THAT SAME DAY, Hitler was scheduled to speak elsewhere in Germany on the subject of a visit he had just made to Italy to meet with Mussolini. Hitler turned the opportunity into an attack on Papen and his conservative allies, without mentioning Papen directly. “All these little dwarfs who think they have something to say against our idea will be swept away by its collective strength,” Hitler shouted. He railed against “this ridiculous little worm,” this “pygmy who imagines he can stop, with a few phrases, the gigantic renewal of a people’s life.”
