The Proud Shall Stumble

by Gerald N. Lund

  “I see what you’re saying,” Hans agreed. And he did. It gave him a little chill.

  “And am I right?”

  “Ja, I believe you are dead on.”

  “Then we must be prepared, Hans. We must be ready.”

  “I agree. But how?” Hans hesitated but then decided it had to be said. “You are the voice of the party, and now that voice has been silenced, at least here in Bavaria.”

  “Oh,” Adolf said, “it will be much more than here in Bavaria. I have already received a phone call this morning saying that Berlin is putting a motion forward in the Reichstag to extend the ban to me speaking in Prussia as well. The papers are saying that other states will quickly follow. There won’t be many places in Germany where I am allowed to speak.”

  Hans wanted to shout at him. Then why did you do it? I warned you. Rudolf warned you. But instead he said, “Do you remember you once said to me, many years ago, that to be an effective politician, a man must also be an effective orator?”

  Adolf laughed softly. “Yes, I remember that very well.”

  “Well, it was your oratory skill, more than any other single thing I can think of, that brought the party to where we were before the coup. Our numbers dropped sharply while you were in prison. Last night was our first opportunity to start to turn that around. And now. . . .”

  This was the moment Hans had been dreading. At last they were getting to the real issue. So he added one more thing while he had the chance. “Adolf, I don’t have to tell you this. You know it better than all of us. This is what the government wanted. To silence you. To put handcuffs on you before you can get in the ring again. They know as well as we do that a gagged Adolf Hitler is no longer an Adolf Hitler they need to worry about.”

  “Of course that’s what they wanted,” Adolf snapped. “Do you take me for a fool, Hans? Did you think I didn’t consider that before I said what I said last night? Did you think I didn’t know that the state police were there last night, monitoring my every word?”

  Hans rocked back, aghast at that declaration. “You did that deliberately?”

  “No, Hans. That was not planned. I was carried away in the heat of the moment. But before I said a word of what I said, I told myself that it would bring down serious consequences on my head.”

  “And you did it anyway?” Hans whispered.

  “I did. And why not?” Adolf barked. “They’re not going to leave me alone.”

  “But at our very first public meeting, Adolf? The first time the people got to hear from you after your time in prison?”

  “Wake up, Hans,” Adolf said angrily. “If I hadn’t said what I said, they would have found something else to accuse me of. We both know that. And besides, what do you think the people will say if I am so frightened of the big bad boys in our government that I don’t dare speak out against them?”

  Hans said nothing, because there was no answer to that. Adolf was right on both counts. And Hans hadn’t seen that. He had been so focused on not offending the government in yesterday’s speech that he hadn’t looked at the bigger picture. But then why hadn’t Adolf said that last night? He laughed inwardly as the answer came to him. Because Hitler hadn’t thought about that last night. He hadn’t planned that last part of his speech. It was spontaneous, just as Hans suspected. And only this morning had he come up with the justification.

  But Adolf wasn’t going to admit that. This was as close to an apology as Hans was going to get, which irked him. But belated or not, Adolf’s arguments were persuasive. This would have happened sooner or later. “All right,” Hans finally said after finishing the remainder of his coffee, “so where do we go from here?”

  Adolf drained his cup, set it down, and rubbed his hands together eagerly. “That is the question I have wrestled with all night.” He got up and quickly cleared the dishes and put them in the tiny sink. Then he got a pad of paper from a drawer and sat down again. “So here are some things I’ve been thinking about.”

  February 28, 1925, 11:44 a.m.—Eckhardt Residence, Munich

  The girls shrieked at the top of their lungs as Hans staggered to his feet, rolling them off of his back. He brought his hands up into makeshift claws and roared, “Here comes the Papa Bear to eat the little girls who woke him up from his nap.”

  Jolanda darted to her mother, who was watching all of it from the doorway to the kitchen. “Hide me, Mutti!” she shrieked as she ducked behind Emilee. Lisa raced to the couch, clambered over the back, and disappeared behind it. Hans decided that Jo Jo was the easier target and lumbered in her direction, roaring and pawing at the air. Screaming and laughing, she held out her arms to her mother. “Help me, Mutti. Help me.”

  Emilee picked her up and whirled her around so her back was to Hans. That didn’t slow Hans down one iota. He encircled them both with his arms, turned Emilee around, and then stripped Jolanda from her grasp. “I got you!” he growled. He knelt down and tried to stretch her out on the floor, but she was yelling and hollering and laughing and twisting like a madwoman. He pinned down her hands with one arm and her feet with the other and stretched her out. “I’ll gobble you up!” he said gruffly, and then he proceeded to rub his whiskers on her stomach.

  “Vati. Stop!” Jolanda said, laughing hysterically. “I go potty!”

  Trying hard not to laugh, Hans scooped her up and looked into her eyes. “Okay, little one. You are all eaten up now. So where is your sister?”

  “I’m not here,” Lisa’s muffled voice called out.

  Wiggling wildly to get down, Jo Jo pointed at the couch. “She’s hiding there, Vati. Get her!”

  Knowing that she had been betrayed, Lisa came slithering out from behind the sofa. She tried to dart past Hans and get to the safety of her mother, but he was too fast for her. He scooped her up, dropped to the floor on all fours, and went after her tummy. Jo Jo launched herself into the melee, and soon all three were rolling on the floor together.

  Finally, Hans rolled over on his back and threw out his arms. “Papa Bear gives up.” That was the signal for both girls to attack him, and they rolled about some more. But finally he sat up, taking them both in his arms. “All right, girls. Vati needs to talk with Mutti now.”

  “Yes, girls,” Emilee said. “You go in your bedroom and play. We’ll have lunch in a little while.”

  “No, Mutti,” Jolanda wailed. “Want to play with Vati.”

  “After lunch,” Emilee said firmly, and she gave Alisa a little shove. “Take Jo Jo and go play dolls for a while. You can play with Papa later, right, Papa?”

  “Yes. I’m here for the rest of the day.”

  When they were finally gone, Emilee came over and took Hans’s hands. “They’ve missed you, Hans. It’s been a while since you’ve done that with them.”

  “I know. And that’s going to change.” He pulled his hands free and took her face in them. Then he bent down and kissed her.

  “Come.” Emilee pointed to the couch. “Tell me everything.”

  When they were settled, Hans turned to face her. “Tell me first why you left early last night,” he said.

  “You know why.”

  “Probably, but I want you to tell me.”

  Emilee looked down at her hands. “When Adolf started talking about war being the only way to strength and war being the moral thing to do and saying that, as a party, it was your duty to pull down the government, it was more than I could bear. Because he called you, Hans. He wanted you beside him for his speech last night, because he values your opinion, your contribution, your good judgment. Which means that if he is right, then he’s going to drag you back into another revolution, another coup attempt, even into war itself. And I couldn’t bear to sit and listen to it any longer.”

  Hans started to answer, but Emilee rushed on. “I know we owe Adolf a lot, and I know that we can never say no to him. And that, I guess, frightens me as much
as anything.”

  Hans nodded and put his arm around her. “I thought that it was something like that.”

  “So what did he want? You weren’t happy about the last part of his speech, were you? I could see it in your face.”

  “I wasn’t.” Hans told her how he and Rudolf Hess had tried to warn Adolf about being too inflammatory. “I knew the government would be watching us.” And then he told her about the two policemen and the letter they had delivered.

  That shocked Emilee. “Two years? Can he still lead the party?”

  “Yes, just no public speaking.”

  “But that’s everything to him,” she said. “It’s what makes him so . . . so . . . influential.”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “And what was his answer to that?”

  “Well, to be honest, I went to his place expecting a knock-down, drag-’em-out fight. I was furious with him for putting us into this kind of a box.”

  “And did he agree that it was a mistake?”

  “Barely. Adolf doesn’t very often see himself as making mistakes. But he grudgingly acknowledged that the letter from the government was not a surprise after what he had said.”

  “And what does he propose to do about it?” Emilee asked. “Without him at the head, you know what will happen to the party.”

  Hans sat back, and, to Emilee’s surprise, he was smiling. “That is what I want to talk to you about. Are you ready for a few surprises?”

  “My goodness. You sound happy about them, so I’m all ears,” Emilee replied.

  Hans collected his thoughts for a minute. “I think Adolf was up all night thinking about this. He had made pages of notes, a detailed outline of how to proceed. And yet he looked as fresh as a baby.”

  “Go on.”

  Hans took a deep breath. “All right. He spoke so fast, and I didn’t have anything to take notes with, but I’ll try to lay it out for you as he laid it out for me.” His smile broadened a little. “I’ll try to use his words, because they are so ‘Adolf.’ The first thing he did was acknowledge that the ban on his speaking is a pretty significant setback. The party is already in shambles from his time in prison. And he is unabashedly frank about his gifts as an orator. ‘That will be a terrible loss to the party,’ he said, as if he were speaking of another person. But then he noted that public speaking was not his only unique gift.”

  “That’s how he said it?” Emilee questioned. “‘My unique gift’?”

  “Yes. I told you,” Hans answered. “There is no false modesty in the man. Or real modesty, either. And the odd thing is, it’s not the normal pride and arrogance you see in other men. Adolf sees his gifts for what they are and talks about them quite openly. One of those is the gift of speaking. But the other one is a gift of organization, of seeing how things need to be and organizing our efforts to achieve them. He truly believes that he is one of the geniuses or the masters that the great philosophers have written about. That he is destined for greatness. So he talks about it without the least embarrassment.”

  “How odd,” Emilee noted. “I mean, he is an unusually gifted man, but normally we think of humility as one of the companion virtues of true greatness.”

  “Perhaps, but when Adolf finished laying things out for me, I just sat there with my mouth open. His vision is clear, and his plan for achieving that vision is brilliant.”

  “So tell me what it is,” Emilee urged.

  “There are three major components. First, he now acknowledges that we can’t achieve victory through open revolt.”

  Emilee lunged forward. “Really? He said it just like that?”

  “Yes. He said that it was foolish of him to believe that we could bring the government down through insurrection and violence.”

  Tears were suddenly in Emilee’s eyes. “Oh, Hans. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

  “It has to come about legally, using the normal processes open to all. This consists of increasing our party membership and winning seats in parliament. The first step—getting more members—must precede the second because we need money to finance elections, and the more dues-paying members we have, the more money there is in the treasury.”

  Hans reached out and took Emilee’s hand. “And he wants me to play a major role in that effort.”

  “To win power at the ballot box instead of at the muzzle of a rifle,” Emilee said in soft awe. “That’s a new concept for Adolf.”

  “Exactly,” Hans said. “We have only about twenty-five thousand members on our rolls right now. In the last national election, there were about thirty million votes cast. Which means that even if every one of our members voted for us, we wouldn’t have enough votes to get even one seat in parliament. Since seats are apportioned out according to the percent of the vote the party gets, the Social Democrats stay in power with their twenty million votes each election.”

  Emilee stirred as if to get up but then settled back again.

  “What?” Hans asked.

  “I want to make notes of all this, but I don’t want to interrupt you. Go ahead. I’ll make you tell it all to me again later.”

  Laughing, Hans leaned in and kissed her. “I love you, Emilee Fromme Eckhardt.”

  She kissed him back. “And I can’t tell you how much it means to me to see you like this, Hans. I was watching you last night. I could tell that what Adolf was saying bothered you too. Maybe not for the same reasons as me, but you weren’t happy. I could see that. And now look at you.”

  “It was a remarkable morning,” Hans agreed. “So anyway, this is Adolf’s plan. First, get more party members who pay dues. Second, start winning seats in parliament.”

  “You said there were three things.”

  “Ja, ja! And this is the most brilliant part. Adolf says that we made another major mistake in the putsch—even if we had succeeded, what would we have done? If we had marched against Berlin and won, it would have been a disaster. Why? Because we have no organizational structure to replace it. It would have been chaos for a time while we tried to get organized, and that’s a sure recipe for the anarchists and the Communists to sweep in and seize power. So our third task is to create a state within a state.”

  “Really?” Emilee’s eyes were troubled again. “Is that legal?”

  “Not literally a second government, but to organize our party in the same way the government does. That’s really all the Army High Command is, a state within a state. They have all levels of structural organization. In addition to combat units, they have all kinds of supporting units—transportation, military police, the quartermaster corps, training, intelligence, and so on.”

  Emilee’s head was bobbing as he named them off. That made perfect sense.

  “So, what Adolf wants to do is start now, and as we grow the number of members, we also start creating an intricate party organization, one based on practical needs and one based on geography, even down to local towns and municipalities.”

  Emilee had a quick mind and instantly saw the genius in this. “So the party would be organized at all levels.”

  “Yes. Right now that sounds like a huge task, but if we establish those levels as the party grows then—” Hans shrugged. “When the party is big enough to seize a majority vote in the Reichstag, we will already be organized and ready to go.”

  “And did he say what part you will play in all of this?” Emilee asked.

  “Let me say one other thing first,” Hans replied. “From the beginning, the overall organization will be divided into two divisions called Politische Organisationen. Adolf called them Political Organization One and Political Organization Two. P.O. One will have the mission to attack and undermine the government.”

  “Attack? But I thought—”

  “Not with rifles and cannons, Emilee. We’ve learned our lesson about that. Attack them with propaganda, unveil corruption
in their ranks, use the newspapers and radio to reveal their greed, and so on.”

  “Oh, okay. Go on.”

  “P.O. Two’s mission would be to create the state within a state that we just talked about. It would have departments like agriculture, justice, treasury, revenue, and so on.”

  After a minute of thinking it over, Emilee finally spoke. “You are right, Hans. This is brilliant. It is incredible that Adolf has thought it through in such detail. So . . . again I ask. What part does he want you to play in all of this?”

  “For now, he wants me to take the lead in increasing our membership. He and Rudolf will focus on the long-range planning and organization.”

  Emilee slid closer to Hans. “And after ‘for now’ is finished, then what?”

  Hans actually blushed slightly. “He said that he was considering me for the Minister over P.O. Two when we get to that point.”

  Emilee gasped. “You would lead half of the government?”

  “To be honest, that was my reaction too,” Hans said. Then he quickly added, “But I’m smart enough to know that I’m not qualified for that. So I’ve been thinking of something a little less expansive.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Here’s what I would like to do, if any of this ever comes to pass. I would like to create a Ministry of Science and Technology. Its mission would be to make Germany the leading country in the world in supporting the sciences, particularly engineering, medicine, and technology.”

  Emilee stared at him, her eyes wide and shining. “Oh, Hans. That would do it. That would finally do it.”

  Hans drew back. “Do what?”

  “Allow you to make a real difference with your life.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Do you remember Georg, the boy at the hotel in Berlin?”

  “I do.”

  “And Nattie Litzer, the daughter of the factory worker I took you to see?”

  “Yes.” Emilee’s voice was husky now.

  “I would find them, Emilee. I would find them and others like them, and I would see that they ended up in schools that would prepare them to go to university. Think what a difference that would make to their families.”