Germany: Jekyll and Hyde, by Sebastion Haffner (1941)

Office of Strategic Services
Hitler Source Book
Germany: Jekyll & Hyde
by Sebastion Haffner

HAFFNER, Sebastian: Germany: Jekyll and Hyde. 1941

Nearly all biographers of Hitler have made the mistake of trying to connect Hitler with the spiritual History of his times and explain him in terms of it.

Haffner, Sebastian: Jekyll and Hyde. p .14.

..Hitler then is not popular. He is God or Satan. A human attachment to his person or even to the legend of his person does not exist. There are no good-natured witticisms about him, no human anecdotes. There is no war personal love and devotion inspired in his followers to weigh against the immense unsleeping disgust and loathing felt by his enemies. For the former, his image floats on a dizzily high pedestal of power and success among the clouds. (Some intellectual Nazis actually play with the idea of deifying Hitler after his death and preparations to this end are already being made.)

He is nowhere loved as a man is loved. If the pillar of power and success crumbles under him nothing will prevent his disillusioned worshippers from quartering and roasting him as all primitive people do with their fallen idols. Certainly a close scrutiny of his person will not help to prevent this fate.

But all this is not particularly important, because Hitler's power over the German people rests on quite other foundations than popularity.

Haffner, Sebastian: Jekyll and Hyde. pp. 31.32

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