Hitler

justice claim to have restored the ‘homogeneity’ of the party. In the following years, it would become more and more apparent: Hitler, and the ‘idea’ increasingly embodied in his leadership, constituted the sole, indispensable force of integration in a movement that retained the potential to tear itself apart. Hitler’s position as supreme leader standing over the party owed much to the recognition of this fact.
    Outside loyalist circles, the immediate response to Hitler’s speech on the
völkisch
Right was often one of disappointment. This was mainlybecause of the way Hitler was plainly distancing himself from Ludendorff, still seen by many as the leader of the
völkisch
movement. Ludendorff s standing remained a potential problem. But as so often, luck came to Hitler’s aid.
    On 28 February 1925, the day after the refoundation of the NSDAP, the first Reich President of the Weimar Republic, the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, still vilified by the Right, died at the age of fifty-four from the effects of an appendicitis operation. Against the arguments of some of his advisers, Hitler insisted on putting forward Ludendorff as the National Socialist candidate, and persuaded the General to stand. He regarded the General as no more than a token candidate, without a chance of winning. Why Ludendorff agreed to stand is less easy to understand than why Hitler wanted the candidacy of a rival of whom he was by now in private extremely scathing. It seems that Hitler persuaded the General that the conservative candidate of the Right, Karl Jarres, had to be stopped, and, flattering Ludendorff ’s prestige, inveigled him into standing. Probably Ludendorff reckoned with the backing of his
völkisch
friends. But when they decided – in order not to split the right-wing vote – to put their support behind Jarres, the General’s fate was sealed. What had seemed to some in Hitler’s entourage a risky strategy was, in fact, no great risk at all, and was more or less guaranteed to damage Ludendorff. That this was the intention was scarcely concealed, even by some leading Nazis.
    For Ludendorff, the election on 29 March was a catastrophe. He polled only 286,000 votes, 1.1 per cent of the votes cast. This was 600,000 fewer than the
völkisch
Right had gained at the Reichstag election in December 1924, itself a disastrous result. Hitler was anything but distressed at the outcome. ‘That’s all right,’ he told Hermann Esser, ‘now we’ve finally finished him.’ The election winner in the run-off on 26 April was another war-hero, Field-Marshal Hindenburg. Weimar democracy was now in the hands of one of the pillars of the old order. Ludendorff never recovered from his defeat. Hitler’s great rival for the leadership of the
völkisch
Right no longer posed a challenge. He was rapidly on his way into the political wilderness. By 1927, Hitler was openly attacking his former ally – and accusing him of freemasonry (an accusation which was never countered).
    The
völkisch
movement itself, in 1924 numerically stronger and geographically more widespread than the NSDAP and its successororganizations, was not only weakened and divided, but had now effectively lost its figurehead. At first, especially in southern Germany, there were difficulties where local party leaders refused to accede to Hitler’s demand that they break their ties with
völkisch
associations and subordinate themselves totally to his leadership. But increasingly they went over to Hitler. Most realized the way the wind was blowing. Without Hitler, they had no future. For his part, Hitler was particularly assiduous during the coming months in visiting local party branches in Bavaria. The ban on speaking at public meetings which the Bavarian authorities had imposed on him on 9 March (followed in subsequent months by a similar ban in most other states, including Prussia) gave him more time for speaking in closed party meetings. The handshake with individual members, invariably a part of such meetings, symbolically cemented the bonds between himself and the local membership. A sturdy platform of support for Hitler’s leadership was thus laid in Bavaria. In the north, the path was less even.
    II
    On 11 March, two days after the speaking ban had been imposed, Hitler commissioned Gregor Strasser to organize the party in north Germany. Strasser, a Landshut apothecary, a big, bluff Bavarian, in the pre-putsch days SA chief in Lower Bavaria, a diabetic who mixed it