Once more Lanny observed the application of the art of moving the mass mind. Adolf Hitler taught that the masses did not think with their brains but with their blood; that is to say, they did not reason but were driven by instincts. The most basic instinct was the desire to survive and the fear of not surviving; therefore Adolf Hitler told them that their enemies desired to destroy them and that he alone could and would save them; he told them that they were the Herrenvolk, the master race, designed by nature to survive and to rule all other races of the earth. The second basic instinct was hunger, and they had suffered it, and he promised them that under his leadership Germany would break into the storehouses of the world’s plenty; the Fatherland would have Lebensraum, the space in which to expand and grow. The third basic instinct is sex, and he told them that they were destined to populate the earth, and that every pure-blooded Aryan Mädchen was the predestined mother of blond heroes; that was what she was created for, and no permission was needed for her to begin; a wise Fatherland would provide for her care and give all honor to her and her offspring.
All these instincts added up into pride and victory over the foes of Germany. "Sieg Heil!" they shouted; and the party had invented an elaborate ritual to embody these concepts and to thrill the dullest soul. At the futile Beerhall Putsch which Lanny had witnessed in Munich there had been carried banners, and these banners had been riddled with bullets and stained with the blood of martyrs; that made them holy, and Adolf Hitler had carried them all over Germany, and upon public platforms had performed the ceremony of touching the new banners with the old; that made all the Nazi banners holy, and worthy of being stained with the blood of martyrs. So now when they were carried all hearts beat high, and all good party members longed for a chance to become martyrs and have a new Horst Wessel Lied sung about them. Shrill trumpets proclaimed the entry of these banners, drums beat and fifes shrilled and a bodyguard of heroes marched into the hall with faces solemn and grim.
To the speakers' platform ascended large, heavy Gregor Strasser; not humbled and browbeaten as Lanny had last seen him, but bursting with assurance of power. He was one of the original party leaders, and had helped Adolf to keep alive in the early days. He had believed in the early program with all its promises for the overthrow of the rich and the setting up of the disinherited. Did he believe in them still, when he knew that the Führer no longer meant them? You could never have guessed it from listening to his speech, for he seemed to have but one rule: to think of everything that ten thousand Wurttembergers could possibly want, and promise it to them, to be delivered on the day when they would elect the candidates of the N.S.D.A.P.
Lanny said: "That’s surely the way to get out the vote!" Irma, who didn’t understand what the orator was promising, and had to judge by gestures and tones, remarked: "It is surprising how much like Uncle Jesse he sounds."
"Don’t let either of them hear that!" chuckled the husband.
XII
It was a political campaign of frenzied hate, close to civil war. Troops of armed men marched, glaring at other troops when they passed, and ready to fly at the others' throats; in the working class districts they did so, and bystanders had to flee for their lives. The conservatives, who called themselves Democrats and Nationalists, had their Stahlhelm and their Kampfring, the Nazis had their S.S.'s and S.A.'s, the Sozis had their Reichsbanner, and the Communists their Rotfront, although the last named were forbidden to wear uniforms. The posters and cartoons, the flags and banners, all had symbols and slogans expressive of hatred of other people, whether Germans of the wrong class, or Russians, French, Czechs, Poles, or Jews. Impossible to understand so many kinds of hatreds or the reasons for them. Irma said: "It’s horrible, Lanny. Let’s not have any more to do with it."
She had met charming people in Berlin, and now Johannes gave her a reception, and they all came; when they found that she didn’t like politics they said they didn’t blame her, and talked about the music festivals, the art exhibitions, the coming yacht regattas. The Jewish money-lord tried to keep friendly with everybody, and he knew that many who would not ordinarily darken his door were willing to come when a celebrated American heiress was his guest. According to his custom, he did not try to hide this, but on the contrary made a point of mentioning it and thanking her. She knew that this Jewish family had risen in the world with the help of the Budds; but so long as they showed a proper gratitude and didn’t develop a case of "swelled head," it was all right for the help to continue.
German big business men came, and their wives, still bigger as a rule. German aristocrats came, tall, stiff gentlemen wearing monocles, and their Damen who seemed built for the stage of Bayreuth. All had long titles, and left off none of the vons and zus; Irma had trouble in telling Herr vons from Herr Barons, Herr Grafen from Erlauchts, and Erlauchts from Durchlauchts.
Graf Stubendorf came, reported on affairs at home, and cordially renewed his invitation for next Christmas, or for the shooting season earlier. The new Chancellor came; tall and thin-faced, the smartest of diplomats and most elegant of Catholic aristocrats, he lived entangled in a net of intrigue of his own weaving. A son of the Russian ghetto might have been overwhelmed by the honor of such a presence, but Johannes took it as the payment of a debt. The gentlemen of the fashionable Herren Klub hadn’t been able to raise enough money to save their party, so the Chancellor had had to come to the Jew for help.
Irma found him charming, and told her husband, who remarked: "There is no greater rascal in all Europe. Franz von Papen was put out of the United States before we entered the war because he was financing explosions in munitions plants."
"Oh, darling!" she exclaimed. "You say such horrid things! You can’t really know that!"
Said the young Pink: "He didn’t have sense enough to burn his check-stubs, and the British captured his ship on the way home and published all the data."
13. Even to the Edge of Doom
I
THE cruise of the Bessie Budd began. Not a long cruise, never more than a week at a time in these disturbed days. They stopped to fish and swim, and they sent out upon the North Sea breezes a great deal of romantic and delightful music. The seamen and the fishermen who glided by in the night must have been moved to wonder, and perhaps some young Heine among them took flight upon the wings of imagination. Far on the Scottish rock-coast, where the little gray castle towers above the raging sea, there, at the high-arched window, stands a beautiful frail woman, tender-pellucid and marble-pale, and she plays the harp and sings, and the wind sweeps through her long tresses and carries her dark song over the wide storming sea.