Пользователь - o 3b3e7475144cf77c

said, while other peoples couldn't and wouldn't. The attitude of the outside world to him was

that of the farmer who stared at a giraffe in the circus and exclaimed: "There ain't no sich

animal!" The more Adolf told the world what he was and what he meant to do, the more the

world smiled incredulously. There were men like that in every lunatic asylum; the type was so

familiar that any psychiatrist could diagnose it from a single paragraph of a speech or a single

page of a book. Sensible men said: "Nut!" and went on about their affairs, leaving Adolf to

conquer the world. Here and there a man of social insight cried out warnings of what was

going on; but these, too, were a well-known type and the psychiatrists had names for them.

Adolf Hitler got the mastery of the National Socialist Party because of his combination of

qualities; because he was the most fanatical, the most determined, the most tireless, and at the

same time the shrewdest, the most unscrupulous, the most deadly. From the beginning men

had revolted against his authority, and while he was weak he had wheedled and cajoled them

and when he became strong he had crushed them. There had been split after split in his

movement, and he had gone after the leaders of the factions without ruth; even before he had

got the authority of government in his hands, his fanatical Stormtroopers had been beating and

sometimes murdering the opponents of this new dark religion of Blut und Boden, blood and

soil. Work with Adolf Hitler and you would rise to power in the world; oppose him, and your

brains would be spattered on the pavement, or you would be shot in the back and left unburied

in a dark wood.

Hermann Goring, aviator and army officer, man of wealth, of luxurious tastes and insatiable

vanities, hated and despised Joseph Goebbels, the blabbing journalist, the club-footed little

dwarf with the venom-spitting tongue; and these sentiments were cordially reciprocated. Jupp

would have thrown vitriol into Hermann's face, Hermann would have shot Jupp on sight—if

either had dared. But the Führer needed Hermann as a master executive and Jupp as a master

propagandist, and he put them into harness and drove them as a team. The same thing was

true of hundreds of men in that party of madness and hate: World War victims, depression

victims, psychopaths, drug addicts, perverts, criminals—they all needed Adolf a little more than

Adolf needed them, and he welded them into something more powerful than themselves.

Hardly one who wasn't sure that he was a greater man than Adolf, and better fitted to lead the

party; in the old days many had patronized him, and in their hearts they still did so; but he

had won out over them, because of the combination of qualities. He was the one who had

persuaded the masses to trust him, and he was the one who could lead the N.S.D.A.P. and all its

members and officials upon the road to conquest.

II

Adolf Hitler had watched Lenin, he now was watching Stalin and Mussolini, and had

learned from them all. In June of the year 1924, when Lanny Budd had been in Rome, Benito

Mussolini had been Premier of Italy for more than twenty months, but the Socialists were still

publishing papers with several times as many readers as Mussolini's papers, and there was

still freedom of speech in the Italian parliament and elsewhere; there was still an opposition

party, there were labor unions and co-operatives and other means of resistance to the will of the

Fascists. It had taken the murderer of Matteotti another year and more to accomplish his

purpose of crushing opposition and making himself master of the Italian nation.

But Adolf's time-table was different from that. Adolf had a job to do in the outside world, and

had no idea of dawdling for three years before beginning it. He knew how to wait, but would

never wait an hour longer than necessary, and would be his own judge of the timing; he

would startle the world, and even his own followers, by the suddenness and speed of his

moves.

First, always first, the psychological preparation. Was he going to wipe out the rights of

German labor, to destroy a movement which the workers had been patiently building for

nearly a century? Obviously, then, the first step was to come to labor with outstretched hands,

to enfold it in a brotherly clasp while it was stabbed in the back; to set it upon a throne where it

could be safely and surely riddled with machine gun bullets.

Europe's labor day was the First of May, and everywhere over the continent the workers

paraded, they held enormous meetings, picnics and sports, they sang songs and listened to

speeches from their leaders, they heartened and inspired themselves for the three hundred

and sixty-four hard days. So now, several weeks in advance, it was announced that the Hitler

government was going to take over the First of May and make it the "Day of National Labor."

This was a government of "true Socialism"; it was the friend of labor, it was labor, and no

longer could there be a class struggle or any conflict of interest. The revolution having been

accomplished, the workers would celebrate their conquest and the new and splendid future

which lay before them. All these golden, glowing words —and all the power of press and radio to

carry the message to every corner of the Fatherland. Also, of course, the power of the police and

the private Nazi armies to terrify and crush anyone who might try to voice any other idea.

"Oh, Lanny, you should come to see it!" wrote Heinrich Jung, ecstatically. "It will be

something the like of which has not been seen in the world before. All our youth forces will

assemble in the Lustgarten in the morning and President Hindenburg himself will address us.

In the afternoon there will be costume parades of every craft and trade, even every great

factory in Germany. All will gather in the Tempelhof Airfield, and the decorations will exceed

anything you could imagine. The rich are paying for them by buying tickets so as to sit near

the Führer. Of course He will speak, and afterwards there will be fireworks like a battle—three

hundred meters of silver rain! I beg you and your wife to come as my guests—you will always

be glad that you witnessed these historic scenes. . . . P.S. I am sending you some literature

about our wonderful new labor program. You cannot have any doubts after this."

Lanny wrote, acknowledging the letter and expressing his regrets. It cost nothing to keep in

touch with this ardent young official, and the literature he sent might some day be useful to Rick.

Lanny was quite sure that he wouldn't care to enter Germany so long as Adolf Hitler remained

its Chancellor.

III

The celebration came off, with all the splendor which Heinrich had promised. Everything was

the biggest and most elaborate ever known, and even the hardboiled foreign correspondents

were awestricken; they sent out word that something new was being born into the world. On

the enormous airfield three hundred thousand persons had assembled by noon, to sit on the

ground and await ceremonies which did not begin until eight in the evening. By that time

there were a million or a million and a half in the crowd, believed to be the greatest number

ever gathered in one place. Hitler and Hindenburg drove side by side, the first time that had

happened. They passed along Friedrichstrasse, packed to the curb with shouting masses, and

hung with streamers reading: "For German Socialism," and "Honor the Worker." In front of