hitler

31into it? He would have liked to harangue the festive crowdon Kurfuerstendamm. How he would have told them hisopinion. How he would have thundered against the modernSodom. How he would have liked to flog the half-nakedwomen out of the fashionable Votivkirche. Then he pausedto think.What could he do, – Adolf Hitler, lance-corporal in theBavarian regiment List? If he had dared to raise his voicepeople would have laughed at him or would have reportedhim to the military authorities as insane. Was it unpatrioticto make life gay for the gallant soldiers on furlough? Wasit not patriotic to have the amusement places open to delightthe heroes of many battles?The Christmas of 1916 did not encourage gloom. Hiscomrades, back from the front with wounds, did not feel ashe did. They liked the lights of Berlin‟s West End and theywere great habitués of the beer-halls of Charlottenburg.This was not a bad Christmas at all. The German armieswere in good positions. In distant Transylvania GeneralMackensen had chased the Roumanians to the Black Sea asfast as they could run. The Russian tsar no longer operatedhis steam roller and those who were familiar with the realsituation knew that he was sitting on a tottering throne.The “iron train,” which carried soldiers on leave, tookHitler back to Munich. Berlin has always had a reputationfor being honeycombed with Jews. Munich, he knew, wouldbe different. It was not a parvenu among the German cities.It had old traditions and a native dignity, the product of ageand culture. The occasion demanded austerity and Bavaria