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

HE IS BOTH TERRIBLE AND BANAL 61Schicklgruber took his gun in hand and went on the man-hunt, to makehimself 'something better'; and if, as a young man, Adolf Hitler didn'twant to work, it was with the half-conscious realization that the higherman just does not work. His youthful failure is a stubborn andfrightened protest against the whole normal world of order and serviceinto which his gray-haired, alien father wanted to drive him with a bigstick. From deepest natural predisposition, he distrusted this world oftoil and sweat which breaks the man and cuts him up for its purposes,disfigures the body and paralyzes the spirit. In this world young Adolfbecame an idler, and this had a deep significance. If the time of the'intelligent herd-beast prepared for obedience' — as Nietzsche puts it—is dawning, the time of the intellectual with the cast-iron soul, dominatedby the ideal of 'it works' — then high above the herd and the castironsoul, there must nevertheless be the soaring master soul which doesnot let itself be adapted or stamped into shape, which obeys only itselfand commands only the others.Idlers all about! In the Home for Men, he finds himself with a certainNeumann, a Jew from Hungary, a man by the name of Greiner, withHanisch. Work? The thing is to invent something! For instance,something to prevent window-panes from freezing over; some ointmentthat can be sold to shopkeepers. In the winter, the purchasers wouldnotice the swindle, so the merchandise had to be got rid of in summer,and besides, 'you've got to have the gift of gab.' Hanisch claims to haveheard this from Hitler. In any case it fits in with his whole nature. Hisimagination helped him to find the unusual beneath the rubble of hisdaily life; but he always lacked the small amount of sober ability andskill to do anything with his discovery. Apparently he fascinated severalof his comrades at that time, and himself was fascinated by some:Neumann, a Hungarian Jew and old-clothes dealer, furnished him withshirts and the caftan-like black coat, Hitler praised Neumann's goodnessin warm tones. When in 1910 Neumann left Vienna for Germany, Hitlernearly went along. By a hair's-breadth history escaped the drama ofHitler making his entry into Germany by the side of a Hungarian-Jewishold-clothes dealer.He learned to know humanity from the dregs; the lodging-house