Evening star., 1944-02-06
Hitler a Product
of His Time
By William, H. Harrison.


verse genius or with talents encompass
ing nothing more startling than an
aptitude for painting woodwork and
plastering walls.
II he had remained forever obscure,
would Germany have taken T. oii,s1a.-:::
course from the one 1t has followed since
1888? Would Japan ever have dared to
do what 1t has done since December,
1941? Would mankind have suffered the
anguish 1t is suffering now? Would
there be so much death and hate, SO
much weeping and gnashing Of teeth, so
much travail and upheaval in nearly
every corner OF our inflamed and aching
world?
Questions Of this nature, having to do
with the influence of outstanding per-
sonalities on the course of history, are
as old as the academic speculation over
the effects Of Cleopatras beauty on
Caesar and the fate of Rome. Yet age
makes them lose none of their point,
especially in time like this when key
tndividuals-good and evil alike-play
such dominant role in shaping the
civilization of all the continents.
Roosevelt Churchill, Stain, Chang
Kai-shek, TOTO and Hitler-each in his
own way, and in varying degree, has
permanently affected not only the ma
tional society that has placed him in
power. but the general international So
ciety as well. And each, moreover, has
helped to mold the career Of the other
a fact seeming to be particularly true in
the case Of Hitler, for if he had never
come to churn up Germany and the
world, the story Of Churchill, for ex-
ample, would very probably be altogether
different from what 1t is, and so, too,
would Roosevelt's.
So great has been the malignancy
and force of Hitler's influence that he
appears, in a sense, to have produced
these times all by himself. But that
oversimplifies the picture, since the
times, in some measure at least, helped
to produce him-the times and the en-
vironment in which he found himself.
II by accident he had been born an
American or an Englishman or a Ger
man OF BtsmarckS day, his fevered
visions and haf-crazed message would in
all likelihood have received no response,
or at least only the response of small
lunatic fringe, and he himself would
have lived and died in more or less in
nocuous obscurity. But the fact is that
he was born at the right hour and in
the right place for the kind of power he
sought-he was born into a tumultuous
and receptive Germany, and the German
people were set aflame by him because
they were ready to be set afame In
deed, it is reasonably safe assumption
that If he had been endowed with the
spirit, mentality and political beliefs of,
say, Churchill or Roosevelt he would
have found the Reich an unsatisfactory
milieu for his talents.
To this extent, therefore, interacting
forces-Hitler and the German people
together, and not Hitler alone-produced
these times, and the times themselve5
were helpful to the Fuehrer and his
followers. In paper written long te-
fore the Nazis were ever heard of, the
American philosopher William James
learnedly, and felicitously, discoursed on
how great men, good or bad, thus are
dependent on environment to promote
their ideas or ambitions. "A given
genius" he said, may come either too
early or too late. Peter the Hermit
would now be sent to lunatic asylum
80 Cromwell and Napolean need their
revolutions, Grant his Civil War =
and what could Watt have effected in a
tribe which no precursive genius had
taught to smelt iron or to turn a lathe?"
In other words, as James has put it,
a torch cannot create much Of a blaze
unless it first has q good combustible
Woodplle to work on. A flaming Hitler,
that is, would have burnt himself out
without doing any great harm If the
German people had not taken him to
their bosom and caught fire themselves,
setting of the inferno that now sears
and convulses the world. But by the
same token, without the torch, the
woodpile of Germany would probably
have remained relatively harmless, for
1t needed the Fuehrer to make it flare
up, he being, as James would say, the
essential "irritant," starting and pro-
voking something which then went of
by itself-as a match may start q fire
which consumes whole town."
Accordingly, in this qualified sense, 1t
may be said that Hitler is the primary
cause of the larger part of the world s
present torment, since if he had never
been created, the German people would
have acted differently, or at least might
still be passively waiting for one of his
kind to come along. For, in James
words, "the mutations of societies. from
generation to generation, are in the
main due directly or indirectly to the
acts or the example of individuals whose
genius was so adapted to the receptivities
OF the moment, or whose accidental
position Of authority was so critical that
they became ferments, initiators OF
movement, settlers of precedent or fash
Ion, centers of corruption, or destroyers
OF other persons, whose gifts, had they
had free play, would have led society
In another direction The COM
munity may evolve in many ways. The
accidental presence of this or that fer
ment decides in which way it shall
evolve. ."
1t Is the great misfortune Of this
century that Hitler was there to teach
the German people. to numb them with
words, to dazzle them with lies, to en-
| chant fhoY,o will