Rauschning describes not one, but two separate factions of leftists who were plotting coups. I will not belabor the point by quoting the entire section. Below he describes the faction of "radical revolutionaries", led by Roehm, who thought Hitler was betraying Socialism by becoming a "reactionary" rightist-sympathizer who sided with the business class and elite military officer class.
The choice in 1934 was between continuation of the revolution and a real restoration of order. Up till then, each man had interpreted the German revolution in the light of his own political aims and desires, but it had become suddenly clear, at least to the thoughtful and intelligent, that this German upheaval really was a revolution. But whither was it leading? Evidently to an indescribable destruction of everything that had hitherto been accepted as the basis of all national and social order. Could we look on any longer with our hands folded? Was it not necessary to put an end to it and, even at the risk of another coup, to drive out the whole gang of brown-shirts?
But would this be possible without a civil war? And could Germany afford civil war at this juncture? Although the thinking members of Conservative and Liberal circles, of the intelligent middle classes, had begun to understand what they had done by placing Hitler in power, the formerly Socialist masses of the working-class and the black-coated workers were unreservedly in favour of National Socialism. Perhaps, in fact, it was amongst the masses in this very year of 1934 that National Socialism was strongest. Could one, at the moment of the greatest mass popularity of National Socialism, undertake a coup to remove Hitler for reasons not understood by the masses?
These were thoughts which many “anxious patriots” in every political camp shared with me. From the early days of 1934, the desire had been growing to put an end, cost what it might, to the evil spell which must bring Germany to its ruin. But no hope of any feasible solution seemed to offer.
Suddenly the Roehm affair became acute. The Reichswehr (the army) understood the dangers threatening it from the new revolutionary nihilism.
[...]
Roehm was dissatisfied. He had not been made a minister. The entire meaning of the National Socialist revolution seemed lost to him.
[...]
The entire National Socialist revolution would be bogged if the S.A. were not given a public, legal function, either as militia or as a special corps of the new army. He was not inclined to be made a fool of.
[...]
We discussed the new defensive power of the State, and who ought to command it, who, in fact, ought to create it, the Reichswehr generals or he—Roehm, who had made the party possible in the first place.
[...]
“Adolf is a swine,” he swore. “He will give us all away. He only associates with the reactionaries now. His old friends aren’t good enough for him. Getting matey with the East Prussian generals. They’re his cronies now.”
He was jealous and hurt.
“Adolf is turning into a gentleman. He’s got himself a tail-coat now!” he mocked.
He drank a glass of water and grew calmer.
“Adolf knows exactly what I want. I’ve told him often enough. Not a second edition of the old imperial army. Are we revolutionaries or aren’t we?
[...]
They expect me to hang about with a lot of old pensioners, a herd of sheep. I’m the nucleus of the new army, don’t you see that? Don’t you understand that what’s coming must be new, fresh and unused? The basis must be revolutionary. You can’t inflate it afterwards. You only get the opportunity once to make something new and big that’ll help us to lift the world off its hinges. ...”
[...]
I mention all this because a conversation with Hitler in February of 1934 showed me not only the Führer’s superiority to his entourage, but also the dangerous game he was playing, a game which, when he was close to being deposed, saved him—at the cost of his friend, it is true—and made him one of the commanders of the newly created army. He seemed to have betrayed the revolutionary ideas of this friend, but it was only a seeming betrayal.
At that time every thing was still fluid. Hitler had to adapt the realisation of his “gigantic” plans to the difficult conditions of internal and external politics, and could take only small, cautious steps forward.
Hermann Rauschning. (1939).
Hitler Speaks. Page 152-156.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505385/page/n151/mode/2upAs Rauschning observed, the "reactionary" conservatives (including himself) did not favor Hitler, and Hitler remained dedicated to Socialist revolution--just not a chaotically-managed one like in the USSR. Further,
Rauschning said Hitler was even considering one-upping Roehm's faction by leading Roehm's Socialist "second revolution" himself! Moreover, Rauschning again indicates that Hitler was not "captive" to the conservative elements in society (who just wanted to use Hitler to control the "prole" masses who looked up to him). Once again, Hitler's ideological split with Roehm was not because Roehm was Socialist, but because Roehm's Socialism was too similar to Marxist Socialism (i.e., not authentically Socialist enough!), and, obviously Roehm's removal from the party is because he was plotting a coup.
But was he any more fortunate with his “reactionary” friends? That same spring I had addressed a group of heavy industry magnates at the Essen Mining Syndicate (Essener Bergwerksverein), and at a social gathering after the meeting I found them in the blackest depression regarding the political situation. The general complaint in private conversation was: “He’s leading us to ruin.” Some time later the present Commander-in-Chief, General von Brauchitsch, was in Danzig as my guest. On a visit to the German Consul-General, he spoke of his serious apprehensions about the general situation. In the interests of the state, the army could no longer tolerate it, and would seek unqualified changes.
Hitler was isolated.
What, actually, was the aim of the second National Socialist revolution? Hitler knew his party members very well.
“There are people,” he said, “who believe that Socialism means simply their chance to share the spoils, to do business and live a comfortable life.”
Unhappily, this conception had not died out with the Weimar Republic. He had no intention, like Russia, of “liquidating” the possessing class. On the contrary, he would compel it to contribute by its abilities towards the building up of the new order. He could not afford to allow Germany to vegetate for years, as Russia had done, in famine and misery. ... He had no intention of changing this practical arrangement for the sake of continual bickering with so-called old soldiers and over-ardent party members.
[...]
He knew perfectly well that every phase of a revolution meant a new set of rulers. The flood-tide of a second revolution would wash new men to the top. Would it not mean the end of Hitler and his immediate associates? Was it at all possible to keep the reins in one’s hands, once the revolt of the proletarian masses was unchained? In spite of his armchair battles. Hitler was afraid of the masses. He was afraid of his own people.
“Irresponsible elements are at work to destroy all my constructive labours,” he said. “But I shall not allow my work to be shattered either by the Right or the Left.”
He gave out that treacherous elements within the party, agents of Moscow and of the German bourgeois Nationalists, were together plotting the “second” National Socialist revolution in order to overthrow him.
He had received information that Roehm had intentions of kidnapping him—a suspicion which kept cropping up every time Hitler hesitated to strike at the right moment. On the other hand, it was certain that he must eventually—unless his antagonists were exceptionally stupid—have become the secret captive of the Conservative circles, to be employed as the taskmaster of the revolutionaries, the tamer of that wild beast “the masses.”
Hitler for a long time felt tempted to place himself at the head of the radicals of his party and demand a second revolution, thereby retaining at least a semblance of leadership, and possibly even regaining, after some time, the real leadership. Intense struggles for power were at that time going on in the inner circles, very little of which ever came to the ears of the public. But it is to be assumed that the outcome was not an accidental one. For it proved that Hitler, in his insight and his far-sightedness, is infinitely superior not only to his party clique, but also to his Conservative opponents and the leaders of the Reichswehr.
Hermann Rauschning. (1939).
Hitler Speaks. Page 162-164.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505385/page/n161/mode/2upIn addition to Roehm's Socialist faction, there was Strasser's Socialist faction. Again, see all the previous posts in the thread about how Hitler went to extreme lengths to keep the Strassers loyal to the party because he valued them, and how Hitler criticized Otto Strasser, not because he was Socialist, but because his Socialism was too Marxist-leaning--and therefore not authentically Socialist enough!
Further, consider that the two most powerful opposition factions in the party were both Socialists. (Meanwhile, there were other far-left former Communists like Joseph Goebbels who remained loyal to Hitler!)
In the background, one man was waiting: Gregor Strasser, Hitler’s great antagonist within the party. Once again the same alignment took place as in the autumn and winter of 1932, when the party was threatened with a split, when General von Schleicher conceived his plan to make the trade unions and the social wing of the National Socialist movement the mass foundations of his government. This solution, premature in 1932 and distasteful to the big industrialists, seemed now, after the universal muddle created in a year and a half of the National Socialist regime, the only possible alternative both to a fierce revolution of the S.A. and the sterile mass demagogy of Hitler. It would have provided the permanent form of a new constitution, supported by the Reichswehr.
[...]
In Danzig and in most of Northern Germany, Gregor Strasser had always been more esteemed than Hitler himself. Hitler’s nature was incomprehensible to the North German.
[...]
I had been present at the last meeting of leaders before our seizure of power, in Weimar, in the autumn of 1933. Gregor Strasser gave the meeting its character. Hitler was lost in a sea of despondency and accusations on the top of the Obersalzberg. The party’s position was desperate. Strasser was calm, and with assurance and quiet confidence, succeeded in quenching the feeling that the party was at its last gasp. It was he who led the party. To all practical purposes. Hitler had abdicated.
Was not the position essentially the same as that of 1932 and 1933? The difference was merely that Roehm now stood on the one hand, preparing his radical revolt, but on the other, in the background, Strasser, the potential successor, the exiled, the disgraced, the hated rival. Hitler knew that if he took Roehm’s side, the Reichswehr would restore Strasser and split the party. Strasser, the man who had spoken of the anti-capitalist nostalgia of the German people, would return and, together with Conservative, Liberal and Socialist sympathisers, create the new order in Germany. Positions were reversed: Hitler, the friend of heavy industry, became the rebel, the street-corner agitator of proletarian mass revolution, while Strasser, the anti-capitalist, became the friend of generals.
Hitler made his decision. He made it out of hate and jealousy. The 30th June broke. He struck down more than the rebellious S.A. He struck down General von Schleicher. He struck down Gregor Strasser.
The blood-bath might have been greater. A secret plot had been made to murder Hitler and place the blame for his death on the middle class. This was to be the signal for a real “night of long knives.”
Hermann Rauschning. (1939).
Hitler Speaks. Page 164-167.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505385/page/n163/mode/2upHitler himself makes clear he is not a reactionary:
“With the old gentleman at death’s door, these criminals make such difficulties for me!” he cried indignantly. “At a time when it is so important to decide on the successor to the Reich presidency, when the choice lies between myself and one of the reactionary crowd! For this alone these people deserve to be shot. Have I not emphasised time and time again that only the inviolable unity of our will can lead our venture to success? Anyone who gets out of step will be shot. Have I not implored these people ten, a hundred, times to follow me? At a moment when everything depends on the party’s being a single, close entity, I must listen to the reactionaries taunting me with the inability to keep order and discipline in my own house! ...”
Hermann Rauschning. (1939).
Hitler Speaks. Page 172.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505385/page/n171/mode/2upAfter the dust settled from getting rid of Roehm, Hitler made clear he was still a Socialist and remained committed to revolution. Note also that the "Executor of Marxism" section (in the previous post) comes after these sections about purging Roehm and Strasser.
I.e., Hitler felt the need to continuously stress his leftism to Rauschning (who Hitler must have mistakenly believed was a loyal up-and-comer in the party)
after the purge. This would make no sense if Hitler had been a far-rightist purging the leftist elements of the party! Nor would it have made sense for the right-wing Rauschning to become so anti-NS if Hitler was trying to make the party rightist.
Shortly after the funeral, Hitler spoke in a circle of his intimates, about the second revolution, and his views were circulated among the initiated members of the party. It was in this way that they came to my ears; I was not present at Hitler’s private celebration of his official recognition as “Führer” of the German Reich.
“My Socialism,” he is reported to have said, “is not the same thing as Marxism. My Socialism is not class war, but order. Whoever imagines Socialism as revolt and mass demagogy is not a National Socialist. Revolution is not games for the masses. Revolution is hard work. The masses see only the finished product, but they are ignorant, and should be ignorant, of the immeasurable amount of hidden labour that must be done before a new step forward can be taken. The revolution cannot be ended. It can never be ended. We are motion itself, we are eternal revolution. We shall never allow ourselves to be held down to one permanent condition.”
[...]
He was not yet, he continued, in a position to tell them all that he had in mind. But they could rest assured that Socialism, as the Party understood it, was not concerned with the happiness of the individual, but with the greatness and future of the whole people. It was an heroic Socialism—the community of solemnly sworn brothers-in-arms having no individual possessions, but sharing everything in common.
Hermann Rauschning. (1939).
Hitler Speaks. Page 175-176.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505385/page/n175/mode/2upAlso, Hitler personally requested that Roehm rejoin the SA as its leader in 1930, as Roehm had resigned and left Germany a number of years prior. Hitler needed a new leader for the SA because he had just put down a coup within the SA led by Walter Stennes. Why would Hitler make this request to a radical revolutionary Socialist, unless Hitler genuinely trusted him? If Hitler was a far-rightist there is no way that he would have tried to consolidate his control over the SA by placing a revolutionary leftist in charge! Roehm's leftism was not the problem. It was refusal to uphold the Leader Principle and refusal to completely repudiate Marxist Socialism.
When in April 1925 Hitler and Ludendorff disapproved of the proposals under which Röhm was prepared to integrate the 30,000-strong Frontbann into the SA, Röhm resigned from all political groups and military brigades on 1 May 1925. He felt great contempt for the "legalistic" path the party leaders wanted to follow and sought seclusion from public life.[11] In 1928, he accepted a post in Bolivia as adviser to the Bolivian Army, where he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel. In the autumn of 1930, Röhm received a telephone call from Hitler requesting his return to Germany.[11]
In September 1930, as a consequence of the Stennes Revolt in Berlin, Hitler assumed supreme command of the SA as its new Oberster SA-Führer. He sent a personal request to Röhm, asking him to return to serve as the SA's Chief of Staff. Röhm accepted this offer and began his new assignment on 5 January 1931.[27] He brought radical new ideas to the SA, and appointed several close friends to its senior leadership.
[...]
In June 1931, the Münchener Post, a Social Democratic newspaper, began attacking Röhm and the SA regarding homosexuality in its ranks and then in March 1932, the paper obtained and published some private letters of his in which Röhm described himself as "same-sex orientated" (gleichgeschlechtlich). These letters had been confiscated by the Berlin police back in 1931 and subsequently passed along to the journalist Helmuth Klotz.[33][34] Röhm acknowledged that the letters were genuine, and as a result of the scandal, he became the first openly gay politician in history.[34]
Hitler was aware of Röhm's homosexuality. Their friendship shows in that Röhm remained one of the few intimates allowed to use the familiar German du (the German familiar form of "you") when conversing with Hitler.[12] In turn, Röhm was the only Nazi leader who dared to address Hitler by his first name "Adolf" or his nickname "Adi" rather than "mein Führer".[35] Their close association led to rumors that Hitler himself was homosexual.[36] Unlike many in the Nazi hierarchy, Röhm never fell victim to Hitler's "arresting personality" nor did he come fully under his spell, which made him unique.[37]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm(Also, if Hitler was a homophobic rightist, why would he be close friends with the first openly-"gay" politician in modern history? And note that it was the False Left Social Democratic party who was being homophobic!)
----
Now, having read all this information, it is crystal clear why the "conservative reactionary" Rauschning quickly became anti-NS:
Hermann Adolf Reinhold Rauschning (7 August 1887 – February 8, 1982) was a German conservative reactionary[2] who briefly joined the Nazi movement before breaking with it.[3] He was the President of the Free City of Danzig from 1933 to 1934, during which he led the Senate of the Free City of Danzig. In 1934, he renounced Nazi Party membership and in 1936 emigrated from Germany. He eventually settled in the United States and began openly denouncing Nazism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Rauschning
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