Chancellor von Schleicher had begun wooing the labor unions, calling himself the "social general," and pointing out to the moderates among Socialists and Catholics how much worse things would be if either set of extremists came in. By such blandishments he lost favor with the paymasters of the Ruhr, who wanted the labor unions broken and were listening to the siren song of Hitler, promising this service. Also there was the problem of Osthilfe, a scandal hanging over the heads of the landed aristocrats of East Prussia. Huge public funds had been voted to save the farmers from ruin, but the owners of the big estates, the powerful aristocrats, had managed to get most of the money, and they had used it for other purposes than land improvements. Now hardly a day passed that the Socialist and Communist press didn’t print charges and demand investigations.
Papen and Schleicher still pretended to be friends, while scheming to cut each other’s throats. Schleicher had ousted Papen by a deal with the Nazis, and two could play at that game. Papen, the "gentleman jockey," was the most tireless of wirepullers. A pale blond aristocrat with a thin, lined face wearing a perpetual smile, he went from one secret meeting to another telling a different story to everybody—but all of them carefully calculated to injure his rival.
"Papen has had a meeting with Hitler at the home of Thyssen’s friend, Baron von Schroeder," wrote Johannes, and Lanny didn’t need to ask what that meant. "I am told that Papen and Hugenberg have got together;"—that, too, was not obscure. Hugenberg, the "silver fox," had come to one of the Robin soirees; a big man with a walrus mustache, brutal but clever; leader of the Pan-German group and owner of the most powerful propaganda machine in the world, practically all of the big capitalist newspapers of Germany, plus U.F.A., the film monopoly. "Papen is raising funds for Hitler among the industrialists," wrote Johannes. "I hear that the Führer has more than two million marks in notes which he cannot meet. It is a question whether he will go crazy before he becomes chancellor!"
III
The Nazis held one of their tremendous meetings in the Sportpalast, and Hitler delivered one of his inspired tirades, promising peace, order, and restoration of self respect to the German people. The conservative newspapers in Paris published his promises and half believed them; they were far more afraid of the Reds than of the Nazis, and Lanny found that Denis de Bruyne was inclined to look upon Hitler as a model for French politicians. Even Lanny himself began hesitating; he was so anxious to be sure that he was right. Hitler was calling upon Almighty God to give him courage and strength to save the German people and right the wrongs of Versailles. Lanny, who had protested so energetically against those wrongs, now wondered if it mightn’t be possible for Hitler to scare France and Britain into making the necessary concessions, and then to settle down and govern the country in the interest of those millions of oppressed "little people" for whom he spoke so eloquently.
The son of Robbie Budd and husband of Irma Barnes might waver, but the German workers didn’t. A hundred thousand of them met in the Berlin Lustgarten, clamoring for the defense of the Republic against its traitor enemies. "Something is going to pop," wrote Johannes, American fashion. "Der alte Herr is terrified at the prospect of having the Osthilfe affair discussed in the Reichstag. Schleicher is considering with the labor unions the idea of refusing to resign and holding on with their backing. I am told that the Catholics have assented, but the Socialists are afraid it wouldn’t be legal. What do you think?" Lanny knew that his old friend was teasing him, and didn’t offer any opinion on German constitutional law.
Johannes didn’t say what he himself was doing in this crisis, but Lanny guessed that he was following his program of keeping friendly with all sides. Certainly he possessed an extraordinary knowledge of the intrigues. Now and then Lanny would call him on the long distance telephone, a plaything of the very rich, and Johannes would speak a sort of camouflage. He would say: "My friend Franzchen wants to be top dog, but so does his friend the publisher, and their schemes will probably fall through because they can’t agree." Lanny understood that this meant Papen and Hugenberg; and when Johannes added: "They may harness up the Wild Man and get together to drive him," Lanny had no trouble guessing about that. Presently Johannes said: "They are telling the Old Gent that the General is plotting a coup d’etat against him." It was like reading a blood and thunder novel in instalments, and having to wait for the next issue. Would the rescue party arrive in time?
IV
On the thirtieth of January the news went out to a startled world that President von Hindenburg had appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of the German Republic. Even the Nazis were taken by surprise; they hadn’t been invited to the intrigues, and couldn’t imagine by what magic it had been brought about that their Führer’s enemies suddenly put him into office. Franz von Papen was Vice-Chancellor, and Hugenberg was in the Cabinet; in all there were nine reactionaries against three Nazis, and what could that mean? The newspapers outside Germany were certain that it meant the surrender of Hitler; he was going to be controlled, he was going to be another Ramsay MacDonald. They chose not to heed the proclamation which the Führer himself issued, telling his followers that the struggle was only beginning. But the Stormtroopers heeded, and turned out, exultant, parading with torchlights through Unter den Linden; seven hundred thousand persons marched past the Chancellery, with Hindenburg greeting them from one window and Hitler from another. The Communist call for a general strike went unheeded.
So it had come: the thing which Lanny had been fearing for the past three or four years. The Nazis had got Germany! Most of his friends had thought it unlikely; and now that it had happened, they preferred to believe that it hadn’t. Hitler wasn’t really in power, they said, and could last but a week or two. The German people had too much sense, the governing classes were too able and well trained; they would tone the fanatic down, and the soup would be eaten cool.
But Adolf Hitler had got, and Adolf Hitler would keep, the power which was most important to him—that of propaganda. He was executive head of the German government, and whatever manifesto he chose to issue took the front page of all the newspapers. Hermann Goring was Prussian Minister of the Interior and could say to the world over the radio: "Bread and work for our countrymen, freedom and honor for the nation!" Dwarfish little Jupp Goebbels, President of the Propaganda Committee of the Party, found himself Minister of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment of the German Republic. The Nazi movement had been made out of propaganda, and now it would cover Germany like an explosion.
Hitler refused to make any concessions to the other parties, and thus forced Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and order a new election. This meant that for a month the country would be in the turmoil of a campaign. But what a different campaign! No trouble about lack of funds, because Hitler had the funds of the nation, and his tirades were state documents. Goebbels could say anything he pleased about his enemies and suppress their replies. Goring, having control of the Berlin police, could throw his political opponents into jail and nobody could even find out where they were. These were the things of which Adi Schicklgruber had been dreaming ever since the end of the World War; and where else but in the Arabian Nights had it happened that a man awoke and found such dreams come true?