another interesting WW II book

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Suzi wrote:

on 11/6/02 9:13 AM, Michael Eisenstadt at michaele@ando.pair.com wrote:

>It was, as the conservative historian Otto Hintz
> described the dictator, like suddenly finding
> oneself in the presence of a person with
> something 'utterly alien' about them,
> 'something of an otherwise extinct primordial
> race..."

> so if hitler radiated this "aura" how on earth did he ever achieve power, i,
> with absolutely no right to say, say, he must have been incredibly
> something, anything but utterly alien , you know how we shun the mentally
> ill (or those with a different reality)

well good morning Eugene

you better watch it or you're going to find 
yourself being dragged into Hitler studies.

> so if hitler radiated this "aura" how on earth did he ever achieve power, i,
> with absolutely no right to say, say, he must have been incredibly
> something, anything but utterly alien , you know how we shun the mentally
> ill (or those with a different reality)

those who served with Hitler in the army in WW I
where he survived 4 years but was never promoted beyond
corporal couldnt believe it either. during the war
his fellow soldiers knew him as a ranting eccentric, 
the very fact that a 4 year survivor of WW I was 
never promoted beyond corporal was telling. in that 
army you started as private and if you werent killed 
and were still on the roster you would be promoted to 
sergeant

i dont know how much you know about him so i'll sum
it up.

his father died and after he graduated high school
he moved to Vienna around 1900. there after he ran
out of his money, he became homeless and lived in
men's shelters for many years where he supported
himself by painting small landscape paintings which
were peddled around by a friend of his from the 
shelter.

he then moved across the border from his native
Austria to Munich in Germany. when war broke out
he joined the German army.

after Germany lost the war, he was sent around
as a spy to the various political parties that
had sprung up by the army. he came upon a tiny
right-wing nationalist volkish party with 10
members. he joined, took it over, and built his
movement, the Nationalist Socialist Party which
came to be called the Nazis. 

in 1925 he tried to take over the Bavarian state
government by force but failed and was jailed 
for 3 years. in jail he wrote Mein Kampf an
account of his life and an explanation of his
views. he then realized he could only take over 
by winning elections after which he would replace 
the Weimar democracy with his dictatorship. which 
is what happened

as for you saying "you know how we shun the mentally
ill (or those with a different reality)" he was 
plenty shunned. but when he took over the tiny 
Nazi party he discovered he could move audiences. 
he would often start very soft and muster seemingly 
rational arguments. he then got his hook into them 
and take his speech anywhere he wanted and carry them
along with him, getting louder and louder and keep 
this going as long as he wanted to.

at one point in the building of the movement
(Bewegung) [make what you will of that choice
of word, Benardete!]) he was giving up to 
a dozen speeches a day. someone said Hitler 
said it was like making love to a woman

so you can see why exploring the psychology
of this man is an interesting aspect of modern 
world history

i have tried to read Mein Kampf but it is
VERY creepy, too creepy to read in a connected
fashion. i recently came upon a volume of his 
collected speeches in the big UT library. they 
had been collected by a French journalist and
published in America before the war. a glance 
into it and i realized it was too creepy 
for me poisonally to handle. for me he is best 
viewed intermediately

best 

Michael