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jfi " Tho House That Hitler Built"
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HITLER DREAMl
WHILE OTHER!
DO THE I
WORK I
t
E f PROFESSOR STEPHEN H. ! B
| | ROBERTS' book, which !
I Germany lias banned. ( H-
It is the combination of men like Goering with a dreamer like Hitler that has
made Nazidom possible. They could not supply the mysticism and the B;
dreams without being laughed at and he could not do the necessary dirty H!
work. Hitler without his party organisation behind him would be incon- B
ceivabie, so, too, would the larty without his pixie-ridden other-worldness.
HITLER is a romantic
through and through,
and he lacks the educa
tion or the reading to temper
his romanticism by the balance
of philosophy. Everything that
he does is Wagnerian — this is
the leitmotiv of the whole Hitler
piece. He has the trappings of
mysticism everywhere.
He blesses banners; he makes a
workaday shovel a symbol for mys
terious ritual; he believes in mncabre
rites about the resurrection of the Nazi
dead; he fosters midnight ceremonies
on the sncrcd Brocken mountain; lie
talks of Valhalla and knight-errantry;
he wants to be Siegfried and Frederick
the Great rolled Into one; The mysti
cal trappings of Hitlcrism are always
strongly in evidence; nnd the normal
mind reacts against it knows not what.
Experts have shown that, consciously
or unconsciously. Hitler uses the very
phrases that have been the formulae
of occult observations ever since the
Middle Ages.
Hence comes the uncertainty. A
Mussolini has everyday ambitions and
thinks in terms of men nnd guns ond
machines. His foreign policy is in
terms of iron and steel and frontier
posts, but with o Hitler one never
knows. He may be carried away by
some obsession of reconstituting Vienna
as the capital of a new Germanic Em
pire, or he may see himself as a cru
sader in Eastern Europe, like the Teu
tonic Knights of the olden days.
Realism in foreign policy . is bad
enough, but romanticism leaves us nt
the mercy of a dreamer's will-o'-the-
wisp ideas, especially when a new
army is at its beck nnd coll. That is
why many foreign experts hope that
either the Nazi Forty machine or the
army will retain power, for there at
least ore men who, brutal realists as
they may be, are in touch with ordin
ary affairs. Then the aloof dreruner
of Bcrchtcsgndcn can keep on looking
through his telescope at the eternal
snows and keep on dreaming his
visions and muking speeches to him
self.
Nobody would claim that Hitler is
of outstanding mental stature. If he
really expresses the Romantic Ideal
carried to the point of absurdity, and
if romanticism is the liberation of the
less conscious levels of the mind (as
one recent writer has described it),
extreme mental clarity would not be
expected from him. His life, as I see
it, can be expressed as an attempt at
escaping from reality and a more or
less constant intoxication of his Imagi
nation by a free indulgence in fan
tasy.
Hitler has none of that "great measur
ing virtue" without which Ruskin asserts
true greatness is impossible. The psycho
analysts have n marvellous subject for
discussion in Hcrr Hitler.
He is transparently honest. He be
lieves what he is saying, and throws
every ounce of nervous energy Into
all that he says or docs, even when
he is answering the most casual ques
tion (this stands out as my keenest
impression when 1 spoke to him in
the Deuischer Hof). Nobody can
doubt his utter sincerity. He cannot
help himself; he cannot restrain him
self. Ho is completely absorbed in
i , <
tho statement or policy of the momf
That explains why ho carries \
crowds with him— because he believes
so utterly, so appallingly, in what ho is
saying.
Nevertheless, he can say different
things in successive moments and be
lieve In each with the same degree of
fervor. It is not his honesty that is
in question; it is his terrific power of
self-delusion that introduces such an
element of. uncertainty into everything
he does. His advisers never Jwo
he is going to say next.
His emotion drags him along
his surging words, and he can
stop nor restrain his impetuous
in what he is saying. Thus, un'.ejB
rends every line of his speech,
ment of uncertainty is always
What made tho demagogue
ruin the Chancellor— were it
Gocbbels's astute control of the
Even Hitler has found himself
sored on many occasions, when
tongue ran away with him, and
bolss blue pencil came into plav
It is often maintained that
man of strong decisions. Bui rust :-R
not occasionally and jerkily take vR
tive steps to convince himself
is energetic— to cut the tangle of
own mental procrastinations.' frgR
arc many opinions about this- bB
there is certainly a spasmodic ap«wH
once about his so-called rapid dkR
sions that would appear to bei:e
interpretation that he is a msn
action, thinking dearly and
energetically. R
Indeed, he himself provide
evidence on the matter. AccordisgH
his own statements, he loathe; ratflR
decisions. He will not make up
mind unless forced along tumultuo-jsH
by events. He could not come to crR
decision about Communism in liR
until he had hesitated and hesrd
sides. He procrastinated in every ttiR
at the time of the first Xovcx'sR
putsch. R
When the Berlin Storm Troops vrtrH
mutinying and their leader teleraprB
to Hitler for a decision, he could
answer. Explaining the killing
Rohm, he said: "During tho rcor.i-H
1 delayed again and again
final decision." He apparently
and hesitated on the occasion of JurR
30. even after he had L«suod
tions to take drastic action.
He cannot make up his mind V:R
to snv in his public speeches, ard R
is common knowledge in Germany
the man who sees him last bef:re
mounts the rostrum has a gJ
portunity of determining the nature
his speech.
His strength, then, is the unduly
sertive characteristic of a man i»t
tain of himself and shunning a
analysis of the problems confronuB
him.
Associated with this is fear
breaking the law. The
machine-guns used by tr.e
ugainst him in 1923 converted him tar
ever to a fervent belief in
methods. Indeed, he hesitated for
about attempting a putsch, and
embarked on it when rea.wure triB
owing to the preparations of Fr;ciCs:B
others, there would be no figntmg.
This is the second of
a .series of articles
which arc extracted
from the booh " The
House That Hitler
Built just pub'
lished by ifiethuen,
and recently ban'
ned in Germany.
The Author , Profcs'
sor S. H. Roberts, is
Challis Professor of
Modern History at
Sydney University.
Mn the writiny of
these studies he was
yiven exceptional
facilities by the
Nazi authorities.
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