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Deutscher Mädel, and a Studentenbund, and a Women's League, and so on apparently

without end. The polite Lanny Budd was glad in his heart that it was election time and that so

many subordinates were waiting to receive orders from this overzealous expounder.

VIII

One thing a young party official would not fail to do for an old friend: to take him to the

mighty Versammlung in the Sport-palast which was to climax the Nazi campaign. Here the

Führer himself would make his final appeal to the German voters; and it would be like nothing

ever seen in the world before. For several months this marvelous man had been rushing" all

over the land making speeches, many hundreds of them; traveling by airplane, or in his fast

Mercedes car, wearing the tan raincoat in which Lanny had seen him in the old days; possibly

not the same coat, but the same simple, devoted, inspired, and inspiring leader whose mission it

was to revive Germany and then the whole world. Heute gehört uns Deutschland und morgen

die ganze Welt!

Heinrich explained that seats would be difficult to obtain; there would be a line of people

waiting at the doors of the Sportpalast from early morning to be sure of getting good places.

There would of course be reserved seats for important persons, and Lanny accepted four

tickets. He knew that none of the Robins would attend a Nazi meeting—it really wouldn't be safe,

for someone might spit in their faces, or beat them if they failed to give the Nazi salute and shout

"Heil Hitler.1" Bess loathed the movement and its creed, and her curiosity had been fully

satisfied by watching the Stormtroopers on the march and by occasional glances at their

newspapers.

Well in advance of eight o'clock Lanny and his wife and Beauty and her husband were in

their seats. Bands playing, literature-sellers busy, and armed squads keeping watch all over

the enormous arena —Communists keep out! A display of banners and streamers with all the

familiar slogans: "Down with Versailles!" "Freedom and Bread!" "Germany, Awake!" "An End to

Reparations!" "Common Wealth before Private Wealth!" "Break the Bonds of Interest

Slavery!" These last were the "radical" slogans, carried down from the old days; Robbie had

said they were practically the same as those of the "money cranks" in the United States, the

old-time Populists and Greenbackers; they appealed to the debtor classes, the small farmers, the

little business men who felt themselves being squeezed by the big trusts. This Hitler movement

was a revolt of the lower middle classes, whose savings had been wiped out by the inflation and

who saw themselves being reduced to the status of proletarians.

To Irma they seemed much nicer-looking people than those she had seen at the other two

meetings. The blасk-and-silver uniforms of the Schutzstaffel, who acted as ushers and guards,

were new and quite elegant; these young men showed alertness and efficiency. Twenty or thirty

thousand people singing with fervor were impressive, and Irma didn't know that the songs

were full of hatred for Frenchmen and Poles. She knew that the Nazis hated the Jews, and this

she deplored. She had learned to be very fond of one Jewish family, but she feared there must

be something wrong with the others—so many people said it. In any case, the Germans had to

decide about their own country.

Singing and speech-making went on for an hour or so; then came a roll of drums and a blast

of trumpets in the main entrance, and all the men and women in the huge place leaped to their

feet. Der Führer kommt! A regiment of Stormtroopers in solemn march, carrying flags with

spearpoints or bayonets at the tips of the poles. The bands playing the magnificent open

chords to which the gods march across the rainbow bridge into Valhalla at the close of Das

Rheingold. Then the party leaders, military and magnificent, marching in the form of a hollow

square, protecting their one and only leader. Someone with a sense of drama has planned all

this; someone who has learned from Wagner how to combine music, scenery, and action so as

to symbolize the fundamental aspirations of the human soul, to make real to the common man

his own inmost longing.

Who was that genius? Everyone in the hall, with the possible exception of a few Lanny Budds,

believed that it was the little man who marched in the center of that guard of honor; the

simple man with the old tan raincoat, the one whom honors could not spoil, the one

consecrated to the service of the Fatherland; one born of the common people, son of an

obscure Austrian customs official; a corporal of the World War wounded and gassed; an

obscure workingman, a dreamer of a mighty dream, of Germany freed and restored to her

place among the nations, or perhaps above them.

He wore no hat, and his dark hair, long and brushed to one side, fell now and then across his