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Atiot. F Ittltt A STUDY IN TYRANNY by ALAN BULLOCK Completely Revised Edition HARPER TORCHBOOKS The Academy Library Harper & Row, Publishers New York and Evanston TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER HITLER: A STUDY IN TYRANNY-Completdy newly revised material Copyright United States of America. Revised Edition. Preface and 1962 by Alan Bullock, Printed in the This edition was originally published in 1964 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 49 East SSrd Street, New York 16, N. Y, First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published March 1964 by Harper New York and Evanston, lishers, Incorporated, Library o Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-21045. Sc Row, Pub- CONTENTS Preface to the Revised Edition 15. Acknowledgements 18 Abbreviations 20 BOOK I PARTY LEADER, 1 1889-1933 23 The Formative Years, 1889-1918 57 2 The Years of Struggle, 1919-24 121 The Years of Waiting, 1924-31 1931-30 October 4 The Months of Opportunity, January 187 1933 3 BOOK II CHANCELLOR, 5 Revolution after Power, 1933-9 30 January 1933-August 1934 312 6 The Counterfeit Peace, 1933-7 7 The Dictator % 253 372 411 From Vienna to Prague, 1938-9 490 9 ##//>) for your comradeship and to beg you not to exclude me from 1 your personal friendship.' But again Rohm got no reply. The next day a brief notice appeared in the Volkischer Beobachter announcing Rohni's resignation of his offices and withdrawal from politics. With Rohm, Bruckner too left the Party. Earlier in April Pohner had been killed in a road accident. Goring was C abroad; Kriebel retired to Carinthia and later went to Shanghai; Scheubner-Richter ancl Eckart were dead, Rosenberg offended. Not many were left with whom to begin the task of still rebuilding. Hitler's first move on leaving prison had been to consult Pohner, and on Pohner's advice he went to call on the MinisterPresident of Bavaria and leader of the strongly Catholic and particularist Bavarian People's Party, Dr Heinrich Held. The meeting took place on 4 January 1925. Despite Hitler's efforts at Dr Held's reception was cold. The putsch, Hitler admitted, had been a mistake; his one object was to assist the Government in fighting Marxism; he had no use for LudendorflTs and the North Germans' attacks on the Catholic Church, and he had every intention of respecting the authority of the State. Held's attitude was one of scepticism tinged with contempt, but he agreed - with a little prompting from Gurtner, still Minister of conciliation, Justice, and Held's friend as well as Hitler's - to raise the ban on and its newspaper. 'The wild beast is checked/ was the Party comment to Gurtner. We can affbt d to loosen the chain.' 2 The fact that Hitler had made his peace with the priest-ridden * Held's Bavarian Government only increased the scorn and hostility of Ludendorff and the North German Volkisch leaders, Reventlow and Graefe, who were outspoken in their hostility to the Church. Hitler was unrepentant; he even attacked the Volkisch deputies in the Bavarian Parliament for their failure to accept the offer of a 1. Rohm: 2. Otto Strasser: Hitler and I (London, 1940), p. 71. p. 160. The Years o