Chapter 109 Chapter Eighteen "Crystal Night" (2)

From his youth, Hitler sneered at the ability of democracies and their leaders to say one thing and do another.He was therefore less concerned than his loyal followers with the protests in the West throughout the second half of 1938.Rudolf Hess, for example, was extremely depressed. On December 23, he sat for two hours with the family of Bruckman, an early follower of the Führer.He told them that he had begged the Führer to stop the massacre, but in vain. Hitler must have known about the betrayal of these older followers.But on New Year's Eve, he was in high spirits, donning a tuxedo for a New Year's Eve gala at the Berghof. "My sister," Ilse Braun wrote in her diary, "was trying to persuade him to dress properly. 'Look at Mussolini,' she used to say,' He's got a new uniform, too. And you're wearing a postman's cap!'" He kissed Ilse's hand, and said they were both beauties.

"When he looked at me, my chest was full of sweat, and I didn't even have the courage to say 'thank you very much' - although, I was determined to make a big comment." After being formally congratulated by his guests and men, Hitler participated in an ancient Teutonic ceremony.The molten lead was poured into a small basin of water.It is said that the shape of the lead in the basin can determine people's future. "Hitler seemed dissatisfied with the result, because afterward he sat in an armchair, staring into the fire and hardly speaking all night. Eva was terribly worried about him."

Hitler's mood was made worse when, a few days later, a group of bankers rose up against his vast rearmament program. "Boundless spending of empire," reads a memorandum drafted by Reichsbank President Hegalma Shahit and signed by the presidents of the banks, "is the gravest threat to currency. The enormous increase in spending prevents us from making normal even if taxation is tightened, it will bring the country's finances to the brink of collapse. Likewise, it will destroy the Reichsbank and our currency." Shahit warned that in the face of such an inflationary policy, our currency would be difficult Steady, "The time has come to stop this practice."

Schahit knew that Hitler would be furious, because by saying this he was effectively putting an end to the military adventure.He told Schwerin von Krosiger what he had done and said he was ready to be fired (he had already lost his post as Minister of Economics and was replaced by Walter Funck. Funk's powers immediately was annexed by Göring as Director of the Four-Year Plan).The finance minister said that if Shahit leaves, he will ask for his dismissal.He then drew up a similar memorandum and sent it to Hitler. Days passed by, but nothing happened. Late at night on January 19, 1939, Shahit's phone rang.He was ordered to meet the Führer at 9 am the next day.Meeting at this hour was unusual, as Hitler rarely went to bed before 3:00 am.According to Shahit, the head of state said straight to the point, "I called you here to tell you that you have been dismissed from the position of president of the Reichsbank. This is the letter of dismissal." Shahit took the letter of dismissal. "You don't fit the picture of National Socialism".After Hitler finished speaking, he waited for a moment to see what Shahit had to say.

Shahit remained silent.Hitler then reprimanded him for condemning the "Night of Crystals" at a Christmas Eve party attended by bank workers. "If I had known that these were approved by you," Shahit finally spoke, "I might have kept silent." This answer seemed to have taken Hitler by surprise. "Anyway," he said indignantly, "I'm too sad to talk to you." The two agreed, and Shahit went on a long trip abroad.Shortly thereafter, he went to India.Hitler was relieved to have gotten rid of him. "If you take tough measures," Hitler later told his inner circle, "Sahit is a priceless pearl." But every time he was asked to show his strength of character, he couldn't show it.

Shortly after Shahit was dismissed, Captain Weidman was called to Wintergarden.In recent months, Hitler had treated him more and more coldly, and Weidmann also guessed that he would also be expelled.Ever since "Crystal Night," the Führer seems to be living in a paradise that has nothing to do with reality.Whenever Weidmann tried to discuss the shortcomings of the system, Hitler always ignored him. "People in high places, or in the inner circle, are of no use to me unless they agree with my political views," he told Weidmann succinctly. "I relieve you and my personal aide-de-camp and appoint you consul in San Francisco. You may accept or decline this new position." Weidmann accepted the position without hesitation, but said that he hoped that his position would not be reduced. salary.Hearing this, Hitler's tone softened. "If you have any financial problems, you don't hesitate to bring them up." Thus, after four years of close relationship, the two wartime comrades parted without bitterness.

The ouster of Schachter and Weidmann marked a return to favor for Joseph Goebbels — a fall from grace that was the result of his philandering. "Every woman makes my blood boil," he wrote in his diary in his twenties. "Like a wolf, I wandered back and forth." After marrying Magda, he also had no restraint.At the same time, he maintained sexual relationships with numerous women and never compromised them openly.That is, until the summer of the Olympics when he fell in love with Czech actress Lida Barova.Magda thought it was just the usual flirting until, in 1938, she lost patience and asked for a divorce.Hitler, who had shown amazing tolerance for homosexuality, was deeply saddened by party leaders abandoning the partners who had helped him gain power.He told Goebbels to cut ties with the actress.At first, he refused, and offered to resign his ministerial position, willing to go to Japan or other distant countries as an ambassador.Later, he succumbed to the pressure and gave up his great love.Under the "persuasion" of the police, Barova returned to Czechoslovakia.As soon as she left, Hitler summoned the Goebbels family to the Berghof.Photos of the Goebbels and their three children at the entrance of the Kirstein teahouse were published to prove that everything was going well for the family.

These dramatic compromises took place just a few weeks before "Night of the Crystals."The pain of losing Lida Barova - and the desire to rehabilitate people like Himmler and Rosenberg (who felt that the Goebbels scandal "delivered the worst blow to the party's moral standing") Wishes - all of which may have been the reason why he was so unscrupulous in November's "Crystal Night". Goebbels' reinstatement came at a time when Hitler had a new perspective on the Jewish question.Not long ago, Hitler had visited Mrs. Troost's studio in Munich.She urged Hitler to bring back the Jewish composer Arthur Pichler, to allow him to teach at the Augsburg Conservatory, why shouldn't the Jews be treated individually?she argued.The few Jews she knew were not only experts in the industry, but also valuable people.

"That's all your experience," Hitler said after thinking, "if I had had a similar experience. I might not have gone the way I am now. But my experience is very different-like my experience in Vienna That." He must put the fate of the German people above all else. "The Jew lived alone, and served his own laws, and never lived or was subject to the laws of the nation or country of which he was a citizen. He was not of the German people, and among us he was only a guest. But, Being a guest is also different from the period 1918-1933. At that time, they occupied the highest positions in art, literature, journalism, business and banking. Let our people rebuild on the basis of their own national characteristics. Solid and healthy This is my responsibility. It is my life's mission to enable the German people, especially the German workers, to live in safety and have a bright future." These words were to reject her "in principle" Said on request.Strangely enough, when he went to Munich again, he uncharacteristically agreed to reinstate Professor Pichler.

Just as in early 1938 false claims of Czech troop movements across the border prompted Hitler to act prematurely, so the storm of protests abroad over Crystal Night may have deepened his hatred of the Jews and prompted him to seek countermeasures against the Jews. their new approach. On February 21, 1939, he told Czech Foreign Minister Cvalkovski that Germany would not provide guarantees to a country that had not wiped out the Jews.This shows that he has completely lost his objectivity. "Our friendliness was nothing more than weakness, and we regret it," he said. "These pests must be eliminated. The Jews are our sworn enemies. By the end of this year, there will be no Jews left in Germany." They will never escape punishment as they did in November 2018. "The day has come to settle accounts with them."

A few days later, the Foreign Office sent a circular to the various diplomatic missions and consulates stating that the Jewish question was an element of German foreign policy. "The ultimate goal of German policy toward the Jews," said the notice, "is the emigration of all Jews residing on German soil." Since the advent of the National Socialist party, only a little more than 100,000 Jews have emigrated from Germany and settled in their new host countries. .Although the number of immigrants is small, it has caused resistance from the native residents of the United States, France, the Netherlands and Norway.Despite Germany's moral condemnation, the West closed its borders like hermits to Hitler's Jews.The sudden anti-Semitism of this place is full of gunpowder, which proves that the practice of deporting Jews on a large scale has worked.The circular concludes that the aim of German policy "is the international settlement of the Jewish question in the future, which will not be swayed by false sympathy for 'expelled rabbis', but will be based on the mature understanding of the nations that the , the Jews will be a danger to the national existence of nations." On January 29, Hitler announced his abrupt change of tactics even more blatantly.In a speech to Reichstag at a congress celebrating the sixth anniversary of the Nazi Party's rise to power, he declared war on the Jewry of the world.Significantly, a few hours earlier, he had given the Navy a powerful submarine fleet within five years.England, America, and France, he attacked, were "continually incited to this day by Jewish and non-Jewish agitators to hate Germany and the German people," and that all he wanted was quiet peace.He said that these lies and attempts aimed at bringing about war will not affect Germany's attitude towards solving the Jewish problem in the slightest.For the first time since he came to power, he lifted the veil on his final plan: "I have always been a prophet in my life's journey, and I have often been ridiculed for it... I will be a prophet again: as Jewish finance in Europe and beyond The oligarchs were able to throw the countries again into a world war, and the result would not be the Bolshevization of the planet, not the victory of the Jews, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!" This paranoid man was shouting to the Jews: "Stop that! ! You are forcing me to kill you!"