door shut. The two men talked alone, then
Adolf reappeared.

‘Bind him,’ he said.

In the corridor, with arms and legs bound, Roehm
waited for his friend’s decision.

The landlord saw him, raised his arm and naively
exclaimed ‘Heil HitlerP Roehm, with a tired expres¬
sion, replied with the traditional greeting of South
Germany: ‘Griiss GottP

Hitler then apologized to the landlord for the dis-

203

HITLER AND I

turbance and took the road to Munich with Uhl, who
was also wakened from sleep and bound, and Roehm,
that ‘rebel’ who was so ‘dangerous’ that he had not
even provided himself with a bodyguard.

‘I surprised the revolutionaries,’ Hitler said in his
Reichstag speech after that sinister day, referring to
Roehm and his friends. But had he not himself
authorized them to meet? Had he not promised to
attend their meeting? What was the surprise? Their
private vices? He had known all about them for years.
Hitler surprised a gang of conspirators who wove their
plots against him in bed. They were fast alseep. What
prowess!

All the cars of the S.A. leaders on their way to
Roehm’s meeting at Wiessee were stopped by the S.S.
and their occupants arrested.

Hess had taken over the Brown House at Munich.
The S.A. guard was imprisoned and replaced by S.S.
men.

The day of reckoning had come. Paler than the
night before, Adolf went to the prison yard at Stadl-
heim. He looked at the prisoners lined up there. They
were his old comrades-in-arms, and several were
heroes of the Great War. ‘Dogs!’ he shouted at them,
‘Traitors! Let them die, every one of them!’

And Buch noted against the name of each, death,
death, death.

Here were Peter von Heydebreck, a brave officer,
the hero of Annaberg; Wilhelm Hayn, also an ex¬
officer, a hero of the Baltic; Fritz, Ritter von Krausser,

204

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

who had been decorated with the Order of Max- -
Joseph; all these and many more faced the S.S. firing
squad that day.

Roehm, in a cell facing on the prison-yard, was able
to watch the massacre of his friends and colleagues.
An hour before he had been a Minister of the Reich
and Chief of Staff of the S.A. But now he was a
prisoner in a cell, and a revolver had been left on his
table.

‘You are an officer, and you know what there is left
for you to do,’ they had said when they left him.

But Roehm had shouted at the top of his voice, so
that it carried far beyond the prison yard where his
friends were being massacred:

‘No, I shall not render Adolf that service! If he
wants to kill me let him take the responsibility for
it!’

Roehm was murdered in prison by order of the man
who had written to him six months earlier:

‘I want to thank you, dear Ernst Roehm, for the
imperishable services that you have rendered to
the National-Socialist movement and the German
people; and to assure you that I am grateful to
destiny for having men such as you as friends and
comrades-in-arms.

‘Your Adolf Hitler.’ .

The United Press talked of a hundred and twenty
deaths at Munich. I myself believe that this figure is
far short of the truth. Meanwhile Goering in Berlin

205

HITLER’ AND I

was imitating and surpassing the brilliant example set
him in Bavaria. The Munich murders were the im¬
pulsive actions of a man who had lost his reason. The
list of victims in Berlin and the provinces had been
carefully and systematically thought out in advance.

‘I enlarged the sphere of action of the purge,’
Goering ingenuously confessed on July i.

Enlarged the sphere of action of the purge, Herr
Goering? You mean you multiplied it by ten, if not
by a hundred. When the wild beast Goering is let
loose there is little that can stop him.

Goering received no orders to kill his hundreds of
victims in Prussia.' Under the mask of political
assassination, he committed a hundred acts of private
vengeance, settling old scores, ridding himself of in¬
convenient friends.

Let us mention only his most flagrant crimes.

The ‘plot’ organized by Schleicher, Roehm, my
brother Gregor and General Bredow was a he. The
story that General Bredow sent secret reports to
M. Frangois-Poncet, the French Ambassador, was a
he.

These patriots were later accused by Hitler of having
committed high treason. But they were never put on
trial and no evidence against them has ever been pro¬
duced. They were seized in their own homes, taken to
prison and murdered.

The details of von Schleicher’s murder are well-
known. He was peacefully reading a newspaper when
six thugs forced their way into his villa, pushing past

306

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

the maid, and entered the drawing-room. The
general’s back was turned.

‘Are you General Schleicher?’

He turned and faced them.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Six revolvers rang out and the General fell. His
wife rushed towards him, shrieked and fainted. The
killers then turned their revolvers on her.

General Bredow learned of his friend’s death on the
same evening. He went home, with no thought of con¬
cealment. Was that a likely thing for a man com¬
promised in a plot with a foreign Power to do? He met
the Gestapo executioners on his doorstep. Two
revolver-shots echoed through the night, and the
general joined the other victims.

My brother Gregor was having lunch with his
family when eight Gestapo men came and took him
away without any explanation. He was taken to the
Prinz Albrechtstrasse prison and thrown into a cell.
After twelve hours of solitude, darkness and uncer¬
tainty, he suddenly saw a revolver pointed at him
through the grating. The first shot missed, and Gregor
took refuge in a comer of the cell; but three gunmen,
including Heydrich and Eicke, the killer now in
charge of all the concentration camps in Germany,
came in, and Gregor, riddled with bullets, fell to the
ground. He was still breathing when Heydrich ad¬
ministered the coup-de-grace with, a shot in the back
of the head.

I had these details from the man who wiped the

207

HITLER AND I

blood from the walls and removed the traces of the
shooting. He was able to escape after the execution,
and joined me in Prague.

Schleicher, Gregor, and Bredow were only the first
of a long list of victims.

Himmler commanded the firing squad.

Men were seized and taken to Lichterfeld, the former
Prussian cadet school in Berlin, and lined up against a
wall.

‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’

Ditten and Gehrt, Beluwitz and Marker, Mohren-
schild and Karl Koch, Heck, Krausse, Schroder,
Schreiber — I could name hundreds of them, men I
knew who died that day.

As long as the massacre continued the newspapers
were forbidden to publish a single line about it. A
year later there were still people in Hamburg who did
not know whether their friends in Munich, Berlin or
elsewhere were still alive.

Klausener and several other Catholic leaders were
executed, as well as von Papen’s secretaries.

At Hirschberg, in Silesia, all the Jews, all the mem¬
bers of the Stahlhelm, and a few Communists were
arrested, taken to the barrack-square and lined up with
their faces to the wall. Anyone who moved, or spoke,
or staggered, was beaten with rifle-butts. At two
o’clock at night the prisoners were pushed into lorries.
They were told that their interrogation would take
place at Gorlitz.

One of the vehicles stopped in the forest.

208

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

‘There’s a breakdown,’ the driver said. ‘Get out!’

The prisoners obeyed. A volley of revolver-shots
rang out, and a few of the prisoners screamed. In all
eight people were murdered there.

‘They tried to escape,’ an S.S. man explained, climb¬
ing back into the lorry.

Among the dead was a man of sixty-six and a
woman who could scarcely walk.

Hider had the effrontery to state in the Reichstag
that there were sixty-three executions of S.A. and S.S.
men and fourteen executions of civilians. My only
reply is that my brother’s urn was No. 16, while that of
Hoflmann-Stettin, sent to his widow on July io, was
No. 262.

If the persecutions of Catholics are excepted, as well
as the sheer errors, such as that concerning Dr. Willy
Schmidt, who was murdered because he happened to
have the same name as one of the S.A. leaders (the
mistake did not enable the latter to escape his fate) the
murders could be divided into two distinct categories.
The first consisted of victims of the reaction. The
second, and this was even more appalling, consisted of
persons killed solely for motives of personal vengeance.

Adolf is as guilty as Goering. Hermann, more
brutal, more direct in his methods, has an infinitely
larger number of deaths on his conscience. But
Hitler, vindictive, cunning and sly, used the June 30
o 209

HITLER AND I

blood-bath to wipe out scores that dated back eleven
years.

It is common knowledge that von Kahr, an old ma n
of sixty-three, who had retired two years previously,
was tom from his bed, taken to Dachau and tortured
to death. His mutilated body was found three days
later in a swamp near the concentration camp. His
crime had been his failure to support the Munich
putsch in 1923.

Ballerstaedt, who had opposed a violent raid made
by the Nazis on a Munich meeting, and had been
instrumental in Hitler’s being sentenced to three
months’ imprisonment, was murdered by a special
killer squad.

We have already mentioned that death was the
penalty paid by Father Staempfle for having edited
Mein Kampf, and therefore being familiar with the
author’s weaknesses.

I spent days drawing up lists of the dead. Details
of fresh atrocities were constantly brought to me by
my agents.

In the course of my investigations, I came across the
name of a well-known journalist, Gehrlich, whose
murder at first seemed quite incomprehensible. Why
was this poor man, who had been in prison since
Hitler’s accession to power, shot now?

The explanation of the mystery was bound up with
a still more atrocious crime, the details of which I did
not learn until two years later.

My brother Gregor’s murder was a terrible blow to

210

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

me. Afterwards my most earnest desire was to see my
brother Paul, who practically knew Gregor’s last
thoughts. I wanted to learn and to understand, to
put myself in a better position to judge Adolf’s guilt.

Paul, like Gregor and myself, was an officer dur in g
the Great War. In August, 1918, he was in command
of a battery which succeeded in recrossing the Marne
at Dormans and maintained itself there for forty-eight
hours. He was badly wounded in the course of this
engagement, and after the War he took orders and
became a Benedictine.

After the June 30 massacre Paul went to Rome. I
kept up a lively correspondence with him and was
impatient to see him. Two years passed, however,
before we met in Austria in the spring of 1935, and
spent a few days together.

‘And to think,’ Paul murmured one evening, ‘that
Gregor once stopped Hitler from committing suicide.’

‘When was that?’ I asked, not very attentively.

Paul hesitated, then continued in a low voice:

‘After Hitler murdered his niece Gely.’

At this I started.

‘Did Gregor tell you that too?’

Paul nodded.

‘I swore to keep it secret. Gregor spent three days
and three nights with Adolf, who was like a madman.
He shot her during a quarrel. Perhaps he did not
realize what he was doing. As soon as he had done
it he wanted to commit suicide, but Gregor prevented
him.’

211

HITLER AND I

I wanted further details.

£ Do you know who was there at the time of the
murder, and how it happened?’

‘I know nothing more. Gregor did not tell me any
more. He told me this during a fit of profound de¬
pression, and I kept the secret as long as he lived.’

‘But Paul, in 1931 Hitler was a nobody. How did he
escape justice? Didn’t Gregor tell you that?’

‘An inquest was opened at Munich. The public
prosecutor, who has lived abroad since Hitler’s acces¬
sion to power, wished to charge him with murder, but
Giirtner, the Bavarian Minister of Justice, stopped the
case. It was announced that Gely had committed
suicide.’

‘Giirtner again!’ I exclaimed. ‘Always Giirtner!
Did no one else know about it?’

Meanwhile Giirtner had become Reich Minister of
Justice.

‘Yes, there was someone else,’ Paul replied. ‘He was
murdered on the same day as Gregor. You remember
Gehrlich, the editor of the Right Way? He made a
private investigation at the same time as the police,
and collected overwhelming evidence against Hitler.
Voss, Gregor’s lawyer, no doubt knew all about it too.
He had all our brother’s secret papers at his house,
but he was killed like Gehrlich.’

Nine years have passed since Gely’s death; six years
have passed since a madman and a brute gave the
signal for Germany’s St. Bartholomew.

In November, 1939, I was in Paris, where I wrote

si2

THE GERMAN BLOOD-BATH

several articles for Le Journal , mentioning Gely’s
death and Hitler’s guilt.

Three days later the editor of the Courrier cTAutriche
called on me.

‘Do you know Father Pant?’ he asked.

‘No, not personally, but I know that he lived in
Munich, and that he was the brother of the prelate and
Senator Pant, the former leader of the anti-Nazi
Germans in Poland.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Father Pant is now in exile, but he
asks me to send you the following message, which I
repeat verbatim:

‘ “It was I who buried Angela Raubal, the little
Gely of whom Otto Strasser wrote. They pretended
that she committed suicide; I should never have
allowed a suicide to be buried in consecrated ground.
From the fact that I gave her Christian burial you can
draw conclusions which I cannot communicate to

213

CHAPTER XI

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

There can be no doubt that June 30 was the decisive
date for Hitler’s regime. On that day, Adolf made his
choice —for war.

The National-Socialist revolution in Germany might
have been the path leading to the consolidation of
European peace. But to the Chancellor National-
Socialism was a meaningless phrase. He understood
neither its real potentialities nor its fundamental
principles; and he feared its results. Like a prudent
apprentice magician, he was afraid of being unable to
control the forces he had himself released. In his fear
of an unknown future he took refuge in the past. He
rejected his vague revolutionary aims for the concrete
realities of Pan-Germanism, Prussianism and their
imperialist aims.

Perhaps he believed he would be able to turn back
when circumstances seemed opportune; perhaps he
still believed he would be able to master events. But
there is a logic of facts against which the human will
is powerless.

Both economically and politically the developments
that followed the massacre of the men of the Second
Revolution were bound inevitably to lead to catas¬
trophe.

214

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

In mid-July Hitler offered Schacht, the president of
the Reichsbank, the Ministry of National Economy.
Finance and industry were brought under unified con¬
trol, and rearmament began.

On March 16, 1935, compulsory military service
was reintroduced.

On March 7,1936, the remilitarization of the Rhine¬
land took place.

On August 24, 1936, the period of military service
was extended to two years.

The year 1937 was full of important events in
foreign politics. The Rome-Berlin axis was formed,
the anti-Comintern pact was signed and Germany
intervened in the Spanish Civil War. The stage was
set for the triumphs of 1938.

In March, 1938, Hitler’s troops occupied Vienna.
The strategic and political reasons for the seizure of
Austria are well-known, but Hitler also had a secret
motive which has never been sufficiently appreciated.
He had to make Austria German in order to cease to
be a foreigner in Germany himself.

After the acquisition of Vienna, Adolf cast a greedy
eye on Prague. In September, 1938, he occupied the
Sudetenland, and on March 15, 1939, German troops
marched into the Czech capital. A few days later they
occupied Memel, and the propaganda campaign
against Poland immediately began.

All this took place according to a well-established
plan. Although certain incidents retarded it, Adolf
Hitler never lost this plan from sight.

215

HITLER AND I

In September, 1939, the German army crossed the
Polish frontier, and this time war broke out on two
fronts.

The ultimate consequences of these repeated acts of
aggression did not come within the dictator’s vision.
During all these years his unchanging political am¬
bition had been an alliance of Germany with Italy and
Britain against Russia and France. In this he found
himself in agreement with the Pan-Germans and in
partial opposition to the real Prussians. The latter,
represented by the Junker clique from which the officers
of the army were recruited, were in favour of a Russian
alliance. They had a centre at Bonn, a students’
organization known as the ‘Borussians’, a name that
stresses the similarity of race between the Slavs of the
U.S.S.R. and those of the banks of the Spree.

For centuries all self-respecting Prussians had recog¬
nized only three enemies — France, Austria and
Poland, the three Powers that threatened them.

But in 1871, when German capitalism was born and
German foreign trade started its expansion, a new idea
was bom in the minds of the National-Liberals, who
were supported by heavy industry and high finance.
This idea was Pan-Germanism.

Pan-Germanism aimed at European domination.
It preached an alliance with England in the interests of
foreign trade, and was fiercely hostile both to Russia
and France.

Hitler had moved a long way from the National-
Socialist programme, which certainly demanded

216

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

liberty and the reunion of the different branches of
the German race, but at the same time aimed at
making Germany a member of the great European
family, faithful in that respect to the watchword of its
spiritual leader Moller van den Bruck, who said: ‘We
were Teutons, we are Germans, we shall be Europeans.’

Hitler, having renounced the Nationalist-Social
ideal, gravitated more and more into the reactionary
orbit. Not only was he dependent on them financially,
not only had he jettisoned his domestic political ideas
for their sake; but he now found them sympathetic
politicians, unalarmed and undismayed by his crazy
ideas of world domination.

He could not, however, cast aside his mask over¬
night. His native political sense told him that he must
still use his revolutionary slogans in order not to lose
the confidence of his followers.

He still talked of socialism after appointing Schacht
Minister of National Economy.

He still talked of Volksgemeinschaft , the community
of the German people, while throwing hundreds of
thousands of them into concentration camps.

He still talked of peaceful methods while violating
the Czechs.

He still talked of peace while he was unleashing war.

Duplicity? The word is both too weak and too
strong. Adolf had not ceased to feel what the German
people wanted. He talked of socialism, of Volksgemein-
schaft, of peace, because his followers and the whole of
Ger man y wanted socialism, Volksgemeinschaft, peace.

217

HITLER AND I

But his acts were in flagrant contradiction with his
words, for his mad idea of European domination was
exploited now by the clique of Pan-German industrial¬
ists, now by that of the Prussian Junkers, who used him ,
just as they had used the Kaiser before him, for the
prosecution of their perennial aims.

It seems to me essential at this point to refute the
doctrine which attributes vast political designs to
Adolf, long-thought-out plans all leading up to the
present alliance with Stalin. It is my own conviction
that the events of the last few months actually repre¬
sent the complete collapse of Adolf’s real ideas. I have
no hesitation in calling Adolf ‘Britain’s unsuccessful
suitor’.

One thing and one thing only mattered to him in
the field of foreign politics. He talked about it to me
the last time I saw him, and in the last ten years he has
not changed. His dream was an alliance with England
in order to dominate Europe. ‘The land for us, the
seas for England,’ he said.

During the period when I used to see Adolf fre¬
quently, I developed the habit of noting down things
that he said, phrases of his that struck me, as soon as I
reached home. After breaking with him I conscien¬
tiously continued the habit of noting down ‘the sayings
of Adolf’ which were brought to me by certain persons
in contact with him.

I thus know that at the end of 1938 he had not
abandoned his hope of finding a basis of under¬
standing with England, and that, in spite of all that

218

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

he may say to-day, his hatred of France remains
unchanged.

‘There can be only a single Great Power in Europe,’
he said to me one day, ‘and Germany, the most
Aryan country, must become that Power. The other
nations are all mongrels, and therefore cannot aspire
to domination of the various peoples of our Continent.

‘We do not need a colonial empire, which would be
useless to us, and would only involve us in an un¬
necessary quarrel with Britain. Britain must, by the
very nature of things, be our ally. Everything points
to it. The two essential factors are similarity of race,
and the harmony of interests on both sides. If we
leave the seas to England, the Continent of Europe
will be ours.

‘Don’t talk to me of pre-War politics. With an
Anglo-German alliance the world could be renewed
and France reduced to nothing. Our mortal enemy
would be isolated. France, that country of “negroids”,
would fall into the decline she has deserved a thousand
times, were it for her colonial policy alone.

‘When the time comes for settling accounts with
France the Treaty of Versailles will be child’s play in
comparison with the terms that we shall impose on
her. But for that we must have England with us.’

Later, after his accession to power, he said to a
member of his entourage who had remained faithful
to me:

‘The putrefying corpse which is Russia will never be
an effective ally for France.

219

HITLER AND I

‘If war broke out we should not wait three years
before signing a Peace of Brest-Litovsk. When Jews
and Communists are allied, destruction is near at
hand. 5

In 1936, after signing the agreement of July 11 with
Austria, he said:

‘The march towards the East is happening in spite
of everything. Vienna is only a stage towards it. The
colossus with feet of clay must be destroyed, and
Russia must cease to be a European Power. 5

In 1937 he had a long talk with a foreign industrial¬
ist to whom he gave an audience.

‘Colonies are of very little interest to me, 5 he said,
‘I should like England to understand that. If she left
me a free hand in the East, I should even renounce
enlarging my merchant fleet. How is it that England
does not realize that her only enemy is France? 5

And in 1936, shortly after the Duce’s visit, he
said:

‘So-called patriots accuse me of treason because I
have renounced the South Tyrol. Quarrels cannot go
on for ever. To claim the South Tyrol would be to
commit a crime equal to interfering with British
colonial policy. During the last war Germany
gambled on a revolution in India. No country is
better suited to govern India than the British. I am
not interested in the Hindus. Britain will have to be
on her knees before renouncing them.

‘If I had found a single man of my own mettle in
England, an Anglo-German alliance would already

220

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

have been signed, and Germany would be the mistress
of Europe.’

Finally, at the beginning of 1939, Hitler said to
General von Fritsch, who advocated a Russian
alliance:

‘An alliance between Germany and Russia would
not only be the signal for war; it would be the be¬
ginning of the end for Germany.’

Thus, in spite of his apparent evolution, Hitler’s
fundamental ideas had remained unchanged since he
wrote Mein Kampf with Father Staempfle’s assistance.
At the time when an unauthorized edition of Mein
Kampf appeared in France his faith in a British alliance
was slightly shaken; he forbade the sale of the book and
issued a special expurgated edition for the benefit of
the French.

But if his political ideas had really undergone any
change he would certainly have revised the German
version of Mein Kampf which had become the German
Bible. He did not do so, however, and the last edition,
printed in 1939, is identical with that of 1926.

The attraction that England exercised over Hitler
was based equally on his racial mania and his con¬
viction that only British friendship would enable him
to carry out his Imperialist designs. The former
occupies the place in his mind that the class struggle
occupies in the mind of the Marxist. Those who allow
themselves to be blinded by such obsessions cannot
possibly see clearly in foreign politics.

I remember a conversation I had with a British

221

HITLER AND I

diplomat accredited to Berlin. Unfortunately I cannot
reveal his name.

‘I have seen Hitler, 5 he said to me on the telephone
one day. ‘When can we meet? 5

I asked him if I might bring my friend Buchrucker
with me, and we met at the club.

‘In the first place, 5 he began, ‘your Adolf started by
bowing a little too low. I thought I was visiting a star,
but I found myself face-to-face with nothing but a
little soubrette.

‘Rosenberg was there and we naturally talked
foreign politics. Curiously enough, this future Euro¬
pean Minister of Foreign Affairs does not know a word
of French or English.

‘Hitler suggested an Anglo-German alliance, be¬
cause, he shouted excitedly, “The Nordic races must
rule the others and share the world 55 . 5

‘And what did you reply? 5 I asked.

‘I told him that vast and extravagant projects of
this kind conveyed no precise meaning to me. Eng¬
land, I said was an old country, with a foreign policy
several centuries old. In 1801 we smashed the fleet of
Nordic Denmark and bombarded Copenhagen; in
1914 we armed the Aryan Sikhs against the Nordic
Germans. Dogmatic attitudes on this question ap¬
peared illusory to us; we defended our national
interests. 5

But the powerful national interests of others are
things that Hitler, obsessed with a passion for the
domination of Europe, will never understand.

222

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

I met Hitler in 1927, at Dinkelsbiihl, after my
father’s funeral, and we talked of the great men of
history. Great men in Hitler’s eyes were nothing but
great conquerors.

It was natural in that neighbourhood for the con¬
versation to turn to the terrible struggle between
Wallenstein and Richelieu.

‘No, Richelieu was not a great man,’ Hitler ex¬
citedly exclaimed. ‘France has had only one great
man, Napoleon, and he was an Italian!’

‘But what about Rabelais, Herr Hitler?’

He looked at me in stupefaction, and passed his hand
across his brow.

I knew perfectly well that Adolf had probably never
heard of Rabelais, and I did not mean this sally very
seriously.

I explained that to me Rabelais represented French
joie de vivre, the art of enjoying life, the love of good
cheer, wine and women. Adolf made a gesture of dis¬
gust and continued:

‘Let us talk seriously. Gan you name any great
Frenchmen?’

‘Let me see,’ I answered, ‘Richelieu, Henry IV,
Danton, Clemenceau.’

‘They were all mediocrities, lacking in ambition and
big ideas,’ Adolf replied. ‘They were not Titans.
Their dreams did not go beyond their limited horizon.’

‘Self-restraint is one of the main attributes of a great
man; it is the only thing that differentiates him from
Utopians and madmen,’ I pointed out. ‘The man who

223

HITLER AND I

is unaware of his own limitations inevitably crashes,
and drags everything else down with him. Look at
Charles V, Napoleon or that megalomaniac Wilhelm
II.’

‘Nevertheless the idea of one nation called upon
to rule the others is rooted in the mind of every great
man. Germany is called upon to succeed where others
have failed.’

‘No, Herr Hitler, you refuse to recognize that a
nation’s first instinct is that of liberty. This instinct in
the long run will always prove stronger than any man’s
“will to power”. And finally you forget that the desire
to subdue foreign peoples is contrary to the funda¬
mental principle of National-Socialism.’

Hitler naively explained that it would be the duty
of Germany’s leaders in the years to come to organize
the Reich on Spartan lines to prepare her for the
hegemony of Europe.

‘The German people alone will be a people of
warriors; the other nations will be helots, working for
the Teuton warrior caste. Our sword will guarantee
their peace, and will be the recompense for their
labour. There will no longer be five, six or eight
Great Powers in Europe; there will only be one all-
powerful Germany.’

I objected that such a project could only be realized
after a series of wars.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘Europe is rotten; but what will
war matter if afterwards eternal peace is guaranteed
by the German sword?’

224

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

‘You must surely know that even Sparta did not
succeed in establishing her dictatorship over Ath ens ’ I
replied, ‘but that as a result of their quarrels demo¬
cratic Athens and grim Sparta alike fell a prey to
foreign barbarians. Have you read Glemenceau’s
Demosthenes ? Do you know the Philippics ? Unity was
the only thing that could have saved Greece, and unity
is the only thing that can save Europe. A good
National-Socialist must be a European; he must con¬
tribute to European solidarity.’

‘There is no solidarity in Europe; there is only sub¬
mission. Sparta failed because she lacked a tyrant, and
because she was governed by a clique of incapable
aristocrats.’

The question of interest to-day is why Hitler re¬
nounced his dream of friendship with England and
consented to become an ally of the U.S.S.R.; why he
yielded to his Minister von Ribbentrop, who belongs
to the group of Junkers and militarists in whom the
Prussian political spirit is embodied. A secret report
on the leading circles in the army, dated December 12,
1939, throws some light on this point. The following
is quoted from it:

‘... Let there be no misunderstanding. What has
happened and is happening in regard to Poland, as
well as Russia, is solely the result of military policy.
Hitler played the rdle of a puppet. The Gestapo is the

225

p

HITLER AND I

instrument of terror necessary to carry the generals’
plans into effect.

‘When the generals marched into Poland they be¬
lieved, in spite of French and British declarations, that
the campaign would end rapidly in their favour and
that there would be no war.

‘Before all this was as clear as it is to-day, I informed
you that if Hitler or his men had dared to do the least
thing against Russia they would have been arrested
and shot for high treason. Hider chose the right road
before it was too late.

‘I warn you that other surprises must be expected.
The whole world has its eyes fixed on Russia, which is
now at Germany’s gates. Everyone is extremely
nervous, but the German generals are not. I have no
need to tell you what they think of the Italian alliance;
in army circles this is regarded merely as an expedient,
and a temporary one.’

The pressure exercised on Adolf Hitler by the Ger¬
man army emerges clearly from this report. Person¬
ally I have never doubted it. Hindenburg’s spirit still
survives in Germany. But this single factor would not
have been sufficient to deflect Adolf from his great
idea. He would never have renounced his hatred of
the Bolsheviks, nor would his immediate entourage
have consented to it, if the hollowness of his ideas
had not suddenly been revealed.

France was not a ‘mongrel’ and spineless country,
lacking interior unity; she had no desire to repeat her
tragic error of Sadowa by sacrificing Poland.

226

HITLER, MASTER OF EUROPE

The British were unimpressed by their German
cousins’ protestations of friendship. The German pro¬
mise to leave Britain her mastery of the seas did not
persuade her to avert her eyes from the Continent; and
the German danger seemed more formidable to Britain
than the French.

Finally Poland proved to Hitler that a nation’s desire
for liberty can make them go to desperate lengths.

Blue Books, Yellow Books or White Books will never
give the measure of Hitler’s disappointment when
Britain and France entered the war. When he signed
his pact with Russia he still hoped that he was only
t akin g a provisional step; he believed that he still
retained his future freedom of action. He still has
moments when he believes that, thanks to Goering and
his friend Stinnes, he will be able to win England over
to his side.

Nevertheless his dreams of European domination
remain unaltered. Since England refuses to under¬
stand him, he has decided that she must suffer the
fate of the other subject populations, reduced to
helotry in the service of Spartan Germany.

Animated by a deep love of my country , and a deep attach¬
ment to the European idea, convinced that Germany must live
in order that Europe may live, I hereby denounce Hitlers
monstrous plans of domination. Whatsoever Hitler promises,
or his friends promise, he desires one thing and one thing only,
and that is to force Europe to its knees, to reign over the
Continent as its absolute master and to tyrannize over other
nations as he tyrannizes over Germany.

227

1

CHAPTER XII

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

The terrible threat to the West represented by the
Russo-Prussian combination can only be compared to
the menace of the Avars, the Mongols and the Turks
in the ninth, thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. But
the past teaches us that the peoples of Europe draw
from their religion and their desire for liberty the
regenerative strength that enables them to resist and
break the barbarian assault.

‘God tries those He loves.’ The Christian precept
reminds us that a menace can be a means of salvation,
that it can awaken, in individuals and in nations alike,
vital forces that in periods of satiety, materialism and
nihilism may have seemed to be dead.

Hitler, the racialist, and Stalin, the Marxist, have
never felt or understood the moral law of such a revival.
Strong in their mad materialism, they believe men’s
souls are dead, that millions are ready to accept slavery
so long as their bodies are nourished. But there are
other problems in the lives of nations than those of un¬
employment, the class-struggle, race, and Lebensraum.
Ideals of liberty, honour, and faith are still capable of
moving people and making them rise against the most
deadly perils. Hitler and Stalin have failed to recog-

228

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

nize this truth, because faith, honour and liberty are
meaningless words for them.

It was with surprise and delight that foreign ob¬
servers watched the changes that took place in France
and England after the famous Munich Agreement.
But Hitler refused to recognize them, and persisted in
believing that France was rotten and England
impotent.

Towards the end of 1937, Herr von Neurath, the
German Minister of Foreign Affairs, asked his am¬
bassadors in France, Italy and England to send him
circumstantial and strictly objective reports on the
situation in those countries. Adolf, however, had lost
confidence in his Foreign Minister, and von Neurath
complained bitterly that only Herr von Ribbentrop’s
advice was followed. The ambassadors’ reports were
submitted to Hitler, and they provoked a terrific out¬
burst of rage.

‘Your reports,’ he said to von Neurath, ‘are in direct
contradiction with the confidential reports that I have
received. Why this morbid pessimism? I know what
to believe about France and England. 5

Two months later von Neurath was succeeded by
Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Count Welczek, then German Ambassador in Paris,
had good reason to be alarmed at the way German
policy was going.

Towards the middle of 1938 he asked his Military
Attache to approach the Fiihrer and try to give him a
truer picture of France and the French army.

229

HITLER AND I

The Military Attache was summoned to Berlin, and
his report was something like this:

‘The French General Staff is of an extraordinarily
high standard; the officers and non-commissioned
officers are excellent; the materiel , particularly that of
the motorized divisions, is first-class.

‘The men have lost nothing of their military quali¬
ties. All in all, the French army of 1937 could be con¬
sidered to be superior to that of 1917.’

After reading this report Hitler sent for the Military
Attache.

‘Herr General,’ he said, ‘you are an old officer, you
were defeated in 1918 and you are still labouring under
the disagreeable impressions of your defeat. Get it into
your head that not France but America defeated us.
My private information confirms me in the conviction
that there is neither courage nor initiative in the
French army, which is riddled with Bolshevism.
Mobilization could not take place without tremendous
Communist disturbances; and even if mobilization
were successfully completed, in the first battle the men
would shoot their officers rather than us.’

The Attache became eloquent.

‘I can only put you on your guard against such
ideas,’ he replied. ‘The reports you receive are false
and dangerous. The young men who act as your
observers lack experience. They speak English and
French, but they know neither England nor France.
In Paris they stroll up and down the Boulevards, and
see a few parliamentarians and a few society people.

230

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

They are utterly ignorant of the real strength of France;
they know nothing of French history, of the French
provinces, or of the French corps of officers.’

‘I forbid you, Herr General, to insult my best
collaborators in this fashion. Their young eyes see
more than the eyes of old officers blinded by pre¬
judices.’

The Military Attache thereupon offered his resigna¬
tion, but Hitler refused it.

The man who described this interview to me was
himself attached to the German Embassy in Paris, and
when war broke out, rather than return to Berlin, he
remained in a neutral country.

‘There is no way of opening the Fuhrer’s eyes,’ he
confided to me last year. ‘He refuses to see.’

‘Then he hasn’t changed at all,’ I replied. ‘When I
used to work with him Hess used to stop me at the door
and say, “For heaven’s sake don’t tell him this,” or
“for heaven’s sake don’t tell him that.” He can’t bear
disagreeable news.’

Hitler turned a blind eye to what was really happen¬
ing in France and England. He cannot, he will not
see the evolution that is taking place to-day in the
minds of the Italian and Spanish peoples; and he is
even more blind to the profound changes at work
among the German people.

Yet tins ‘Hitler and Germany’ problem remains of
the first importance from the political, moral, historical
and ethical points of view.

The Nazi dictatorship lies over Germany like a thick

231

HITLER AND I

covering of ice over a river. The ice is an integral part
of the river, and remains firm as long as the water
nourishes and supports it. But one fine day the water
separates itself from its covering of ice, and an empty
space, invisible from the banks, results. The ice still
seems as firm as in the past, but it can be smashed with
a single blow of an axe.

This is an exact analogy of what has been slowly
happening to the Nazi dictatorship since 1933. It
would be foolish to deny that Hitler and his system
were to a certain extent an expression of the German
people, an illustration of its nature, a realization of its
aspirations. But this can only be temporary. Does not
ice need certain atmospheric conditions before its
formation?

Under the immobile surface the river has remained
alive. It is impossible to stop completely the evolution,
the revolution of the German people. The feelings and
aspirations of the masses, the will of those capable of
independent judgment, have parted from the German
dictatorship, or become alien to it. An empty space
has formed between the water and the layer of ice.
Fissures have already appeared.

After seven years of dictatorship the German prisons
and concentration camps are fuller than during the
first months. Is this Volksgemeinschaft , the communion
of the people with its Fuhrer? Is this symptomatic of
the people’s happiness and unity and unqualified
admiration of the Fuhrer’s work?

Two million Germans have been or still are guests

232

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

in the cells of the Gestapo, or are or have been family
with the delights of Dachau, Buchenwald or Oranien-
burg. These two millions have parents, wives, chil¬
dren. In other words about ten million human beings
have suffered personally from Hitler’s methods. Is one
seriously to believe that the martyrs of the Hitler
regime and their families love and admire Hitler? Is
there anyone who does not know that the famous
plebiscites in which Hitler has majorities exceeding
99 per cent are shams? Does anyone seriously accept
the votes that are taken even in concentration camps
under the threatening whips of the guards? Is it not
astonishing that of 1,572 prisoners at Dachau as many
as eight had the courage to vote against Hitler in 1934,
and ten the temerity to submit blank voting papers.
The two millions who have been in Hitler’s prisons
were the first combatants and the first casualties in a
holy war against a scourge the danger of which so
many other Germans, and so many other European
peoples, only realized later.

Everyone is aware of the Nazi peril to-day, but for
years a relatively small number of clear-sighted Ger¬
mans fought against Hitler and Sta l i n alone. It took
an alliance between these two executioners, and
another outburst of Prussianism, to make Europe wake
up.

. The ferocious determination of the Prussian generals
was illustrated in the report from which we quoted in
the preceding chapter. Here is another quotation:

‘The Bolshevik peril has never made any impression

233

HITLER AND I

on the German militarists. On the contrary, from the
point of view of their caste, some of them find the
Russian system ideal. They know that the Lenin
period is past. The militarists know Russia better, and
have had the opportunity of studying the evolution of
its regime more closely, than so many of the people
who have written books on the U.S.S.R. They know
that the ruling class in Russia constitutes a new
aristocracy. Private property has been abolished, but
what of that? The ruling group rules, and lives very
well. Above all it has power, and a huge apparatus
which, unlike that of the Nazis, is bolstered up with
an ideal. The fact that this ideal has become less
radical does not render it ineffective.

‘Perhaps we shall see the National-Bolshevism of
Russia and Germany threatening the West from be¬
yond the German frontiers. Then Mr. Chamberlain
can have the ideological war that he refused to fight
when there was still time. That is the last trump card
that the Russo-German Allies have up their sleeve.

‘During the last war the generals realized that anti¬
capitalism might change the face of the world. What
would the people say if monster trials of the big cap¬
tains of industry were suddenly staged, if the factories
were expropriated, after their owners had been shot,
as they were in Russia? The opposition could be won
over by these measures and enslaved to the generals’
will. Is there any doubt that such measures would
cause troubles in other nations if they were skilfully
exploited by propaganda?

234

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

‘Bolshevism does not constitute a menace to the
militarists; they prefer it to socialism with its “sickly
pacifism”. Bolshevism has never been pacifist, but
militant and militaristic.

‘The generals would regard a German adaptation
of Bolshevism as their great opportunity. There are
many of them to whom the nature of the regime under
which they live matters not a jot, provided only that
they can play their role. Let it never be forgotten that
the Prussian officer is not brought up to be the instru¬
ment of a bourgeois government, as his counterpart is
in France and England; he is accustomed to playing
the leading r 61 e. The militarists needed Hitler to
reach their goal, and during the last few years they
were obliged to put up with many things. But all that
is over now. Now the generals are in command, and
they will only permit such changes as suit them.

‘War must be made on England, who is their enemy
of the moment. It will be a life-and-death struggle,
but the generals are convinced that it will go better for
them than in 1914.

‘I mentioned just now the possibility of monster
trials of captains of industry. The generals will go
■ further than that. They know the power of the socialist
idea, they are aware of what Gregor Strasser called
“the masses’ anti-capitalist dream”, and of its attrac¬
tion for the middle classes too. If they are to win the
war, they will have to come forward with a programme
to TnaVf* the sacrifices involved worth-while. Hitler
cannot come forward with this programme; they alone

235

HITLER AND I

can do it. This is the field in which we must expect
surprises.

‘What would the countries of the West say if monster
trials of Nazi magnates were staged, accusing them
of corruption and relations with foreign governments?
The object of the latter would naturally be the saving
of capitalism. What would our neighbours say if
evidence were produced denouncing the r6le played
by Western capitalists in this game?

‘Hitler sees the danger. That is why he goes to the
front so frequently. The other Nazi leaders do not
visit the front, or rather they are not allowed to do so.
The leading Nazis will be the first victims.’

The horrible visions that these secret plans of the
Prussian generals call up in the mind of any good
European should not paralyse us, but on the contrary,
inspire us to resist and defeat them.

I call ‘European’ every human being conscious of
our common heritage of Christianity, our common
historical background and civilization, and the indi¬
visibility of our economic life. Germany has always
been a part of the European family, and this she will
have to remain if Europe is not to stop at the Rhine —
if, that is to say, Europe is to remain Europe.

The German people is said to be entirely devoted to
its Fuhrer.

Who is responsible for this assertion? The Nazi
Press, the Nazi wireless, and Nazi agents all over the
world. Let us not be deceived by them, or by the
enthusiastic words of a few young German prisoners.

236

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

Enthusiasm is natural to youth, and these children have
known no regime other than Hitler’s.

No, the German people wants a German revolution,
that is to say a national and social revolution.

The German people wants Volksgemeinschafi, the
community of the people. It wants liberty at home,
that is to say, democratic self-administration; it wants
liberty abroad, that is to say the same national rights
as other peoples.

The German people wants a new political, legal and
economic order at home; it wants peace in Germany,
peace in Europe, and peace in the world.

Am I not just as much a part of the German people
as Adolf Hitler?

Are the millions of workers, peasants, Catholics,
and socialists not a part of the German people? Are
the fighters of the Black Front and officers like Pastor
Niem oiler and Colonel Mahraun 1 not part of the Ger¬
man people?

I have addressed millions of Germans; hundreds of
thousands of Hitler’s followers have read my articles;
tens of thousands have read my books and pamphlets.
I can vouch that the best of my compatriots only
followed Hitler so long as they saw in him the standard-
bearer of the German revolution; and I believe that
all the healthy and honourable elements in my country
will cease to follow him on the day on which they
realize how they have been deceived. That day, if it

1 A German officer who made an attempt at rapprochement between
Germany and France. He lost an eye as a result of treatment received in a
concentration camp.

237

HITLER AND I

has not already come, is near. For when it comes to
choosing between Hitler and Germany, every German
workman, peasant and soldier, every German intel¬
lectual and every German officer will not hesitate to
choose Germany.

Our duty in this is quite clear. The question:
Hitler or Germany? must be put to the German people
night and day. It should be a permanent obsession to
them, troubling them in the silence of the night. By
word and by deed they must be shown that it is the
duty of every lover of Germany to oppose Hitler.

Europe and Germany must unite in this struggle, for
German chaos can only lead to European chaos.

But the decision, the victory, must come in Germany
itself. The defeat of Hitler and Hitler’s regime must
coincide with the defeat of Prussianism. Aided by the
spiritual forces of Christianity and the Allied coalition
that has arisen to fight the Prusso-Bolshevik peril,
Germany must herself crush Prussianism, politically,
morally and territorially.

The crushing of Prussianism will mean the substitu¬
tion of right for might, of the spirit of co-operation for
the will to power. The spirit of European unity will
replace the spirit of European domination.

What the crushing of Prussia will involve in practice
will be the cantonization of Germany, the creation of
a federation of independent provinces, governed by
local authorities and free to live according to their
regional traditions.

The crushing of Prussia will involve laying bare and

238

THE FUTURE AGAINST HITLER

destroying the roots of militarism and the Junker
clique, as well as the roots of Pan-Ger manism , the
ideal of the big industrialists.

For this purpose it will be necessary to break up the
big estates, nationalize heavy industry and, finall y,
reform the German system of education.

Is that a revolution? Certainly. It has been con¬
vulsing Germany for twenty years. Its period of pre¬
paration lasted from 1920 to 1930, and its period of
destruction, under Hitler’s regime, fell between 1930
and 1940. It is now on the brink of the third period,
that of reconstruction.

Hitler was the demon of destruction, and hence the
very essence of the second period.

Hitler’s second sense explains why, ever since the
middle of 1939, he has never ceased talking of his
approaching death.

It matters little whether he dies of cancer of the
throat, as Professor Sauerbruch confided to one of my
friends on December 15, 1939, or whether he is shot
by one of his own followers, as was predicted by the
industrialist Hugenberg in June, 1933, when, in spite
of Hitler’s solemn promise to make no changes for four
years, he was dropped from Hitler’s Cabinet formed
in the previous January.

I shall never forget the last words of my last con¬
versation with Gregor before my flight to Austria.

‘You’ll see,’ my brother said to me, ‘Adolf will end
by blowing his brains out.’

‘Only if there’s a sufficient audience to applaud him,’

239

HITLER AND I

I replied, knowing his vanity, and his histrionic
temperament.

Hitler’s individual fate matters little.

Hitler and Stalin, Hitlerism, Prussianism and Bol¬
shevism will be conquered by the forces of a new
Germany and a civilized Europe.

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