Israel, February 06, 2004 Shvat 14, 5764
Book
review
What daddy
wanted
By Yitzhak Laor
Thanks
to Kershaw, anyone who wants to produce a play, novel or
movie about Hitler the man, now has enough material about
all the Hitlers that make up Adolf.
"Hitler,
1889-1936: Hibris" by Ian Kershaw, translated into
Hebrew by Smadar Milo, Am Oved, 703 pages (English
edition: "Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris," W.W. Norton
& Co., 845 pages)
ON February 11, 1933,
shortly after being elected chancellor of Germany,
Hitler addressed the German public from the sports
stadium in Berlin, packed to the hilt with admirers. At
home, millions of Germans huddled over their radios, as
Joseph Goebbels played the part of excited
commentator. The diaries kept by Goebbels were the most
valuable source of information to come Ian
Kershaw's way as he set out to write his new
biography of Hitler.
No historian has
ever had access to them before
[Website
comment: rubbish
| challenges]
Electrifying
the audience with his verbal skills -- that was what
Hitler loved best. When listeners stopped admiring him --
in a private drawing room, an office or even a conference
hall -- he would freeze up, retreat into himself, scream,
plead, threaten to commit suicide or burst into tears. He
also liked to cuddle up like a poodle to rich women and
be invited to the homes of the wealthy. But speechifying,
and propaganda in general, with its flags, lights, torch
parades and spin, were the only aspect of the political
world that interested him until his dying day.
The climax of Hitler's speech on February
11, which Kershaw quotes in full and is notable for its
use of the first person, is his pledge never to give up
the fight against Marxism and all that goes with it.
There will be only one victor in this battle, he declared
-- Marxism or the German people -- and the people of
Germany will prevail.
In his book on Nazi Germany and the Jews,
Shaul Friedlander touches briefly on an important
aspect of Hitler's "ideological world": "In Nazism,
especially Hitler's version of it, history was a
confrontation between unalterable good and unalterable
bad. The outcome could only be envisaged in religious
terms -- annihilation or salvation."
Hitler's "unalterable good" was clearly the
ignominious ideal of the pure, homogeneous Germany that
so enthralled the Nazi leadership. Here there is nothing
even to talk about. The "bad" from Hitler's perspective,
was anything that "threatened" this ideal. Hatred of the
Jews was par for the course. But hatred of Marxism sheds
more light on how the majority of Germans turned into a
frenzied mob that condoned violence, sneered at the law
and common decency, and lost all sense of compassion. The
pogroms against the leftist camp in Germany immediately
after the Nazi ascent to power -- against the communists,
the trade union activists, the socialists, and eventually
the liberals -- provided the mental and organizational
groundwork for what would come later: the destruction of
the Jews.
The term "wiping
out Marxism" -- "auszurotten" in Hitler's
parlance -- was subsequently adopted by
Himmler
in his Posen speech. It was used with respect to the
Jews in both a botanical sense (uprooting weeds) and a
moral sense (uprooting evil).
In his diary, Joseph Goebbels -- a
particularly repulsive creature, an easily offended
yes-man who practically lived for Papa Hitler's praise
and was disappointed whenever he was hesitant 
(and
Hitler is portrayed in Goebbels' diary
[left, photographed by Mr
Irving in Moscow archives, June 1992] as
pathologically indecisive, almost like Charlie Chaplin's
Hitler) wrote: "Fantastic speech. Entirely anti-Marxist.
Wonderful pathos at the end. 'Amen.' That has power.
Right on target." Indeed, the conclusion of this speech
sounds like an ode to some secular religion.
Kershaw himself describes it as a powerful
piece of oratory, but not much more. How British, to
search for something meaningful in a political speech
(and the truth is, what political culture today, apart
from British democracy, still treats a party platform and
electoral promises so seriously?). What Kershaw does
emphasize about this speech is that it makes no mention
of Jews. Even Goebbels apparently felt a need to comment
on this: "Fantastic speech. Entirely anti-Marxist."
Ordinarily, the Jews came up every time
Hitler opened his mouth, beginning with his days at a
men's hostel in Vienna. As a scrawny young man from the
provinces who earned a few pennies as an artist, he held
forth before the impoverished residents of the hostel,
talking about architecture, Wagner and "the Jews." So
Kershaw makes a point of noting the absence of
anti-Jewish invective in this speech, delivered at a time
when the German nation was cheering him on and flocking
around him, after he had spent many years in the
opposition and slowly built up his power on the strength
of his endless harangues against the Jews. In this
instance, says Kershaw, the Jews were not mentioned, but
the sentiments he glossed over not only spoke to the
Nazis; they went to the heart of all German
nationalists.
Why is this February 1933 speech so
important? Because the new chancellor's pledge to stamp
out "Marxism and all that goes with it" was directly in
line with the political terror that characterized the
first years of the Nazi regime, from Hitler's very first
night in power. It is not just that laws were broken with
impunity and members of parliament were kicked out after
being legitimately elected. What we are looking at is the
whole German people being taught, having it drilled into
their heads, that anything outside German culture is a
danger. And dangers must be destroyed.
First
crescendoFrom this standpoint, the mass pogroms
targeting the left were the first stage in achieving the
consensus of the German people for an active form of
totalitarianism that had no need for police or secret
agents to do the dirty work. Kershaw sees this dimension
of Nazism -- the takeover of a third of the German
people, or at least its representatives and leaders -- as
the first crescendo in the gathering storm.
Hundreds
of pages go by without Kershaw venturing into the
slightest psychological characterization of his
despicable protagonist. Even the brief glimpse into
Hitler's sexual habits is kept low-key and technical,
presenting only that which is known from documents and
published reports. The challenge for Kershaw, even if he
is too modest to say so, is to write a biography of
Hitler without delving into his character. There have
been some, of course, who say that the weakness of the
book lies in the sketchy way Hitler's character is
portrayed. Indeed, the book is like a giant labyrinth.
But let's admit it: Biography fans are actually lovers of
realistic literature, which, in the best of cases, is
gossip armed with "that's how it really was"
certification (hence the importance of the label
"authorized biography").
Kershaw's Hitler is indeed a boring person.
Kershaw himself comments on several occasions that
outside political life, Hitler was pretty dull. At the
same time, this man, who influenced our fate more than
anyone else in the 20th century, was moved to tears by
Wagnerian kitsch, and the one affair he ever had was an
incestuous relationship with a minor who loved him and
committed suicide.
On the other hand, thanks to Kershaw,
anyone who wants to produce a play, novel or movie about
Hitler the man, now has enough material about all the
Hitlers that make up Adolf, from the Austrian village,
through Linz, Vienna and Munich, and on to the bunker in
Berlin. And that includes a muted but sensitive
description of his love -- apparently the only love he
ever felt -- for his long-suffering mother, the third
wife of his father, Alois, who was born out of wedlock
(not uncommon in those days among poor villagers).
Kershaw grapples with many of the cliches
about Hitler. He quotes from the writings of the few West
European leaders who met with him in his early days in
power, such as Anthony Eden. But the reader has no
chance of ever grasping the "true character" of Hitler.
Contrary to what some critics have said, this is the real
merit of the book. Because creating a character is an
interpretative act. Characters are a literary affair.
Whereas "our" Hitler is still racing to and fro, between
our worst nightmares, in which every brute turns into
Hitler, and the "comic" persona created by Charlie
Chaplin, so deeply engrained in our psyches.
Precisely because history, as a scientific
discipline, cannot leave out the Holocaust and World War
II; precisely because it is impossible to explain the
dark blot on the 20th century without studying Hitler,
historical knowledge must skirt the anti-intellectual
obstacle of personae, stereotypes and conventional
wisdom.
From Kershaw's perspective, the Nuremberg
laws in 1935, despite their appalling outcome, are part
of the political farce that characterized the Nazi regime
throughout its existence -- further evidence of the
disorganization, the absence of written decisions, the
attempts to guess what the Führer wanted, the
Führer's expectation that others would understand
him and carry out his wishes without his having to read
reports or approve them.
What interests Kershaw is the way Hitler
did not have to say or write what he wanted, the way
things were done for him based on what people understood
from his speeches, his shouts, his nods and his silences.
Perhaps that explains why there is no order from him to
exterminate the Jews, to the delight of Holocaust
deniers. The Germans did what they thought their daddy
wanted.
From the highest echelons -- from which
Hitler became increasingly alienated as he grew more
eccentric -- to the unwashed masses, everyone behaved in
the manner described by Werner Wilkins, state
secretary of the Prussian Agriculture Ministry in
1934:
"Very often it has been the case
that individuals ... have waited for commands and
orders. Unfortunately, that will probably also be so
in future. Rather, however, it is the duty of every
single person to attempt, in the spirit of the
Führer, to work toward him. Anyone making
mistakes will come to notice it soon enough. But the
one who works correctly toward the Führer along
his lines and toward his aim will in future, as
previously, have the finest reward of one day suddenly
attaining the legal confirmation of his work."
These remarks by Wilkins were not
disseminated or turned into any kind of prayer, although
they are clearly a parody of Calvinism, and there is more
to them than meets the eye. One might even say they are a
kind of precursor of the idea of "empowerment" that has
become all the rage today.
Historians,
who can describe in painstaking detail the conquests of
the Athenian polis in the 5th century B.C.E. or the
Crusades in the late Middle Ages, are still at a loss
when it comes to recording the events of our own day with
any degree of precision. The shadow of the unknown hangs
over the one source of real knowledge in our world -- the
whole truth. In this sense, Kershaw's book is a paean to
the science of history.
March 2001: David Irving
challenges Ian Kershaw in March 2001: did he really
claim to be the first to use the Goebbels Diaries from
the Moscow archives? (He was not) | And
again
Our dossier on Ian
Kershaw
David
Irving comments:
write
to David Irving