Het is een van de meest gevoelige vragen in de geschiedenis. Het antwoord moet meer zijn dan alleen een biografie. Het antwoord moet ons inzicht geven in Het Kwaad. Ons doen begrijpen waarom de mensheid zichzelf tot voorbij zijn menselijkheid kan strekken tot in monsterlijke dieptes. Het antwoord moet ons kunnen troosten met de gedachte dat misschien alleen Hitler’s persoonlijke genius aan de wortel van Auschwitz ligt. Het lijkt me een hopeloze onderneming.
Al ver voor de misdaden van de nazi’s was de fascinatie voor de Führer immens. Zijn onstuitbare opkomst, zijn ascetische levenswijze, zijn opwekking van Duitsland - al ver voor de oorlog had dit alles samen een welhaast demonische aantrekkingskracht.
Een bijzonder mooi kijkje op Hitler krijgen we uit de artikelen van Jannet Flanner. Flanner was correspondent voor The New Yorker en schreef in 1936 een aantal stukken over Adolf Hitler. De toon is zeer bevreemdend, de stukken lezen als een kritisch maar niet onwelwillend portret van een excentrieke leider. Een mooi voorbeeld:
When in Munich, he still goes to the quiet little Osteria
Bavaria Restaurant, which he has used for years, and
occasionally he drops in for Jause at the Carlton tearoom,
which is the nicest in town. When he eats a mean [sic]
at the elegant Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel, it’s in the modest
back room, not in its Walterspiel restaurant. The
Walterspiel brothers, two of the greatest gourmets
of Europe, are old friends of his, and concocted Hitler’s
onion soup recipe especially for him. When in Nuremberg,
Hitler still stops at the second rate Deutscher Hof, which
was grandeur for him in the old days
and which he thinks today is grand enough. He likes
places he’s familiar with, where people know his habits
and let him alone. With his shadows, the elegant
Brueckner and the lowly Schaub, he often goes in
Berlin to the Kaiserhof in the afternoon for a glass
of milk and his favorite Linzertorte, a walnut cake.
He has a sweet tooth.
En nog een paar mooie voorbeelden. De bundel met stukken is er helaas niet meer maar voor de liefhebbers van journalistieke hoogstandjes is de volledige New Yorker collectie (waar al haar stukken in staan) aan te raden:
Weekly news photos over the years show that Hitler’s
face has changed, and from month to month it still
changing. The first official portrait (1921) shows a
lean, serious, intent visage with nothing funny, fat or
fatuous about it. It shows a portentous, determined
mouth; a mustache, brief but without humor; hair
without a forelock and neatly roached [sic] back in a
straight brow line. In the last year alone, Hitler has
gained fifteen pounds, less publicly visible in the waist
(Since his uniforms now include a compassing jacket
instead of the former revealing Nazi Brown Shirt) than
in the face, where weight shows in ounces of pouches
beneath eyes and mouth, caricaturing the facial construction.
His receding hair, he has, like many mistaken middle-aging
men, brought forward in a wig-like wad which nearly
conceals the left eye. In photographs, his gold tooth
fortunately does not show. Because of the nervous lines
now drawing down his upper lip, his mustache has lately
taken on a Kaiserlike tilt. In real life what is physically
most noticeable about Hitler, especially at a distance, is
his hurried dog trot and, close to, his quick, forced smile;
both have that disjointed, rather comic quality see in a
film which is being run too fast. In repose, Hitler locks
his hands low over his abdomen. His best likenesses are
the unofficial snapshots taken by his Berchtesgaden
mountaineer neighbors of him and their offspring. When
he alone and at ease with children, Hitler’s face has the
avuncular tenderness of the man who has not had babies
of his own. After five minutes, little girls especially
show a disposition, which petrifies their parents, to
romp with the Fuehrer.
Hitler has no valet. Adjutant Schaub….. acts as a
majordomo. Though he lays out Hitler’s clothes,
neither he nor anyone around the palace has ever
seen the Fuehrer in slippers and dressing gown;
Hitler’s modesty verges on the morbid. In the
morning it takes him fifteen minutes, from the
time he gets up, to get dressed and be ready for
breakfast. He usually appears in his favorite
costume - black trousers and khaki coat cut in
the pattern of what German officers call a Litevka -
the traditional military lounging jacket without
insignia. He never wears jewelry. He has always been
frantically neat, clean, and tidy of habits; his clothes
wear for ever. Most of his wardrobe consists of uniforms,
but there are a few civilian garments. He scrupulously
chooses a second-rate tailor. Schaub orders most of
his things. The. are sent to the palace where Hitler
treis [sic] on and selects; he can’t go into a shop
without its being mobbed by his Nazi admirers and
hasn’t bought anything in the normal way for three years.
He’s crazy about films, especially when historical,
sees all the news weeklies of himself, and occasionally
earnest foreign films, and is apt to sit on the floor in
the dark when they are being shown. When he takes a
fancy to a picture, he has it repeated and invites
those he thinks it should interest; he is sincere about
trying to get the right films and guests together. When
he discovered the Schubert “Unfinished Symphony”
movie, he gave a party to bring it and Wilhelm
Furtwaengler together.
Meer lezen? Klik hier.
Meer over ‘1939 - Duitsland’:
- Bekijk de hele uitzending ‘1939 - Duitsland’
- Lees alle weblogberichten over 1939
- Vind meer video, audio en artikelen op de In Europa Atlas: 1939
