Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

50 DER FUEHRERIt would surely be meaningless to draw up a case against Adolf Hitler,the 'poor scholar.' We desire only to know how this strange soulgathered the brutal strength which it later poured forth on the world. Allthe documents and personal records indicate that during the first thirtyyears of his life this power lay positively dormant. He took fright at thethought of work, bent aside like a feeble stream in the face of obstacles,hid from any serious responsibility beneath a beggarly existence. If welook into his laziness, it seems to have concealed fear of his fellow men;he feared their judgment and hence shunned doing anything which hewould have had to submit to their judgment. Perhaps his childhoodfurnishes an explanation. The data at our disposal show Adolf Hitler tobe a model case for psychoanalysis, one of whose main theories is thatevery man wants to murder his father and marry his mother. AdolfHitler hated his father, and not only in his subconscious; by hisinsidious rebelliousness he may have brought him to his grave a fewyears before his time; he loved his mother deeply, and himself said thathe had been a 'mother's darling.' Constantly humiliated and corrected byhis father, receiving no protection against the mistreatment of outsiders,never recognized or appreciated, driven into a lurking silence — thus, asa child, early sharpened by hard treatment, he seems to have grownaccustomed to the idea that right is always on the side of the stronger; adismal conviction from which people often suffer who as children didnot find justice in the father who should have been the natural source ofjustice. It is a conviction for all those who love themselves too muchand easily forgive themselves every weakness; never are their ownincompetence and laziness responsible for failures, but always theinjustice of the others.In any case the outward circumstances are not responsible. The youngAdolf Hitler had sufficient material means for an adequate education,provided he lived modesdy. After his father's death, his mother livedwith her two children, Adolf and Paula, in simple but comfortablecircumstances in the suburb of Urfahr, near Linz. For three years Adolfworried his way through school, sullen and unsuccessful; his tuition waspaid regularly by relatives in Spital, no attempt was made to obtain ascholarship. At the age of sixteen,