Chapter 50 Chapter 8 Hitler's Secret Writings (5)

In this and many subsequent speeches, Hitler seemed to be following the socialist line of Gregor Strasser; he even used the language of the Left in his attacks on capitalism and the decadent bourgeoisie.But he left the fighting edge of winning the urban workers to the National Socialist side to someone more qualified.Joseph Goebbels had already gone to Berlin. When he left, he carried an old schoolbag on his shoulders (only two coats, a few shirts, a few books and a stack of manuscripts in it), and bought a third-class train ticket.When he arrived, he found that the party organization in the Berlin district was in disarray.He later wrote, "In those days, the so-called party organization in Berlin did not live up to its name at all. There were all kinds of people together, and there were only a few hundred people with National Socialist ideas." is much less realistic, but this is by no means an exaggeration.In the capital, party meetings often turn into scolding contests, and slapping is routine.Once, Gregor Strassel had a quarrel with a man named Hagemann, and the two quarreled red-faced, and finally ended by proposing a duel.

The task before Goebbels was obviously extremely difficult.Among the nearly 1,000 party members under his control, "in addition to being at odds with each other," he also encountered overwhelming opposition from the Communists and Social Democrats in the streets.The district party headquarters at the time were housed "in the dirty basement" of a building on Potsdamer Strasse. "It was a complete mess. The finances were messed up. There was nothing in the Berlin party area, and there were debts." This situation did not discourage Goebbels, but encouraged him.He moved the headquarters to a better place, started to work normally, and improved the financial and accounting system-managed by himself.By February 1927, the District Party Headquarters had not only fully repaid its debts, but also had fixed assets of around 10,000 marks and an old car.

Goebbels felt that now was the time to strengthen the party organization.For this he must attract the attention of a jaded public. "Berliners need sensationalism like fish need water," he wrote, "and they live on it. Without this knowledge, any political propaganda will be futile. After that, whether writing articles or giving speeches, he He tried to cater to the tastes of Berliners. Articles and speeches were written crisply and lively. His stormtroopers found the Reds in the streets - especially when they were right. His theory was that "he who conquers the streets, You can conquer the masses; conquering the masses means conquering the country. "

According to the landlady, whenever he gives a speech, he must first practice his posture in front of a big mirror, which lasts for several hours.After taking the stage, he really made a lot of progress; soon, he mastered various styles proficiently. Before the meeting started, he always asked who the audience was. "What style should I use? Ethnic, social, or sentimental? Of course, I have it all." He often uses lively language to win over the audience.He's a brilliant actor who can instantly move from humor to sentimentality to invective.He often deliberately provokes the red elements to make them protest loudly, so as to use them. "Making a noise," he once said, "is an effective weapon of resistance." Propaganda was an art to him, and he was a master of it—with American-style trolling. Art peddles National Socialism as if it were the best commodity in the world.

The way Goebbels entered the war in the Vidin district, a workers' residential area, was to set up street signs with eye-catching big red letters, declaring that "the bourgeois state is almost finished." On February 11, 1927, he invited many workers to a mass meeting.The congress was held in Farus Hall, where the Communists used to meet.This is an open declaration of war.No sooner had the chairman opened the meeting than a Marxist worker shouted that one point on the agenda wished to be clarified.The chairman ignored him; the man was thrown out by the stormtroopers when he repeated his request.A struggle begins. 83 red elements were beaten; more than 10 Nazis were injured.Goebbels showed his skills at this time and ordered these people to be carried to the rostrum and let them groan there-this is even better.This move showed Goebbels' talents as a propagandist.The battle of Faruss Hall put the name of the Nazi Party on the front pages of newspapers.In this way, Berliners who knew little about Hitler and his movement understood that there was a new political force in the city.This propaganda was originally defamatory.Unexpectedly, in the next few days, 2,600 people applied to join the Nazi Party, and 500 of them also applied to join the SA.

The number of people attending the conference increased each time.By the time Hitler appeared at the Crowe Hotel, the audience had reached 5,000.The congress was held in honor of May Day, the Marxist holiday; the Führer opened his speech like Lenin: "We are socialists, the enemies of today's capitalist economic system. They pass unfair wages and The poor are exploited by the amount of wealth and possessions, rather than by the amount of responsibility and merit that improperly evaluates human worth. We are determined to destroy this system, no matter what the conditions are.” Then he went on Talk about the so-called living space, trying to instill this concept in the party members.He said that Germany has a population of 62 million but an area of ​​only 450,000 square kilometers, how crowded it is! "When you consider the size of other countries in the world today, what a ridiculous number." There are two solutions: reduce the population by "expelling the best people out of the country", or "make the territory equal to the population size." Coordination, even if it means war. It is God's most natural way."

Goebbels had hoped that the Reds would cause trouble, but all was quiet, and the speech was not even reported in the major newspapers.To keep the party in the public eye, Goebbels organized another rally three days later in the "Legion Hall".To this end, he came up with a provocative anti-Semitic slogan ("Suffering people! Who will save us? Jakob Goldschmidt?"), thousands of copies were printed and posted all over Berlin .Goldschmidt, the great German banker, was also urged to attend the meeting.He was supposed to be invited, but at the last minute the board of directors advised him not to go, and his private secretary attended instead.

Goebbels was courteous, much to the amusement of his audience with his cynicism. "Welcome! Workers from Berlin!" he said. "A warm welcome to Jakob Goldschmidt's beautiful young private secretary! Please don't write down every word I say, your boss will be in Tomorrow's papers will read my speech." Then he spoke contemptuously of "Jewish publications" and "press synagogues.""You're no good yourself!" shouted a troublemaker, an elderly priest, who kept interrupting Goebbels.Goebbels had no choice but to signal for the stormtroopers to punish him.The pastor was badly injured and taken to the hospital.The newspaper said the victim was a "white-haired, respectable" Protestant priest (in fact, he was a drunkard who had been kicked out of the pulpit and later became an active member of the Nazi Party).This aroused public outrage, and the police department ordered that the Nazi Party in Berlin be outlawed.

The ban surprised and displeased Goebbels.At the same time, he tried to de-emphasize the situation with slogans such as "Traffic but not dead".Since the party was driven underground, he had to play up some innocent banners, such as "calm lake", "beautiful oak tree", "1927 walking group", etc., to cover up his organization. The police counter-measured by issuing another ban on Nazi speeches throughout Prussia. Goebbels was not alarmed.He started a weekly magazine, aptly titled Shock, which came out on Independence Day, but the reality turned out to be so different from his dream that the first issue shocked him.Edition failed. "What a miserable provincial publication," he admitted. "Nonsense publication!" Only a few hundred party members subscribed, and only a few copies were sold on newsstands.But Goebbels believed that his basic idea was good.So he copied the decoration and content of the Communist Party newspaper and kept it alive.

Goebbels and Strasser exacerbated the Berlin problem by bitterly bickering with each other, which brought an air of sober realism to the Munich annual meeting in late July.The party's rate of growth in the cities has been disappointing.Hitler did not talk about this crisis at the meeting, but only in general terms, and aimed it at a target in Bergbraun that no one would defend—the Jews. Hitler seemed indifferent to the party's ebb, as if he had bigger things on his mind.The speeches he has given in recent months have shown that he is concerned with his ideology.He repeatedly fed his audience racist ideas and the idea that Germany's future lay in the conquest of Eastern lands.Again and again he preaches his pseudo-Darwinian law of nature: the strong prey on the weak.

At the party's third-anniversary congress in Nuremberg, he took this program a step further.About 20,000 party members, 8,500 of them in uniform, flocked into this ancient city.As usual, the venue was spectacular.Accompanied by the exciting military music, the participants are marching into the venue with banners. On Sunday, August 21, the last day of the celebration, Hitler linked the concept of living space to anti-Semitism.Because of his vagueness, most people don't understand the meaning of this lowly marriage.He reiterated his demand for greater living space for the German people; then he pointed out that power, and power alone, is the basis for acquiring new territories.But, he said, Germany had been stripped of its power factor by three formidable forces: internationalism, democracy, pacifism.Hitler then linked the Holy Trinity with racism.Aren't internationalism, democracy and pacifism not inventions of the Jews?Indeed, Hitler had merged existentialism and anti-Semitism.Hitler's unsystematic groping for new concepts was nearly complete. Hitler still lived in the little house on Thieschstrasse.Although he was received like a hero in some of the most luxurious homes in Germany, his standard of living was still ascetic.Neighborhood legend has it that he shared the few shirts and socks he had with others.In this humble room he received admirers from all over the country, rich and poor alike, in a display of sense and kindness.The hand kisses he gave women won their lifelong loyalty to him; the strong handshake, the attitude of seeking truth from facts and treating others peacefully won the trust of men. His speeches also became a model of political acumen.In a speech in Hamburg that autumn, the prefect Albert Klein*?Schwartz noticed that Hitler was speaking strictly according to the outline-the key words were written on the outline.Even the words that seem to come out of the mouth are pre-written.Hitler was not the intuitive orator that many, especially the opposition, believed him to be.His lectures were well-written, and he knew exactly what effect he was asking for and how to get it.What Kreps didn't understand was that Hitler was testing his worldview in public, but he also knew that the Führer had a grand plan brewing in his chest. "He was well aware that he could gain the attention of the masses only by avoiding clichés and by using new words and concepts. His ideas were driven and made acceptable to people with different political goals. So when he first When Hamburg appeared in public, he was able to applaud the audience who had doubts or reservations in just one hour, and the applause became louder and louder. At the end, the applause became the applause of the whole house. Sober listeners also declared that, while they still opposed Hitler and his Nazi Party, it was clear that Hitler himself was more reasonable than they thought." He is also learning how to meet the basic needs of the average German.He was no longer the fearsome revolutionary of the Munich uprising, nor was he a popular fanatic; he was a reasonable man dedicated to the welfare of his country.His "basic values ​​and goals" are both confident and acceptable.What his audience couldn't possibly know was that those "reasonable words" were nothing more than a mask for the most radical program in human history.This program will change the map of Europe, affecting the lives of most people on the planet in one way or another. That autumn, Hitler made a brief stop in Berlin to personally resolve the Goebbels-Strasses dispute.According to Otto Strasser, Hitler came to his office and demanded that the quarrel be stopped. "Then go tell Goebbels," he said gruffly. "He is aggressive." Otto's irrelevant performance must not reflect his brother's attitude towards Hitler.The Führer had come specifically to express his confidence in Gregor.In addition to allowing him to return to both inside and outside the party, the head of state also intends to let him hold a higher position.It was he, Gregor, who appeared on the podium with Hitler in his first public appearance in Bavaria, and it was he, Gregor, who presided over the last annual meeting.The younger brother repeatedly warned that Hitler's power was too great to be dangerous.But he just wouldn't listen. "Hey," he argued, "you know, like me, that Hitler was not a leader, but a popular pulpit. He could still be dealt with." Hitler was like a stubborn horse. "He should not be allowed to throw us down, but should be strangled and led to the right path." Otto said that Hitler was not a horse, but a tiger, "once he throws you off, he will get rid of you forever." Grigor retorted that he could handle the Führer because after all, Hitler "was a weakling." Good-natured, loyal and honest man. You don't know how much he valued my words. He often said to me, Gregor, you are right again. What would I be without you? Do you think he Will that be said to Streicher?"