rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

BIRTH OF THE THIRD REICH 11where he allowed himself to be overwhelmed with details of military strategy,tactics and command, he would take an evening off to reminisce with his oldparty cronies on the stupidity of the teachers he had had in his youth. Someof these meanderings of this mad genius, now the Supreme Warlord personallydirecting his vast armies from the Volga to the English Channel, have beenpreserved.When I think of the men who were my teachers, I realize that mostof them were slightly mad. The men who could be regarded as goodteachers were exceptional. It’s tragic to think that such people havethe power to bar a young man’s way. – March 3, 1942. 20I have the most unpleasant recollections of the teachers who taughtme. Their external appearance exuded uncleanliness; their collarswere unkempt . . . They were the product of a proletariat denuded ofall personal independence of thought, distinguished by unparalleledignorance and most admirably fitted to become the pillars of aneffete system of government which, thank God, is now a thing of thepast. – April 12, 1942.” 21When I recall my teachers at school, I realize that half of themwere abnormal . . . We pupils of old Austria were brought up torespect old people and women. But on our professors we had nomercy; they were our natural enemies. The majority of them weresomewhat mentally deranged, and quite a few ended their days ashonest-to-God lunatics! . . . I was in particular bad odor with theteachers. I showed not the slightest aptitude for foreign languagesthoughI might have, had not the teacher been a congenital idiot. Icould not bear the sight of him. – August 29, 1942. 22Our teachers were absolute tyrants. They had no sympathy withyouth; their one object was to stuff our brains and turn us intoerudite apes like themselves. If any pupil showed the slightest traceof originality, they persecuted him relentlessly, and the only modelpupils whom I have ever got to know have all been failures in afterlife.– September 7, 1942. 23∗To his dying day, it is obvious, Hitler never forgave his teachers for the poormarks they had given him – nor could he forget. But he could distort to a pointof grotesqueness.The impression he made on his teachers, recollected after he had becomea world figure, has been briefly recorded. One of the few instructors Hitlerseems to have liked was Professor Theodor Gissinger, who strove to teach himscience. Gissinger later recalled, ”As far as I was concerned. Hitler left neithera favorable nor an unfavorable impression in Linz. He was by no means a leaderof the class. He was slender and erect, his face pallid and very thin, almost likethat of a consumptive, his gaze unusually open, his eyes brilliant.” 24Professor Eduard Huemer, apparently the ”congenital idiot” mentioned byHitler above – for he taught French – came to Munich in 1923 to testify forhis former pupil, who was then being tried for treason as the result of the Beer∗ He told this story on himself in one of his reminiscing moods on the evening of January8-9, 1942, at Supreme Headquarters. (Hitler’s Secret Conversations, p. 160.)