64
Sportpalast
Berlin
JOSEPH GOEBBELS, IN HIS immaculate double-breasted suit, stood on the podium of the indoor arena holding fourteen thousand people.
It was lined on all sides with SA and SS troops, the seats filled with the party faithful, National Socialists bubbling with energy, giddy with celebration before the first speech delivered by their leader, their Führer, in his new role as Reichskanzler.
“This evening,” Goebbels said into the standing microphone, “you are eyewitnesses to a mass occurrence, which in this size in Germany, and probably throughout the world, has never before taken place. I do not think it is saying too much to claim that tonight, at least twenty million people, in Germany and across the German frontier, will be listening to the speech of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.”
The crowd rose to its feet, men and women, uniformed SA and SS troops, their arms outstretched in the Nazi salute.
“When the Jewish press complains how the National Socialist movement is being allowed to speak on all German radio stations because of its chancellor, then we can answer that we are just doing what you have done in the past.”
Goebbels paused as laughter rippled through the arena.
“And if the Jewish press today believes that it can make veiled threats against the National Socialist movement, and if they believe they can get around our defensive measures, they shouldn’t keep lying!
” Goebbels wagged a finger. “For, one day, our patience will reach its end, and we will shut these Jews’ insolent, lying mouths! ”
At his father-in-law’s home, Bauer hovered near the radio, listening to the announcer prepare the audience for Hitler’s speech:
“We are here in the Sportpalast as witnesses, both eyes and ears, of this wonderful, unique mass event, the like of which has probably never been seen before on such a scale in Germany. I believe we are not exaggerating when we say that at least twenty million people in Germany are witnessing this unique event.”
“That’s the same thing Goebbels claimed, but it can’t be true,” said Selig, in his cardigan sweater, lighting the tobacco in his pipe. “There aren’t enough radios in Germany for that to be true. How many times will they repeat the same lie?”
“Over and over again,” said Bauer. “Remember the Nazi philosophy. It doesn’t have to be true. Just keep repeating it, and people will start believing it.”
“Our eyes are presented with the imposing sight of a ravishing, unique, large mass rally, a people’s rally in the truest sense of the word—men and women, workers, citizens, students, all around them SA and SS men.
The whole crowd is filled with an intense, feverish excitement, and a vibrating expectation—the same intense, feverish excitement and expectation that has settled over the entire city of Berlin this evening. ”
“That’s a lot of feverish excitement.” Bauer closed his eyes. “This guy is no reporter. He’s reading a script Goebbels wrote for him.”
“You can already hear by the multiplying noises how the feverish excitement is beginning to grow. The men and women have risen from their seats. The whole Sportpalast resembles a swarming anthill. Everywhere you can already hear shouts with enthusiasm, approval, cheers, and salutes. It is as if the Sportpalast had never before witnessed such a mass rally!”
“Nonsense. They witness rallies like that every week.” Selig drew from his pipe, the tobacco crackling. “Every political party uses that stadium.”
Bauer put his head in his hands. “Not anymore,” he said.
They spared no pomp or circumstance parading Adolf Hitler in, led through the aisle by marching Nazi soldiers carrying the swastika flag, senior officers of the SA and SS in front and behind him, a cadet banging his snare drum in a military cadence.
The Führer, dressed in full brown uniform with swastika armband, wore a pleasant but stoic expression, returning the salute as always, raising the palm of his right hand to the ceiling.
When he reached the podium, he stood silently, drinking in the adulation, waiting until the cheers died down, adjusting the notes that lay on a table next to him, scooching the table closer to him.
Finally, the audience quieted. Hitler did not move, did not speak, letting the silence grow ever more piercing.
He appeared to some observers nervous, awkward with his hands, alternating between crossing his arms, clasping his hands at his waist, and gripping his black belt. When he finally spoke, his tone was moderated.
“German national comrades,” he said, then paused.
“The reasons that caused me to bring this movement of millions into existence are known to me. But I want these facts laid clearly before you once more by me personally, as to why I once began, called this movement to life, and, for the present, call it to action in the second, decisive phase in the fight for German resurrection.”
Hitler spent the next hour railing against the “men of November 1918” for their surrender in the war and the Treaty of Versailles, for the Weimar Republic’s fourteen-year reign that oversaw a ravaged economy, hyperinflation, unemployment, and cultural decadence, for their embrace of “Marxist principles” that plummeted the nation into the depths of ruin.
Bauer largely sat silent, eyes closed, concentrating on the words, what Hitler was saying literally and what was hidden between the lines.
“The fundamentals of our life are founded on values that no one can take away from us except we ourselves; they are founded on our own flesh and blood and willpower and in our soil. Blood and soil—those are the two roots from which we will draw our strength and upon which we propose to base our resolves.”
“Blood and soil,” Bauer whispered. “Good God.”
“And this brings us thus to our sixth item, clearly the goal of our struggle: the preservation of this blood and this soil, the preservation of this blood for the future, in the realization that this alone can constitute our reason for being.
“We must eliminate the causes of our own disintegration and thus bring about the reconciliation of the German classes.
“There can be only one victor: either Marxism or the German people! And Germany will triumph!
“We desire to bestow once more upon the people a genuinely German culture with German art, German architecture, and German music, which shall restore to us our soul.”
Bauer saw something in his father-in-law’s expression.
Nothing like outright panic but a furrowed brow of concern, his eyes cast upward, as if he were remembering all the times he’d experienced hate firsthand.
He claimed to still experience it now, even as a respected businessman—a bigoted comment here, an anti-Semitic trope there—but his skin had toughened over the years, and there was nothing like achieving great wealth and prominence to act as a salve to overcoming daily grievances.
That’s what it had become for Selig, Bauer realized.
He’d grown so accustomed to a certain amount of bigotry that he’d become numb to it, and in the process had underestimated its power to galvanize many, many people to a cause.
He hadn’t realized the threat that Hitler might become. But now he was beginning to.
“At least he never specifies Jewish people,” he said.
Bauer shrugged. “Marxist is code for Jew. And the purity of German blood?”
Selig allowed for that, slowly nodding. “He’s finishing now.”
They listened to the conclusion of Hitler’s hour-long address:
“People of Germany,” he said, “give us four years’ time and then pass judgment upon us. People of Germany, give us four years, and I swear to you, just as we, just as I have taken this office, so shall I leave it.”
“Well, so there’s hope right there.” Selig threw up his hand. “Hopefully the next four years go quickly. And that assumes Hitler can even keep a coalition government together. No chancellor has been able to accomplish that feat in years. There are parliamentary elections in two weeks, right?”
“Wish I could share your optimism.” Bauer shook his head. “He’s not going anywhere,” he said. “He’ll never leave office. He’ll think of something.”