When reading Kershaw's account of Hitler's early life and looking at the impact Hitler's father had on his dreams, and his acceptance of society, it makes me question whether or not we can ever really escape the paths our parents set out for us?
As a youth Kershaw explains that Hitler became troublesome and steadfastly rejected all of his fathers wishes. His father, who saw art school as a waste of an education, and the artist's lifestyle as nonsensical, no doubt left an impact on Hitler that made him lash out against his father’s ideals, only to have them consume his later political career.
Alois wanted Hitler to pursue a career in Civil Service, follow in his footsteps. Hitler wanted to create his own destiny, live life his own way (as his own boss). His rejection of the Social Democrats goes back to being under the thumb of his father, and knowing that only he could decide what was right for himself.
Yet, what Hitler did take from his father was fear, fear of an authority figure. “He did not love his father,” Kershaw quotes Hitler as saying, “but instead feared him all the more.” Hitler knew the power his father had over him, knew that because he controlled his financial means, because he was his blood, because he was bigger and stronger, he would never be able to escape his father’s wishes entirely, and he was unable to until his father died while Hitler was still young. However, those wishes never fully left the young Adolf either.
Kershaw puts a great deal of importance on, or tries his best to establish a connection to the anti-Semitic pamphlets and media journals available to Hitler at the time. And yet, I think even this can be attributed to a constant rebellious nature towards Hitler’s fathers way of thinking. Kershaw doesn’t know whether Hitler had anti-Semitic views prior to leaving Linz, or during his stay in Vienna. However, if Hitler did develop these views while maintaining a living painting and living off of his Aunt’s allowance, he did so only because, as Kershaw points out, Hitler was continuously pursuing acceptance into the Art Academy. Hitler wanted to prove he could get into the Academy, prove his father wrong, yet he never got the chance.
Instead, Hitler became more like his father than he could ever imagine. Becoming an authoritarian figure to all, leaping on the height of what was already a swift moving propaganda campaign, and manipulating his own image for the cause, as witnessed by the many fabrications in his own writing of Mein Kampf. Hitler proved that his way of living was achievable. He didn’t want to be ruled, and so his quest to conquer becomes all the more understandable. The hatred stirred by his father’s rejection, was used to fuel his path first against his father, and then to become like him. Can we escape that path, or are we always our Father’s son?
Hitler’s ongoing attempt to contradict or defy his father’s wishes sent him on a path entirely connected to that which his father had set. Adolf’s journey was shaped by his father simply because he set out to specifically rebel against his father’s “attempts to turn him into a civil servant.”
ReplyDeleteAs Aloise’s attempts grew more insistent, the conflict between Adolf and his father grew more intense, until Adolf’s rejection of a civil service career turned into a rejection of everything his father stood for, “a rejection of his father himself.” Adolf had chosen the career of an artist, an unthinkably purposeless idea to his civil servant father, and his German-nationalist feelings grew stronger. When Adolf left Linz for Vienna years later, his life of idle leisure can be viewed as rebellion against his father’s wishes, as well as a rebellion against authority. This fear of authority is once again attributed to Alois. Adolf also grew to resent the idea of formal education as a result multiple rejections from the Academy of Fine Arts and his father’s disproval of his initial desire to become an artist. Living a life run solely by his own free will became Hitler’s priority during his years spent in Vienna as a stubborn adolescent rejecting the authoritarian ways of his father.
Ironically, during Hitler’s rule he retreated to the overbearing, oppressive ways he had so adamantly avoided throughout the majority of his life.
In response to your question, the ability to completely sever any ties to those who bore you is almost impossible. Hitler’s attempts to defy all of his father’s wishes and beliefs actually allowed those very beliefs to guide his every action. Through both Hitler’s opposition to his father’s convictions and his extreme similarities as an authoritarian figure, Hitler allowed his path to ultimately be shaped by the path of his father.
Alois Hitler was a very influential person in who Adolf Hitler would become. I agree that Adolf going against his father’s wishes for him later came back to influence what he would do and who he would become.
ReplyDeleteAlois also affected who Hitler would become when he was able to change his last name from Schicklgruber to Hitler. As Kershaw, and Professor Ertman, mentioned, Adolf would not have been able to gather the following and support he did with the last name Schicklgruber.
Alois was an authoritarian and abusive father who rarely showed affection to his children. Adolf later went on to show many of the characteristics Kershaw used to describe his father including “authoritarian, overbearing, domineering, and masterful” (pp. 12). His relationship with his father had to affect the relationships he would have with other people because he wasn’t showed much affection and was constantly in the presence of violence. Adolf rejected his father’s wishes and had opposing views to his. Hitler was a German-nationalist that believed in uniting the two countries, after his history teacher sparked his interest in it. Kershaw points out that much of Adolf’s worldview and political awareness was developed in Vienna, where he went to study art despite his father’s disapproval of that career path. “His bitter contempt for the multi-language parliament, his strident German nationalism, his intense detestation of the multinational Habsburg state, his revulsion at ‘the ethnic babel on the streets of Vienna,’ and ‘the foreign mixture of peoples which had begun to corrode this old site of German culture,’” along with the prevalent anti-Semitic sentiment that surrounded him, were further developed during his experience in Vienna (pp. 49).
Adolf Hitler may have had a more challenging time rising to power without the influence Alois Hitler’s upward mobility, last name change, and authoritarian and abusive upbringing of his children had on his views and actions.