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

HE IS BOTH TERRIBLE AND BANAL 73took courage and asked his compatriot for permission to spend at leastone more night in his room — on the sofa. The new lodger was goodhearted,took the poor devil out for a glass of beer, and they arrangedthat for the present he should sleep on the sofa until he should havemoney enough to pay for his share of the room. The two remainedroommates for over a year: the young engineer from Vienna and hisguest on the sofa, the designer of advertisements, Adolf Hitler fromLinz.According to the police register, Hitler left Vienna in May, 1913.Until then he had scraped along in the Austrian capital by selling hiswatercolors and drawings. In Munich he did not fare much better; herehe designed posters for business houses. Outwardly his existence wasperhaps even lonelier than in Vienna — an intimidated stranger amidthe bustle of a gay city. At the age of twenty-four he made a sickly,haggard, unathletic impression. 'At first positively repulsive, somewhatnicer os further acquaintance,' he was described by an observer in thisperiod.Here, too, he was without friends. And here, too, he avoided contactwith women almost fanatically, he had none of the gaiety of youth. Withhis insistent seriousness, he oppressed and embittered the mood ofothers. His roommate, who enjoyed life, had several girl friends, andwanted to saddle Hitler with one of them for Sunday. Hitler explodedand rejected the proposition in no uncertain terms, flinging violentreproaches at his astonished friend: it wasn't right to turn the poor girls'heads, they took it all seriously, and afterward felt betrayed.He had no girl friends, but no men friends either. Neither he norothers mention any closer human relationship; later, in fact, he evenboasted of having been so lonely that no one bothered about him at all.He was unfit to be a human being.But with uncanny certainty he found his way out of his loneliness tothe masses; even then when totally unknown. The unknown wereclosest to him; in taverns he spoke from behind his beer mug and withalmost playful ease created his public. It was impossible to go to aSocial Democratic meeting with him because he could not restrainhimself from shouting interruptions. As soon as the conversation in asmall circle turned to politics, he began to scream