hitler

11wheedle fortune out of its hiding place. Although Viennawas prosperous, the centre of a powerful empire, it was notprosperous or powerful enough to make life easy for peasantboys with hungry eyes and healthy appetites. The late Unteroffizierof the Austrian customs force would have beenheartbroken to have seen his son visiting the haunts of miseryin the metropolis where the father had been honoured.Young Hitler had the use of a bed – not of a room – whichhe could not occupy before a certain hour. He read at thelight of a candle, because gas was expensive and the landladya niggard. He obtained work at last but it was of a kindwhich no young man with an ambition for Cæsar‟s mantleworld have been glad to have. He became a helper on astructure. His function was to cart the rubbish away. Hehad to get up before the sun and his foreman was a roughneck.When the whistle signaled noon he dropped the cart,drank his bottle of milk and ate his black bread with a pieceof bacon. Resting on his heap of rubbish he listened to thestories of Vienna‟s proletarians, hardened to misery. Hefelt sorry for his companions, most of whom were much olderthan he, but it never occurred to him that he would haveto live all his life on the scaffoldings of newly-erected buildings.Most of the men on the structure were organized Socialistsand those that were not held their tongues. Duringthe noon-rest some harsh words were said about capitalisticexploitation. Members of the building gangs improvisedspeeches with the usual staple of party propaganda. “Thetools of production must be socialized,” they said. “The dis-