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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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R. Olden, a militant anti Nazi, explained in his work
on Hitler, which appeared in 1936, the brutal decision against the SA.
(77)
"There is but a single explanation possible
of the reason for which the decision was put off so long, to the point where it
degenerated into a catastrophe because Hitler, the Fuhrer, is very far from
being able to be counted among the strong... Hs weakness led him to make
simultaneous and incompatible promises to Blomberg and to Roehm."
One cannot call into question the force of Hitler's personality as
Führer of the Third Reich. He created by speech a spiritual force which
stirred the masses and engendered in the conscience of his collaborators
conclusions which they drew as "Orders of the Führer." To treat a subject,
Hitler had to present it in its derivation from all of his political and
ideological work which he exposed with this in mind. This is how his speeches
were constructed. The accounts that we have cited indicate that face to face
with a collaborator, Hitler explained to him the complex development of his
thinking on a subject, leaving him the care to find a precise decision in it,
to present it after to his Führer and, if necessary, to convince him of
the close agreement of this decision or even the action already accomplished as
a result of it, with the intentions exposed by Hitler.
Gilbert, the
American psychologist on special mission to the International Tribunal of
Nuremberg for the purposes of psychological study of the defendants at the Main
Trial, related the reaction of Goering to the hypothesis that he presented to
the latter on the role of Hitler in the taking of decisions concerning the
"final solution":
"I shall suggest the following tableau:
Hitler, obsessed by anti-Semitism and incapable of tolerating opposition or
advice advocating moderation, saying finally to Himmler: "Get rid of them-it
little matters how – I don't want to hear about them anymore!" Goering
reflected a moment, seeming to visualize the scene; then he declared that it
was probably like that that it happened." The essential for Hitler
was acquired in advance: the measures provoked by the development of his
thinking were to be carried through by the spirit of extreme harshness with
which he impregnated the Party that he created by gathering about him persons
adequate for this spirit. This spirit was guaranteed by the training the Party
gave to its members. It was perhaps this dialectical manner of expressing his
will by the explanation starting from principles or origins which acquired for
Hitler the reputation that he evoked himself regarding the operation against
Roehm.
A significant parallel was drawn by Himmler between this last
action and the "final solution." In fact, in his important speech of October
1943 at Posen to the high-ranking officials ot [sic] the SS, Himmler, before
exposing in brutal terms the extermination of the Jews as the goal of the
deportations (he said: "evacuation"), warned that he would speak of a matter of
which the men of the SS should be aware as of a necessity, but with regard to
which they were to observe the same discretion which was the rule in respect to
the recollection of the Roehm affair.
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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