RIDDLE OF HITLER

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20909, 14 September 1939, Page 11

RIDDLE OF HITLER

MAN OF EMOTIONS ENTHUSIASM AND SINCERITY COMB IN ATI ON FOR NAZISM In the heat and dust of the conflict in Europe one man stands out, prominently from the rest —in brown uniform and of a stern, militaristic bearing, he has had laid at his door the responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities which have in one way or another affected every country in the world, and has often been labelled as Public Enemy No. 1. Since his rise to power in 1933 he has become a common figure in German affairs, but always with his crowds and large retinue. This pen picture, written by John O’N. Toner, in the English publication Men Only, dealing with the man in his private life, is of particular interest at this time. I have had the experience many times of seeing Hitler without his crowds—in his shirt-sleeves, as it were—at the routine business of managing State matters over a desk, says Toner. You can see the man more plainly then than when he is painted up and costumed for the stage. Imagination Runs Riot What is his secret? Those who think that he is merely the finest stump orator In a country which adores stump orators, or that he is the victim of demoniacal possession, are as inaccurate in their verdict as the people in Hitler’s own country, who put him down as a demi-god divinely appointed to lead them. He is essentially a dreamer. He comes from the peasant stock of Austria, which is famed for its romanticism, but he has done what few men of his kind have ever accomplished: 'he has put many of his dreams into stark reality. Having made the discovery that dreams can come true, he has let his imagination run riot until it rules him. Hitler's mind is a melting-pot of visions coming and going everlastingly, like the colours in a kaleidoscope, continues the writer. His conscious control over them is practically gone, which acounts for the fact that his ministers are rarely able to anticipate his next move. As his visions have become more compelling and dictatorial, so also has his intuition finally reached such a point of acuteness in seizing the most opportune moment for action, that even the best-trained political agents attached to Berlin Embassies find themselves hopelessly outclassed. Change in Diplomacy As a race, the Germans have never been anything but clumsy in the matter of diplomacy. They have, in fact, frequently been the laughingstock of European Foreign Offices with their child-like inadequacy. All that Is now changed. Something far subtler than diplomatic finesse has entered the arena. It is the mind of a man who does not know what it is going to dictate next. But whatever it dictates he will carry out without hesitation.

Hitler is romantic through and through. His education consisted of no more than a sound drilling in the rudiments of reading, writing and sums. In his early manhood it is true that he did acquire some knowledge of economics and social philosophy while resident in Vienna, but he picked it up chiefly from lowerclass malcontents and by an avid perusal of newspapers. It provided him with a few catchwords and an ability to get excited on matters he was ill-equipped to understand fully. But he knows the heart of Germany as no one has done yet, and he is the personification of all the German heart craves. He plays up to their love of symbolism, flag-waving, and all the trappings of mysticism so peculiar a feature of an otherwise hard-headed people. His personality simply bursts with enthusiasm and the sincerity of his mission. In him there is nothing of doubt or cold reason. All Is emotion on fire with zeal. All is imagination and vision. No Interest In Details This is not the sort of man who could take any meticulous interest in details consequent upon the tide he has let loose over a mighty nation; such details, for instance, as the execution of individuals who have interfered with the working-out of his ideas. I am convinced, says Toner, that all the brutal sides of his movement pass him by. The killings, the repressions, the imprisonments do not belong to the world of his imagination. It is the combination of Hitler and hard-bitten executives like Goering and Goebbels that lias made Nazism possible. They could not supply the mysticism and dreams without being laughed at, and he could not do the necessary dirty work. His honesty is transparent, and he can convey the conviction behing this honesty to his audience. He carries an audience with him because he believes so utterly what he is saying. A certain amount of dramatic technique is employed at these speeches, but it is overwhelmingly the terrific honesty that really gets the effect. There is nothing feigned about that. Honesty of Purpose But this honesty of purpose one moment does not prevent him changing his mind frequently on the same topic. It is this appalling power of self-delusion that introduces such an element of uncertainty into everything he does. Nor is it confined entirely to his political life. Privately he is the same. It is almost a daily occurrence for him to go for a very long and fast ride in his car on a route he has directed. Invariably, before he has gone half the distance, he will change his plan and go careering off in the opposite direction. No display of emotionalism is too crude for * Hiller. He frequently weeps. He wept to the Court which tried him in 192 i. He wept to the Brown Shirt leaders when they mutinied in 1930. He cried also at the time of the party split in 1932, roaming up and down the corridors of his hotel threatening to commit suicide.

“We can always get Adolf to weep,” Goering is reported to have said. Only infrequently, does his reading go beyond official documents. lie keeps away from first-rate minds, and distrusts learning or learned persons. He has to have them of course, but people like Dr. Schacht have ne'er been the intimates of Hitler. By com-

parison with Schacht. Goering and company are illiterates. Hitler’s personal contacts are few. Those charming photographs we scp of him receiving a bouquet of flowers from a child are all the experl work of liis old friend Hoffman—a former comrade of his in Vienna. The background of the Fuehrer’s “suicide brigade." who accompany him everywhere, is carefully blotted out by Hoffman.