Hitler (148 page)

17. Quoted in Maser,
Hitler,
pp. 82 ff. Cf. also the report of the Vienna Gestapo dated December 30, 1941, quoted in Smith, p. 113.

18.
Mein Kampf,
pp. 21 f.

19. We owe the precise calculation of Hitler's monthly income to Franz Jetzinger, who with pedantic ingenuity has tracked down all the sources of such income. The comparison to the earnings of a junior magistrate is also his. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that at this time Mussolini was employed in Austrian Trent as editor-in-chief of
L'Avvenire del Lavoratore
and secretary of the socialist Labor Bureau. For these two jobs he received a total income of 120 crowns—not much more than Hitler's income as one of the unemployed. See Kirkpatrick,
Mussolini.

20. Kubizek, pp. 126, 210–20, 256 f., 307. Also Jetzinger, pp. 194 ff. For Hitler's remark that he heard
Tristan
in Vienna thirty or forty times, see Cameron and Stevens,
Hitler's Secret Conversations,
pp. 270 f. Jenks, p. 202, has shown that during Hitler's years in Vienna Richard Wagner was incontestably the most popular operatic composer; at the Hofoper alone Wagner operas were given on at least 426 evenings during that period.

21.
Tischgespräche,
pp. 275, 323, 422. Also Kubizek, p. 199, describes Hitler venting his anger upon the Academy. This must refer to his first rejection, since Kubizek was not in Vienna at the time of the second rejection and saw nothing of Hitler again after he returned.

22.
Mein Kampf,
p. 23. In much the same sense Stefan Zweig notes in
Die Welt von gestern,
p. 50, “the worst threat that existed in the bourgeois world was falling back into the proletariat.” See also Heiden,
Geschichte,
p. 16.

23. Greiner, p. 25. Greiner's memories of Hitler raise many questions. In contrast to Kubizek he has no proof of the close acquaintanceship that he claims to have had with Hitler. Nevertheless, his work does contain a number of hints that increase our knowledge. His evidence can be used, however, only to the extent that it is supported by other accounts, or by other examples of similar behavior on Hitler's part.

24.
Mein Kampf,
p. 40.

25. Cf. Wilfried Daim,
Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab.
Lanz considered Hitler his disciple; he named, among other disciples who had early seen the importance of his doctrines, Lord Kitchener and Lenin! This fact sheds considerable light on Lanz himself and the pathological structure of his thought. His principal work, published in 1905, bore the illuminating title:
Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-ûfflingen und dem GötterElektron. Eine Einführung in die älteste und neueste Weltanschauung und eine Rechtfertigung des Fürstentumes und des Adels
(“Theo-zoology or the Lore of the Sodom-Apelings and the Electron of the Gods. An Introduction into the Oldest and Newest Philosophy and a Justification of Royalty and Nobility”). The blue-blond “Arioheroicans” were in his view “masterpieces of the gods,” equipped with electric organs and even transmitters. By eugenic concentration and breeding for purity the Arioheroic race was to be redeveloped and once again provided with the divine electromagnetic-radiological organs and powers it had lost. The age's anxiety feelings, elitist leanings toward secret societies, fashionable idolization of Science by dabblers in the sciences, all tied together by a considerable dose of intellectual and personal fraud, combined to shape this doctrine.

    Daim surely overestimates Lanz's influence on Hitler; it seems certain that this influence did not extend beyond the limits described in the text. The situation is obviously different in regard to several other Nazi leaders, such as Darre and above all Heinrich Himmler. Directly or indirectly, in both the breeding catalogues of the SS Race and Settlement Bureau and in the practice of exterminating “unfit” lives, or Jews, Slavs, and gypsies, the weird and murderous notions of Lanz von Liebenfels in a way persisted.

26.
Mein Kampf,
pp. 56 if.

27. Greiner, p. 110. Cf. Bullock,
Hitler,
p. 39; but see also Shirer,
Rise and Fall,
p. 26.

28.
Mein Kampf,
p. 325. The assurance, urged as “a certainty,” that Hitler had no relations with women in Linz or Vienna, comes from Kubizek and of course applies only to the time Kubizek spent with Hitler (Kubizek, p. 276).

29.
Mein Kampf,
pp. 55, 69.

30.
Ibid.,
p. 122.

31. Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
p. 92, has a different opinion; he maintains that Kubizek was in the right as against Hitler, but adduces no evidence to justify his view. For the cited phrases from Hitler see
Mein Kampf,
pp. 39 f., where Hitler also admits that his knowledge of union organization at the time he began work at the building site was still “practically nonexistent.” There is no reason to doubt this assertion. Hitler's anti-Semitism at this time was not yet thoroughgoing or consistent. As late as 1936 Hanisch, his companion from the home for men, insisted that Hitler in Vienna had not been an anti-Semite. Hanisch presented an extensive list of Jews with whom Hitler had allegedly maintained cordial relations. Cf. Smith, p. 149.

32. Cf.
Jahrbuch der KK Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie,
1909, pp. A 108, A 118, cited in Smith, p. 127. Werner Maser (
Frühgeschichte
,
p. 77) has challenged Konrad Heiden and the historians deriving from him. Making downright assertions on a flimsy foundation, Maser argues that financial reasons would “with certainty” not have forced Hitler to seek shelter in a doss-house. But in calculating Hitler's financial situation Maser has assumed that Hitler's inheritance from his father was available to him as a permanent annuity. In reality it amounted to about 700 crowns and, depending on how quickly Hitler spent it, was bound to be used up sooner or later. Maser is so bent on showing that Hitler had financial security that he even suggests the possibility (and in a later passage terms it a probability) that Hitler lived in the doss-house “because he wanted to study the conditions there.”

33. Heiden,
Hitler
I, p. 43. Some interesting details on the home for men are to be found in Jenks, pp. 26 ff. According to Jenks, the home was restricted to persons with an income of under 1,500 crowns per year. It had 544 beds and was the fourth project of this type built by a foundation committed to alleviating the housing shortage. From 1860 to 1900 the population of Vienna had risen by 259 per cent; after Berlin (281 per cent) this was the steepest increase in Europe. Paris, for example, showed a population increase of only 60 per cent during the same period. The statistics obtained by Jenks show that in the eight predominantly proletarian districts of Vienna there was an average of 4.0 to 5.2 persons per room.

34.
Mein Kampf,
p. 34.

35. Thomas Mann, “Sufferings and Greatness of Richard Wagner,” in;
Essays of Three Decades.

36. Rauschning,
Gespräche,
pp. 215 f. Also Albert Speer in a note to the author dated September 15, 1969.

37. Thomas Mann,
Gesammelte Werke
12, pp. 775 f.

38. Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen,
Diary of a Man in Despair,
p. 24.

39.
Mein Kampf,
p. 41; also Kubizek, p. 220.

40.
Mein Kampf,
pp. 42 ff.

41. Houston Stewart Chamberlain,
Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts,
I, p. 352.

42. Bullock, p. 36; for this whole context cf. also Hans-Günter Zmarzlik, “Social Darwinism as a Historical Problem,” in: Hajo Holborn, ed.,
Republic to Reich.

43.
Tischgespräche,
pp. 179, 226, 245, 361, 447; many other similar phrases may be found in the table talk and in the wartime speeches.

44. Robert W. Gutman,
Richard Wagner,
p. 309.

45.
Mein Kampf,
p. 128.

46. Thomas Mann;
Gesammelte Werke
9, p. 176.

47.
Mein Kampf,
pp. 123 f.

48. For the complex of motives governing his departure from Vienna cf.
Mein Kampf,
p. 123.

49. The description of this affair of the call-up follows the conclusions of Jetzinger, pp. 253 if. He also deserves the credit for having uncovered the circumstances.

50.
Mein Kampf,
p. 158.

51. Thomas Mann,
Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen,
p. 461.

52. Around the turn of the century Georges Sorel popularized this remark of Proudhon's. The quotation reads in full: “War is the orgasm of universal life which fructifies and moves chaos, the prelude for all creations, and which like Christ the Saviour triumphs beyond death through death itself.” Quoted in Freund,
Abendglanz Europas,
p. 9. “Sacred Hymns” was the title Gabriele d'Annunzio gave to the collection of his poems pleading for Italy's entry into the war (
Gli inni sacri della guerra giusta).

53.
Mein Kampf,
p. 163.

54.
Mein Kampf,
p. 164.

55. Hitler's letter to lustizassessor Hepp in February, 1915; photocopy in the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. The previous remark is quoted from Fritz Wiedemann,
Der Mann der Feldherr werden wollte,
p. 29. The cited letter indicates that it deserves credence even in this somewhat deprecatory phrasing; it is the more credible because it trenchantly characterizes Hitler's general manner of expressing his ideas, right down to the table talk of later years. Cf. also Wiedemann, p. 24, and
Mein Kampf,
pp. 166 f.

56.
Mein Kampf,
p. 190.

57.
Ibid.,
p. 169.

58. All these quotations
ibid.,
pp. 182 ff.

59.
Ibid.,
p. 172.

60. Regrettably, Hitler's medical file disappeared even before 1933, and has not been recovered. Hitler's military papers merely note tersely that he was “gassed.” The chemical in question was mustard gas, the effects of which generally did not blind, but greatly reduced sight and sometimes occasioned temporary blindness.

61.
Mein Kampf,
pp. 202 f.

62.
Ibid.,
p. 204.

63. Communication from Speer to the author. The remark was made on the occasion of Hitler's visit to Speer's sickbed in Klessheim Palace. See Albert Speer,
Inside the Third Reich,
p. 335. The above-mentioned speech is that of February 15, 1942. In context the passage reads: “How important is a world that I myself can see if it is repressive, if my own people are enslaved? In that case, what can I see worth seeing?” The text is cited from Kotze and Krausnick, p. 322. See also Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
p. 127. Maser quotes a personal communication from General Vincenz Müller, who allegedly informed General von Bredow, on orders from Schleicher, that Hitler's blindness had been solely “hysterical in nature.” But on the wartime personnel roster Hitler was recorded as wounded, “gassed.”

64.
Mein Kampf,
p. 293.

65.
Ibid., pp. 204 f.

66. Kessler,
Tagebücher 1918–1937,
p. 173.

67. Preiss, p. 38 (speech of March 23, 1927).

68. Kessler, p. 206.

69. Winston Churchill, as quoted in Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
p. 23 (without source).

70.
Mein Kampf,
p. 207. On the question of the red armband see Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
p. 132. Ernst Deuerlein has even argued that in the winter of 1918–19 Hitler entertained the notion of joining the Social Democratic Party. See Deuerlein,
A ufstieg,
p. 80.

71.
Mein Kampf,
p. 208.

72.
Mein Kampf,
p. 206.

 

INTERPOLATION I

 

1. Ernest Niekisch in:
Widerstand
III, 11, issue of November, 1928. See also Hitler in the special issue of the
VB
(
Völkischer Beobachter)
of January 3, 1921, and in the speech of September 22, 1920, also of April 12, 1922, which show broad variations on the same theme. The
VB
of July 19, 1922, for example, called Germany the “ideological training ground for international finance,” a “colony” of the victorious powers. Hitler sometimes denounced the Reich government as a “bailiff for the Allies” and the Weimar Constitution as the “law for enforcing the Treaty of Versailles”; cf. also Hitler's speech of November 30, 1922 (this speech, as well as those mentioned in the following notes for which no other source is given, will be found in the corresponding issue of the
VB).

2.
Münchener Beobachter,
October 4, 1919. This is the sheet from which the
Völkische Beobachter
later emerged; the quoted article purports to be a missive from an unnamed Catholic clergyman of Basel.

3. “Krasnij Terror,” October 1, 1918, quoted by Nolte,
Faschismus,
p. 24.

4. Hitler's memorandum on the expansion of the NSDAP of October 22, 1922, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abt. I, 1509. The proclamation of the National Socialist Party headquarters cited earlier is printed in
VB,
July 19, 1922.

5. See the speech of April 12, 1922. For Hitler's other assertions see the speeches of July 28, 1922; April 27, 1920; September 22, 1920; April 21, 1922; and the article in
VB
for January 1, 1921. Rosenberg, who obviously helped to shape the notions about atrocities in Russia, wrote in the
VB
of April 15, 1922, that Russia had “during Lenin's ‘government' become a battlefield strewn with corpses, an inferno in which millions upon millions of persons wander about famished, where millions are diseased, starved, and have died a miserable death on deserted roads.” The following quotation is taken from Hitler's Reichstag speech of March 7, 1936. See Domarus, p. 587.