Joseph Lee on interpretations O1 Hitler, the man
Hitler is much the most fascinating politician Or twentieth-century Europe. Stalin, with %%thorn he is frequently compared, faced far fewer problems. Stalin never had to worry about his public. They were already prisoners °I a system which Stalin had merely to capture, not to create. Hitler, on the other hand, had to woo a mass electorate, and intrigue for 1:43wer from outside rather than inside the existing political elite. Once in office, Hitler found the army still a potential obstacle to his Plans. Stalin felt sufficiently secure to exLerMinate his assumed enemies in the officer corps. Hitler had to manipulate his. Hitler set an incredible pace. No politician has ever imPosed so many deadlines on himself. It was ills constant seizing of initiatives which fargelY defined the range of options conronting his contemporaries. After making the 'thirties indubitably his decade, he proved rrnance between 1939 and 1945 is the most n inspirin war leader. The German perteMarkable in the annals of war, even more rIrnarkable for the resolution displayed in the ce of impending defeat than for the stun early victories. No army in modern t'storV has sustained such a disciplined rec,reat as the German between the surrender of 'telingrad and final capitulation over two ilt!sars later. More of the credit for this tenac Y Must go to Hitler himself than to German Military traditions, for long after the common soti■diers lost faith in their generals they conre•Aled to believe in the FUhrer, however Htoorselessly the engulfing tide rolled on. elitier could probably have won a free general
ection in Germany in 1945, in ironic con rast to Churchill's fate.
astonishing range of Hitler's accomPllshments, the number of roles he mastered, Fr.'?se exceptional problems for a biographer. ideal biographer would have to be equal' at home in German party politics, in elect ra rnii, I history, in diplomacy, in economics, in 1,11tarY history. Educated writers have to 7',!". scho cv,tcome their incredulity that anyone who at sixteen should have consistently v"'_uwitted cleverer and more experienced riThey still find it difficult to believe that 'lltler actually happened, to shake off the sens e of social, intellectual and moral ileriority that lulled the German elite into 7 ieving that it could hire and fire Hitler at r?, Convenience. Academic commentators are ,...°`nIlsctant to concede that, simply because it to conform consistently to dissertation puirements, Mein Kampf contains some of e shrewdest political analysis of the cens,e7. The fact that Hitler did not express himfe„,sYstematically on paper, the gravest of1.11"as"„e in the academic book, long blinded academics to the coherent thought be.."Cl the confused expression. And it is under1.)4111.(lEt.bly difficult for English commentators ectprocate Hitler's unfeigned admiration it'toadiogifhtenHitler Colin Cross (Hodder and C3.75); iThe Night of Long Knives Max he,11° (Souvenir Press £2.75); The Wooden She p'Less Richard Hughes (Chatto and Windus £2.75)
for the brilliant opportunism of English acquisitive techniques. That Alan Bullock's biography, originally published twenty-one years ago, should still remain the best life of Hitler in any language reflects not only its own sterling qualities but the almost insuperable limitations 9f tech nique and temperament among potential bio graphers. Colin Cross* has not, wisely, attempted to rival Bullock. Instead, he has struck on the device of presenting Hitler pri marily as a human being. This simple shift of perspective results in a shrewd and sensible corrective to the widespread tendency to see the beginning in the end. Cross succeeds in conveying some sense of development in Hitler's personality by concentrating relatively
heavily on his early years. Over half the book, compared with less than one-third of Bullock's, deals with Hitler's life before 1933, and the emphasis on personality ensures that Cross does not include Hitler's childhood under Bullock's incongruous rubric of' Party Leader.' Cross has sufficiently grasped the importance of electoral success in making Hitler a serious candidate for power to devote more attention to the elections between 1928 and 1933 than did Bullock, or A. J. P. Taylor, whose fleeting comments on electoral politics in The Course of German History appear to have been written without access to evidence.
Cross wastes little time on critics who denounce in Hitler what they find normal in everyone else. Hitler did not put a programme before the electorate! Neither did the National Government in 1931 or Roosevelt in 1932. Hitler was not an original thinker! How many politicians are? Hitler said silly things! Stanley Baldwin's contribution to theology was to assert that "When God wants something dif
ficult done, he sends for his Englishmen" — the Deity, by a clerical oversight, having failed to take out naturalisation papers. In only one respect does Cross's concern with personality lead to a significant false emphasis. Cross stresses Hitler's artistic temperament, and asserts that when he came to paint on a political canvas he relied on intuitive strokes. This is the familiar interpretation. Hitler himself carefully cultivated the ' sleepwalker 'image of his decision-making process — it made it difficult for less avowedly somnambulatory souls to query his route. But what is intuition? How many political decisions are not intuitive? How does Hitler's decision-making process differ from that of other politicians, except that he was more successful? Hitler regularly rejected expert advice, from diplomats, economists and generals. He was more often right than wrong. But his alternative to formal expertise was not arbitrary communion with the ceiling. There is a consistent pattern to his alternatives, so consistent, indeed, that his ' intuitive ' decision on any issue can be predicted once one knows the options presented to him. Hitler had a rational, internally consistent political mind. The fact that he had a unique ability to integrate the irrational in any situation into his decision-making process has misled many commentators into isolating ' irrationality ' as his own dominant characteristic. Where he had no official experts to advise him, as in planning election tactics, the combination of home work and guess work by which Hitler, like everyone else, reached his decisions, emerges clearly. Had he not been Hitler historians would normally refer to his intelligence rather than to his intuition.
Of course Hitler liked to keep his options open as long as possible. His apparent indecision before the night of the Long Knives, when he had several SA leaders, including • his old friend Ernst Roehm, whom he personally arrested, as well as many non-SA men, killed on the pretext of an imminent putsch allows Max Gallo and Richard Hughest to construct gripping accounts of that macabre episode.
Gallo has won some publicity as Martin Gray's collaborator. "If Gallo were not a professor at the Institut d'Etude Politique," gushes a reviewer cited on the blurb," he could be mistaken for a Hollywood scriptwriter." The converse is not true, though Gallo may well deserve the distinction that has eluded Mr A. L. Rowse. His book is eminently shootable, with bucketfuls of blood brightening up the scene whenever interest threatens to tlag. Gallo claims to be writing an historical narrative, but hastens to reassure readers alarmed by such an austere invitation that he intends transcending "the somewhat abstract limits of historical analysis." He succeeds. There are few tedious reflections on the meaning of it all.
The reader who merely wants a rattling good yarn, much of it demonstrably historically accurate, will not be disturbed by the bland assurance that Generals Schleicher and Bredow once counted among Hitler's closest friends, or by the incompatibility between some of the captions and the text, though cognoscenti may be surprised to learn that some Nazis stood so frequently with their legs so wide apart. The eager seeker of knowledge of German weather conditions at the end of June 1934 need search no further for information on where the sun shone, the rain spat or the clouds glowered.
But Hitler himself eludes Gallo's grasp. He remains a shadowy figure, a fly caught in a web woven by Himmler, Goering and Blomberg. This picture does conform to the impression of some observers, who considered Hitler such an evanescent presence during June 1934 that they spoke of virtual abdication. Gallo assumes that Hitler did not decide until June 29 to exterminate the SA leadership and, that immediately on reaching a decision he flew from Bonn to Munich to arrest them himself, before giving Goering, Himmler and Heydrich in Berlin permission to assassinate several other enemies, private and public. Why did Hitler hesitate to move against his old SA friend's? Because of the bonds of friendship? Because he ' really ' believed in their demands for a 'socialist' revo lution? Because he imagined himself the pup pet of the army if he were compelled to decapitate its rival, the SA? Gallo evokes a host of possibilities by skilful use of the flash-back technique as Hitler gropes to a decision, though it is unfortunate that he choo ses to take us through June on the two hour flight from Bonn to Munich in the early hours of June 30. Hitler's decision was then already taken. In view of Hitler's reluctance to brood on decisions already reached it seems more likely that his mind was moving ahead to the next stage in the course of the flight rather than lingering on the past.
Gallo's reconstruction could well be true, though only if one assumes that Hitler's poli tical brain was paralysed during most of June. Some rather central questions that might held to establish the a priori plausibil ity of this assumption aren't asked. Did Hitler leave Berlin to attend a wedding reception in Essen on June 28 still undecided on his course of action, or to evade responsibility for the projected murders in Berlin, or to lull suspicious minds? Hitler could conceivably have taken his decision in early June, when he failed to persuade Roehm, in a five hour interview, to moderate his revolutionary tone.
Since when had the trip to Essen featured in his schedule? Who selected the victims? Hughes suggests that Hitler himself chose the Munich ones on June 30, remembering in a moment of inspiration to wreck private revenge on Kahr, the turncoat of 1923, and Stempfle, who knew too much about his private life. Hitler doubtless selected them. But only on the spur of the moment? More importantly, was Hitler prepared to give a free murdering hand to Goering and Himmler in Berlin while he himself was in Munich? Is it conceivable that they would have killed Schleicher, an ex-chancellor whose death might distress the army, without Hitler's consent? Would they have dared murder Strasser, or even Papen's secretary, without Hitler's knowledge?, Had Himmler had a free hand he might well have killed Papen and thus upset the whole scheme by infuriating Hindenburg. It seems highly improbable that Hitler should not have been fully informed of these plans. It is not even impossible that he was feigning reluctance to move against Roehm in order to implicate potential Nazi rivals if anything went wrong. The masterly manner in which he began shifting responsibility on July 1 for the ' excesses' onto Goering and Himmler, while retaining credit for his resolute reaction to the threat to the state, may have reflected something more than instant inspiration. Without further evidence it is impossible to accept as final the verdict that sees Hitler as little more than the tool of Goering and Himmler. I find Richard Hughes portrait of a Hitler retaining ultimate control more con vincing. Nevertheless, Gallo would point to one crucial possible oversimplification in Hughes's account. Did Hitler, as the consensus suggests, try to save Roehm by refusing to have him executed with the other S. A. leaders on June 30, before finally consenting under concerted pressure from Himmler and Goering on his return to Berlin? This account, followed by Gallo, claims that Hitler directed that Roehm be given a revolver, with a ten minute deadline to commit suicide, on July 1. Only when he refused this last favour to his solicitous Fuehrer was Roehm executed. Hughes, however, has the revolver placed at Roehm's disposal on June 30, without a deadline, and Himmler, not Hitler, ordering the execution on hearing from Munich the following day that Roehm had failed to oblige. Hitler, according to this interpretation, had decided on Roehm's death on or before June 30. That no deadline should have been set seems inconceivable in the circumstances. But why should Hitler save Roehm? Did he really think he might need him against Himmler and Goering? Did he think the generals would condone Roehm's release, or even imprisonment, when lesser
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a fry had been shot? Was s Hitler gAepnrjuiln2e8lYid9i1: traught about his friend? Uncertainties like these will probably make a definitive biography of Hitler impossible. But it will be worth waiting for if it can Cornbine, inter alio, the maturity and discernment of Cross with the dramatic flair of Gallo and the evocative deftness of touch of Hughes.
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