the Beloved One paraded his army of true young
Germans before his Führer, and I saw his face light u p
as he watched them pass by. The Beloved One has
worked so hard with them, has instilled so much of
his own bravery and heroism into them, that what was
once a rabble and I must confess sometimes a rough
and rather terrifying one has been transformed
into a veritable Army of Light, a band of eager cru-
saders ready to march at the Führer’s orders to ren-
der this unhappy country free once more...
After it was over, the Führer embraced the Be-
loved One and told me that if he said what he really
thought of his achievement the Beloved One would
get a swollen head.
I said that my own head was already swollen with
pride, and he kissed my hand and said, “No head so
pretty as yours could ever be swollen.”The Bavarians were ready for action against France, but
Berlin had cold feet. Worse, when Hitler and Göring tried to
force the Bavarian government’s hand by holding a provocative
anti-Communist May Day parade in an arena north of Munich,
General von Lossow called in all the army weapons that he had
previously allowed the SA to carry. “What mattered,” explained
the general to the judges one year later, “was this: Who was in
charge in this country?... This first trial of strength ended with
Hitler’s defeat, and we had nothing more to do with one an-
other.”
It was a serious loss of face for Hitler, Göring and the SA.
“An officer never breaks his word!” Göring told Hitler,
perplexed.
In August his widowed mother died. This was a wa-
tershed in his career, and he committed himself recklessly from
this time on to the Nazi movement. On August , Hitler issued