His German friend writes, after only a short introduction,
“…Look here, we in Germany aren’t rich. Our soil is poorer than the French, we have no empire, and we were dragged down and impoverished by the War and the bad crops after the War. When the Führer came to power the Jews all over the world were trying to overthrow us by cutting us off from raw materials…. We are working with all our strength now to promote new inventions, so that our people can have bread and profits….”
Kurt and Jean-Baptiste have the same interests; but Kurt gets to the bottom of things, and knows where misery comes from; the little French boy has to be taught by his Nazi friend.
“…I am so sorry,” Kurt writes generously, “that you, or rather your father, is having trouble because the franc is falling…. Jews always make inflations…. On the one side, they stir up the workers to demand always higher wages, while they hinder the increase of work…. The Jew persuades the people to such madness. All those who must live on their savings are forced to spend and lose them, the Jew buys up all the beautiful possessions of impoverished families, and one fine day there isn’t a cent left. Then the Jew either lends them money at Shylock rates, or, if he thinks he has got far enough, he raises his horrible bloody Bolshevism above the mass of the despairing people. That is exactly what he is trying to do now in your France.”
Kurt paints a terrible picture, but it is clear that the catastrophe could be averted, if Jean’s fatherland, threatened France, would give itself at the last moment to Hitler. “I know,” Kurt writes, “how hardworking and modest your peasants are…. I can’t understand how they allow themselves to be hounded from one devaluation of the franc to another, losing everything while the Jew laughs up his sleeve. See here, we didn’t stick any of those mad figures on our building in the Paris Exposition. We showed only what a poor people can achieve when it is well led and hard-working, as soon as it has got rid of the Jews…. I’d be awfully glad if you’d come here; you must see how we work and produce here, and what we make out of the soil…. Until then, a hearty handshake from
“Kurt.”
* * *
One of the first Nazis in Germany was a man called Dietrich Eckart, a personal friend and admirer of Hitler’s, and at one time a considerable influence on him. He was Hitler’s prototype in anti-Semitism, above all. Since he died as early as 1923, he could be converted easily into a myth. He became “faithful Eckart,” “one of our greatest dead,” “the singer of the Party,” He has played a dominating part in German Readers, although only one poem of his is known. It begins:
Deutschland erwache!
Sturm, Sturm, Sturm!