HITLER’S RISE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 April 1938, Page 11

HITLER’S RISE

TURNING POINT IN CAREER MR. LUDECKE’S SURVEY Mi’ Kurt Ludecke. the author of “I Knew Hitlir,” the latest and liveliest of books on German politics, was 32 years old when he first met Herr Hitler in 1922. Up to then he had been a Weltbummler. as he calls himself, “on the spree” as is said all over Europe and in both the Americas. But the rolling stone managed to gather some moss. His war service was brief and quarrelsome, and ended ingloriously in 1916 as orderly in a mental hospital. After the war came terms in America and Reval, where he made money and invested it wisely, and 1921 saw him back in Germany. By the next year he was in Hitler's service, for which he had qualified as an anti-Semite by his studies in sham racial philosophy. He made friends easily, but was always a rebel at heart. For all his intimacy with the early Nazis he was never quite one of them, and was constantly falling under suspicion, just or unjust. He now lives in America. Hitler in 1922 was the head of the smallest of several rival patriotic bands in Munich, and captured a blase and disillusioned Ludecke by the rhetoric of two speeches. They talked for five hours together next day; Hitler’s shabby clothes and his clear domineering bright blue eyes were what most impressed Ludecke, who at the end of the interview had given him “his soul.” A VISIT TO MUSSOLINI Some sayings of Hitler at this time are recorded. Where there is majority or democratic rule, any movement, said Hitler, which in all and everything accepts the " principle of leadership, “one day with mathematical certainty will emerge the victor,” and on that principle he organised his party. Another is: “Never antagonise potential enemies. Attack them only when you can destroy them.” Very early in their acqaintance Ludecke persuaded Hitler to let him go to Mussolini to study and report on his methods. It was a month before Mussolini’s march on Rome. Ludecke sounded him cautiously about the German in the Italian Tyrol. “No discussion about that —ever,” replied Mussolini. Ludecke took back a story that greatly impressed Hitler. At this time Ludecke was an wholehearted admirer of his political genius, but would have liked to improve him in some respe’cts. I soon gave up my futile efforts to induce him to give more heed to his person and dress. He clung to his shapeless trench coat and clumsy shoes. His hair still fell over 4 his eyes at every vehement gesture during his speeches. He continued eat in a hurry—while he ran from place to place. If you succeeded in making him stand still long enough to confer on important matters, he would take out of his pocket a piece of greasy sausage and bread and bolt them while he talked. MEN AROUND HITLER Ludecke’s book abounds in verbal pictures, not only of Hitler, but of minor Nazi leaders —Rosenberg, sincere, philosophic, and ineffective, for whom Ludecke retained his affection; Strasser, Goebbels, Goering, Hanfstaengl, who played Wagner on the piano for Hitler like David before Saul; Roehm, the army officer and homosexual, whose death in the purge is well described, and a dozen others. Goering never liked him, and once clapped him in prison until Hitler, released him.

Hitler did not quite know how to use him. He would not have him as a platform speaker. “You seem too well to do, too much of a swell”; but he fancied him as a negotiator for the cause abroad.

The story of Hitler’s rise to the Chancellorship has often been told before, and during much of the climb Ludecke was out of Germany. The turning-point in Hitler’s career, in Ludecke’s opinion, came after the fiasco of the “Beer Hall putsch” in 1923. in which Ludendorff also took part. Ludecke thinks that it might have succeeded if Ludendorf at the critical moment had appeared in his uniform instead of a frock coat, and if Hitler had taken proper precautions and not let his enemies slip out of his hands. While Hitler was in prison the Nazi

Party nearly went to pieces, and Ludeckie gives a vivid picture of its internal quarrels and jealousies. Hitler now decided to try different tactics and to use the Parliamentary weapon that he despised. Ludecke disapproved; and disapproved still more when he made his alliance with Hindenburg and the Conservatives. A LONG TALK Both parties meant to use the other, but Ludecke, like Roehm, thought it a betrayal of the Radical and Socialistic elements in the party, and the author gives two whole chapters to an account of a long conversation that he had with Hitler, in which he argued against compromise in favour of revolutionary methods and a Russian alliance—which was also Roehm’s view. Here are thrown together some of the things that Hitler said: — A preventive war would ruin everything. No, I've got to play ball with Capitalism and keep the Versailles Powers in line by holding aloft the bogey of Bolshevismmake them believe that a Nazi Germany is the last bulwark against the Red flood. If England opposes a greater Germany at all costs, all right. I still think Mussolini might be interested in making Germany so strong that we could force John Bull to his knees. And it will be easier to overthrow Moscow and take the Ukraine if the Capitalists are on my side. If you visualise a greater Germany side by side with Russia, I tell you I can see a German Reich stretching from the North Sea to the Urals, but without a Stalin. All this, be it remembered, was before Hitler became Chancellor.