Hitler [Transcription note: Bracketed [Page] links provide access
to the individual images from which these transcriptions were
made]
It seems that mystery always follows Hitler. His career in the army is
no exception. There are several things that have never been
satisfactorily explained. The first is that he spent
[Page 123]
four years in the same regiment but was never advanced beyond the rank of
First Class Private or Lance Corporal. The second is the Iron Cross
First Class which he constantly wears. This has been the topic of much
discussion but the mystery has never been solved. There is no mention of
the award in the history of his regiment. This is rather amazing inasmuch
as other awards of this kind are listed. Hitler is mentioned, in a number
of other connections but not in this one, although it is alleged that it
was awarded to him for capturing twelve Frenchmen, including an officer,
singlehanded. This is certainly no ordinary feat in any regiment and one
would expect that it would at least merit some mention, particularly in
view of the fact that Hitler had considerable fame as a politician when
the book went to press.
The Nazi propaganda agencies have not helped to clarify the situation.
Not only have a number of different versions of the story appeared in the
press, but each gives a different number of Frenchmen he is alleged to
have captured. They have also published alleged facsimiles of his war
record which do not agree. The Berlin Illustrierte Zeitung of August 10,
1939 printed a facsimile in which the date of award for this decoration
was clearly August 4, 1918. Yet the Voelkische Beobachter of
August 14, 1934 had published a facsimile in which the date of award was
October 4, 1918. Although these alleged facsimiles mentioned other
citations they did not include the date of award of the Iron Cross
Second Class. From all that can be learned the First Class Cross
was never awarded unless the recipient had already been awarded the
Second Class decoration.
Just what the facts are it is impossible to determine.
It is alleged that his war record has been badly tampered with and
that von Schleicher was eliminated during the Blood Purge because
he knew the true facts. Strasser who served in the same division
has probably as good an explanation as any. He says that during
the last months of the war there were so many First Class Crosses
being given out that General Headquarters was no longer able to
pass on the merits of each individual case. To facilitate matters
a number of these decorations were allotted to each regiment every
month to be issued by the Commanding Officers. They,in turn, notified
the High Command of the award and the deed which merited it. According
to Strasser, when the army began to collapse, the Regimental
Headquarters had in their possession a number of decorations which had
not been awarded.
Since few members of the Headquarters
Staff ever received an award of this type they took advantage of
the general melee and gave them to each other and forged the signatures
of the commanding officer in sending it to the High Command. The
thing that speaks in favor of this explanation is the curious bond
which exists between Hitler and his regimental sergeant-major, Max
Areann who was later to become the head of the Nazi Eher Verlag.
This is one of the most lucrative positions in the entire Nazi
hierarchy and Amann was called to the position by Hitler.
The only explanation for the lack of promotion that has
been published is the comment of one of his officers to the effect
that he would never make a non-commissioned officer "out of that
neurotic fellow, Hitler". Rauschning (947) gives a different explanation.
He claims that a high Nazi had once confided in him that he
[Page 125] had seen Hitler's military record and that it
contained an item of a court martial which found him guilty of
pederastic practices with an officer, and that it was for this reason
that he was never promoted. Rauschning also claims that in Munich Hitler
was found guilty of a violation of paragraph 175 which deals with
pederasty. No other evidence of either of these two charges has been found.
The mystery becomes even deeper when we learn from a great many
informants that Hitler was quite courageous and never tried to evade
dangerous assignments, It is said that he was unusually adept at running
and then falling or seeking shelter when the fire became intense. It
also seems that he was always ready to volunteer for special assignments
and was considered exceedingly reliable in the performance of all his
duties by his own officers.
It may be well to mention at this point that when Hitler entered the
army he again became a member of a recognized and respected social
institution. No longer did he have to stand in breadlines or seek
shelter in flophouses, For the first time since his mother died did
he really belong to a group of people. Not only did this provide him
with a sense of pride and security but at last he had achieved his great
ambition, namely, to be united with the German nation. It is also
interesting to note a considerable change in his appearance. From
the dirty, greasy, cast-off clothes of Jews and other charitable
people he was now privileged to wear a uniform. Mend (209), one of
his comrades, tells us that when Hitler came out of the trenches or
back from an assignment he spent hours cleaning his uniform and boots
until he became the joke of the regiment. Quite a
[Page 126]
remarkable change for one who for almost seven years refused to exert
himself just a little in order to pull himself out of the pitiful
conditions in which he lived among the dregs of Society.
POST-WAR
Then came the armistice and all this was over. Adolph Hitler from a
psychological point of view, was in exactly the same position as the
one in which he found himself eleven years before when his mother
died. He faced the future alone. The army, his home for four years, was
breaking up. Again he stood alone before a dismal future - a world in
which he could not find a niche, a world which did not care for him, a
world of aimless existence fraught with hardships. It was more than
he could face.
Where to go and what to do. Having no home or family to greet him he
returned to Munich not because it had been kind to him in the past but
because he had no other place to go. He could take up his life again
where he had left off four years earlier. He wandered around Munich
for a short time "a stray dog looking for a master". Then it is
reported that he went to Vienna to visit his halfsister, Angela, with
whom he had had contact for many years. If he actually. made this
trip he did not stay long for soon we find him in the reserve army,
stationed in Traunstein. He is in a deep depression. He wears the
uniform and eats the food of the army. It is his only recourse and
he stays on there in this capacity until April, l92O, when the camp
is broken up. He then returned to Munich still attached to the army
and living in the barracks. During this time he seems to have continued
his political discussions with his comrades siding with the Social
Democrats against the Communists.
According to
[Page 127]
the Muenchener Post he actually affiliated himself with the Social
Democratic Party (483). After the counter-revolution every tenth man
in the barracks was shot but Hitler was singled out beforehand
and asked to stand one side. At the inquiry he appeared
before the board with "charge-lists" against some of his comrades which
can only signify denunciations for Communistic activities. He had been
spying on his comrades and now assigned them to the executiener. In
MEIN KAMPF he refers to this occupation as his "first more or less
political activity".
The Army now undertook to educate its soldiers in the proper political
philosophy and Hitler was assigned to such a course. He spoke so ably
in this group that his talent for speaking impressed an officer who was
presents and Hitler was appointed "education officer". His hour had
struck - he was discovered and appreciated, singled out for his talent.
He threw himself into this work with great enthusiasm always speaking
to larger groups. His confidence grew with his success in swaying
people. He was on his way to become a politician. From here on his
career is a matter of history and need not be reviewed here.
This is the foundation of Hitler's character. Whatever he tried to be
afterwards is only super-structure and the super-structure can be no
firmer than the foundations on which it rests. The higher it goes the
more unstable it becomes - the more it needs to be propped up and
patched up in order to make it hold together. This is not an easy job.
It requires constant vigilance, strong defenses and heavy losses in
time and energy.
There was unanimous agreement among the four psychoanalysts
[Page 128] who have studied the material
that Hitler is an hysteric bordering on schizophrenia and not a
paranoiac as is so frequently supposed. This means that he is not
insane in the commonly accepted sense of the term, but neurotic. He
has not lost complete contact with the world about him and is still
striving to make some kind of psychological adjustment which will give
him a feeling of security in his social group. It also means that
there is a definite moral component in his character no matter how deeply
it may be buried or how seriously it has been distorted.
With this diagnosis established, we are in a position to make a number
of surmises concerning the conscious mental processes which ordinarily
take place in Hitler's mind. These form the nucleus of the "Hitler";
he consciously knows and must live with. It is in all probability not a
happy "Hitler" but one harrassed by fears, anxieties, doubts,
misgivings, uncertainties, condemnations, feelings of loneliness and of
guilt. From our experience with other hysterics we are probably on firm
ground when we suppose that Hitler's mind is like a "battle-royal"
most of the time with many conflicting and contradictory forces and
impulses pulling him this way and that.
Such a state of confusion is not easy to bear. His energies are
absorbed in wrestling with himself instead of striving for
gratifications in the external world which he wants and needs. He
sees the possibilities all around him but he can rarely muster enough
energy to make the effort to go after them. Fears, doubts and
implications obstruct his thinking and acting and he becomes
indecisive and winds up doing nothing but wishing. Vicarious
gratifications through fantasies
[Page 129]
become substitutes for the satisfaction obtained from real
achievements. We must suppose that this is the state that Hitler
was in during the seven years that elapsed between the death of his
mother and the outbreak of the war when he was wasting his time
lying around in flophouses and sitting in cafes in Vienna. Only when
his hunger became acute could he muster the energy necessary to apply
himself to a few hours of work. As soon as this hunger was appeased he
lapsed back into his former state of procrastination and indecision.
We must assume that that the periods of procrastination at the
present time have a similar origin. He. withdraws from society, is
depressed and dawdles away his time until "the situation becomes
dangerous" then he forces himself to action. He works for a
time and as soon as the job is underway "he loses interest in it" and
slips back into his leisurely life in which he does nothing except what
he is forced to do or likes to do. Now, of course, it is no longer
hunger that drives him to work but another motive, even more powerful,
of which he is not fully conscious. The nature of this motive will be
discussed in the next section.
As one surveys Hitler's behavior patterns, as his close associates
observe them, one gets the distinct impression that this is not one
person but two which inhabit the same body and alternate back and forth.
The one is a very soft, sentimental and indecisive individual who has
little drive and wants nothing quite so much as to be amused, liked and
looked after. The other is just the opposite - hard, cruel and decisive
with an abundant reservoir of energy at his command - who knows what he
wants and is ready to go after it and get
[Page 130]
it regardless of costs. It is the first Hitler who weeps profusely
at the death of his canary, and the second Hitler who cries in open
court: "Heads will roll". It is the first Hitler who cannot bring
himself to discharge an assistant and it is the second Hitler who can
order the murder of hundreds including his best friends and can say with
great conviction: "There will be no peace in the land until a body
hangs from every lamp-post". It is the first Hitler who spends his
evenings watching movies or going cabarets and it is the second Hitler
who works for days on end with little or no sleep, making plans which
will affect the destiny of nations.
Until we understand the magnitude and implications of this duality in
his nature we can never understand his actions. It is a kind of "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" personality structure in which two wholly
different, radical oscillations take place and make the person almost
unrecognizable. This characteristic, too, is common to many hysterics.
Under these circumstances it is extremely difficult to predict from
moment to moment what his reactions to a given situation are going to be.
An illustration may be helpful. According to Russell (746) extravagant
preparations were made for the commemorative services for the Germans
who died when the battleship Deutschland was bombed. Hitler spoke long
and passionately to those attending, as well as over the radio. It was
then arranged that he should walk down the line of survivors and
review the infantry and naval units drawn up at attention. Newsreel
cameramen were stationed at all crucial points:
"The first widow to whom Hitler spoke a few words cried violently.
Her child, who was 10 years old and who stood next to his bereaved
mother, began to cry heartrendingly. Hitler patted him on the head
and turned uncertainly to the next in line. Before he
could speak a word, he was suddenly overcome. He spun completely
around, left the carefully prepared program flat. Followed by his
utterly surprised companions he walked as fast as he could to his car
and had himself driven away from the parade grounds."
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As He Knows Himself
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