bodies of the twenty-two German states; by his methods of murder and imprisonment he had
destroyed democracy and representative government, religious toleration and all civil rights; but
being still the victim of a "legality complex," he insisted upon having the German people endorse
what he had done. A vote to say that votes had no meaning! A Reichstag to declare that a
Reichstag was without power! A completely democratic repudiation of democracy! Lanny
thought: "Has there ever been such a madman since the world began? Has it ever before
happened that a whole nation has gone mad?"
Living in the midst of this enormous institute of lunacy, Lanny Budd tried to keep his
balance and not be permanently stood upon his head. If there was anything he couldn't
comprehend, his Nazi friends were eager to explain it, but there wasn't a single German from
whom he could hear a sane word. Even Hugo Behr and his friends who were planning the
"Second Revolution" were all loyal Hitlerites, co-operating in what they considered a sublime
demonstration of patriotic fervor. Even the members of smart society dared give no greater sign
of rationality than a slight smile, or the flicker of an eyelash so faint that you couldn't be sure if
you had seen it. The danger was real, even to important persons. Only a few days later they
would see Herzog Philip Albert of Württemberg imprisoned for failing to cast his vote in this
sublime national referendum.
Hitler had raised the issue in the middle of October when the British at Geneva had dared to
propose a four years' "trial period" before permitting Germany to rearm. The Führer's reply was
to withdraw the German delegates from both the League of Nations and the Conference for
Arms Limitation. In so doing he issued to the German people one of those eloquent manifestoes
which he delighted to compose; he told them how much he loved peace and how eager he was
to disarm when the other nations would do the same. He talked to them about "honor"—he, the
author of
said they were. He proclaimed that what the German people wanted was "equal rights"; and,
having just deprived them of all rights, he put to them in the name of the government this
solemn question:
"Does the German people accept the policy of its National Cabinet as enunciated here and is it
willing to declare this to be the expression of its own view and its own will and to give it holy
support?"
Such was the "referendum" to be voted on a month later. In addition, there was to be a new
Reichstag election, with only one slate of candidates, 686 of them, all selected by the Führer,
and headed by the leading Nazis: Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Hess, Röhm, and so on. One party,
one list—and one circle in which you could mark your cross to indicate "yes." There was no place
for you to vote "no," and blank ballots were declared invalid.
For that sort of "election" the Fatherland was kept in a turmoil for four weeks, and more
money was spent than had ever been spent by all the forty-five parties in any previous
Reichstag election. The shows and spectacles, the marching and singing, the carrying of the
"blood banners," the ceremonies in honor of the Nazi martyrs; the posters and proclamations,
the torchlight processions, the standing at attention and saluting, the radio orations with the
people assembled in the public squares to listen to loud-speakers— and a few sent to
concentration camps for failing to listen. Hitherto the business of standing silent had been
reserved as an honor for the war dead; but now all over Germany the traffic came to a halt and
people stood in silence with bared heads; all the factories ceased work and thirty million
workers stood to listen to the voice of Adolf Hitler, speaking in the dynamo hall of the enormous
Siemens-Schuckert Electrical Works in Berlin. Afterward they stayed and worked an hour
overtime, so that they and not their employers might have the honor and glory of making a
sacrifice for the Fatherland!
X
On a bright and pleasant Sunday in mid-November, great masses of the German
in front of polling-places all over the land, and even in foreign lands, and in ships upon the
high seas. They voted in prisons and even in concentration camps. Late in the day the
Stormtroopers rounded up the lazy and careless ones; and so more than forty-three million
ballots were cast, and more than ninety-five per cent voted for the Hitler Reichstag and for the
solemn referendum in favor of their own peace and freedom. Irma read about it, the next day
and the days thereafter, and was tremendously impressed. She said: "You see, Lanny, the
Germans really believe in Hitler. He is what they want." When she read that the internees of
Dachau had voted twenty to one for the man who had shut them up there, she said: "That
seems to show that things can't be so very bad."
The husband replied: "It seems to me to show that they are a lot worse."
