Page 129 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

116 The French Diplomats

result of the bloodbath the influence of the reichswehr had increased im-
measurably.
François-Poncet drew one other conclusion from the bloody events,
one that he had occasionally voiced earlier: Nazism was a deplorable and
dangerous political movement. the massacre, he thought, indicated the
strength of “radical and almost Bolshevik” tendencies within Nazism.
43
thirteen days after making these comments, the ambassador contended
that the Führer fully supported these tendencies: “there is no doubt that
Hitler himself ordered the massacre.” the bloody event had brought to light
“the psychology or rather the pathology” of Nazism. Hitler had revealed
himself to be “veritably a deranged [man] affected by two madnesses: the
madness of greatness and the mania for persecution. this vegetarian, this
ascetic about whom it is said that he suffers from the weakness of not be-
ing able to separate himself from his old comrades and who finds no joy
in music, has assumed a sinister bearing as a demagogue. [in front of an
audience] his hoarse voice has an unbelievable pitch of ferocity; he acts like
a man possessed [possédé] by rage. . . . When such a man is the leader of 60
million people and controls all the levers of power, he constitutes a peril to
europe that no one should conceal from himself. i have already indicated
it, and i insist on it: one must fear the day that Hitler has a decidedly favorable
opportunity [to make his moves on the international scene].” 44
equally troubling to François-Poncet was the definition of treason in
the two-hour speech that Hitler delivered to the reichstag on July 13 about
the events of June 30. “in matters of treason,” he exclaimed, “it is not the
act that is important [but rather] the state of mind!” that is, for Hitler,
mere opposition to him was tantamount to treason. “this was the reason-
ing applied at the time of the [French] terror; it is applied by the Bolshevik
regime,” the ambassador noted; and now Hitler, who considered himself
the “supreme judge,” applied it with unspeakable “inhumanity” and “cyni-
cism.” this approach to the law conformed with Göring’s declaration to a
gathering of procurators: “the will of the Führer, that is the law.” François-
Poncet could not understand why the world did not “tremble at assertions
so monstrous that they subvert the fundamental notions on which civiliza-
tion rests and to which [we are] accustomed.” 45
the death of President Hindenburg on august 2, 1934, intensified Fran-
çois-Poncet’s apprehensions about europe’s future. although the president
had been old and feeble and too much under the sway of a circle of ambi-
tious and reckless sycophants, he still exercised great moral authority in the

François-Poncet was wrong; Hitler did enjoy music.