Wednesday, August 22, 2018

"Hitler found himself imperiled only once, when Bavarian Interior Minister Schweyer raised the question of having the troublesome alien agitator deported to Austria. A conference in 1922 among the leaders of all the government parties had agreed that the rowdy bands in the streets of Munich, the brawls, and constant molesting of the citizenry, were becoming intolerable. But Erhard Auer, the leader of the Social Democrats, opposed deportation on the grounds that it wold be a violation of "democratic and libertarian principles." So Hitler was allowed to go on denouncing the republic as a "sanctuary for foreign swindlers," threatening the administration that when he came to power "may God have mercy on you!" and proclaiming that there would be "only one punishment: the rope" for the treasonous leaders of the Social Democratic Party."
-Joachim Fest