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The psychology and development of
Adolph Hitler Schicklgruber

C O L O U R K E 'Y'

Psychological profiles:
♦ Adolf/Adolph Hitler Schicklgruber - his psychology and development
♦ Did Hitler know about the holocaust? A psychological assessment
♦ Henry Ford, mechanical man
♦ The psychology of Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin
♦The psychology of Georges Simenon and Jules Maigret, with reviews,

    ♦ psycho-logic

    ♦ sociology - the structure of analysing belief systems

    ♦ psycho-babble

Index
Introduction
Places and schooling

Map

Background
Anti-Semitism
Politician
Catholicism and fascism
Table of personnel
The NAZI (NSDAP) party

The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party

Adolph through his own words
Quotations from some of Hitler’s contemporaries
References and endnotes
Bibliography

Introduction

Many books on Adolph Hitler Schicklgruber are unreliable. They reprint statements known to be untrue and they interpret facts to support dubious theories. I have read well over 50 books on the rise of Hitler, but have not tended to take notes. I think I have come to know him rather well. The main references I am using are merely recent books, which I have found interesting or convenient.

My intent is to let Hitler tell you who he is himself through his own words. This is supplemented by what I regard as the cogent experiences of his youth that shaped his perceptions. I am posting this document at my site to give information that is not normally emphasised or that is elided in pursuit of the grinding of various axes.

It is rare to find any author who can report Hitler without a panicky effort to tell the reader what a dreadful monster beyond any human comprehension is the subject or, alternatively, attempt to justify the fellow in pursuit of some new moronreich. Not withstanding this, I must declare that, following Churchill, I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire.[1]

My objective is to focus on just who Hitler was, rather than upon the consequences of his acts in the context of his times. It is useful always to keep in mind that Hitler, despite the chaos that he perpetrated, failed monumentally in his prime intentions. Communism penetrated deep into Europe, including into Germany. Germany itself lay in ruins with up to 20 million Germans dead. Even Hitler’s bizarre obsession with ‘Jews’ precipitated the formation of a Jewish state for the first time in two millennia. Adolph’s sorry tale ends with him as a mental wreck, committing suicide in a deep hole in the ground where he had been hiding from those inferior Slavs.

Background

Hitler’s father, Alois, was the ‘illegitimate’ son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber—she refused to name the father. This has led to much speculation, but the reality is that we have no certainty as to the father. Thus, Hitler was unable to produce the certificate of origin he required of every German citizen on hazard of death. The various rumours suggest as father of Alois: a Jew called Frankenberger, Johann Nepomuk Hüttler[1a], or one Trummelschlager who acted as godfather. Illegitimacy was widespread in the Waldviertel, now estimated at about 40%. The most persistent rumour is that his father was a Jew, possibly an itinerant trader, at Graz. What little ‘evidence’ there is, supports that rumour.

In 1877, at the age of 39, Alois Schicklgruber changed his name, effectively illegally, to Alois Hitler. It remains speculative whether ‘heil Schicklgruber’ would have resounded as far as ‘heil Hitler’. The name change was accepted by his employers. Alois was a fellow of unusual energy and, by becoming a customs officer, rose to the highest possible rank in the civil service available for his educational background.

In 1885, when Alois was 47, he was married for the third time to the already pregnant 25-year-old Klara Pölzl. A Vatican dispensation was first obtained, as she was officially his niece. It is unlikely that the dispensation would have been allowed if Klara had not been up the spout. Klara had become pregnant while Alois’s second wife Franziska Matzelberger was dying. He had pulled a similar trick with Franziska with regard to his first wife Anna Glassl. It is probable than at one time he was cavorting with all three concurrently. Adolph was born in 1889 as the third child of Alois and Klara, the first two children having died in infancy.

It is likely that Alois was violent to the mother and child, especially after his regular sessions down the local tavern, to the extent that Alois once feared that he had killed the boy. His mother, on the other hand, appears to have spoilt Adolph rotten and been incapable of disciplining him. What today would be regarded as a typical dysfunctional family.

Hitler is known to have delighted in shooting rats from his pre-teens[2]. He is recorded as thrashing a dog in order to impress a girl friend in 1926[3]. He revelled in the nickname ‘wolf’. He was renowned for his rages and his dogmatism.

If the father of Alois was Johann Nepomuk Hüttler, Alois had married his niece, for Klara was the grand-daughter of Hüttler. This would have given Adolph his grandfather on his father’s side and his great-grandfather on his mother’s side as one and the same person, i.e. Johann Nepomuk Hüttler.

Later Adolph in turn shacked up with his own niece, Geli Raubal. If they had produced a child, it is possible their progeny would have ended up with the same grandfather and great-grandfather in Alois Schicklgruber-Hitler and the same grandfather, great-grandfather and great great-grandfather in Johann Nepomuk Hüttler.

It is feasible that Adolph ended up murdering Geli[4], although it is usually reported as a suicide.

There is a considerable pseudo-Freudian literature attempting to link Hitler’s behaviour to a variety of unsupported sexual oddities. I regard it as scatological rather than useful. Hitler seems to have been comfortable with two categories of female relationships: motherly figures and girly young things. The Hanfstaengl family were one of several upper middle-class families who took Adolph under their wing. When Hitler ‘tried it on’ with the wife, she told her rather wet husband not to worry, “believe me, he is an absolute neuter, not a man”[5]. His relationships with the younger females were rather similar to his relationships with dogs: play with them ’til he got bored. In other words, Hitler never really grew up.

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Places and schooling

Hitler was descended from a peasant society in the Waldviertel (‘forest quarter’) in the west of  lower Austria (lower Austria is the north-eastern area of Austria). The Waldviertel villages associated with Hitler’s family —Döllersheim, Strones, Spital and Wörnharts—are marked on the map.

Döllersheim, the birthplace of Hitler’s father and his grandmother’s burial place, was turned into an army training area and obliterated on Hitler’s orders. Strones was also obliterated by the 30 kilometre-wide training zone, which still exists (2000). It is thought that Hitler took this action in order to cover up his past, about which he was very paranoid.

As with isolated peasant societies around the world, the area was heavily inbred, with its share of genetic problems[6]. Hitler’s mother had a hunchbacked sister and a first cousin was likewise affected. Adolph’s sister Paula has been described as mentally defective, but that may be a little harsh[7].

Hitler was born at Braunau am Inn, in 1889. Hitler’s father, Alois, was often on the move as he was promoted, and Adolph naturally moved with his family.

In 1892 till early 1894, the family was at Passau in Bavaria, whence they moved to Linz in 1895, and then to Hafeld/Fischlham near Lambach. There, Adolph attended school at the Lambach Benedictine foundation between 1896 and 1898. In 1898, he moved to the primary school at Leonding, a suburb of Linz. Between 1900 and 1905, he was at the secondary school at Leonding. He managed to complete only three years, having repeated two of the years twice. He was then expelled, whence he went to school in Steyr before dropping out at 16 years old.

Hitler did badly in school, as is shown by his school records. Details to be found in Jetzinger. As is common with bright but ill-disciplined children, Hitler did well before secondary school but gradually, with his casual habits, found keeping up beyond his ability. It is clear from early written work that he left school semi-literate.

Jetzinger, an ex-Jesuit, made a business of collecting any documentation he could lay his hands on relating to Hitler’s early days. His associated writing is dedicated to rubbishing Hitler and is thus not very reliable; but the documentary sources are important. They show Hitler as a draft-dodger[8] in Austria, as a dole scrounger and fiddler. Jetzinger also suggested that Hitler was much better off than he claimed in Mein Kampf, but Jetzinger’s case on this point is now regarded as tainted.

On dropping out, Adolph set out to make his mark in Vienna. Hitler was a gauche young fellow from the sticks, abroad in the great melting pot of Vienna. He was full of dreams but greatly lacking in education, experience or any useful skills, serious money or contacts. His life gradually headed downhill to destitution. Hitler’s descent was eventually halted by entering the German army as a volunteer in 1914[9].

For something of the flavour of the time and place, Hitler’s Vienna by B. Hamann is a possibility.

Anti-semitism

There is no evidence that Alois was an anti-Semite, nor is there any good evidence that Hitler showed any particular inclination in that direction until he became politically active. His claims to the contrary in Mein Kampf are probably false.

In my own view Hitler’s anti-Semitism stemmed from two main sources:

I do not believe his own later rationalisations in Mein Kampf, as they do not mesh with other evidence. I think that the effect of the fashionable anti-Semitism in early 20^th century Vienna on the insecure young striver, as he struggled to gain acceptance among the upper echelons of society, turned Adolph’s head and gave him a means of rationalising his boiling resentments and forwarding his ambitions to ‘be someone’.

It is necessary to remember that Hitler swam in a sea of casual anti-Semitism in Vienna and among the ‘polite’ society in which he developed. As Germany steadily lost the First World War, so the population searched for rationalisations for their failure. Anti-Semitism was a handy, ‘fashionable’ and a widespread cultural affectation in Germany. Without civil strife and cultural anti-Semitism, Nazism was very marginal; only with both did it gain power. Hitler’s anti-Semitism only coalesced over a long period, the focus being given by the rabid writings of Ford .

Humans tend to do what works. German audiences responded to Hitler’s hysteria. Thus, the hysteria was reinforced by practical political ‘success’. Hitler could never have risen to power without fertile ground for his messages of rationalised ‘hatred’ and romanticised hubris.

The attacks upon ‘Jews’ enabled the vast appropriation of assets to pursue war aims and to reward cronies at various levels. These attacks also provided a ready source of slave labour. Much of the assets were laundered through the Swiss banking system[14].

Hitler’s anti-Semitism became muddled with ‘racism’. This he muddled further with simplistic ideas of survival of the fittest and Hobbesian ‘nature red in tooth and claw’. Where, like Saint-Simon, Marx saw a struggle between classes, Hitler saw a struggle between races.[14a] Both these viewpoints are essentially foolish and simplistic. Evolution works through the individual, not through groups. Survival operates essentially through individuals, not alone by ‘struggle’ but by the fortune of better adaptation. Das Kapital and Mein Kampf (My Struggle) were written after the Origin of Species, but in neither case do the authors adequately grasp the message of Darwin. Darwin’s message is too complex to enter into here in detail. See also Why Aristotelian logic does not work on this site. Dawkins’ Selfish Gene gives a useful popularisation, but even that is not sufficiently cautious.

Politician

“The key to the world market has the shape of the sword.”
Hitler, between 1925-1933.[15]

Hitler’s career, at the latest from when writing Mein Kampf in 1925, was directed towards starting a war of expansionist conquest aimed at ‘German’ dominance. War was not an accident but deliberate and consistent policy. In Hitler’s world, ‘Jews’ were not ‘Germans’; he is reported to have said to a foreign visitor as late as 1932 that he had nothing against ‘decent’ ‘Jews’[16] (compare with [10]). His intention was a centralised ‘classless’ socialist state [17] fashioned as an instrument of aggression.

Hitler was a highly intelligent autodidact who rose from poverty. He shows all the weakness of the abused child, as well as the weaknesses of one raised among the petit bourgeois without adequate education. He became a mass-murderer in time, and exhibits a similar history and profile to the mass-murderers who have been studied in recent years: a binge of destruction followed by self-destruction.

Hitler was essentially an opportunist in the pursuit of power[18]. He had very little coherent political ‘philosophy’. His focus was upon power. In my view he is best seen as atavist, a throw-back to an earlier society: the ‘great conqueror’ and would-be builder of empire, not a modern pragmatic politician. In a sense, he was born out of his time. He was a brilliant stage performer who, in a later part of the century, might have ended as a pop singer or a successful salesman or businessman. Hitler is, as with us all, a child of his times. He is also an example of the professional politician—not primarily an ideas man, but an opportunist who will ‘read the polls’ and say whatever it takes to gain and stay in power.

Hitler is clearly a more complex and intelligent individual than the ‘run of the mill’ mass-murderer. However, he remains often a rather dull and sleazy character, like many a modern dictator or criminal gang leader; but he was a consummate politician and a very perceptive leader and manipulator. He is as often under estimated by those who fall over themselves to rubbish him as he is over estimated by neo-nazis.

Hitler’s administration has been credited with applying ‘Keynesian’-type solutions[19] to the chaos existing in Germany prior to his being raised to Chancellor[19a]; and this is probably a reasonable assessment. Hitler started his government during a low ebb in German economic fortunes. World-wide problems were aggravated in part by the foolish behaviour of the Allies after the First World War. Hitler probably gave confidence to the masses; but some believe recovery was already under way and that statistics were widely falsified (nothing new there!). However, Hitler had a major weapon that was not available in the United States (the other economy in greatest difficulties at the time): coercion. A useful analysis is available in Hitler’s economy.

The development of his political opportunism was learnt from observing local Austrian politicians such as Schönerer and Lueger. Details may be traced in Hamann and in The Man Who Invented The Third Reich[20].

Hitler's political method was described by Fest as threats of revolution on the one hand and promises of cooperation on the other [21].

Catholicism and Fascism[22]

“The catholic church has spilt more blood than any other religion.”
Hitler, as reported by Reinhold Hanisch, circa 1910.[23]

“The enemies of National Socialism include not only the ‘jewish Marxists’ and the catholics but also certain elements of an incorrigible, stupid and reactionary bourgeoisie.”
Speech by Hitler, 1 April 1933.[24]

Hitler and his prime revolutionary conspirators had their attitudes formed by catholic teaching. Authoritarianism is at the very core of the Church of Rome, so it is hardly surprising that such an attitude permeated the perspective of catholic politicians. The mixture of authoritarianism and anti-Semitism generated an explosive mix in Hitler’s Germany. The Church has long been intolerant of any deviation from the party line and millions have paid for dissent with their lives. That intolerance and ‘certainty’ is inculcated from childhood and the child is encouraged to utter obedience. The demand for unquestioning obedience leaves the young adult adrift without useful independence of mind. There is little ability to ‘think for oneself’, leaving a yearning for authority and a fear of freedom or responsibility. It becomes a small step to find willing hands to follow any pogrom or crusade.

Jews are the historic scapegoats of the Catholic Church. Catholicism is a Jewish schism. As is widespread with schisms, bitterness is common. WW1 and WW2 were much about rivalries between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, another long-term religious schism. Both forms of christianism make scapegoats of Jews.

There are also echoes of the feudal quarrels that have been common down the centuries, particularly in the case of the first World War. Trade rivalries also played a part, as modern industrial Europe developed on the back of imperialistic ambition.

In 1918, the powerful industrialist Henry Ford, rich on the development of motor car mass-production, bought a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. In it he published a series of scurrilous attacks on ‘jews’. These were published in 1920, in book form, as The International Jew, which was published around the world in many languages. He blamed ‘the international jew’ for financing the war. In 1927, Ford formally retracted his attacks and sold the paper. Ford’s articles are effectively repeated in Mein Kampf, published in 1925–6. Ford was also involved in financing Hitler.[25]

Mein Kampf was considerably written/edited by a Catholic priest. 
Hitler was raised as a catholic. He dreamt of being an abbot when he was young.

Hitler was forever studying the hierarchy of the Jesuit organisation.[26]

Himmler, head of the SS, was catholic. The SS was set up on the Jesuit model.
Goebbels was catholic.
Hoss, the camp commandant of Auschwitz, was catholic.
Frank,‘the butcher of Poland’, was catholic.

Mussolini was catholic. Franco was catholic. Salazar was catholic. The worst dictatorships and greatest social inequalities in South America are under catholic administrations.

The Catholic Church is implicated in both the first and second World Wars. The part played by cardinal Pacelli, later Pope Pius 12^th, is well analysed in Hitler’s Pope[27]. Pacelli systematically undermined the powerful catholic Centre Party[28] negotiating them out of political action in accord with Hitler’s wishes. The Centre Party, which had been important in resisting Bismarck, was thus neutralised. The foolishness was forwarded in particular by Papen, Centre Party deputy and Weimar Chancellor; and by Kaas, who was a priest, Centre Party leader, and a Centre Party representative in the Weimar government.

A series of Weimar government leaders (Chancellors), who steadily centralised power, paved the way for Hitler’s eventual power grab.

Many of the top ‘philosophy’ and theology posts at Oxford and Cambridge have been held by catholics. Most of the British establishment come via Oxford and Cambridge, hence much of that which is ‘inconvenient’ is often not emphasised in academic writing. The Catholic Church has garnered considerable experience through the rewriting history for much of the last 2000 years. See also Heresies, authority, quarrels and words on this site.

The first ‘state’ to recognise Hitler’s third Reich was the Vatican.

Hitler became a vegetarian and a teetotaller; he also did not smoke. He loved animals and doted on young children. Such a pattern is common among the NSDAP hierarchy. Himmler was a violent opponent of hunting.[29] Many were proud ‘family men’. The more one comprehends the criminal NSDAP state, the more one is struck by what Arendt termed ‘the banality of evil’.

Table of personnel

NAME

RELIGION

POSITION

ACTIVITY

ENDED

Adolph Hitler
(or should that be Schicklgruber, or
Frankenberger, or
Trummelschlager?)

1889 – 1945

Catholic
Ambition as a child to be an abbot

Head of State

Looked to Jesuits as organisational model for NSDAP
1908 – listed as sexual pervert by police. [29a]
1924 – said by governor 
of Landsberg to “be not attracted to the female sex” [29b]

Suicide

Heinrich Himmler
1900 – 1945

Catholic

SS was set up on model of Jesuits

Suicide

Joseph Goebbels
1897 – 1945

Catholic
Commended for religious fervour by teacher[30]

Suicide with wife after killing their 6 children

Hermann Göring
1893 – 1946

Deputy

Suicide

Hans Frank
1900 – 1946

Catholic

‘Butcher of Poland’ 

Nuremberg:
Judicial murder

Rudolph Hoss
1900 – 1947

Catholic.
His father vowed Rudolph would be
a priest[31]

Polish court:
Judicial murder

Franz Jetzinger

Austrian politician
Collector of Hitler documentation.

Denigrator of Schicklgruber
Interviewed by Gestapo, trying to get their hands on documentation about Hitler's early life, at the invasion of Austria. Jetzinger ‘found’ the documents at the end of the war.

Sources for Mein Kampf

Henry Ford
1863 – 1947

Catholic[31a]

American motor manufacturer

In 1918 bought The Dearborn Independent paper, and in it published a series of scurrilous attacks on the ‘International Jew,’ a mythical figure he blamed for financing war.
Much of his ramblings are repeated in Mein Kampf

Bernard Staempfle
(a.k.a. Stempfle)
? – 1934

Jesuit priest

Important contributor to writing Mein Kampf

Found murdered during purge known as ‘the Night of the Long Knives’, 30 June 1934 [20a]

Haushofer
1869 – 1946

Geopolitics ‘professor’

Advocate of lebensraum
Tutor to Hess
Regular visitor to Landsberg
Wanted league with Japan.

Suicide with wife (who was of Jewish extraction), while under investigation for war crimes

Moeller van den Bruck
1876 – 1925

Writer

Advocate of Third Reich
1923 – Published The Third Reich[20]

Suicide
Said to be related to disgust at the result of his writing. More likely due to syphilis

Gottfried Feder
1883 – 1941

Economist

Involved in interesting Hitler in Drexler’s[32] party that became NSDAP
A Hitler devotee
Regarded by Hitler as his economic guru and with some rather inchoate economic theory regarding interest ‘slavery’

Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels
(‘Real’ name Adolph Lanz)

Former catholic (Cistercian) monk

Editor of Ostara magazine, widely thought to be a source for Adolph
A guru of Aryan-German superiority

Violently anti- Semitic.
From a Jewish background on his mother’s side
He also became anti -Rome

Georg Ritter von Schönerer
1842 – 1921

Austrian politician

Called himself ‘führer’ and had the greeting ‘heil’ Kershaw [32a]
Anti-democratic nationalist anti-Semite
Hitler criticised his anti-Catholicism

Karl Lueger
1844 – 1910

Catholic

Austrian politician
Vienna mayor 1897 [32b]

Anti-Semite, much admired by Adolph

Close female friends

Geli Raubel
1908 – 1931

Adolph’s niece.

Lived together with Hitler for 4 to 6 years

Possible suicide
May well have been murdered by Adolph

Eva Braun
1912 – 1945

Adolph’s girlfriend, then wife for less than a day

Suicide with Adolph

Unity Valkyrie Mitford
1914 – 1948

British upper classes, sister of Nancy Mitford

Shot herself on the day Germany and England went to war, using a pistol of unknown origin, possibly given to her previously as a present by Hitler. Considerable brain-damage resulted.

The NAZI (NSDAP) party

Full title:
National Socialist German Workers’ Party
or
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP),
widely called the Nazi Party.

Source of Nazi Party’s name:
Drexler’s [32] German Workers’ Party

The name was changed, adding right-wing National and left-wing socialist, just to make sure as the Party founders tried to appeal to various factions of discontent.

A Party slogan:
National Socialism is the opposite of what exists today.
Fest, p.63

“It makes no difference whether they laugh at us or revile us, whether they represent us as clowns or criminals; the main thing is that they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again. ”Hitler, 1920 Kershaw, p.147

The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party[33]

What we now call a party manifesto.[34]

We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favour of the party without regard to character and fitness.

Therefore we demand:

We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.

Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.

We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.

The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the principle:

In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.

The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.

The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.

Adolph through his own words

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
Sir Winston Churchill,  1930 

My intention is to produce here the actual expressions of Hitler without added rhetoric. I am quite content to rely upon the reality that any half-sane reader is more than able to judge the undesirability of the appalling destruction generated by the criminal NSDAP regime.
It is surprising to me that, as far as I am aware, there is no useful collection of quotations from Hitler.

“Neither threats nor warnings will prevent me from going my way. I follow the path assigned to me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker. My destination is the peace rooted in the equal rights of the nations.”[Munich, 14 March 1936]
Domarus, [38]

“If twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas, just as hundreds of thousands of our best German workers from every social stratum and from every trade and calling had to face it in the field, then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain.”
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.373-374 [39]

Many of the quotations which follow are from Fest.
Fest is very interesting as he produces journalistic sketches of the leading cast of the NSDAP. He writes with much rhetoric as he denigrates Hitler.
(Sources given by Fest are shown in brackets following source in Fest.)

“The idea of struggle is as old as life itself, for life is only preserved because other living things perish through struggle. In this struggle, the stronger, the more able, win, while the less able, the weak, lose. Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.”
Fest, p.27 (Speech at Kulmbach on 5 February 1928, quoted in Hitler, A Study in Tyranny)
I include this quote as a typical exemplar of the mundane nature of Adolph’s education and thinking. There is a surfeit of such among his words.
He also had strange ideas confusing ‘blood’ of a ‘nation’ with genetics. Such confusions are still common among the ignorant.
Elsewhere, he said “I think I am one of the most musical people in the world”. 
7 September 1932; Ward Price, G; I know these dictators; London, 1938; p.20 (quoted in Domaras)

“The chief function (of propaganda) is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind ... The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or a political nature, depends upon the consistency and perseverance with which it is employed.”
Fest, p.39 (Kubizek)

“I am ready to swear six false oaths every day.”
Fest, p.52  (Rauschning)

“My time in prison was my university at the expense of the state.”
Fest, p.53  (Frank. See also Kershaw, p.240)

“If I had any inkling in 1924 that I should become Reich chancellor I would never have written Mein Kampf.”
Fest, p.54  (Frank)

Marxism ... denies individual worth ... and replaces [it] by numerical mass.”
Fest, p.55  (Mein Kampf)

“The media fabricates more than two thirds of public opinion from which the foam of the parliamentary Aphrodite rises.”
 Fest, p.56  (Fest gives no source)

“I lead the movement alone, and no one shall set me conditions so long as I personally bear the responsibility.”
Fest, p.59  (Quoted by Heiden)

“When I resume active work it will be necessary to pursue a new policy. Instead of working to achieve power by an armed coup we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the catholic and Marxist deputies. If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their own constitution! Any lawful process is slow. But sooner or later we shall have a majority – and after that Germany.” [While in Landsberg prison.]
Fest, p.60 (Lüdecke)

“The masses are like an animal that obeys instincts.”[40]
Fest, p.64  (Mein Kampf)

“The masses of our people, whose sheepish docility corresponds to their want of intelligence.”
Mein Kampf, p.335

“These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human frailties and must lead to success,  with almost mathematical certainty.”
[An attitude typical of the psychopath] [41]]
Mein Kampf, p.34

“Only the fanaticised masses can be guided.” 
Fest, p.65  (Fest gives no source)

“Once in power I will never let power be taken from me.”  
Fest, p.68  (Fest gives no source)

“The NASDAP Party must not serve the masses, but rather dominate them.”
Mein Kampf, p.260

“What luck for the rulers that men do not think.”
Fest, p.70  (Fest gives no source)

“This is the miracle of our age, that you have found me, that you have found me among so many millions! And that I have found you, that is Germany’s good fortune!”
Fest, p.70  (Fest gives no source)

“Human solidarity is imposed upon men by force and can be maintained only by the same means.”
Fest, p.71  (Picker, entry for 11 April, 1942)

“No country was ever ruined by its debts.”
Fest, p.76  (Picker, entry for 4 May, 1942)

To his lawyer: “Let us test the power of the law against my bayonet.”
Fest, p.79  (Fest gives no source)

“There can therefore be but one slogan: Victory! If we win, the billions we have spent will weigh nothing in the scales.”
Fest, p.82  (Picker, entry for 12 April, 1942)

“Morality is stupidity or decadence.”

“Everlasting peace will come to the world when the last man has slain the last but one.”
Frank

“I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right that matters, but victory.”
Speech, 1939

“Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The strongest man is right.”
Record of the address to the commanders of the Wehrmacht on 22 August 1939, the so-called second speech
Nuremberg trial proceedings, XXVI, 1014–PS

“I am Europe’s greatest actor.”
Fest, p.84  (Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Es Jessica in Designata.)

On watching the silent crowds during a military parade in Berlin during the Student crisis, 1938:
“I can’t wage war with this nation yet.”
Fest, p.86  (Remark recorded by Walter Heel, in Cordite, Rich, Night as den Alkane. Die Williamsport in Fried en fund Craig. Earliness, Begetting fund Indrawn 1928 – 1945, Stuttgart, 1950)

“Cities will become heaps of ruins; noble monuments will disappear forever. This time our sacred soil will not be spared. But I am not afraid of this.”[Pre war]
Fest, p.87  (Rauschning )

“The Führer is the supreme judge of the nation….there is no position in the area of constitutional law in the third Reich independent of this elemental will of the Führer.”
J. Noakes and G Pridham (editors),  volume 2: State, Economy and Society 1933 – 1939, a documentary reader 

“We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
Toland (Speech of May 1, 1927), 1976, p. 306 Adolf Hitler : The Definitive Biography

"Money is filth."
In the thick of the fight, 1930-1945 by Paul Reyaud (translated)

Quotations from some of Hitler’s contemporaries

Papen
On being questioned about the wisdom of appointing Hitler chancellor:
“We have hired him.”
Fest, p.70  (Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Es Jessica in Designata.)

Gregor Strasser apparently had similar illusions. [26]

Goebbels
“Power has to be conquered with power.”
Fest, p.69

Göring
“I have no conscience, Adolph Hitler is my conscience.”

“Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.” (attributed)

“Guns will make us powerful, butter will only make us fat. ”[1936]
Attribution disputed. Also attributed to Hess[42].
Göring was enormously fat by the end of the war.

“Not a single bomb will fall on Germany. If an enemy plane reaches Germany, my name is not Hermann Goring, you can call me Meier.”
[On 9 August, 1939:  Hermann Göring boasting about the strength of the German Luftwaffe.]
Göring was probably named Hermann after his ‘jewish’ godfather, who was also his mother’s lover.[43]

references

The Fest series of personal sketches of actors in the third Reich, written in 1963, is highly instructive background. To an extent, I regard this document on Hitler as a supplement to Fest. Perhaps the Fest sketches were written too closely after the events.

Ian  Kershaw, Hitler: 1889 – 1936 Hubris
Recent, sober and generally reliable. Recommended for any general reader seeking a solid readable introduction. A second volume is probably planned. As the events move into history, such more sober treatments increase.
Hitler 1936 – 1945: Nemesis

http://kevin.davnet.org/essays/hitler.html
This is an interesting summary under the heading, “Was Hitler a Christian?”. The article attempts to show that he was not. It is a strange question to ask, in my view, but I do not think it is answered in the document. In fact, I regard the question as unanswerable. However, the document remains very useful.
A tightly reasoned document taking an opposing view can be found at
http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

A couple of small related items at abelard.org on the remains of Hitler's personal library,
and a reference to his personal tax problems.

endnotes

Hitler’s ‘ideas’ on race were drawn from his reading of pseudo-scientists such as Fritz Lenz. For an outline and references see:
Tucker, especially pp. 110 - 132

Hitler was not 'wildly popular'.

6th November, 1932

Hitler received a fraction over 33% of the vote. This was the last free election in National Socialist Germany.
This result was about 4% lower than the 31st July, 1932 election.

5th March, 1933

Hitler held another election after taking power, in an attempt to consolidate his power.

"Despite achieving a better result than in the November 1932 election, the Nazis did not do as well as Hitler had hoped. In spite of massive violence and intimidation, the Nazis won only 43.9% of the vote, rather than the majority that he had expected."

By 1934, Hitler had so cowed the population that he was able to achieve 90%, or 80% of the eligible vote

19th August, 1934, New York Times

"A feature of the election was that former Marxists cast a far heavier vote for Chancellor Hitler than the so-called bourgeoisie. In Berlin especially, judging by their vote, former Communists still are Leader Hitler's most loyal followers. In one voting district in Wedding, where a few years ago Communists fought from behind barricades against the police, the "yes" votes amounted to 949; the "no" votes and invalid ballots totaled 237."
—
"In all Bavaria Chancellor Hitler received the largest vote in his favor in the concentration camp at Dachau where 1,554 persons voted "Yes" and only eight "No" and there were only ten spoiled ballots."
—
"Nevertheless 10 per cent of the voters have admittedly braved possible consequences by answering "No"..." [Quoted from nytimes.com]

Two readers have kindly pointed out to me that Ford was claimed to be an episcopalian. I have yet to establish full details of Ford’s religious background. I am, so far, convinced that he is from a background of considerable Roman Catholic influence, admixed with Episcopalianism. The question is considerably more complex than a surface analysis would suggest, and I will continue to work on the details when I have the time.

Episcopalianism was described, in 1865 in Wright, Hist.Caricat. xxi (1875) 360, “the Puritans … looked upon Episcopalianism as differing in little from popery”. Episcopalianism is known as Anglicanism or High-Anglicanism in the United Kingdom. Its adherents regularly claim that they are the same as Catholics and that they are under the Pope. However, Rome does not accept this position and regards episcopalians as heretics.

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COLOUR KE'Y'

email email_abelard [at] abelard.org

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