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HITLER'S SECRET BACKERS by Sidney Warburg |
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In the sleeping car to Berlin I found an edition of a
German daily newspaper.
This was the main article on the front page:
People are streaming in masses from the inner city towards the Jahrhunderthalle, and the surrounding squares and buildings for the assembly on the fairgrounds. Buses, trucks, private cars and motorcycles are being parked in the nearest streets. To the left of the autos run streetcars crammed with people, and impatient women and men have waited since three o'clock with folding chairs and food parcels in front of the entrance to the building. By five o'clock the bridges over the Oder leading to the fairgrounds are black with people and autos. Traffic is being strictly controlled, but stoppages are still taking place. Cries of "Heil" keep ringing when vehicles carrying party members and Storm-Detachments, singing and displaying flags, arrive at the meeting places. Police walk around with lunch bags and water bottles. It is said that their squad cars are riddled with machine guns and tear gas bombs. Special trains run one after the other into the stations. Happiness, enthusiasm, bliss on all faces of women and men, workers, peasants, citizens, officials, students and unemployed, all are caught up in the excitement that adds to the inner suspense of the huge election campaign. Unforgettable, wonderful day. Hitler will speak. For the first time the whole SA of the province will march. There are Storm-Detachments among them who have sat in open trucks for ten hours or longer before reaching the meeting place. The SA columns are showered with flowers, it becomes a triumphal parade. Raised arms greet each other constantly. Heil SA, Heil ... Drums roll, horns sound. A crowd of thousands mills around in the gigantic concrete building of the Jahrhunderthalle, the massive memorial reminding the Prussian people forever of the great days of 1813. Long banners are draped on the ramparts and arches of the second largest domed building in the world. Written there is: "We don't fight for mandates, we fight for our political ideology." "Marxism must die so Socialism can live." There is no place in this world for a cowardly people." "Attention, Attention," sounds from the loudspeaker. "Everyone sit down, the SA is marching in." And they close in. The huge building trembles. A roar like a hurricane breaks forth, twenty thousand people rise from their seats. Between shouts of joy banners and flags are raised, one covered with black. A mother screams. An unknown storm-trooper has died a hero's death for his people. The Storm troopers march in. They can already be heard singing outside: "We are the army of the swastika." Enthusiasm reaches the boiling point. More columns keep coming. Men who know nothing more than duty and battle. The floor shakes under the marching feet, under the strength and discipline of the brown battalions. "Attention, Attention, Hitler has just arrived. Attention, Attention." Excitement everywhere. "Heil, Heil." He comes, thousands of eyes look for the Fuhrer. There he is. Sharp commands, a joyful cry: "Adolf Hitler." Now silence. The Gauleiter steps up to the microphone: "My dear German comrades," he begins. After a few sharp sentences he closes: "The Fuhrer will speak." Again a giant roar, then the masses listen. Adolf Hitler speaks. First slowly, measured, and cool. The first applause. Hitler nods for silence. He continues to speak with more conviction, irresistible, he becomes fervent and demanding, the non-National Socialists are struck. What this front-line soldier lieutenant first class Adolf Hitler, this man of the people, says is all so simple, so ordinary and so right, and everything so true, that know-it-alls, boastful of their development, and rational ones with their eternal practical complaints, are all silent. They follow the speaker with suspense. They have trouble understanding this man, whom they have come to see out of curiosity, but they applaud him. Hitler indicates silence. "Those who belong to us know that a turning point in the history of our people happens not every five or ten years, but perhaps only once in a century." Now he shrieks loudly: "Party platforms are worthless." Those people standing on the sidelines, the disappointed, the ones who have been betrayed so many times, listen carefully. "Thirteen years ago we were broken as a people, and a broken economic life followed the broken people. Once, a hundred years ago ... at that time the ones who brought new prosperity and happiness to the German people were not those who only thought of the economic life, but those who gave blood and possessions for the honor of the German people. It cannot be otherwise. The German economic life is not broken, the German people are ... " The front-line soldier Hitler is not speaking of platforms, but of sacrifice, submission and work. Now his voice sounds like a drum roll, now he speaks of Germany, and how. Hearts are inflamed, what a testament, a will and a belief as strong as rock. Hitler loves Germany, he loves and fights alone for Germany, always only for Germany. Eyes are shining, faces are resolute. The doubtful become courageous, disbelievers begin to hope, the indifferent and apathetic are taken up with him, and old soldiers are inspired to new deeds. Hitler attracts them all into the circle of his mastery with his glowing will to freedom. An enslaved people wakes up, class distinctions fall away, no class-conscious workers and discontented citizens, no, twenty thousand comrades believe and shout with joy, believe in the Fuhrer and acclaim him. -- I read all this in the sleeping car on the way to Berlin. I also read that von Pfeffer had been dismissed by Hitler, that von Heydt had stepped down from the party, and that Strasser had been left cold because his brother had incited mutiny among the Storm-Detachments. I am almost glad that I accepted the assignment to meet Hitler for the third time. Things are happening in this country that we only know through reading past history. So very few have actually been charged with being there, standing in the middle of things, speaking to the Fuhrer and learning his most secret motives. A strange atmosphere hangs over Berlin. Whether it is the calm before a storm? I don't know. No one speaks of politics. I visited the old friend in Wilmersdorf. His house is abandoned, this time I can tell that he was really not there. I have a conversation with the manager of a big department store. He reveals nothing of the situation. To all my questions he only answers that hard times are coming, and I could get no more from him. In several areas of Berlin the city looks strange, policemen next to stockpiles of rifles and machine guns. Open trucks full of Reichswehr soldiers race by at insane speeds, through the quiet streets. Motor brigades fly over the Kurfurstendamm, armed troops can be seen everywhere around government buildings near my hotel. Few brown uniforms. An odd phenomenon, to my mind. Hitler has, after all, been taken into the government. The few newspapers daring to raise the question speak of him as the chancellor of the future, a very near future. I had expected more demonstrations of power from the Hitler party in Berlin. I learned nothing from newspaper reports. A great deal was clarified, however, when I talked to an attache of the American embassy. He told me that Hitler had already put clamps on the press even though he was not yet chancellor, that his Storm-Detachments (SA) were mobilized to take over the city at the first signal, that the appearance of the Reichswehr, even though official, meant nothing, since the government could not use it against Hitler's troops, however much it might need to, because it was unreliable and contained many National Socialist elements; that Hitler had added a new group of fighters to his Storm-Detachments and troops that he himself named Murder-troops. Nobody in the other political parties protested this brutal designation, which is a challenge to civilization. The Social Democrats are broken because they realize that all their years of parliamentary work have led to nothing, the Communists are becoming afraid even though it was they who yelled the loudest. Yesterday their Karl Liebknecht house was taken by surprise and searched from cellar to attic. Officially it was done by police and Reichswehr, but my informant remarked that Hitler's Murder-troops had a large part in the destruction of the Karl Liebknecht-house. Many Communist leaders had already been taken prisoner, the red flag was forbidden, certainly only temporarily, but it would not be appearing before the elections. The Social Democrats are lukewarm in their manifestos and daily newspapers. Everyone feels that they are unable to cope with the situation. The German people want to be impressed, they only have respect for strong speakers. Germans are just children, naive people. They will never be attracted by an important principle. First I received a brief summary of the political situation. My informant even risked a prediction. "Hitler can no longer be stopped," he continued. "You will see, next week he will be Reichskanzler. A von Papen can't fight it, a von Schleicher tried it with the help of the young Hindenburg, but he was unsuccessful. Hitler can be Reichsprasident if he wants. He will be satisfied with the chancellery only temporarily. But Hindenburg is old and something could happen any day, then Hitler will be a complete dictator without even the appearance of a constitutional head. Anything is possible with this man. I have spoken to him a few times and heard his speeches, and he does what he wants with his audience. He doesn't let them think, just screams and yells so they can't resist him any more. When I listened to him I always had the feeling I had to fight the power of his suggestion, to keep from going along with him one hundred percent. When you ask yourself later what he said you can't remember it. What do you think of National Socialism?" I didn't want to give him an answer, especially not a complete answer. "We should wait," I said, "we Americans ultimately have nothing to do with it. If the German people want to think of Hitler as their savior, then that is their privilege, it's not our business." My confidant felt differently and tried to prove to me that Hitler was a danger to Europe just as Mussolini was, and that the Italian danger would be strengthened by the National Socialist's extension of power in Germany and by a Hitler dictatorship. That same evening I wrote to Hitler's old address in Berlin, saying I had arrived and requesting a meeting. That night the Reichstag building burned down. Goring came to my hotel at noon, more brutal than before, arrogant and authoritarian. He was accompanied by a newcomer, whom he introduced to me as Gobbels. Both were full of the burning. They swore at the Communists who had set fire to the building and tried to persuade me to the belief in their sacred right to wipe out the Communists down to the last man. I followed the same tactics as before and expressed no opinion. They would only answer my question of where and when I could speak to Hitler after they were done raging. The Fuhrer would receive me in the evening at eleven-thirty at the Fasanenstrasse. Goring would pick me up by automobile. Hitler was very upset. To be merely upset, for him, would mean hysteria for someone else. He was always upset, in the true sense of the word. His greeting was barely polite. He raged about the Communists who had set fire to the Reichstag, he accused the Social Democrats of having had a hand in the fire, he called on the German people as if he had thousands in front of him. I can't reproduce the whole raving monologue here because I retained almost nothing of it. It had no coherence. He went on for a full half hour before he sat down at the table and began a more or less controlled discussion with me, constantly interrupted by accusations and anger at the Communists. I had no idea what I was there at Hitler's for. The situation was like this. Carter had received a letter from Hitler, requesting him to send his former middleman immediately to Germany for a meeting. Carter had showed me the letter, and after my acceptance a few months ago, had asked me to go immediately to Berlin. Now I sat in front of Hitler, but had no idea of what he would ask or say to me. I waited calmly. "I would like to inform you of the progress in our ranks. Since 1931 our party has tripled in size. There are detachments in which the number of unemployed far exceeds the number of employed. Various electoral campaigns have taken their toll of our funds. Now we are on the brink of electoral victory. I have had to clean up the party. Certain elements, even in leading positions, were unreliable. But that is all over now. Now we are concerned with being successful in our last step. The Communists have played their last card with the burning of the Reichstag. The Social Democrats have been more difficult to defeat in our latest assault. Also, we can't forget the German Nationalists, and they have money. We can't come into Berlin with our troops because although we feel secure of the Reichswehr, we are not certain of the general populace there, especially in the north and the Jewish quarter. We have drawn a ring around Berlin and I have concentrated three quarters of our party's troop strength in it. Just a few more days and the big day will be here, election day. We have to win this last initiative. Either by elections or by force. In case the outcome of the elections is not favorable, my plan is definite: to arrest Hindenburg, his son, von Schleicher, von Papen and Bruning, and keep them prisoner. We will also take the Social Democratic leaders prisoner. Everything has been calculated up to the smallest detail. But half of our Storm-Detachments have only billy clubs, and the troops have old-fashioned carbines. Near the German border in Belgium, Holland and in Austria there are huge weapons supplies. Smugglers give no credit. They demand scandalous prices. Of course they are aware of what is happening here and are prepared for eventualities. You can't negotiate with those fellows. They want hard cash, nothing else." "I thought you would be here in Berlin sooner, then I could have calculated everything accurately. Now, at the last moment, we must act quickly. Long discussions won't help. What do you think your backers will do? Our money is gone. Will you continue to support us or not? Don't forget that we are fighting against Moscow, against the whole German heavy industry, against the Catholic Church and against the International. These are no enemies to underestimate. Our party funds have barely risen, although I did raise the membership fee to two marks and dues to one mark. There are too many unemployed persons we maintain for free and who have to be provided with uniforms and weapons. Things are better in the flat lands, there our people have carbines and hunting rifles. In the cities it is more difficult. What do you think? How much will your people give us?" I couldn't answer. Especially since I was not prepared for this question and had not discussed it with Carter before my departure.
"I have made no calculation, we had no time, and
I
don't trust my colleagues
any more, but for a few exceptions. Our party has grown so much in
such a short time that it has become more and more difficult for me to keep the
leadership
completely in my hands. That is absolutely necessary, since reliable
leaders are very
rare. The monarchists are beginning to come over to our side. Every
day members of the Stahlhelm join up, sometimes in masses, and we can do nothing
but welcome them, but we have to control the leaders who come along with them
very strictly.
I trust no one these days. I have finally made personal contact with
Hindenburg.
The conversation was anything but pleasant, the old man was very
reserved, but I
pretended not to notice it. I have time. He will know soon enough
with whom he is dealing. When the day arrives he will either play along or
disappear. I don't make compromises. You are no Jew are you? No, I remember, your name is
German, yes,
German origin. It is better for you to travel in Germany with a
German pass. Gobbels can take care of it. You know him, surely. He, along with
Goring, is one of my best partners. Von Heydt is no longer with us, you know that.
Neither is von Pfeffer. The Strassers are laughable. A mutiny in the SA against me,
a full meeting of all the Gauleiter, and the incident was over.
Strength, quick
action, daring, are everything. Instead of acting quickly and not waiting, the Strassers
and their people prepared and conspired in secret, and I was informed of all their
activities when I
stepped in at the last moment. They are weak brothers, overly
politicized, with manners they took from the red rabble. What are they saying in
America about the burning of the Reichstag? Obviously he forgot that I was already
here when the building burned. "But we know who the guilty ones are. We can prove
everything.
The Communist set fire to it, but behind him are both Communists and
Social Democrats. They will regret it. ..." Hitler had slowly worked
himself up to a frightening temper again and was now walking up and down in the
room. Suddenly he ran to the door, pulled it open wide and looked into the hall. He
began to rage and swear at someone who must be standing on the step. But I could
see no one.
I don't know what he was trying to do with his yelling. First I
thought he wanted to prevent someone in the hall from hearing our discussion. But that
wasn't the case, because when he came into the room again he continued to rage
against the invisible person over something that was not clear. Perhaps it was the long
wait for unimportant details, or over his inability to trust his subordinates.
He sat down again and said to me: "You have not mentioned the sum of money yet." There are moments when Hitler gave the impression of a sick man. It was always impossible to carry on a normal conversation with him. Sometimes his jumps from A to Z were such a hindrance and so stupid that his mental balance was doubtful. I think he has a hypernervous nature. In the last few years his mind has been occupied with a single idea. He has lived under constant tension. Many would have broken down, but Hitler seems to have an incredibly strong nature. I don't believe, though, that he has great understanding. When I try to summarize all the conversations I have had with him, I come to the conclusion that he is not intelligent, but unusually self-centered and tenacious. That is, I believe, his strength. We can all recognize a person of this type in our own circles, who, often dumb and barely developed, sacrifices everything for an idea or a possession, and either wins or perishes because of it. This is how I see Hitler. Whether he will be a blessing or a curse for a people like the Germans, only the future will tell, but I do think the German people are the only ones in the world to tolerate a man with such massive influence. There are so many weak points in his person and his behavior that the man himself as well as his party would have long been mocked and ridiculed in other countries. Knowing the man after various conversations I had with him, I also understand now why he can no longer be tolerated after his final victory, neither by Germans nor by foreign journalists. He is actually a danger to himself and to his party because he cannot control himself, he reveals everything, babbling about his plans without the slightest hesitation. This had struck me even at our first conversation. Of course, I had had the strongest references, my identity was secure, he could tell from every detail that he was dealing with someone who represented the strongest financial group in the world, but for me it was no proof of his statesmanship and political insight to be informed so straight-forwardly of his most secret intentions. In 1933 this was certainly less dangerous than 1929 or 1931. But in both those years he was equally frank with me as in 1933. Also he couldn't get away from the Jewish problem. That was the central issue for him, the problem of the greatest importance for the German people. His ideas on this subject would be considered laughable by an American high school student. He absolutely denies all historical fact, and I believe he knows nothing about the modern concept of "race." After his question, or actually his reproach, "You have mentioned no sum of money," he began to speak of the Jewish problem, and by God, he began to compare the German problem with the Negro problem in America. That was enough for me to form an impression of Hitler's understanding and insight. Both problems are in no way comparable. I will spare you these nonsensical comparisons of his. It was already three o'clock in the morning and I still did not actually know what he wanted of me. So I made use of a small pause in his incoherent speech to ask him: "You spoke of a sum of money?" "Yes, that is the problem. We don't have much more time. This is the situation. Are your backers prepared to continue supporting us? What amount can you get for me? I need at least one hundred million marks to take care of everything, and not to miss my chance of final victory. What do you think?" I tried to make it clear that there could be no talk of such a sum, first of all because he had already received twenty- five million and second because the transfer of such a large amount in a few days from New York to Europe would certainly disturb the stockmarket. Hitler didn't understand this, and he said so directly. He was not familiar with such complicated details in banking. "If you have the money in America, then certainly it can be turned over to Germany. Telegraphically or something, it seems very simple to me." It was hopeless and a complete waste of breath to enlighten him in international finance. I concluded by promising to report our conversation to my backers and then to wait and see what their decision was. "You will telegraph, won't you? Do it here, then your telegram will be handled more quickly. Code? We can also help you, I will just telephone for you." Now I had to explain that I corresponded with Carter in a secret code and he demanded to know whether nobody could read this cablegram, not even the directors of the telegraph company? He was amazed and thought it was bad that private persons could telegraph each other without the government of the different countries being able to decipher their reports. He admitted that he had never heard of such a thing. It was about four-thirty when I got back to my hotel and I immediately began to construct my code telegram to Carter. It was very strange to read the German press in those days. Of course, one was told that Social Democratic and Communist weeklies were still available, but the hotel boy that I sent out for them kept coming back with the well- known Berlin papers. The burning of the Reichstag building was believed to be without exception a Communist misdeed. I was never able to learn other opinions, even if they were available. I read other explanations in America and elsewhere, but if it is true that the Hitler party had a hand in the burning, then Hitler is the best actor I have met in five continents. Goring and Gobbels are almost as good. His anger, his frenzy about the burning were either completely genuine or incredibly well put on, and even now, just thinking of that conversation, I can still feel the influence of those wild feelings. I noticed another strange thing in those days about Berlin. At street corners and squares I often saw ten or twenty brown uniforms with swastikas standing in a circle. For a quarter of an hour they cried: "Clear out the manure! Vote National Socialist!" Then they walked on, formed another circle and cried: "The latest egg the Jews have laid, that is the German State's Party!" At noon time I saw out of my hotel window forty brown uniforms standing in a circle, a half hour long they yelled in constant rhythm: Proletarian, wake up!
I always had to drink of Hitler when I saw these people. In Berlin they were called the propaganda "speaking- choruses." Everything Hitler. Short sentences. Just speak, scream, yell, without protest from anyone. No one could get a word in edgewise. Certainly a new propaganda method. They have discovered new methods here at home in the area of voting propaganda, but I have never seen anything as suggestive as this, anything that has such an effect on the masses, and the first party to use it naturally gets control of the streets, because even if another parry holds a speaking chorus in the same area it results in a scuffle -- it can't be otherwise. The rhythm and the constant repetition of the same words puts the speakers in a kind of ecstasy, and in this ecstasy they are capable of anything. I have seen these brown people, how they look up over the heads of the crowds, as if they see a better world and they revel in this image. The ecstasy could be seen right on their faces. Can a person still think logically in ecstasy? Psychologists are the ones to ask. Yesterday I read somewhere in a dissertation that fascism and National Socialism were a sickness, perhaps a sickness of the soul. But I am just rambling. Carter wired me that he could give seven million dollars at most, that means five million would be turned over from New York to Europe to the given banks and two million would be paid personally to me in Germany by the Rhenania Joint Stock Co. Rhenania is the German branch of Royal Dutch in Dusseldorf. I sent this answer to Hitler and waited. The next day Gobbels was announced very early in the morning. He brought me to the Fasanenstrasse. Hitler received me in the same room, Goring was with him. The conversation was very brief. Almost abrupt. I had the impression that the three men were not satisfied with the stipulations, and that they had to force themselves not to lash out against me. Everything went well, however. Hitler asked me to sign over the five million dollars to the Banca Italiana in Rome again, and Goring would accompany me. The two million had to be transferred in fifteen checks of equal value, in German money, all in Gobbels' name. The meeting was then at an end. I left. I carried out my assignment strictly down to the last detail. Hitler is dictator of the largest European country. The world has now observed him at work for several months. My opinion of him means nothing now. His actions will prove if he is bad, which I believe he is. For the sake of the German people I hope in my heart that I am wrong. The world continues to suffer under a system that has to bow to a Hitler to keep itself on its feet. Poor world, poor humanity! For translation faithful to the original Zurich, February 11, 1947 Rene Sonderegger
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