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a part in bringing them to power are evident. But to isolate thesedisreputable characters and interpret national socialism wholly interms of them is gravely misleading. Otto D. Tolischus, long NewYork Times correspondent in Germany, writes:Hitler was no mere gangster leader, as mistaken propaganda pictures him.Gangsters do not carry great nations with them. There is a better clue tothe Hitlerian strength in Germany than the too simple explanation thatGermany is ruled by a gang with guns. 8Louis P. Lochner, Associated Press representative in Berlin from1924 to 1941, says: "Hitler is convinced of the divine origin of hismission, convinced that he is commissioned by divine Providence toacquire for Germany the leadership of Europe for a thousandyears." 9Hermann Rauschning, who was president of the Danzig Senate untilhe broke with the party and whose books contain the most scathingrepudiations of its behavior, says of the old party members thatthere was an honest belief among them that they were laboring inthe cause of their country. Otto Strasser, brother of Gregor, leaderof the socialist wing of the movement until murdered by Hitler,says that when Hitler began he was not an unprincipled demagoguebut was genuinely convinced of the righteousness of his cause."We cannot afford in so serious a matter to take our estimates ofthis movement from the caricaturists who make hideous picturesof the German leaders. History at the cartoon level isolates only theunpleasant features and events and then exaggerates them to gainits effect. There are men of dark and sinister character in nationalsocialism—a burning and scornful nihilist like Goebbels, a predatorysybarite like Goering, ruthless and sadistic beings like Himmler,Ley, and Streicher. But there were great numbers of men who were,if not good men, at least no worse than certain important politiciansto be found in this and other countries. The first apostles—Feder,Drexler, Harrer, and Dingfelder—were the common or gardenvariety of crackpot which flourishes in this country, where we havesome precious specimens at this moment in positions of great in-*Tbey Wanted War, by Otto D. Tolischus, Reynal & Hitchcock*New York, 1942.*What About Germany? bj Louis P. Lochner, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1942.150