Evening star., 1945-05-02
BY JOSEPH H. BAIRD.

"a AAAo NSotli Soll NC UC1lCfCQ, GIluSt
a weird and stormy career as tn
most hated man of his generation
= He presented himself to the Ger.
man people as their savior. He left
them legacy of bomb shattered
- cities, degenerate sons and daugh.
ters. years of servitude in foreign
t. lands and the contumely of man.
kind.
He took his people upon a high
mountain and blinded them with E
vision of world conquest. When he
. left them, that world had risen in
righteous anger and destroyed them
Such was the last will and testa-
ment Of the paranoiac little Aus.
, trian house painter who sought il
: the Goth century to follow the pat
. tern OF Alexander the Great.
Paradox of the Ages.
. When time has focused the lens
of historical perspective, his biogra-
pliers no doubt will see in Hitler
the greatest paradox of the ages.
His fancied military acumen was
q joke to men skilled in the science
of warfare. Yet under his leader
ship Germany went forth to con-
quer on scale mrivaled since the
days of Genghis Khan and Attila
the Hun
His craftsmanship expressed itself
In Disappointing and childish tan
trums. Yet even before German
armies took the field he had bluffed
France and England-two of Eu-
ropes greatest poWers-into permit
ting him to tear up the Versailles
treaty and had annexed Austria and
large part of Czechoslovakia.
He was a miserable failure as a
painter, and his rambling writings
reveal knowledge of neither syn
tax nor logic. Yet he proclaimed
himself the protector and high
priest of Europe's age-old culture.
Revived Torture Chambers.
He spoke of himself as the guar
dian of European civilization against
the "hordes of Bolshevism." Yet
under his rule torture chambers
were revived in Europe for the first
time since the Middle Ages.
The man, unlike Mussolini, can
not be laughed off as cheap buf-
foon in a thlrd-rate comedy. He
had power to an infinite degree, and
even when the defeat of Germany
was obvious to his generals, through
the terror of his secret police he held
them in check, forcing them to fight
for the protection of the Nazi hier-
archy, even though it meant the
destruction of the German people
and the German state.
In supposed age of enlighten-
ment and reason he successfully re-
vived the role of Louis XIV, saying
Il am the state,' and so Identify
ing himself with Germania that his
people. in a very frenzy of ardor,
went forward madly over the preci-
pice, following him as the children
followed that character of German
mythology, the Pied Piper of Hame-
lin.
Character Defies Logic.
His character defles the logician
and can be explained only by the
psychiatrist. He knew, apparently,
nothing of the 1usts and appetites
of the normal man. Tobacco nau-
seated him to the point that he
would not allow others to smoke in
his presence. He Stunned alcohol,
save for a specially -brewed beer con-
tanning less than l per cent alcohol.
He never married, and women, save
as artists or examples of the Nor
die type" left him uninterested. He
prosecuted the church, but often re-
ferred to himself as Gods chosen
instrument.
His chief emotional outlet he
found in Wagnerian music, in the
thunderous tales of the Teutonic
dawn. In the days before British
and American bombers came nightly
to Berlin he was a devotee of the
opera. And, although it cannot be
stated as a fact, it is widely be-
lieved in Germany that the man
who called himself Der Fuehrer
Identified his personality with that
of the almost mythical Frederick
Bafbarrosa, who, according to
legend, would return to Germany in
the hour of its greatest need
Because he was unprepossessing
In appearance and in his days of
relative obscurity had none of the
outer trappings of greatness. the
outside world was slow in realizing
the danger that lay buried in Hit
lers deranged mind. With his long
mop of hair dropping over his left
brow, his smudge of mustache,
his lll-fltting clothes and his slouchy
gait, he reminded Americans and
Britons of Charlie Chaplin. They
refused to take him seriously.
Began Marches in 1880.
Even when, in the early 1905,
Hitler began marching his brown
shirted, sWaStika- -armbanded zeal
OTIS ominously through the streets of
German cities, the worlds foreign
offices regarded him as nothing more
than gangster politician who would
be put in his place by the powerful
Wehrmacht once he became too as
sertive.
They failed miserably to under
stand two strong appeals which
Hitler, though his speeches and his
svangelistic 'Mein Kampf," was MAX
Ing to the great mass of Germans: A
deliverance from economic misery
and a reassertion of the prestige
which Germany had lost at Ver-
sailles. They failed also to under
stand the inherent weakness of the
men who sought to rule Germany
under the Weimar constitution.
Even after Hitler came to power,
European and American statesmen
failed to evaluate the dynamics
of the National Socialist movement
"a movement which had to expand
constantly or die-and whose goal
was nothing less than world do
minion. They thought that the Nazi
movement could be confined to Ger
many, and a fear in England and
France of the international Com
munist movement represented by
Soviet Russia impelled them to en-
courage the growth of power-with-
in limits-in Germany.
Awakening in 1886.
At length, in 1896, when Hitler